Science is....not often found in these threads
Sep 27, 2009 at 1:13 PM Post #61 of 69
SmellyGas, try to differentiate between cognitive dissonance, and the avoidance of cognitive dissonance which is the context which gives cognitive dissonance its significance. Pro-cablers are actually people who love cognitive dissonance, because they are able to hold in their heads two conflicting opinions, 1. they hear a difference yet 2. science can't explain yet. Anti-cablers are the ones most likely to suffer from the avoidance of cognitive dissonance which is to discard 1. they hear a difference and hold only one opinion in their mind 2. science can't explain yet. Then there's a smaller group of people who are neither believers or nonbelievers, but hold their judgment in abeyance. As for your claim that the possibility of human error has been fully addressed by tests already done, I've already repeated myself many times, humans easily report their senses incorrectly. Very difficult thing to overcome and I am not convinced any tests done on cables has given it any thought.
 
Sep 27, 2009 at 2:32 PM Post #62 of 69
Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Anti-cablers are the ones most likely to suffer from the avoidance of cognitive dissonance which is to discard 1. they hear a difference and hold only one opinion in their mind 2. science can't explain yet.


Even "anti-cabers" are human and thus prone to imagining differences, to believe on one level that something is impossible does not preclude imagining it happening.

I'll give you my example. For my birthday I received a media player a WD HDTV device which I use to send digital signals to my DAC. On many level it is a quite wonderful device. Each time I use it I am made happy by the great sound I get to the point that I genuinely believe it is better than any of my other digital sources.

However I do have an optical, switch box and can thus switch between digital optical sources rapidly, when I do this both PC (for instance) and Media player using the same media files sound the same, i.e wonderful.

Why should I imagine the media player is better than anything else ?. Well it was a birthday present from the missus so it is important to me, it is neat and flexible, you plug in your own external hard drive, it is nice to use and it is connected to an external lcd tv so it is more techy to me. All these extraneous factors have no impact on the actual digital signal but I am still fooled into thinking it is somehow better than it is, humans eh !
 
Sep 27, 2009 at 2:49 PM Post #63 of 69
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Originally Posted by wavoman /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I still don't get it. Could you please explain in more detail? In A/B/X suppose I listen all I want, and decide I like A. But then X is presented and I have to identify whether X is A or B. I don't see any way around that.


The way around that is this. You'd simply do with A and X what you just did with A and B.

If you still like A over X, then logic would dictate that X is B. If you liked A and X equally, it would dictate that X is A.

So as I said, the listener doesn't have to directly identify X. X can be identified through simple logic.

k
 
Sep 27, 2009 at 5:52 PM Post #64 of 69
Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt /img/forum/go_quote.gif
SmellyGas, try to differentiate between cognitive dissonance, and the avoidance of cognitive dissonance which is the context which gives cognitive dissonance its significance. Pro-cablers are actually people who love cognitive dissonance, because they are able to hold in their heads two conflicting opinions, 1. they hear a difference yet 2. science can't explain yet.


First of all, by definition, cognitive dissonance CANNOT OCCUR when two opinions are not actually unpleasant to hold simultaneously. For further clarification of the two conflicting opinions I am referring to (which is likely to be occuring simultaneously to the ones explained by nick_charles), see the thread http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f133/h...esting-447387/. It explains how otherwise intelligent people, who have spent a lot of money on cables and pushed their advice/theory on cable differences among their peers, can conclude that the published Blind Listening Tests that fail to corroborate the claim of LARGE and EASILY-AUDIBLE differences are actually invalid for [insert ridiculous reason here].

Quote:

As for your claim that the possibility of human error has been fully addressed by tests already done, I've already repeated myself many times, humans easily report their senses incorrectly. Very difficult thing to overcome and I am not convinced any tests done on cables has given it any thought.


No, any issue of "misreporting of senses" is CONTROLLED FOR by blind listening test methodology. It's very simple:

Listeners listen to two cables (for example) unblinded. They report big differences (i.e. better soundstage, clarity, etc.). Then ALL YOU DO is cover up the identity of the cables, and do NOTHING else. Now listeners are unable to reliably differentiate between cables. What, pray tell, could have occured to induce "misreporting of senses."??
 
Sep 27, 2009 at 6:17 PM Post #65 of 69
Quote:

Originally Posted by SmellyGas /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Listeners listen to two cables (for example) unblinded. They report big differences (i.e. better soundstage, clarity, etc.). Then ALL YOU DO is cover up the identity of the cables, and do NOTHING else. Now listeners are unable to reliably differentiate between cables. What, pray tell, could have occured to induce "misreporting of senses."??


Well obviously the blanket used to cover the cables identity caused the sound to be muffled.
 
Sep 27, 2009 at 8:34 PM Post #68 of 69
Quote:

Originally Posted by Koyaan I. Sqatsi /img/forum/go_quote.gif
They said no such thing.

"Perfect sound forever" came straight from the MARKETING DEPARTMENT.

k


Sorry but I had a personal conversation with a Phillips engineer about 25 years ago when all this was being introduced. He told me there was no use in changing op amps, ect, because "you cannot improve upon perfection."
 
Oct 1, 2009 at 7:55 AM Post #69 of 69
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Originally Posted by wavoman /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The question of whether certain golden-ear individuals can hear differences in relaxed (but blind) settings that mirror listening at home has not been settled. Because, as many here have said, the testing is very difficult.


The issue here is that being golden eared is another self-applied label. If you take one random person from the set of those that consider themselves to be golden-eared and one from those who don't, there is no reason to think that the person who self-labeled themselves as golden-eared actually has a better hearing ability.
 
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