The Half Life of Expectation Bias

[thedudeabides]

chasing absolute fidelity in the name of closer experience with music we love is how i view the hobby.
but music is valid on any level.

Thank you Mike for summarizing this issue in its simplest terms.

Suffice to say I am in full agreement.

However, I suspect there are those on this forum that will find some grounds to disagree with the above.

GG

 

[mep]

To no avail, I have been trying to make the same points that Mike elaborated on. We have reached the point where we are talking past each other once again. I find this latest argument to be pointless and thus a waste of everyone's time.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

For once I find myself in agreement with the subjectivists (Oh! the horror , Oh the ignominy ) . I believe that a great system add to the enjoyment , it is not that one cannot enjoy the music played on anything, I have enjoyed music on my HTC One speakers' but a better system allow more to be perceived more to listen to , more to enjoy in other words more music.
As in many things it is a matter of balance, when a person comes to a point of not enjoying music unless it is reproduced on a given medium or through a High End system then Ii believe that person is missing out a lot a it but there is no doubt in my mind that the better system put us closer to the music, hence , heightened enjoyment of it, all that IMHO, YMMV, etc...

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

last night my speaker designer, Kevin Malmgren, and his partner with Evolution Acoustics, Jonathan Tinn, arrived to to do the final set-up on my Evolution Acoustics MM7's. we eventually sat down to listen to music about 10pm to prepare for today's technical set-up work. we listened to vinyl until 2am. did our collective musical enjoyment benefit from the degree of audio fidelity we heard? absolutely.

it was a rock'n session.

did we care how much the sound influenced our degree of satisfaction? or maybe it was how real the music sounded relating the sound to our memory of live instruments? or maybe it was just the actual recordings from our memory that triggered those positive thoughts and feelings? or maybe it was the phyiscality of the music from the big boy rig?

could equal level of enjoyment be percieved by other groups from the same music from a clock radio? who can say?....it's purely a subjective question. would common sense lead one to expect that a fully mature no-holds-bared big rig audio system can touch musical satisfaction buttons that a clock radio cannot? sure.

but common sense is not so common after all. and this is a web debate about subjective questions that have no completely black and white answers.

chasing absolute fidelity in the name of closer expereince with music we love is how i view the hobby.

but music is valid on any level.

I find nothing there to disagree with.

Tim

 

[JackD201]

…….. a better system allow more to be perceived more to listen to , more to enjoy in other words more music.

Yes!

 

[Ron Party]

Yes, indeed. How becoming is it that the well to do just found another way of looking down upon the less fortunate. I take it back... it is not a risk of elitism; it is in fact elistism and elitism gone rampant at that ... the well-to-do, who can afford better systems than those without the means, are explicitly in a position to enjoy the music more. More money = better system = more enjoyment. It must be nice living in such a rarefied world. I now have music enjoyment envy.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Yes, indeed. How becoming is it that the well to do just found another way of looking down upon the less fortunate. I take it back... it is not a risk of elitism; it is in fact elistism and elitism gone rampant at that ... the well-to-do, who can afford better systems than those without the means, are explicitly in a position to enjoy the music more. More money = better system = more enjoyment. It must be nice living in such a rarefied world. I now have music enjoyment envy.

I think it's a different question about dollars = better performance than the question of better performance = more enjoyment.

the question of what is the best path to better performance has so many answers.

methinks you want to pass moral judgment.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yes, indeed. How becoming is it that the well to do just found another way of looking down upon the less fortunate. I take it back... it is not a risk of elitism; it is in fact elistism and elitism gone rampant at that ... the well-to-do, who can afford better systems than those without the means, are explicitly in a position to enjoy the music more. More money = better system = more enjoyment. It must be nice living in such a rarefied world. I now have music enjoyment envy.

Not to worry, Ron. If more resolution = more music (a position I firmly disagree with), then a decent headphone rig will smoke most "big boy" systems on every front except scale. Your proletariat status denies you almost nothing.

And don't get me wrong, big boys, I thoroughly enjoy listening to good recordings reproduced in great detail. I just experience it as a separate thing from enjoying the music. I get that out of pretty basic reproduction. Enjoy your varying mileage.

Tim

 

[rockitman]

methinks you want to pass moral judgment.

The class envy liberal elite would never do that !!!

 

[thedudeabides]

I now have music enjoyment envy.

Why?

 

[thedudeabides]

Your proletariat status denies you almost nothing.

Tim

Who said it did?

 

[DaveyF]

Not to worry, Ron. If more resolution = more music (a position I firmly disagree with), then a decent headphone rig will smoke most "big boy" systems on every front except scale.


Tim

That's a personal opinion, which I don't happen to agree with. IMO, a decent system will smoke a decent headphone rig any day. To me, music just doesn't sound great when I have it coming to me from two small speakers attached to my ear. The overall 'gestalt' of what I hear in 'life' just isn't there when everything else is blocked out-- ala headphone listening.YMMV.

