[Ntropic]

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DANGER!!! DANGER!!! Perhaps the worst place to listen for the subtle differences between electronic components in at a meet or in a store where A) Sales people and enthusiastic audiophiles are telling you how to listen (like you really need instruction), what you're going to hear, what you just heard. These venues are teeming pools of psychological bias.

Are meets always/usually like that? I don't need people telling me how to listen to equipment; I'll listen to it myself and judge it to my own equipment and see how it compares.

 

[bixby]

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Originally Posted by Ntropic /img/forum/go_quote.gif Are meets always/usually like that? I don't need people telling me how to listen to equipment; I'll listen to it myself and judge it to my own equipment and see how it compares.

To answer your question, No, at least at the last 2 meets I have been at. In fact most of the "sales people" just sit back quietly and let you listen.

Perhaps it is that HF hyperbole going on again

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

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Originally Posted by Ntropic /img/forum/go_quote.gif Are meets always/usually like that? I don't need people telling me how to listen to equipment; I'll listen to it myself and judge it to my own equipment and see how it compares.

I didn't mean to say anyone would be shoving their opinions down your throat, only to say that a roomful of enthusiastic audiophiles is a great place to get "prepped" to hear that "huge soundstage," those incredible micro dynamics," that "precise PRat" that you wouldn't find yourself listening for at home on your own. That's how psychological bias works. We have expectations created for us and then very easily imagine that we hear them. Most audiophiles think they're immune. The truth is they are the most vulnerable.

P

 

[moonboy403]

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Originally Posted by Phelonious Ponk /img/forum/go_quote.gif DANGER!!! DANGER!!! Perhaps the worst place to listen for the subtle differences between electronic components in at a meet or in a store where A) Sales people and enthusiastic audiophiles are telling you how to listen (like you really need instruction), what you're going to hear, what you just heard. These venues are teeming pools of psychological bias.

I don't know what kind of meets you've been to but that's not how it works with the head-fi meets I've been to. Nobody tells you what to listen to. You basically go around the room and listen to everyone's gear and most of the owners are doing the exact same thing. Who goes around the meet and tell others what to listen to? Everyone mind their own business but you can certainly strike up a conversation if you want to.

Morever, there aren't any sales people at meets. Sure there are vendors but nobody markets their own gear at meets. They basically sit back and let you do whatever the hell you want with their gear and you can decide to talk to them if you please but they don't tell you how great their gears are. At most, they'll ask you what you think of them so they can have some feedback. Again, you can tell them that you don't like what you've heard and they won't hold anything against you or try to tell you to listen to this and that.

Again, tell me the location of the meets where those things happened and I'll definitely try to avoid them.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

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Originally Posted by moonboy403 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't know what kind of meets you've been to but that's not how it works with the head-fi meets I've been to. Nobody tells you what to listen to. You basically go around the room and listen to everyone's gear and most of the owners are doing the exact same thing. Who goes around the meet and tell others what to listen to? Everyone mind their own business but you can certainly strike up a conversation if you want to. Morever, there aren't any sales people at meets. Sure there are vendors but nobody markets their own gear at meets. They basically sit back and let you do whatever the hell you want with their gear and you can decide to talk to them if you please but they don't tell you how great their gears are. At most, they'll ask you what you think of them so they can have some feedback. Again, you can tell them that you don't like what you've heard and they won't hold anything against you or try to tell you to listen to this and that. Again, tell me the location of the meets where those things happened and I'll definitely try to avoid them.

Read my last post.

p

 

[Covenant]

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Originally Posted by Phelonious Ponk /img/forum/go_quote.gif We have expectations created for us and then very easily imagine that we hear them. Most audiophiles think they're immune. The truth is they are the most vulnerable. P

Gross generalisation. Very frequently at meets what I hear surprises me, in that things I expected to wow me don't, and things I had absolutely no interest in amaze me.

Case in point. Last meet I got to hear the HD800 balanced out of a Beta22, which I was expecting to be stunning. It was appreciable, but not really the sound signature I was looking for. There was also pair of HF-2's at the meet, which I had no interest in. I hadn't read any of the hype threads about it, so I knew that it'd been released, but that was about it. I'd heard the SR-60, MS-1, RS-2, RS-1, MS-Pro and GS-1000 at meets in the past and none of them had quite done it for me, so I figured there was no way the HF-2 would be anything remarkable.

