Perfect Path "Solutions" (PPS) eMat

As everyone knows, you can find other places on the internet (and threads here) where people will mock others for claiming that they hear differences in amplifiers, dacs, cables, and power cords. Basically everything besides speakers...

It’s really all about where you draw the line, and whether you’re willing to experiment with things just over that edge. If you go far enough back, you can find some post of mine citing expectation biases and discussing how it’s just impossible for different power cables to change the sound. I mean, they’re before the amp’s power supply!?!? If it’s actually correctly installed, and providing AC without limiting current, how could different cords possible influence the sound??

Well, one day I gave a different cable a shot and damn, it turns out my knowledge of how music reproduction worked wasn’t sufficient to guide me in this domain, because it really did make a difference.

Like @audio2design, I’ve taught about expectation biases. I did so in top research universities and even have an international "paper of the year award" for a theory about how expectation biases work to change judgement, behavior, and motivation.

But while expectation biases nicely explain why "fancy" looking cords sound better, they don’t do so well with the fact that I heard these cords sound worse than stock on one amplifier but better than stock on another. And they really didn’t help my experience that I could iterate through different power cords with any given piece of gear and hear each push the sound in different directions, liking certain cords on some gear, but not on others.

Yes, expectations shape everything, but so do physics. It’s hard to differentiate the two, and almost completely irrelevant to do so if you’re only working on a single system built for your own two ears. Try things and choose what sounds better is a pretty simple decision rule and doesn’t require anything but experimentation and listening.

Yes, expectations shape everything, but so do physics. It’s hard to differentiate the two, and almost completely irrelevant to do so if you’re only working on a single system built for your own two ears. Try things and choose what sounds better is a pretty simple decision rule and doesn’t require anything but experimentation and listening.

Thanks for your interesting posts and experience....
i am happy to read other post than attack against people experience or gear....

Personally i never tried to prove anything, except for myself to give a better audio experience....Only listenings experiments could do it for me...

it is not necessary to wait for upgrade money nor to a scientific explanation that are not always easy to find in specific case anyway to begin experimenting and listening....

I think it would be pretty absurd to invoke expectation bias for being the ONLY explanation about my improved audio system for example by my homemade devices controls creation...In some case with some device yes....we deceive ourself sometimes, i experience that also...But in many case not at all... Because the audible effect is too large and too precise to be negated or doubted....

Expectation bias are well suit to explain for a single experiment and a single action, not so well to explain a continuous incremental improvement each week with some experiments for 2 years and this despite continous judgement errors also... Any possible experiment need some feed back verification and corrections to eliminate biases or bad choices...

It will be like accusing someone to hallucinate over 2 years, controlling his own mind like a yogi in a positive thinking act that would work nevermind what he will add to his audio system...

I am not that powerful in my expectation will power conscious or not....I need different materials and some varied devices to change the working of my system for the better...Biases will not do for 2 years... Alas!

And all experiments are not all positives, experiments in listening is a guided feedback in installation devices... It is the way and context which make me able to imagine and create improvement by changing conditions and materials and eliminate my biases or correcting them...

Only limited narrow mind that never experience by themselves invoke "placebo" or "expectation bias" to explain anything they dont like and in whatever context....There is even some that pretend to be able to judge with only a look...Clever people? or deluded one ? make your choice, mine is made....

Expectation bias explanation has not a so broad back and so great power so to speak to explain everything and more...

Sometimes if you put shungite rock on top of an already warm sounding amplifier you must attribute the sudden increased sound compression to the minerals you just put there and not to your power of imagination....It is easy to repeat this experience and test it with adding a piece of quartz that will have the opposite effect.....I call that a little experiment, no bias here... Except in the mind of those who prefer to keep their blinders and going on calling  "placebo" "hallucination" or expectation bias anything they dont like or believe in....Myself i dont believe i only try....The only science that matters is the science of today working for tomorrow...Not scientist dogmas....

Science is complex interpenetration of varied fields studying complex phenomena...

The "timbre" phenomenon for example  for the description of his modelling factors need how many specific  disciplinary concepts to be understood? Judging then the timbre factor a subjective colored bias is ridiculous.... Someone supposed to be a scientist here precisely did that....

Then when you dont like a donkey and you want to sell it  your bias is that the donkey dont walk with enough energy the donkey indeed had his own bias and you dont like it..... 😁

Bias are always there anyway, we are not in the obligation to stay with only them we can try something else.... 



My best to you....

@mahgister. Just a question. How many system's have you set up? Just yours. Maybe a friend or two? Experience is always the best teacher especially when you make a mistake. Some of us have enough experience that we can tell how difficult a room is going to be. Its not that we can't make it better but there are some problems you just can not solve. Some rooms are better than others and when I walk into a room I know right away if I can turn it into a SOTA sound experience. I have told people not to waste a lot of money in a specific room because no matter what we do it will never be SOTA. The best thing to do in a terrible room is a near field system if the person will go with it. I actually refused jobs because I did not like the situation and did not want to be associated with it.
How a system is set up is very important but so isn't the equipment particularly the speakers. It is all important but some things are horribly over estimated in importance and overpriced. A lot of the stuff like the Hallograms are based on totally false assumptions. Mahgister you are totally right that you do not have to spend a fortune to have a brilliant system and you can certainly improve the experience with proper acoustic management. But it is not rocket science and you do not have to spend a fortune doing it either. 
I've got to get back to work a patient almost succeeded in cutting his thumb off.

Mahgister you are totally right that you do not have to spend a fortune to have a brilliant system and you can certainly improve the experience with proper acoustic management. But it is not rocket science and you do not have to spend a fortune doing it either.

You already know that even if the hallograph experience interested me for example i NEVER recommend to people to buy costly tweaks at all...Not because they cannot work, to know that, we must experiment, but because they are too costly sometimes for what they give or too easy to replicate at no cost....

I recommend to experiment ourselves...creativity and partaking creativity is my business not selling costly products...

I did it and i dont need to buy anything...

I just dont like when someone attack many satisfied customers because of this purchase with only no sound reason except an alleged kowledge....

For example i created my room tuner after experimenting with the idea behind the "Argent roomlens" product which is sold more than one thousand dollars...

I recreated it in few hours and probably improve it....I recommend to people to experiment with it not to spend money...

All consumerism and all market sells half truths...

The truth is : dont upgrade before knowing what your system can really do, working at his best potential level when it is rightfully embedded in these 3 dimensions: mechanical, electrical and acoustical.... Is it not simple?

Doing that is possible without buying anything costly...

It is my experience.... And i dont pretend to have the best audio system at all.... Just enough good to make for me the idea to upgrade useless....

My best to you ....

The best thing to do in a terrible room is a near field system if the person will go with it.

Just a remark coming from my experience...

I already have a small room 13 feet almost square...

Near listening help in a bad room in the sense that it "seems" a little less worst and it is in some measure...The direct sound coming from the speakers help.... Thats all....

My acoustical experiment worked improving my near listening (3 feet) also...

Then EVEN in near listening a room must be treated and under control acoustically... It is a myth that with near listening you are free to let your room untouched...In a non treated room, even in near listening the "timbre" experience will not be so natural and the imaging not so good....

It is my experience....

By the way i never pretended to have more experience than you for example in using an equalizer... I dont doubt your expertise with that and will ask you help when i will need to...

But i have also my experience and some unusual devices or materials did unexpected things for me...I dont want to be trusted on words but i dont want to be mocked either....Thats all....