Testing audiophile claims and myths

[Moonglum]

Okie doke. We welcome people who want to contribute to the discussion of Sound Science.

Noted. I will share with you one amusing anecdote- some people become so wedded to a system of beliefs that their beliefs are so resistant to change they will explain every challenge away as something that confirms rather than contradicts their belief systems. Thus when i published a couple of papers reporting studies looking at cognitive biases and beliefs in conspiracies the conspiracy theory community decided I and my co author must be government
or secret society plants and I became part of the very conspiracy theories I was researching

 

[Davesrose]

As for Hans B - I was unaware he had been debunked on here but I will read the links with an open mind and not assume Im right - happy to show humility…feel free to try it sometime

The video I linked was a pretty concise argument of a Hans video on audiphile network hubs. The poster makes it apparent he does have network experience by providing examples of what parts of Hans's arguments are irrelevant to network transmission.

 

[Moonglum]

But it’s ok to throw wild postulations out about digital audio in a sound science discussion forum?

If you are actually a behavioural scientist then you could have contributed some pertinent input and it would have been both useful and appreciated.

Unfortunately, much/most of what you’ve input so far has been anti-scientific audiophile marketing BS, which in a science discussion forum is not civilised and is literally intolerable. Hence why you’ve had that response.

Maybe you’ve done this entirely inadvertently, your more recent posts allow for that possibility far more than your initial posts. If this is the case then you’re most welcome to stick around and contribute, your input would be valuable but just be careful of making wild guesses/assertions about audio, avoid such assertions and ask if you’re not sure.

G

I think the issue is partly that you seek to stereotype me as someone who dismisses all measurements which I do not do. I’m not sure I made any wild claims on here ?! What specific claims ? The only claims I made were on the ifi thread where I gave some subjective listening observations. And said that I don’t really care how this device performs if Amir measures it. That’s not a wild claim it’s just a statement of my opinion. Anyway it’s kind of round and
around in circles we go - I get that a scientist who seems a fan of subjective responses to Hi fi isn’t going to get the warmest welcome on this kind of forum

 

[Davesrose]

I’m not sure I made any wild claims on here ?! What specific claims ? The only claims I made were on the ifi thread where I gave some subjective listening observations. And said that I don’t really care how this device performs if Amir measures it. That’s not a wild claim it’s just a statement of my opinion.

Sorry if you felt compelled to respond on this thread...we were talking about bias and marketing trumping measurements and skepticism of blind testing. I brought up the iFi thread as it's the one sponsor thread I've brought up measurements and blind tests as a way to have a civil settlement with the network folks vs audiophiles (and how as someone with computer experience myself, don't see what difference audiophile LAN products make). I mentioned a psychologist who claimed it's not bias if you approach a tweak with a skeptical attitude. I believe that's the main statement that gregorio found and begin to question:

A long answer to the question, forgive me. So yes, placebo, possibly! Confirmation bias ? No not really as tbh I approached this tweak with a rather sceptical attitude and was rather taken aback by its apparent impact. Is its effect measurable? No idea and the devil’s in the detail of knowing what to measure and then employing suitable methods. Will Amir at ASR measure it and claim it debunked ? Possibly! Will I care ? Nope ! I happily use some DACs that he claims measure badly. They sound great !

I myself have gotten into heated debates on this thread. With gregorio and bigshot, it tends to be issues of communication (IE different use of terms). I've learned not to take perceived attacks personally and try to understand what the poster's meaning is.

 

[gregorio]

An appeal to an authority is a persuasion technique that is often abused but only when the authority is itself bogus in that context - otherwise it can absolutely be legitimate-

To quote another authority, Carl Sagan: "One of the great commandments of science is, "Mistrust arguments from authority."”. Scientific knowledge is best established by evidence and experiment rather than argued through authority.

I’m not sure I made any wild claims on here ?! What specific claims ?

The claims I refuted in post #16,465.

I get that a scientist who seems a fan of subjective responses to Hi fi isn’t going to get the warmest welcome on this kind of forum

That’s not true. A scientist or anyone else who’s a fan of subjective responses will get a warm welcome here. All of us here own hi-fi systems precisely because we’re fans of subjective responses and my continued employment depends on my subjective responses and subjective opinions. What isn’t going get the warmest of welcomes is subjective responses falsely claimed to be caused by some physical audio property.

G

 

[bigshot]

If a subjective impression isn't measurable, it hasn't been tested with ABX, and it doesn't make sense from the basis of how the technology works, I don't give it much credence. The burden of proof is on the person making the unusual claim. Audiophile network switches tick all of those boxes.

 

[castleofargh]

By the way Hans Beekhuyzen on YouTube seems to know quite a bit about digital audio - are his videos about the sound of Ethernet switches etc completely wrong ? I’m interested to know what aspects of his videos you feel are incorrect?

As was already mentioned, he is nowhere as reliable as he may seem to the layman person. It's really hard to find him discussing a topic I understand well and not find golden nuggets of pure nonsense right in the middle of 2 perfectly reasonable ideas. He and McGowan from PS Audio are about the most quoted/linked when it comes to support unverified audiophile beliefs.
They have a very negative impact on fact based knowledge in this hobby while acting like educators. It's bad.
Humans are strange creatures. There is something about people projecting confidence that gets others to trust them too much. There is also the Dunning-Kruger effect, showing how many of the most confident people aren't qualified to discuss what they claim to know. That's a regrettable combo.


