[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 883dave /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you showed someone "serious" headphones would their brain "adapt" to the placebo that because they look better then they will sound better? How do we actually know one thing sounds better than another? If our brain adapts so easily, how do we know what is real and what is placebo? I listen to several classic rock "mainstream" radio stations, and also to CBC Canada which plays classical music. Does this then make the who, the beatles, mosart, chopin et al junk? I remember my father saying to me when I was younger " the crap you young people listen too, you have no idea what good music is" Could you be spouting a generational stereotypical thing?

well, again, I don't think that placebo has anything to do w/ liking some crappy phones on a crappy source...for a lack of comparison w/ high-end stuff, you can convince yourself that you have the best gear on earth...and actually believe it

but it will all shred to pieces when you'll hear real gear...otherwise the guy is half-deaf anyway.

denying that most current music being played on TV/mainstream radio is compressed junk for mindless kids is hypocritical to the utmost...but I understand where you wanna pull me

sure, it's a generation thingie I guess, I'm sure Britney/Eminem/Black Eyes Peas can be compared to Abba and all that junk from the 80's...and yes, there's good stuff being released these days, but let's just say that it hardly ever plays on TV...and again, kids for a lack of comparison will end up listening to mindless worthless music, made of 3 samples in loop and some dumb lyrics on top. no wonder they drop acid when they're preteens nowadays, I would too!

 

[jawang]

did you guys even read the article?

if you let an ipod kid listen to "real gear," he will go into the demo thinking that he is listening to better equipment. there's no way to prove that a placebo effect isn't affecting his judgment.

a better test would be to get 2 large groups of random people. use 2 headphone setups, A and B. in one group, tell them that setup A is 10x more expensive than setup B. in the other group, tell them the opposite (without changing the setups). make sure that nobody in either group knows how much the two setups cost

then ask them to decide which one sounds better

 

[PhilS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jawang /img/forum/go_quote.gif did you guys even read the article? if you let an ipod kid listen to "real gear," he will go into the demo thinking that he is listening to better equipment. there's no way to prove that a placebo effect isn't affecting his judgment. a better test would be to get 2 large groups of random people. use 2 headphone setups, A and B. in one group, tell them that setup A is 10x more expensive than setup B. in the other group, tell them the opposite (without changing the setups). make sure that nobody in either group knows how much the two setups cost then ask them to decide which one sounds better

And what is the likely result, and what do you think it will "prove"?

 

[haloxt]

The great irony of modern medicine is that they want to stamp out placebo. The most important thing about medical placebo is that it shows that by using our bodies in a different way, many apparently organic diseases can be alleviated or cured. If people continue to believe it was the pills that alleviated their problems rather than their altered thinking or whatever internal change, this false attribution makes them depend on those pills rather than discovering what really fixed them (or more importantly, why they became ill in the first place). Or if they are told it was just sugar pills they may go back to how they used to think and the old symptoms may return, which commonly occurs after people are given placebos, showed improvements, and later were told they were just given placebos.

But medical placebo is a bit different from sensory adaptation in that using your senses heavily depends upon your mind deciphering and making sense of things so that you can have sensible data for your conscious mind to consider. Because of this, eliminating the possibility of audio placebo is actually a greater difficulty than eliminating the possibility of medical placebo.

 

[jawang]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilS /img/forum/go_quote.gif And what is the likely result, and what do you think it will "prove"?

Based on my experience dealing with friends, if you take regular people, I believe they will think the "expensive" set sounds better, even if the difference is very noticeable (i.e. give them Beats vs. hd650s, but tell them the hd650s cost $50). It would prove that placebo can affect perception of sound quality among average people.


If you do the same test with "golden ear" audiophiles, you might get a different result. But if you make the difference smaller (i.e. switch cables; call a $10000 cable a $5 radioshack cable, and call a $30 monster cable some $10000 high end cable), you might see interesting results even among that crowd

 

[Berlioz]

The placebo effect can be quite powerful. Tests have found that people taking a more expensive placebo will experience greater benefits than people taking a less expensive placebo.

It is usually concerned with the pharmaceutical industry, but I think audiophiles should at least try to take it into consideration when they drop $10K on a piece of gear.

I remember one time I was at a very small meet, most of the guys were in the corner of the room checking out IEM's. They had given me the OK to try out some of their stuff without their supervision, so I unhooked a Benchmark DAC 1, and listened to a Keces DAC instead.

