[robm321]

I'm just asking questions. You all are the experts, psychologists, scientists and logic experts.

I'm just a humble audio noob looking for clues as to why I get stuck in these crazy patterns of fooling myself , and I'm having a really hard time breaking the cycle like you said. I haven't given up though. I'm not a quitter like that. One day all cables will sound the same to me no matter what it takes.

Why did my senses like a pair of cheap ICs that I thought would suck prior to listening? They ended up being one a favorite of mine.

Were my senses tricking me into believing I would hate them, then knowing that that's what I expected tricking me again to make me like them? That would be my guess.

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Why did my senses like a pair of cheap ICs that I thought would suck prior to listening? They ended up being one a favorite of mine.
Were my senses tricking me into believing I would hate them, then knowing that that's what I expected tricking me again to make me like them? That would be my guess.

Biases more often than not work in the subconscious. Just because you think you won't like something doesn't mean your subconscious is already biased towards it for any number of reasons. A review you read maybe, even if you disagreed with it. Or a picture you saw. Or the feel of them in your hand.
 
Did you know that, three days (I think three is the magic number) after a highly publicized suicide, suicide rate increases dramatically? The same thing happens to the number of plane crashes three days after a highly publicized plane crash. Do you think the pilots know that the publicized crash is making them more likely to crash? You don't always know your own mind.
 
Your psychology class must have sucked, no offense.

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

I'm just asking questions. You all are the experts, psychologists, scientists and logic experts.
I'm just a humble audio noob looking for clues as to why I get stuck in these crazy patterns of fooling myself , and I'm having a really hard time breaking the cycle like you said.

Look for objective measurements to help draw conclusions about your experiences. Without a known point of reference, you'll stay in the cycle. 
 
I should add - if you believe you hear differences and want to go on that way - I'm not going to stop you. Believe what you want - you are certainly entitled to your own opinions. 
 
What you are NOT entitled to, is your own facts. And you cannot use your subjective experiences to make positive claims about something without providing objective evidence to support those claims. Like it or not, your words on this forum have power over others - and your statements will influence them - potentially costing them money (and unintentionally, helping those who would unscrupulously take the money from the unsuspecting). One can argue we are not their keeper, caveat emptor, etc... but this provides an environment that allows that kind of BS to propagate, and worse, uses psuedo-scientific language and claims to do so - further confusing the matter and worse still relegates scientific fact to the same level as some salesperson's opinion. 
 
So please. 
 
If you are going to make positive claims regarding your experiences and the behavior/performance of a piece of wire, then provide objective, falsifiable, repeatable evidences meeting at least minimal experimental controls to back those claims up. If you do not have that - make damn sure it is clear you are talking about your opinion, and do not try to wrap your experiences in language or tone meant to given undeserved credence to what is nothing more than your base opinion.

 

[Willakan]

Two things:
Redundant examples/analogies involving either headphones/birds are...well...redundant.
Secondly, biases are complex. You can't make a definitive call as to how they will affect you in advance - again, I wish it were that simple.

 

[Willakan]

Double post.

 

[TheGomdoRi]

I don't like boutique cables because they look tacky, tried only one before and couldn't tell the difference but I believe it was priced at $65 or something.
I very much enjoy using the factory cables, and if I feel the cables are actually poor I will make a DIY cable which is rather easy and customizable without the cost.
 
Once again, the sound doesn't change at all, but if I were inclined to change cables it's purely due to construction/personal appeal

 

[drez]

Quote:

 
So please. 
 
If you are going to make positive claims regarding your experiences and the behavior/performance of a piece of wire, then provide objective, falsifiable, repeatable evidences meeting at least minimal experimental controls to back those claims up. If you do not have that - make damn sure it is clear you are talking about your opinion, and do not try to wrap your experiences in language or tone meant to given undeserved credence to what is nothing more than your base opinion.

Please come to my house with a decibelmeter, pre-prepared tabular questionnaires and and incentive and the data will be all yours

 
Seriously though you can't expect everything in the world to be provided with objectively verified data.  
 
Interesting story, but did you know that Joe Grado tunes all of his headphones by ear?  Another interesting story, none of his headphones come with objective data to verify their performance.  Further to this, if one were to look at the objective evidence which has subsequently been provided (eg headroom measurements) one would never buy a pair of Grado's.)
 
Now Tyll Hersten has been kind enough to spend time and money creating objective headphone data, but if this data was not there, would you expect every headphone review to be accompanied with objective data?  That would not seem reasonable as most people do not have the equipment, nor the incentive to provide this.
 
Cables may have the special status of being outside of what is considered legitimate and objectively verifiable audio products, however given the means available there are numerous other products which might just as easily fall into this category such as certain electronics design topologies, dampening factor, burn in etc etc.
 
Common sense would dictate that a lot of these designs should provide no audible benefit.  We could go into component selection etc. etc.
 
IMO the application of common sense, cogent and positive reasoning has its place in minimising cost and waste (engineers ahoy), however if a design choice leads to better performance, regardless if this aspect of performance is considered to produce objectively negligable results, that a designer should explore these options in case there is a global optimum outside the immediately obvious local optimum states.
 
For clarification, I certainly am not claiming that all these factors are comparable in the magnitude of their efficacy (although I suspect some of them are), but if we stuck to what is considered within reasonable limits we would be left with a world of mediocre and sub-optimal products, with no progress made at all.
 