Two weeks later and I now own one

 

[Currawong]

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Originally Posted by Shike /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah? Prove it. With measurements.

No. And now YOU are trolling this thread. The experience of a great many thousands of people, at the very least, has shown that measurements alone don't directly relate to the ability of audio gear to be more enjoyable to use to listen to music with. Sorry, but much as you left-brained logical people would wish, science can't measure enjoyment. It's sad that you are so enthusiastic to ruin Head-fi for everyone else with your Science Is The True Religion attitude.

 

[SmellyGas]

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Originally Posted by Phelonious Ponk /img/forum/go_quote.gif DANGER!!! DANGER!!! Perhaps the worst place to listen for the subtle differences between electronic components in at a meet or in a store where

I think meets are a good place to listen to different headphones and check out what equipment looks like up-close. Even well-regarded headphones may not suit your taste, and it's better to listen to them first before buying.

On the other hand, I doubt a meet is an environment where you could do a level-matched A/B BLINDED comparison between two piece of equipment. I just don't see it happening. Unless you say "Hey, Bob, I'm gonna borrow your $1000 DAC and move it over to table 43 and compare it to John's DAC for a while, oh and btw, can you flip a coin, then plug my headphones into your DAC if it's heads and John's DAC if it's tails? I'm gonna see if I can tell them apart." Yeah right.

 

[Graphicism]

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Originally Posted by SmellyGas /img/forum/go_quote.gif On the other hand, I doubt a meet is an environment where you could do a level-matched A/B BLINDED comparison between two piece of equipment. I just don't see it happening. Unless you say "Hey, Bob, I'm gonna borrow your $1000 DAC and move it over to table 43 and compare it to John's DAC for a while, oh and btw, can you flip a coin, then plug my headphones into your DAC if it's heads and John's DAC if it's tails? I'm gonna see if I can tell them apart." Yeah right.

Well why is it you think this wouldn't happen, it doesn't sound far-fetched at all, in fact I would imagine that's exactly what does happen. I'd appreciate it if some guys that have been to meets could chime in on whether you do blind tests with equipment and the obvious question if not, why not?

SmellyGas; you said you have 'tricked' people with an expensive looking amp only to reveal a cmoy, yet you talk as if you have never been to a meet, so how exactly did this take place?

 

[Covenant]

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Originally Posted by SmellyGas /img/forum/go_quote.gif Unless you say "Hey, Bob, I'm gonna borrow your $1000 DAC and move it over to table 43 and compare it to John's DAC for a while, oh and btw, can you flip a coin, then plug my headphones into your DAC if it's heads and John's DAC if it's tails? I'm gonna see if I can tell them apart." Yeah right.

 

[Shike]

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Originally Posted by Currawong /img/forum/go_quote.gif No. And now YOU are trolling this thread.

Here that everyone? Anyone that asks for proof of someone's unsubstantiated claims is a troll. Heaven forbid someone ask for evidence of a claim. It's such a horrible horrible thing.

I should've left your lunacy blocked.

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The experience of a great many thousands of people

Source? Oh, right, you expect me to take your word for it. You also expect me to trust your or someone elses ears which could be broken for all I know. You also want me to throw out any findings that disprove your attitude including scientific findings of said differences (psychoacoustics: it's in your head).

I wonder who's closer to the terrain of faith.

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, at the very least, has shown that measurements alone don't directly relate to the ability of audio gear to be more enjoyable to use to listen to music with.

If you're going to argue subjectivity then stick to it. But claiming "there's better DACs than X" based on an opinion is just as bad as what you're doing now. When we're arguing best, in terms of reproduction ability . . . it's going to come down to specs whether you like it or not.

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Sorry, but much as you left-brained logical people would wish, science can't measure enjoyment.

If you enjoy something that measures poorly great. I wouldn't call it HiFi, but if you enjoy it fine. Just don't tell me it qualifies for something it doesn't and we'll be okay.

You can enjoy reading, but don't bring a fiction book to me and tell me it's factual.

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It's sad that you are so enthusiastic to ruin Head-fi for everyone else

It's sad that you insist anyone that believes in science is a troll and destroying Head-Fi. Apparently anyone with an opposing view or wanting proof to claims is just bent on the destruction of this place.

