i see a subset of listeners who are serious Wadax intenders, who are open to actually buy one, as coming to the party open handed.
then i see the others who are not serious Wadax intenders as carrying their baggage of prior opinions and relationships. these can effect their views. especially since the price of the Wadax has the potential to effect their neutrality.
it's just the way it works. always.
none of the Munich Wadax deniers were actually serious Wadax intenders. no problem, but they are more likely to be affected by the price negatively. and it's natural and understandable. "i don't care anyway one way or the other, and at that price it's not as good as my turntable, or i prefer discs, or my dog ate my homework".
so my first question is always; are you seriously considering to buy the Wadax with your own money? then; i pay attention to what they DO. extreme prices do have these effects, especially in a product category with so many alternatives and alliances involved.
Mike, respectfully, I am not a psychologist and you are not a psychologist. Yes, pre-existing biases can affect thought processes. But to say this is "the way it works always" is applying a scientific level of certitude to unpredictable human behavior.
You are suggesting that I am unavoidably personally biased, so I will answer personally. I may be delusional, but I truly believe I tend to be less susceptible to these kinds of biases than many other audiophiles.
For example, I have held for decades a bias against the sound of metal dome tweeter Wilson speakers. Small and midsize soft dome tweeter Wilson speakers never interested me, either. Yet the very first time I heard the XVX, I believed it was something very special, and with each additional listening session I have never stopped raving about it.
I made an actual purchase decision on the Pendragons – six years ago now -- after listening to the speaker for only four hours. Since then I have learned a lot about other speaker systems, and, especially, about horns and high-sensitivity cone systems. I am now aware of likely shortcomings of the Pendragons -- and of low-sensitivity loudspeakers in general -- that I did not understand when I first auditioned the Pendragons.
No cognitive dissonance protection mechanism has kicked in to make me pretend that I have not learned things as my experience has proceeded. Compared to some other audiophiles I think I am relatively intellectually honest.
Not having a dog in this hunt does not, itself, somehow psychologically conjure up my own dog in this hunt.
The fact that I like Lucasz personally does not factor into my listening impressions. The fact that I have friends who own Lampizators does not factor into my listening impressions. I also have friends who own MSB and Bricasti and Schitt and EMM; this does not factor into my listening impressions.
I am not factoring the prices of the DACs we are listening to into my listening impressions. The most expensive DAC we have listened to is 12 times more expensive than the least expensive DAC we have listened to. We listened to both of them the same way.
Do biases exist? Of course they do. I suspect a psychologist would say they are unavoidable. But my unusual personal situation here -- never having purchased a DAC, never having owned a DAC and not having to make a purchase decision here -- makes me more bias-free than is typical.
Don't you think a psychologist -- as well as most laymen -- would consider you to have a stronger bias in this situation (as a Wadax owner) than I do (as a don't-own-anything observer)?
I promise you, Mike, that when I sit down to these listening sessions the only things I'm trying to figure out are: 1) do I hear sonic differences, and 2) which sonic differences do I personally prefer?
