Do we imagine improvemnets?

Do we imagine improvements?

I've heard it said before ,mainly in regard to mains cables and such, that audiophiles often trick them selves into hearing a difference or improvment because they want to.
Overs claim that because they know the "science" behind such products that there are no differences or improvements and when they try them they can not hear any, so they cliam its the desire to want to hear a improvment or difference that causes others to hear it.
But here is the point.
If it was only a desire to hear an improvment that makes you hear it then surely the reverse would be true also and a desire or belief that there is no difference would make you not hear one?

There fore I belive that this argument is not a sound one for the anti-brigade to use across all cases and they would have to be weary of this effect on themselves.For imagined improvments there would have to be imagined unimprovments.

Each case (of trying a prodouct)then has to be taken on its own basis with its own facts and situation taken into acount.
We can not make sweeping statments about imagined effects to dissmiss things we can't hear our selves.Maybe it is our own system,way of listening , ability to percive and describe diffrences and other effcts that cause us to hear or not to hear.
Of cource sometimes diffrences are imagined but we can not use that argument without recongnising that we may be doing the same.

For instance if you are not used to drinking wine they may all taste the same to you, but if you drink wine reguarly (as well as getting drunk) you will beging to notice diffrences in wines.
Did that mean that previously there were no diffrences or that there were but your brain was not yet able to notice them?
Or maybe diffrences only count when we can recognise tham.

Anyway as your experiences increases you will findthat in order to tell one type of wine from another you will also need to articulate those types of diffrences, some are more woddy or sweet or vinigaer like.
Eventually you will be able to tell the type of wine just by a quick sip as you know what your looking for.

If then you describe the type of difference to a novice who feels all wines taste the same he wmay be able to look for it and may more quickly recognise diffrences because he knew what to look for.
It is not good enought to say this tastes good or bad , that leave the other person nowhere.

Likewize with effects some of us are convinced we hear with hifi we need to be able to describe what they are not just describe them as good or bad.
Does the idea that it takes experience and skill to describe these improvments mean that they are too sublte to be of importance.
Well maybe sometimes, but like wine you will find that when you can identify the various types that some will become undrinkable to you.
You will quickly be anbe to tell cheap wine from its bitter vinigaer taste while better wines will be fuller and richer , but within the nice selection of wines tastes will vary.

With hifi also you find this effect , when for example you notice grain across the sound or bands of frequency being empahzied they may evtually make the sound unlistenable to you.
the difference may be measurably small but the effect on your pleasure large.
Like a pimple on the end of your nose a small thing will atract much attention.

It took me about 10 years to notice grain and graynessin a systems sound.
now I can often hear its effect very quickly.
i find that better mains connection (tighter plugs less fuses) and interconnect cables have a big effect on this.
But If you can't notice this problem or you system doesn't resolve it then the same prodoucts that impress me by sorting it out wont impress you.


Just dont say I imagined it


:MILD:

 

i feel a whole can of whoopass opening

:duck:

 

If audiophiles have an imagination then they are quite capable of imagining things. If they have decent hearing then they are quite capable of hearing things. If you imagine that the differences you perceive are down to your hearing rather than your imagination then I would imagine that you imagine that... Oh, I give up...

 

You imagined it.....

 

Tricky Power cables, Speaker leads, Mains conditioners and Interconnects have yet to be PROVEN to work better than basic stuff in a double blind test.

That's all there is to it.

However loads of sane people say they can hear major differences so I can only conclude that positive thinking is at work and as it's all about perception I suppose if you think it works, it works....

 

A bit of both some times I must just imagine it but other times there is a definate improvment or not.

 

I think 'spxy' needs to rethink his logic....

Anyway if people would stop conducting seeing tests and started conducting listening tests then the whole issue would simply go away.

Paul

 

I think 'spxy' needs to rethink his logic....

I think you need to explain why

 

where, who, when.....

Who has done a double-blind test and found that there was no difference?

 

Tricky Power cables, Speaker leads, Mains conditioners and Interconnects have yet to be PROVEN to work better than basic stuff in a double blind test.

Jools, please define exactly what was tested and how and by who, and how this relates to all prodoucts in the field that are avialable or that you can make.

 

Google hi-fi groups will have the most info' on blind tests. Just do a Group search from www.google.com.

Note that there exists £1000 in the UK (from Stewart Pinkerton) and around $5000 in the US still waiting to be claimed by someone who can prove they can reliably identify two cables in a double blind test providing measurement shows that the cables do not have differing frequency responses.

Again, a search on Google groups will find this.

The point is that I think most people would accept the results of a properly conducted blind test as 'proof' of hearing (as opposed to imagining) differences.

 

Who claims there would be a difference between cables that are exactly the same?
This is a straw man aurgument matey.

 

But if you say that the only difference between cables is due to measurement showing differences in frequency response that might/will be audible then I don't think anybody will argue with that.

 

How ridiculous!!!!!

To say "there is no audible difference between two cables that have the same frequency response" is completely tautological.

The differences heard come as a direct result of different cables having a different affect on the signal. ie. a high capacitance cable will roll off bass earlier, high inductance will roll off treble earlier.

When we choose and compare cables we are drawn towards the colouration that is most pleasing to our ears. So a high capacitance cable would be eschewed by a drum and bass fan, whereas a high inductance cable would probably not be suitable for someone listening to 'big band' music.

Surely the fact that he is insisting that the cables "do not have differing frequency responses" just proves that he knows there is a difference between cable, otherwise why specify this?

I bet you £50 you can't tell the difference between two pieces of fruit, as long they are both apples from the same tree...

 

Stu, would you care to quantify the above please sir ? T.

 

One can conclude nothing about existence of inexplicable audio differences from your argument.

(It's entertaining to see a whole bunch of sceptics popping out of the woodwork....)

Paul

 

"One can conclude nothing about existence of inexplicable audio differences from your argument."

Who said you that was my purpose?How does that make may logic wrong?

 

I have done lots and lots of double blind tests and have never been able to tell the difference nor have any of my mates or indeed the 30 or so people we tried this on at the HIFI shop I worked in.

A decent copper cable that isn't "engineered" to change electrical factors will sound the same as another.

Some cables are deliberately designed to change how amplifiers behave IIRC and as such are a con a normal wire sounds the same as any other and as has beenstated here there are a number of prizes around for anyone who can repeatedly identify different cables in a double blind test.

John Crabbe a hifi jurno who has been around longer than most uses 90p a meter copper cable and reckons tricky cables are all a bit of a con.

Like Homeopathy it's all bollocks that oddly, works for some people.

 

So what was your purpose?

It's good science that people who expect something often experience it. The 'anti' is just saying that a personal experience in an uncontrolled listening/viewing test doesn't say anything about reality. It's just a personal experience. This is true for both positive tests and negative tests.

You finished your post with 'Just dont say I imagined it' but you've not presented any argument to show that you didn't imagine it.

Paul

 

It's simple, some improvements are imaginary, and some aren't. Knowing which is which is the difficult bit, and I'm sure we've all imagined improvements and later realised, on reflection, that in fact there was no difference at all. Knowing when a difference is actually an improvement can be even more difficult.

Made-up statistic: 99 out of 100 people who incessantly fiddle with their systems have forgotten the difference between "better" and "different".

-- Ian