The new Synergistic Research BLUE fuses ....

I can respect someone who says “I don't know for sure if it makes a difference or not, but I'm not going to try it because I don't see enough probability that it will work.” I have little regard for those who “know” that it cannot possibly work without ever trying it.

And those with technical knowledge have little regard for someone who's majority of posts are to do with "snake oil" tweaks and has who has no technical knowledge, and doesn't seem to think it matters.

Cheers George 

prof,

When I try something I listen, over the long run, to hear how and if it differs, and in which ways. It takes time to ascertain in some respects and is quite obvious in others. There's no expectation as in I know I'm going to hear something different. I let it sink it, like most things in life.

Nothing is on the line except my listening tastes. I know, by now, what to listen for (as in which areas have eluded me) and which areas need to be tamed.

I don't know where some people get the notion that anything you hear is immediately suspect and to be doubted, that it has to be tested, double tested, blind tested, done many times over by groups of people who will never come to consensus on the matter. Too many tests and too many people introduce too many variables. That's crazy talk, in my world.

For anyone out of left field to come into my world and tell me I can't possibly trust what I hear gives me the creeps. Plain and simple. I think I've been more than tolerant on the matter.

My senses have served me well all my life. I've only encountered such animus when discussing politics or religion. All this negativity in audio has been a recent phenomenon for me, relatively speaking, and I've only witnessed it hear on forums and sites like this one. 

People I know stay the hell away from places like this for that very reason. Passion is one thing. Zealotry is another. Mix in the current trend for tribalism and there's really no going back. It's going to get worse. That old genie is not going back into the bottle. 

Don't take this the wrong way but do enjoy your Quixotic quest as you try to save folk from themselves. I don't need convincing as there's always that 30 day policy to return something if it doesn't work out for me. 

All the best,
Nonoise

@nonoise

I think your posts are pretty representative of what is so often termed the "subjectivist" side of not only audio, but any number of hobbies or pursuits. It’s an incredible confidence in your own subjective assessments, despite all the evidence we have for how bias works.

It IS understandable. I get it. Our own experience is the primary way we navigate the world. If we can’t rely on our experience...what can we rely on, right?

Problem is, life just isn’t that easy. Science was a long, hard won education for humanity, to get people willing to challenge their own perception and experiences, test them, put them up for scrutiny, and accept when they are wrong. It’s really hard to do, and most people just don’t want to, especially when a particular set of experiences is really pleasurable, or meaningful...like the buzz of a new piece of gear making an "improvement" to your system.

For anyone out of left field to come into my world and tell me I can’t possibly trust what I hear gives me the creeps. Plain and simple.

That’s only because you don’t seem to understand, or care about, the problems of human bias. What in the world is "creepy" about simply admitting you are fallible?

My son was in a trial for a new drug to treat peanut allergies. It gathered over 500 people who were severely allergic to peanuts to be part of the study. The study was run in the "gold standard" way, double blind, with a control group on a placebo, the others getting the "real drug." The drug consisted of ever increasing amounts of peanut protein to get the allergic person’s system more and more tolerant to peanut protein over time. The control/placebo group got mere flour that looked exactly the same. Again...neither the doctors nor the subjects ever knew if they were getting a placebo or the real peanut protein.

The study finished after 6 months and blood/skin tests were taken to measure all the immune markers for allergy, and compared to the tests taken before the subjects began the study. It was a huge success. Those like my son who were on the real peanut protein showed huge differences in peanut tolerance at the end of the study. Where once the teeniest bit of peanut put him in the hospital, now he was eating a peanut a day no problem.

But here’s the thing. During the study, everyone had a symptom diary and reported into the clinic every two weeks for updosing. Numerous subjects on the placebo ALSO reported similar symptoms to those who were actually taking the peanut dose: scratchy throat, itching, stomach upset, nausea, etc. In fact, during the study the clinic doctors would try to guess who was on placebo and who was on peanut protein and the kept track of their guesses, inferring from the reports of symptoms among the study group. It turned out they were wrong 50 percent of the time! Almost always simply guessing!

In other words, the power of placebo and expectation etc is so strong that merely taking what people THOUGHT was something they were allergic to, or even COULD be taking, was enough to bring on subjective symptoms.

This is why studies are run the way they are, with the controls of the doctors not knowing who is on the drug (so they don’t influence the outcome) and the patients don’t know, with a placebo control group.
Then at the end if they are evaluating what type of symptoms to expect from this treatment (and results) they results of the real drug effects can rise above the "noise" of the effects shared between the placebo and non-placebo group. It helps them discern what are "real" effects from the drug from the merely subjective effects that come from simply taking a new pill, or thinking you are taking the drug. If they only gave the drug to everyone, they would not know to what degree symptoms from the treatment were likely psychological expectation brought on simply by being given a pill, vs physical symptoms actually caused by the drug. THAT’s why it’s so important to control for human bias when you really want to understand what is going on.

So my question to you is: do you think science has got all this stuff wrong? That all these strenuous attempts to control for variables is wasted time and they should just give a drug and ask someone if they feel better? Would you, if you were in the study say "I don’t need all those controls. We can trust my subjective reports for accuracy?"

I’d like to know your answer, though I’m first going with the presumption that you actually accept the validity of the scientific method.

The question left then is: why in the world do you think bias is going to be a big problem that requires controlling for in so many areas of human study...but somehow YOU and other audiophiles are immune to it, and can simply trust your subjective impressions as veridical and accurate?Why this strange exception for audio...as if bias effects wouldn’t operate in that domain of our perception?  (It does, it’s provable).

Hearing tests are a form of blind testing what range of tones you can hear.  Would you actually dispute the results of your hearing test and say "I don't care what you say, I believe I can hear above 20 Hz and so that's a fact!" ?

As I said, most people accept science...for other people. But if it comes to putting their own subjective experiences under the microscope, suddenly science doesn’t apply to them and "You can’t tell me I can’t trust my own perception!"

And should anyone point out that, sorry, you, me, all of us are fallible in our perception then it’s the person pointing this out who gets shouted down and often insulted. People are just so emotionally attached to their own subjectivity...that’s what you get.

Very well put prof, I doffs me hat to ya.
And to Ralph’s (Atmasphere) saying of "expectation bias"

Cheers George

George
I was trying hard to ignore you but...
If you are going to insist in quoting me then do so IN FULL, not just taking a small section of my post which put of context with the rest of the post changes its meaning entirely.
You know EXACTLY what I am talking about.
You should really know better than to resort to low down underhand tricks like that.
Does it make you feel better to pull such stunts?

Says all I need to know about you......

And yes I will not be surprised if this post is removed once George sees it and spits his dummy out over being called out.