If anyone is trying to destroy this place, I believe it's the people trying to turn it into a memorial of blissful ignorance by eliminating those that dare ask for real answers.

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with your Science Is The True Religion attitude.

Science is the opposite of religion. It's not based on faith like your position is.

 

[SmellyGas]

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Originally Posted by Currawong /img/forum/go_quote.gif No. And now YOU are trolling this thread.

I'm not even sure if you know what the world "troll" means because you keep misapplying it. Having an evidence-based and scientific-based approach to audio does not make someone a "troll."

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The experience of a great many thousands of people, at the very least, has shown that measurements alone don't directly relate to the ability of audio gear to be more enjoyable to use to listen to music with.

Really? So if I measure 50% THD in a piece of audio gear, this wouldn't "directly relate" to its ability to produce music people find enjoyable???? PLEASE, man. And who exactly are these "great many thousands of people?" Do you know them personally? Did they publish their great work anywhere? *OR* did you just make up that pseudo-fact out of thin air??

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Sorry, but much as you left-brained logical people would wish, science can't measure enjoyment. It's sad that you are so enthusiastic to ruin Head-fi for everyone else with your Science Is The True Religion attitude.

First of all, you're dead wrong. Science CAN measure enjoyment. For instance, if you want to see if people enjoyed a movie, you could ask each person to rate their enjoyment on a 1-5 scale as they walked out. You could use the same group of people and have them do the same thing for another movie. Then you could perform statistics and compare. You could also easily do the same thing for listening tests. Similar experiments have been done in audio. I am 100% certain you don't read the AES Journal, but I have personally read at least 2 papers that involved blind listening tests of different loudspeakers and asking listeners to rate different qualities of them. To be complete, you could perform PET scans and measure dopamine levels in response to stimuli. There are many wayas science can measure enjoyment. I'm sorry if you are so fearful of science, but believe it or not, most of the great innovations that we have today are the product of science and the scientific method.

Secondly, you have to respect the variety of people here. The only thing that is being "ruined" is a good scientific/engineering based discussion when people like you jump in start accusing people of trolling. Ironically, you are the one who appears to meet the "troll" criteria.

You seem like a person who will take the great advice of many trusted audiophiles on face value. Other people are not like that. A lot of people want to understand the scientific and engineering basis of things that we hear. We are open minded and we don't assume anything. If someone tells us that green markers on CD's and tennis balls underneath our amps will improve our soundstage, we want to know HOW this could happen. For you, you could probably care less that these tweaks may not produce measurable differences and even be discernable in a blinded listening test. You may be happy and "enjoy" listening to CD's lined with green markers, and you may even hear a dramatic improvement. For others, the lack of measure differences or improvements that survive blind listening is a red flag. Perhaps you should respect that.

 

[SmellyGas]

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Originally Posted by Covenant /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Oh yeah? Great! Can you post:
a) method used to level-match
b) method used for blinding
c) results of A/B comparison (% correct)
d) number of A/B trials
e) expected type I and type II error for the number of trials in d) and the expected (% correct) difference you thought you could detect

And you say you did this at a meet? How long did it take you?

 

[Covenant]

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Originally Posted by SmellyGas /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh yeah? Great! Can you post: a) method used to level-match b) method used for blinding c) results of A/B comparison (% correct) d) number of A/B trials e) expected type I and type II error for the number of trials in d) and the expected (% correct) difference you thought you could detect And you say you did this at a meet? How long did it take you?

Take a close look at the caption of yours I quoted, and take another look at this blurb of "I bet he can't meet all of my criteria". I've done A/B comparisons at meets where I have not known which item was being played at any one point in time, with another head-fi'er switching them for me (and vice versa). Which is exactly the scenario you portrayed as not likely to happen in meet environments.

I'm in this hobby for subjective enjoyment, not to satisfy your particular brand of paranoia.

 

[Shike]

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Originally Posted by Graphicism /img/forum/go_quote.gif SmellyGas; you said you have 'tricked' people with an expensive looking amp only to reveal a cmoy, yet you talk as if you have never been to a meet, so how exactly did this take place?

Thought this deserved attention too.

I present to you, the Gaincard.

Many were tripping over themselves with this amp . . . which is based on a simple opamp circuit. I for one have nothing against them (opamps), but it's an example of a cheap design arguably making fools of people.

It doesn't even matter if SmellyGas did it at this point . . . there's already a precedent.