You may feel free to claim that there is some universal responsibility of the world to only provide products which provide objectively verifiable, blind testable performance performance, however I do not think it is reasonable to expect this from a capitalist economy, and personally I am glad that this is not the case.
 
Rant complete

 
EDIT: too many winks
 

 

[Willakan]

 
Quote:

 
Cables may have the special status of being outside of what is considered legitimate and objectively verifiable audio products, however given the means available there are numerous other products which might just as easily fall into this category such as certain electronics design topologies, dampening factor, burn in etc etc.
 
Common sense would dictate that a lot of these designs should provide no audible benefit.  
 

Indeed it does, and I would maintain that generally they don't, unless you define permenant colouration that could be done a thousand times better in software as "benefit."
As far as I'm concerned, half of hi-fi is bollocks.

 
 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Quote:

I'm just asking questions. You all are the experts, psychologists, scientists and logic experts.
I'm just a humble audio noob looking for clues as to why I get stuck in these crazy patterns of fooling myself , and I'm having a really hard time breaking the cycle like you said. I haven't given up though. I'm not a quitter like that. One day all cables will sound the same to me no matter what it takes.
Why did my senses like a pair of cheap ICs that I thought would suck prior to listening? They ended up being one a favorite of mine.
Were my senses tricking me into believing I would hate them, then knowing that that's what I expected tricking me again to make me like them? That would be my guess.

I wish we could get away from this idea of senses tricking us. Our senses are doing their job, they are working fine it is just that they do not always work as we may expect. I think that hifi involves the senses far more than people think that they do and the whole cable industry is founded on the way our sense of sight and hearing interact. Indeed testing with other hifi components find the same, for example rebadging CDPs affects people's perception of sound quality.
 
But instead of realising and accepting this we are presented with psuedoscience.
 

 

[robm321]

Quote:

Two things:
Redundant examples/analogies involving either headphones/birds are...well...redundant.
Secondly, biases are complex. You can't make a definitive call as to how they will affect you in advance - again, I wish it were that simple.

I could use cars or maybe worms which would not be redundant. The point would remain the same.  
 
As far as biases, It's a slippery slope when you make the argument that senses (the mind) tricks those that hear a difference, because the same argument can be turned around to those that don't hear a difference. Your preconcieved notions could be so entrenched that your ears are tricking you into not hearing the differences that are there. Or keeping you from actually going out and critically listening to many different cables instead of just reading white papers, and It could be a vicious cycle that is tough for you to break when you are so conviced of something that could be completely wrong. 
 
But I could be wrong since my college phych class apparently sucked according to head injury, so I seek guidance from those who took the non-suck course. I should have read the small print when I chose that class. Who knew there was a non-suck option. Live and learn I guess. 

 

[Blue Boat]

Quote:

I could use cars or maybe worms which would not be redundant. The point would remain the same.  
 
As far as biases, It's a slippery slope when you make the argument that senses (the mind) tricks those that hear a difference, because the same argument can be turned around to those that don't hear a difference. Your preconcieved notions could be so entrenched that your ears are tricking you into not hearing the differences that are there. Or keeping you from actually going out and critically listening to many different cables instead of just reading white papers, and It could be a vicious cycle that is tough for you to break when you are so conviced of something that could be completely wrong. 

Scientific evidence points towards the differences in cables being inaudible, for the most part. So it's more likely that your brain's tricking you into hearing the differences that are not there, than the other way round. I don't think anyone here is closed minded, though some of the language may suggest so. I think we're pretty open minded. If you can find solid scientific evidence that the differences in cables can be attributed to the design/geometry/material of the cable, then by all means present it to the boards.
 
Btw, on open-mindedness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI
 
 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

If you cannot hear a difference then at least one of the following is true
 
you really have golden ears and can accurately identify no difference
 
you are not as affected by bias as others.
 
the cables have a very similar affect on volume
 
 

 

[vyyye]

I'm not into this at all and quite new to anything headphones so excuse my ignorance. But isn't there more than enough proof that cables will affect the signal? I mean just having a thicker/thinner cable will change the resistance, I'm quite sure there is something I'm missing here? Is the discussion simply if the difference is audible?

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Quote:

I'm not into this at all and quite new to anything headphones so excuse my ignorance. But isn't there more than enough proof that cables will affect the signal? I mean just having a thicker/thinner cable will change the resistance, I'm quite sure there is something I'm missing here? Is the discussion simply if the difference is audible?

There is no proof that a cable will affect the signal in such a way that is audible and can improve sound quality. A change in resistance could affect volume and louder sounds better (to a point) so it could cause one cable to sound better than another. But instead of buying the 'better' cable, you can also adjust your amps volume control!
 

 

[vyyye]

Quote:

There is no proof that a cable will affect the signal in such a way that is audible and can improve sound quality. A change in resistance could affect volume and louder sounds better (to a point) so it could cause one cable to sound better than another. But instead of buying the 'better' cable, you can also adjust your amps volume control!
 

Ah I see. Huh, that is quite intriguing. Honestly quite surprised that there is this much of a split in opinions with measurements and all that abound, doesn't seem like it's a particularly new debate. Well I'll reserve judgement until I can sit down and A/B test.