So how much do you think the placebo effect impacts our listening preferences?

“So how much do you think the placebo effect impacts our listening preferences?"

Pretty much totally.
Only Miller thinks he is totally objective.
And he is wrong.

He denies the results of many many scientific experiments.  But then he denies science most of the time anyway.

He believes what arrives in his brain from his ears is always the totally objective truth and nothing else is relevant.
He is wrong.

He is no more wrong that those who think that all audiophile impressions are pure subjectives impressions to be eliminated...

Reality is more complex than what those who argue here one against the others think...

I never negate myself the pervasing presence of biases positive or negative one, biases to be eliminated and biases to be cultivated...

I never put all the eggs of my audio basket in the engineering design upgrade market either.... i looked for ways to embed any system with science at hand or in some cases without any science available to me, but only my ears, in strings of CUMULATIVE listening experiments...

Call that an audio journey...

Then i prefer Millercarbon "alleged" ignorance to the "alleged" knowledgeable believer in engineering design power only, with their systematic blindtests, they never used anyway save in shows and arguments...

I dont need systematic blind test to tune my room nor to eliminate vibrations and to control the electrical noise floor...Simple informal occasional accidental or implemented blindtest of my own will do it....At no cost....

When you buy an headphone if you mod it, damp it, anyway possible the difference between before and after are relatively big sometimes NEVER colossal... Because you are stuck with the acoustical properties of the shell chosen by the designer...

This is true. Great information!

I love a good audio placebo effect - especially if it's cheap. I know I'm susceptible to my audio perception being amazingly transformed simply by being told something about the sound source or given a suggestion of what I should be hearing. Ever hear those evil rock 'n roll records played backwards before someone tells you what the devil's words are supposed to be? I never can make out a single word until I'm told what the words are supposed to be, and then I hear them suddenly very clearly, and can't unhear them. Also, what I'm looking at makes a big difference for me. If I can see that I'm in a wide open space I hear more spaciousness, even when I'm wearing headphones. Walking at night with headphones can be amazing.  
Audio is lacking in information, forcing our brains to make up what's not actually detected by inference from other senses. Just like the spinning ballerina silhouette illusion - I can't determine which way she is spinning with the information given, but my mind makes a decision in ways I know not and it's very difficult at that point for me to envision her spinning the other way. People talk about depth and layering in audio. With our visual system we actually have depth detection from both triangulation and shifts with small head motions, as well as comparing relative sizes of know objects at a distance. With sound it's not nearly as precise, and what one person perceives from a pair of speakers as depth and layering another person with perfectly good hearing may perceive as something less good. There's a lot of corrective imagining going on to create the effect of audible depth because what is actually reaching your ears is significantly different than what a real signal at the perceived distance would be. I used to say you have to mentally cross your ears correctly to hear the effect, like those picture books with the repeating patterns. If you get your eyes set correctly you'll "see" the 3D shape. If you do it wrong everything will be perceived as inverted, quite awkward and unnatural, but you'll still see the shape of the teapot or whatever. I know the same can happen for me with audio, and a depth effect can be created with some equalization effects. This sounds very bad though if my brain refuses to decode it as depth. Instead I just get strange tone from a sound source that I'm perceiving as being closer to me. 

Headphones = less headache. I understand that you can doctor and Taylor the sound to your liking when you deal with a loudspeaker system with room acoustics and speaker placement and swapping cables, etc.
However, the money required to get it right is vastly greater than the money spent on a good headphone system.


In my opinion, you definitely get more bang for your buck with a quality headphone system.

I’ve chased the dragon with loud speakers for 25 years. Spent tens of thousands of dollars in the process.
I put together my headphone system in just a few purchases and relatively speaking, not that much money spent.
It’s gotten me more enjoyment with less money spent and less time invested than the loudspeaker systems I’ve had over 25 years.

But that’s me. I’m just giving my experience. I’m sure many people disagree.