p a t r i c k
500+ Head-Fier
Quote:
Hi Mark.
Yes I think that expectations do feed into the suggestion/autosuggestion element of our perception.
In the mid 90s I became questioning of the whole Hi Fi business, after having followed and spent a lot of money on its many whims up to that time. I purchased expensive cables, I even purchased and still have an "audiophile" mains cable. There were powerful gurus fêted by the Hi Fi press who were saying that these were good things. When I plugged in my expensive cables I would hear the sonic differences which the gurus had said I would hear. Even though CD players had arrived in the 80s I did not buy one for some years because important gurus had condemned them as not being fit for listening to music.
In the early 90s I had, amongst other things, an expensive valve ("tubes" in US) amplifier with a separate valve regulated power supply, all kinds of stuff considered very cool at that time.
Then one afternoon I was spending some time with a friend who had a more modest Hi Fi. He had a respectable solid state amp with some nice budget speakers and a much cheaper turntable than mine. I'd taken some LPs around that I thought he might like. We listened to them and while listening to them, for some reason I suddenly had a thought that, in fact, my LPs sounded better on his system than mine. I listened carefully, and yes, the more I listened the more I realised that actually I was hearing everything so much better on his system.
I returned to my own system at home and I played my LPs. They didn't sound as good. I didn't tell my friend, but I was visiting him a lot as we had common musical interests and each time I played my LPs on his system, they sounded better.
The system I had constructed at home was built up on the expectations created by the "gurus" of the Hi Fi industry. The expectations had fuelled the belief that it was a better system. When I had been listening to it I was listening out for the things that I had been told I would hear. This had been happening below the conscious level.
Over the following years I sold that very expensive system and I have been very cautious about expensive audio stuff.
Hi Mark.
Yes I think that expectations do feed into the suggestion/autosuggestion element of our perception.
In the mid 90s I became questioning of the whole Hi Fi business, after having followed and spent a lot of money on its many whims up to that time. I purchased expensive cables, I even purchased and still have an "audiophile" mains cable. There were powerful gurus fêted by the Hi Fi press who were saying that these were good things. When I plugged in my expensive cables I would hear the sonic differences which the gurus had said I would hear. Even though CD players had arrived in the 80s I did not buy one for some years because important gurus had condemned them as not being fit for listening to music.
In the early 90s I had, amongst other things, an expensive valve ("tubes" in US) amplifier with a separate valve regulated power supply, all kinds of stuff considered very cool at that time.
Then one afternoon I was spending some time with a friend who had a more modest Hi Fi. He had a respectable solid state amp with some nice budget speakers and a much cheaper turntable than mine. I'd taken some LPs around that I thought he might like. We listened to them and while listening to them, for some reason I suddenly had a thought that, in fact, my LPs sounded better on his system than mine. I listened carefully, and yes, the more I listened the more I realised that actually I was hearing everything so much better on his system.
I returned to my own system at home and I played my LPs. They didn't sound as good. I didn't tell my friend, but I was visiting him a lot as we had common musical interests and each time I played my LPs on his system, they sounded better.
The system I had constructed at home was built up on the expectations created by the "gurus" of the Hi Fi industry. The expectations had fuelled the belief that it was a better system. When I had been listening to it I was listening out for the things that I had been told I would hear. This had been happening below the conscious level.
Over the following years I sold that very expensive system and I have been very cautious about expensive audio stuff.
