Do cables make a difference to your listening experience.

[danilo]

Expectation bias is real but I think there are ways around it. if we live with the same system day after day you can get to a point where you can't hear the wood for the trees, to coin a phrase. if I am trying to get a handle on it I like to imagine that it is someone else's system:

Say you went with a friend to the house of a friend of his where you have never been before, he has what looks like a pretty decent system. They go off out to get food and booze and leave you alone to play whatever music you want on the system. It isn't your system and you don't even know the owner so there is no bias, you play stuff and make a judgement on it, if you don't have a dog in the race it is much easier to be objective in your assessment.

One thing I have found doing this exercise is that your system immediately does not sound as good as you thought it did. That is quite unsettling.

Agreed.. that's a reasonably common phenomena though. I've experienced it as well.
Curiously, others whose systems impressed Me when I was at their homes, find similar experiences at my place.
System envy? or maybe we simply adapt to what we live with.

[Marco]

Try the experiment I suggested. Hey, it may be you have cracked it and it still sounds awesome. All I am saying is that we disregard the impact of our human psychology at our peril...

Indeed, but let's not forget that with expectation bias, the 'expectation' works BOTH ways!

Therefore, it's just as easy to 'imagine' no difference with cables, as it is the opposite, if your objectivist/scientific mindset 'tells' you that none should exist, thus that's what you 'expect', and so hear - or rather, don't....

Therefore, it's not only the ears of subjectivists that can be 'fooled'!

Marco.

[Macca]

Obviously. Just pointing out that it is harder to be unbiased if you have a dog in the race. Not just with cables but with anything. If it is someone else's system you are listening to it is much easier to hear what it is doing wrong because you are not familiar with it, you don't listen to it every day, and your brain has not 'papered over the cracks' like it has with your own set-up.

Hence if you can kid yourself that your system is someone else's system then it makes it easier to reach an objective assessment.

[Marco]

Indeed, I simply wanted to showcase that point, as so often it's only subjectivists who are credited with suffering from the effects of 'expectation bias'...!

I agree with your point, but I also think it works the other way too, when it's not your system, but rather one you know almost as well, belonging to a friend. That's why Ian often seeks my opinion (and I his) whenever either of us has made a change to our systems, with cables or whatever.

When you don't have a 'dog in the race', yet are intrinsically familiar with the system in question, it's also easy to identify real differences, or for that matter anything sonically amiss, for some other reason the owner may have subconsciously 'dialled out', due to the effects of familiarity

It's rather like not having seen an old friend for years, and then meeting up with them again: you're more likely to notice how much their appearance has changed, in the ensuing years, than someone, such as their partner, who looks at them everyday... Your knowledge of how they once looked is firmly embedded in your memory, so any changes to them since come sharply into focus.

Marco.

[Macca]

Yes that is what I am saying. Having a friend who is not afraid to say 'That sounds shit, mate' is really very useful, but you can't be dragging them round for a listen all the time which is why I find pretending it is not your own system to be a useful exercise..

[Marco]

Yes that is what I am saying. Having a friend who is not afraid to say 'That sounds shit, mate' is really very useful, but you can't be dragging them round for a listen all the time which is why I find pretending it is not your own system to be a useful exercise..

Indeed on both counts, and I've got more than one person to do that, who's ears I trust almost as much as my own. Their 'reality checks', in that respect, have been a major reason why I've made so few bad mistakes with hi-fi - and it's happened the other way round with them, too

Always useful to have good friends in this game

Marco.

[Joe]

Obviously. Just pointing out that it is harder to be unbiased if you have a dog in the race. Not just with cables but with anything.

Yeah, it's like watching Man Utd play Arsenal. You don't care who wins (ideally you'd like both sides to lose) but you can judge the match purely on its merits.

[struth]

Yeah, it's like watching Man Utd play Arsenal. You don't care who wins (ideally you'd like both sides to lose) but you can judge the match purely on its merits.

Matter of opinion

[Joe]

Well, just substitute the names of two clubs you couldn't give a toss about, I dunno, Huddersfield Town versus Port Vale; Cowdenbeath versus Queen of the South; San Marino versus Belarus.

[struth]

liverpool and celtic