For the rest, I only flew over your posts in this thread and didn't see much reason to fight you or your beliefs, so I think I won't ^_^.

 

[Moonglum]

As was already mentioned, he is nowhere as reliable as he may seem to the layman person. It's really hard to find him discussing a topic I understand well and not find golden nuggets of pure nonsense right in the middle of 2 perfectly reasonable ideas. He and McGowan from PS Audio are about the most quoted/linked when it comes to support unverified audiophile beliefs.
They have a very negative impact on fact based knowledge in this hobby while acting like educators. It's bad.
Humans are strange creatures. There is something about people projecting confidence that gets others to trust them too much. There is also the Dunning-Kruger effect, showing how many of the most confident people aren't qualified to discuss what they claim to know. That's a regrettable combo.


For the rest, I only flew over your posts in this thread and didn't see much reason to fight you or your beliefs, so I think I won't ^_^.

McGowan is interesting as he is joint CEO of a Hi fi manufacturer and co designs a lot of their products so he obviously knows electronics but he does make claims that I’m guessing will wind people on this forum up - for example PS Audio no longer make bespoke mains cables yet he claims expensive ones make a difference- im guessing that view is like a red rag to a bull here

 

[bigshot]

There's no evidence that the cost of cables has anything to do with their function or sound quality. There's no reason from a electrical engineering standpoint to believe that either. When a person who should know better says something that is blatantly false, I take everything they say with a great deal of skepticism. If they work for a company that sells high end audio equipment, I would rank them somewhere between used car dealers and ambulance chasing lawyers when it comes to veracity. I listen to sound engineers like those at the AES. They aren't out to sell me something and they do the proper kinds of testing.

Cables can only degrade signals. They can't improve it. There are cables that are unfit for a particular purpose, either because of defective manufacture or because they are designed for a different use, but price has absolutely nothing to do with that. An Amazon Basics or Monoprice interconnect will do the job as well as any other.

 

[FunkyBassMan]

There's no evidence that the cost of cables has anything to do with their function or sound quality. There's no reason from a electrical engineering standpoint to believe that either. When a person who should know better says something that is blatantly false, I take everything they say with a great deal of skepticism. If they work for a company that sells high end audio equipment, I would rank them somewhere between used car dealers and ambulance chasing lawyers when it comes to veracity. I listen to sound engineers like those at the AES. They aren't out to sell me something and they do the proper kinds of testing.

Cables can only degrade signals. They can't improve it. There are cables that are unfit for a particular purpose, either because of defective manufacture or because they are designed for a different use, but price has absolutely nothing to do with that. An Amazon Basics or Monoprice interconnect will do the job as well as any other.

The laws of physics apparently apply everywhere except to the materials in cables.

Your daily dose of comedy from the "science" people.

 

[bigshot]

I'd ask you to show me evidence that expensive cables sound better than Amazon basics interconnects, but there's no point. You really have nothing to add to the conversation. You might as well be a bot.

 

[FunkyBassMan]

I'd ask you to show me evidence that expensive cables sound better than Amazon basics interconnects, but there's no point. You really have nothing to add to the conversation. You might as well be a bot.

I'd ask you to show me evidence that the laws of physics don't apply to cables. But there's no point. You have no evidence. You are simply faith-based.

 

[Dogmatrix]

The laws of physics apparently apply everywhere except to the materials in cables.

Your daily dose of comedy from the "science" people.

Don't see anything about "laws of physics" in the quoted post, please elaborate

I want to get the joke

 

[bigshot]

He doesn’t know the difference between tiny measurable differences that fall below the JDD by orders of magnitude and audible ones.

 

[gregorio]

McGowan is interesting as he is joint CEO of a Hi fi manufacturer and co designs a lot of their products so he obviously knows electronics …

Unfortunately that’s pretty standard. Virtually all the audiophile manufacturers are the same, they must obviously know electronics or their DACs and amps wouldn’t work but the nonsense they come out with is ridiculous. Rob Watts of Chord is another gem, he’s come out with classic claims such as being able to hear distortion at -300dB. Anyone who has any idea of what the decibel scale represents knows how ludicrous that is. There are a couple of exceptions I know of, Lavry and Benchmark and that’s probably because they also serve the pro-audio community but that’s probably about it.

he claims expensive ones make a difference- im guessing that view is like a red rag to a bull here

Yep, and just about the oldest red flag. Audiophile cables hit the market in the 1970’s and were about the first entire category of complete snake-oil. Debunked at the time by metallurgists, EEs and sound/music engineers, there were loads of DBTs and objective measurements done, James Randi even offered $1m to anyone who could tell the difference in controlled testing, 15 years later and no takers. They still persisted though, with ever more elaborate pseudoscientific claims. As it’s such a fabulously profitable product, get a Chinese company to make them for $5-$20 and sell them for $500 or $5,000, they eventually went after all the other types of cable, power cables, USB, optical, Ethernet, etc.

I'd ask you to show me evidence that the laws of physics don't apply to cables.

And “I’d ask you to show me evidence that the laws of physics don’t apply to” speakers, sound waves, human hearing or helicopters. Any child can come up with nonsense fallacies and then argue against them, what’s surprising is that anyone would try such a childish tactic in this subforum, of all places.

G