I finished with my stuff, but they came back before I could re attach anything. One of the guys listened to a pair of D2000's through the Keces, still thinking it was hooked up to the Benchmark. He said it blew his DAC (the Keces) away, and that he felt like an upgrade now, although he didn't want to spend $1000 for a Benchmark. The Benchmark owner listened, and agreed that his DAC sounded far superior.

I was floored, but also a little nervous that someone would find out and awkwardness would follow. Luckily, I managed to get everything back together before anyone noticed!

Listening to them myself, I was pretty sure that the Benchmark did sound better. However, it just goes to show, that by the time you're using a dedicated DAC, you're already splitting hairs on sound quality, and the difference between equipment is probably far smaller than you think. It may be unwise to spend $12,000 on a CD player, when that money could go towards music, or a new set of headphones.

 

[leeperry]

the major issue w/ comparing cables and so is that the brain is a very poor measuring tool, and it's heavily influenceable by feelings.

I have to admit that I enjoy watching my projector a lot more w/ a nice & slick HDMI Monster cable than a cheapo monoprice equivalent...I would even dare to say that the PQ looks sharper! luckily, the Monster's are very cheap on ebay

if I were to compare a Monster bought from an authorized reseller(costing several benjamins), then I would try to be more concise and less open to placebo

 

[Jack Mono]

My car handles better after I wash it. Really! No joke!

 

[haloxt]

Maybe if you have a phobia for unclean cars or are high on the chlorine in your car wash.

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Mono /img/forum/go_quote.gif My car handles better after I wash it. Really!

it's due to the aerodynamism improvement, easy to feel it in corners or U-turns

 

[Speederlander]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilS /img/forum/go_quote.gif And what is the likely result, and what do you think it will "prove"?

In all likelihood they will pick the more expensive as sounding better because they expected it to.

 

[PhilS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Speederlander /img/forum/go_quote.gif In all likelihood they will pick the more expensive as sounding better because they expected it to.

Yeah, probably. But I don't think that anybody seriously disputes that this type of placebo effect can take place in audio -- as it does in many, many other areas. The issue is the extent to which it causes people in certain situations or with certain types of equipment to hear differences that do not actually exist, etc. It's sort of like saying that people are influenced by how nice a product looks. Yeah, we know that. But determining the extent of these influences in any specific situation is a lot more tricky, and is really the crux of the issue.

 

[Arjisme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilS /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, probably. But I don't think that anybody seriously disputes that this type of placebo effect can take place in audio -- as it does in many, many other areas. The issue is the extent to which it causes people in certain situations or with certain types of equipment to hear differences that do not actually exist, etc. It's sort of like saying that people are influenced by how nice a product looks. Yeah, we know that. But determining the extent of these influences in any specific situation is a lot more tricky, and is really the crux of the issue.

Can you explain this distinction a bit more? Are you saying that placebo effects do exist but don't always exist? So, for example, it might impact perceptions with one piece of gear but might not impact perceptions with a different piece of gear? I'm stumbling over the "extent of influence" idea. Are you asserting placebo exists but doesn't have a meaningful impact on preferences?

 

[csommers]

I think he meant they exist, but the existent to which they impact the conclusion varies upon the subject.
ex:
A $5000 amp will probably have more of a placebo effect, than one that costs $150. You will be expecting the $5000 amp to "sound" better to you.

 

[PhilS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arjisme /img/forum/go_quote.gif Can you explain this distinction a bit more? Are you saying that placebo effects do exist but don't always exist? So, for example, it might impact perceptions with one piece of gear but might not impact perceptions with a different piece of gear? I'm stumbling over the "extent of influence" idea. Are you asserting placebo exists but doesn't have a meaningful impact on preferences?

I guess what I'm saying is that the placebo effect influences people's judgments some of the time, but not all of the time. For example, assume I know one headphone costs $100 and another costs $200. I listen to both. I prefer the $200 phone. Can we really say that there's no basis for me to prefer the $200 phone, and that I only chose it because it's more expensive? Is the placebo effect the reason why people prefer the Senn IE8 over the Apple earbuds?

On the other hand, I suppose it's certainly possible that someone can prefer brand x cable over brand y cable (or one component over any other component) due solely to the placebo effect.

Again, the placebo effect describes a possible influence. But determining whether that influence has resulted in an erroneous evaluation in a particular case is more difficult.