Listening is subjective... we have no choice, we can take objective measurements, but ultimately all listening is subjective. Even a blind or double blind listening session is subjective to some extent. Keep reading...
I recently watched a very intriguing
podcast by Stereophile's John Atkinson of Stereophile where he discussed human perception as it relates to audio. He discussed some audio studies that he has participated in as well others that he is familiar with and anecdotal experiences as well. This podcast isn't a typical Stereophile article where potential advertising dollars are at risk... if you are interested I encourage you to slog through the dull bits, there are some significant nuggets in there. His comments don't "answer" the mysteries of audio, but they certainly make you look at many of our everyday audio controversies differently.
In short, he discusses how our expectations can create our aural reality. One example he cites is the initial reaction to the original Edison recordings where they were considered "flawless recreations"... i.e., since people had no previous experience with reproduced audio, even the relatively crude early recordings were perceived as being exact reproductions and indiscernible from the original because people had no expectations. He discusses several other examples of how our experience and expectations color our perception of reality. Another interesting one is a test that was performed at Acoustic Research. In this case there is a flashing light in a dark room... when the light changes location, the viewer's brain keeps it in the previous location and eventually slowly pans it across the field until it is in the correct location instead of simply relocating it... because the viewer thought he knew where it was. (Listen to the podcast, it is pretty intriguing.)
The bottom line, our expectations have such a strong and convincing effect that we are certain when we hear this or that. For example, if a forum member ships me his favorite cables and I hear no change over my typical cables it is likely due to the fact that I didn't expect there to be a difference.... conversely, he was hoping these cables would aid his search for audio nirvana... and when he installs them, they do.
I realize this asks more questions than it answers, but I think it answers how an AC line cord can have an audible effect... an effect that the happy owner is so convinced of, or how a number of other seemingly impossible solutions can make some people satisfied customers when others scratch their heads. I am not suggesting that anyone who has heard a difference with Mpingo discs etc. is a fool... hell, I've heard the difference, but then it faded much like the light in the AR study... but I am suggesting that we need more study in this area.
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