gsk3
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2006
- Posts
- 30
- Likes
- 10
My 580's arrived today. At first I plugged them into my amp and they didn't sound that different from my Sony earbuds, and I was thinking, man, what?
And then I listened for an hour, just sat and listening. It's amazing. I realized that one of my favorite recordings was a live recording when I heard a chair shuffle in the audience. I could hear the oboeist breathing before his/her solo in Danse Macabre. I could hear two trumpets playing overlaid on one another (a duet, but with the same part) in the fourth movement of Dvorak 8--I have performed that piece (as one of the trumpets) and didn't remember it while listening to that recording dozens of times!
Amazing.
If the last two weeks have taught me one thing, it's that quick ABX tests don't work in general. Real differences require time to appreciate, otherwise you wind up with the Bose effect, where the EQ matters more than the important characteristics of the sound itself. Hardware tests are very difficult to blind yourself to anyway.
Unfortunately, I'm a scientist (no, really, like I work in a lab and such), and so without double-blind controlled studies I will always be deeply skeptical, particularly given such a mental phenomenon. Did you know that placebo effects in Parkinson's disease can reach 30%, and in depression can be even higher? Rumours of one lossless format being noticeably more full than another certainly don't help my skepticism.
But anyway, for now I will just enjoy my little $200 can+amp setup and be happy, blissfully ignorant of all those even better even more expensive rigs out there.
--Ari
And then I listened for an hour, just sat and listening. It's amazing. I realized that one of my favorite recordings was a live recording when I heard a chair shuffle in the audience. I could hear the oboeist breathing before his/her solo in Danse Macabre. I could hear two trumpets playing overlaid on one another (a duet, but with the same part) in the fourth movement of Dvorak 8--I have performed that piece (as one of the trumpets) and didn't remember it while listening to that recording dozens of times!
Amazing.
If the last two weeks have taught me one thing, it's that quick ABX tests don't work in general. Real differences require time to appreciate, otherwise you wind up with the Bose effect, where the EQ matters more than the important characteristics of the sound itself. Hardware tests are very difficult to blind yourself to anyway.
Unfortunately, I'm a scientist (no, really, like I work in a lab and such), and so without double-blind controlled studies I will always be deeply skeptical, particularly given such a mental phenomenon. Did you know that placebo effects in Parkinson's disease can reach 30%, and in depression can be even higher? Rumours of one lossless format being noticeably more full than another certainly don't help my skepticism.
But anyway, for now I will just enjoy my little $200 can+amp setup and be happy, blissfully ignorant of all those even better even more expensive rigs out there.
![580smile.gif](http://images/smilies/http://hfimage.head-fi.org/smilies/newsmiles/580smile.gif)
--Ari