Is positive reinforcement why things are sounding better?

With a highly resolving system, I can hear differences in almost any upgrades or adjustment I make to the system. It then all comes down to what your ears want your system to sound like. My audio journey has become very simple that way. So positive reinforcement is no longer there.

if you dont know and cannot interpret acoustically with the right set of concepts what you are hearing it is a mere change of S.Q. motivated by unknown factors or a bias to hear some change which we also inevitably project on the change phenomenon with no concepts to guide us consciously ...

Suppose you know your gear as an acoustic experience and suppose you know what parameters change you had done till the new piece of gear was added and their perceived results, for example timbre, bass, imaging, soundstage listener envelopment , sound source width , crosstalk , position , dynamics, reverberation time etc ; then when you add a co0mponent and install it in the right way, your body (not your ego ) remember the last S.Q. experience and can spot the change and interpret it as a feeling ...Your experienced ego will then come and think about the right concept to associate with the feeling but your ego must know the concept to begin with .😁

To verify what i am just claim : ask your old mother in law who never hear a stereo system "consciously" and in an educated way , ask her to describe the sound . She will say " this is good my dear" , what else could she said she had no concepts about sound parameters.😁

i just added silicone rings on the tubes of my preamplifier, my body/brain sensed immediately a change my experienced conscious ego interpreted FEW MINUTES LATER as a better imaging and a more detailed timbre effect without loosing the mids frequencies naturalness and with no loss in the bass and better highs frequencies .

The ego is full of biases positive acquired once as in the journey learning curve or acquired as negative biases related to hope, branded name, suggestion , marketing and ignorance but if our body /brain was trained for such in acoustics experiments it will be able to felt a real change and we may be able to interpret it because we had learned how to listen our memory feeling engraved in our body piloted by the set of concepts we studied and we will need to interpret any experience ......😊 If we never acquired these associated feelings with acoustic parameters modifications, the only evident feeling felt would be conditioned negative biases or false positive one .

This is why seasoned reviewers used to their room acoustic conditions or any acoustician know what he hear because it had felt it first and recognize which concepts he needs to interpret it ...

This is my description of my own experience as i understand it ...

We are not consumers passive conditioned dogs we can learn consciously using our own sense apparatus and body doing so ...

You cannot build a system/room at optimal level accordingly to his design quality with only negative -placebo effects, suggestions , and price tags and random modifications only .. You need to train your hearing body with the controlled set of parameters in the three working mechanical,electrical and acoustical dimensions. Then you learned consciously learning also to hear your body reactions and then associate it with the right concepts .

I have returned far more things than I have kept within my system and over many years. As @ghdprentice posted. You will know when you've made a bad choice on a piece of gear, cable or even tweak. 

confirmation bias does not last very long.  over the longer run is where you tell if an upgrade really is an upgrade.  lots of listening to lots of music, often in a relaxed state not really paying full attention, something will make you take notice.  hopefully something spectacular!  

If you dont know anything else some confirmation biases will had an indefinite life span...😁

I really thought my Tannoy concentric dual gold which were legendary speakers, i really think for the 40 years i owned them that they sound good...😁

in truth because i had no acoustics concepts at all , I didn’t knew and had no way of knowing that they sound atrociously UNDER their optimal potential optimal level...

I never knew it and alas! i sold them BEFORE learning acoustics...

It is how an ignorant can own a top speakers and had never listened to them really ...

This ignorant was me ... 😊

 What i just said is so true that my actual  modified low cost speakers deliver an experience which is by some acoustic factors better than my past Tannoy even if they are an inferior design  . Performance go with the rightfull optimal   way we use the speakers specs in a system /room . A better design as with my Tannoy is not enough. We need to install the speakers in his optimal settings. 😎

Then confirmation bias are not mere only short lived placebo illusion , they can be a rightful positive opinion about some speakers which delude us about these speakers real potential because we are ignorant .

it is the reason why many reviewers delude us without willing to do it... It is why price tags conditioning works... Or legendary good reputation ...Plug and play and if it is a good product it will play good ...😆

Not always sorry and never so much better than if you had learned how to use it at the optimum acoustic level ...😊