 

[rockitman]

That's a personal opinion, which I don't happen to agree with. IMO, a decent system will smoke a decent headphone rig any day. To me, music just doesn't sound great when I have it coming to me from two small speakers attached to my ear. The overall 'gestalt' of what I hear in 'life' just isn't there when everything else is blocked out-- ala headphone listening.YMMV.

headphone cowboy's. I really feel the music that way....

 

[Orb]

Not to worry, Ron. If more resolution = more music (a position I firmly disagree with), then a decent headphone rig will smoke most "big boy" systems on every front except scale. Your proletariat status denies you almost nothing.

And don't get me wrong, big boys, I thoroughly enjoy listening to good recordings reproduced in great detail. I just experience it as a separate thing from enjoying the music. I get that out of pretty basic reproduction. Enjoy your varying mileage.

Tim

Problem is headphones in general suck bad at measurements, and I mean bad
Pair matching in many cases is very poor and so is their FR, and influence to vibration-resonance from headband or casing; in all of these usually worst than well engineered and built high end speakers.

Sure they do not have room issues, but then not all music is binuaral (another challenge in using headphones).

Cheers
Orb

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

You guys need to read more carefully. I said headphone rigs excell at resolution. And they do. Feel, experience...different question. Different subject. In fact, the whole thing is a distraction from the lovely conversation we were having...forget I brought it up.

Tim

 

[Orb]

You guys need to read more carefully. I said headphone rigs excell at resolution. And they do. Feel, experience...different question. Different subject. In fact, the whole thing is a distraction from the lovely conversation we were having...forget I brought it up.

Tim

Not sure how one can have more resolution when it has worst pair matching between L/R, resonance from the headband, and a FR that can swing pretty severely and resolution/FR that can be influenced how fitted to one's pinna that may change each time headphone is put on
Say compare this to Magico S1 or S3.

Interestingly headphones can vary quite lot even between models (same brand) when it comes to measurement, but many do not seem to notice this going by forums *shrug* - not a dig at you Tim but something I find interesting as it raises thoughts on how well we "accommodate" possible and certain short comings.

Cheers
Orb

 

[microstrip]

Yes, indeed. How becoming is it that the well to do just found another way of looking down upon the less fortunate. I take it back... it is not a risk of elitism; it is in fact elistism and elitism gone rampant at that ... the well-to-do, who can afford better systems than those without the means, are explicitly in a position to enjoy the music more. More money = better system = more enjoyment. It must be nice living in such a rarefied world. I now have music enjoyment envy.

Perhaps what is separating us now is what is meant by music enjoyment. I know from experience I enjoy music more in a good seat in the music hall than in in the back side galleries. Is it an elitist attitude?

 

[Randy Bessinger]

Not sure how one can have more resolution when it has worst pair matching between L/R, resonance from the headband, and a FR that can swing pretty severely and resolution/FR that can be influenced how fitted to one's pinna that may change each time headphone is put on
Say compare this to Magico S1 or S3.

Interestingly headphones can vary quite lot even between models (same brand) when it comes to measurement, but many do not seem to notice this going by forums *shrug* - not a dig at you Tim but something I find interesting as it raises thoughts on how well we "accommodate" possible and certain short comings.

Cheers
Orb

symth realiser anyone?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Not sure how one can have more resolution when it has worst pair matching between L/R, resonance from the headband, and a FR that can swing pretty severely and resolution/FR that can be influenced how fitted to one's pinna that may change each time headphone is put on
Say compare this to Magico S1 or S3.

Interestingly headphones can vary quite lot even between models (same brand) when it comes to measurement, but many do not seem to notice this going by forums *shrug* - not a dig at you Tim but something I find interesting as it raises thoughts on how well we "accommodate" possible and certain short comings.

Cheers
Orb

And speakers can vary audibly, suffering FR and pair matching anomolies when you turn your head an inch. You could have your head in a vice and you'd have much greater coherency problems with multiple driver speakers than with headphones. Are you talking about cheap closed headphones? I've never heard of (or heard) many of the problems you're talking about. Got sources? You're right that a lot of headphones, even very good ones, have inaccurate FR, often because they are deliberately trying to compensate for the lack of room gain listeners are accustomed to. On the other hand, you can buy a pair of IEMs for <$200 that are as flat as Magicos in an anechoic chamber. You might not like the sound of them, though. Most people find them unnatural. But yes, when single drivers are millimeters from your eardrums and have sealed your ear canals in the process of insertion -- no room noise, no room distortion, no coherency or crossover or cabinet resonance issues -- it's about as close as you can have to a line into your brain, yes. resolution of detail can be stunning. Presentation? Staging? Very different. An acquired taste to say the least. But I can't say I've run into many people who don't believe they hear more detail on headphones. YMMV.

Tim

 

[microstrip]

(...) Presentation? Staging? Very different. An acquired taste to say the least. (...)
Tim

An acquired taste? Are you saying that properly reproducing something that is encoded in the recording is an acquired taste?