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

Okay
@soix 

Read all of this carefully before replying...

The problem with folks who tend to disagree with others on this site is...
1) they are too opinionated (and easily offended)
2) they don't provide any backing to their claims (believe they have all the answers)
3) they don't understand how to have an honest discussion (ramblings, going off topic, etc. like a high school student)

So we disagree about something. WONDERFUL.
Nothing is going to change in real life for either of us.

So you're saying that no single headphone in the world can sound like a speaker? For example, have superb imaging and soundstaging capabilities? Have you heard headphones that cost more than $20? Are you limited to your local Walmart for audio needs? Have you actually worked with professional studio monitors that cost as much as your house?

Have you ever worked in studios, with audio professionals, or even spoken to industry leaders? 🤔 I don't know...but the funny thing is you are so deeply concerned about someone else's viewpoints...you really need to get a life.

Yes, the truth might well be out there, but finding it seems to be quite another matter.
https://www.soundonsound.com/mastering
https://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1

The Audio Circle of Confusion is a very useful concept...
 thanks to cd318 for the short useful article....

It only confirm my point about the supremum importance of the acoustical embeddings controls over almost anything and even more powerful than the completely underestimated mechanical and electrical noise floor control...( in my limited experience)

We must begin somewhere and we will not change the general situation in recordings industry in the near time to come ... We must begin with our audio room and then we will cease to buy bad recordings......






For the headphones debate the discussion is impossible because people like what they already own like i was in love with my headphones :

I never said that headphones are bad and not audiophile matters...I say that i dont feel the need to use them at all anymore and i try to explain why....

Second i said that the atmosphere and acoustial potential settings of a room so complex they are, contrary to the FIXED limitations of shells and drivers of any headphones, can be modified MORE EASILY than an headphone shells, like some "acoustical clay", with PASSIVE usual materials treatment and ACTIVE Helmholtz resonators controls and others complementary unorthodox ways....I never said that acoustical treatment and controls are easy to made.... I ONLY said that it will not need to cost big money at all to do it ... i did it at peanuts cost then😊.....

Then almost no headphones can give you what a "relatively well chosen" speakers/room will give after some acoustical modifications...But YES it is way more easy to use a good headphone than transforming the speakers/room relation....It is way more easy to buy costly gear than studying,listening,experimenting and creating your own solution...I did it not because i was clever than anybody here.... I did it because i was dreaming audiophiles dreams WITHOUT the money to BUY them... Any man is resourceful in adversity or he die....I was....

No need to use sarcasm or insult.... Little Brain work is enough and experiments...

If someone disagree with what i just said , it is simply that his room/speakers are uncontrolled, or his choice of speakers underpar, or the two....






Am i deaf to think that i prefer now my room/speakers to my 7 headphones?

In the beginning with the same speakers it was the complete opposite... I begins my audio journey modding my headphones and refining them....I quit the headphone forums when i begin to adress mechanical, electrical and acoustical working embedding dimensions of my system/room and i come here....

The only change in my last 2 years are the fine tuning of my acoustical controls and also mechanical more effective vibrations controls ....Nothing else.... Same dac, same amplifier, same speakers ....

I will not pay 10,000 bucks for a better headphone system than my last 7 one.....I dont fell this need no more....





« For simpleton coins had only 2 opposing sides , which they flip, after loading them on one side, 😁 ignoring that it is a "revealing" third dimensional object»-Groucho Marx 🤓

Real Audiophiles are too smart and special to be affected by any placebo effect. 

I am very tired of the use of "placebo effects" by some...

The most powerful placebo effects in audio threads are induced by costly gear upgrades debate and marketing...

Not so much in a strings of hundred ongoing CUMULATIVE listenings experiments for a long time period with the same gear....My case....Placebo plays in my case also but not so much  only and always in the same  singular negative way ....

Placebo dont explain mechanical, acoustical electrical noise floor controls by itself only, by the way....

And placebos effects are not only negative"illusions" to eradicate, they can be linked to LEARNED positive biases, like a direction of flow in a road...It is a COMPLEX concept....

If the complexity of ANY concept exceed your processing brain dont use it to insult in a free manner all a category of people indiscriminately...

Thanks....

I am not averse (see, didn't include anyone else in my pronouncement) to finding those quality pieces for less money; sometimes it pans out, most times I realize that something is not quite right for whatever reason, and I am ultimately dissatisfied with it.  SO you need to look yourself in the eye and be honest with what kind of person type are you - the kind who listens for yourself and can be happy with a "good deal" or "giant killer", the kind who says "It's got to cost $$ or it's no good", or possibly "I can't tell the difference between A and B, but if so-and-so says it's good, that's good enough for me".   You will save yourself a lot of time and money and heartache in acknowledging what type you are.  Coming from a musical background, I would initially buy a cheaper model guitar and tell myself that it was just as good as the more expensive model but then spend lots of money and time upgrading parts, and still ending up getting rid of that guitar and buying what I really wanted in the first place.  I now try to catch myself before I go buy the "Junior" version of something and ultimately spend more money in the long run.  Understanding that sometimes you just can't swing (insert appropriate amount of money here) right now but if the one you really want isn't too too far out of reach, hold off until you can get it (maybe used).