An audiophile sounds off

[mroek]

Very interesting section, especially the second account.
The self-proclaimed audiophile Bruno Putzeys *saw* the CD being treated with some kind of brush, and subsequently he could hear improvements that had him devastated.

Unless I'm misinterpreting this, Mr. Putzeys *knows* that the changes are imaginary, and nonethless he could hear them clearly. Interesting to hear this coming from an audiophile. Although I suspect that other audiophiles will be less frank, both with themselves and with others...

 

[UglyAmerican]

I see similar examples of this

every weekend. Whenever I am working as a sound mixer (front-of-house engineer) for a band, I always leave one fader on the mixing console unconnected. I label this fader as "MAINS" and set it to a nominal level. Invariably at some point during the night a patron or club owner will come up and ask me to "turn it down a little". So I smile and and let the person see me nudge the "MAINS" fader down and ask them how it sounds. Needless to say the sound level hasn't changed but they give in to the power of suggestion and tell me it sounds better. They leave all happy and I get back to the music and my beer. The process only fails when it happens to be another sound mixer making the request as they know the "trick"!

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

every weekend. Whenever I am working as a sound mixer (front-of-house engineer) for a band, I always leave one fader on the mixing console unconnected. I label this fader as "MAINS" and set it to a nominal level. Invariably at some point during the night a patron or club owner will come up and ask me to "turn it down a little". So I smile and and let the person see me nudge the "MAINS" fader down and ask them how it sounds. Needless to say the sound level hasn't changed but they give in to the power of suggestion and tell me it sounds better. They leave all happy and I get back to the music and my beer. The process only fails when it happens to be another sound mixer making the request as they know the "trick"!

LOL. I used to do this when I was a kid and my dad would make me get up and turn the TV down. I would pretend like I was turning the knob, but of course I wasn't. "How is this?" "A little more." "How about now?" "OK, that's good!"

 

[tsg]

every weekend. Whenever I am working as a sound mixer (front-of-house engineer) for a band, I always leave one fader on the mixing console unconnected. I label this fader as "MAINS" and set it to a nominal level. Invariably at some point during the night a patron or club owner will come up and ask me to "turn it down a little". So I smile and and let the person see me nudge the "MAINS" fader down and ask them how it sounds. Needless to say the sound level hasn't changed but they give in to the power of suggestion and tell me it sounds better. They leave all happy and I get back to the music and my beer. The process only fails when it happens to be another sound mixer making the request as they know the "trick"!

We've done this with thermostats. In an office where you have a "complainer" (ie. no matter what the temperature is, he isn't happy about it), we've put thermostats on the wall that don't do anything (the important part is that it doesn't show the actual temperature). Most of the time it solves the problem. They are happy just to (believe they) have some control.

 

[FortyTwo]

Very interesting section, especially the second account.
The self-proclaimed audiophile Bruno Putzeys *saw* the CD being treated with some kind of brush, and subsequently he could hear improvements that had him devastated.

Unless I'm misinterpreting this, Mr. Putzeys *knows* that the changes are imaginary, and nonethless he could hear them clearly. Interesting to hear this coming from an audiophile. Although I suspect that other audiophiles will be less frank, both with themselves and with others...

Mr. Putzey was obviously relating that the placebo effect works even on those who are aware of it.

 

[jj]

Bruno is a good guy. He has a good grasp, generally, of how humans will use all information at their disposal (i.e. it's wired-in) to make a decision, even if they try not to use some particular information.

He's also been fighting the good fight here for a long, long time.

 

[bjb]

Yes, this happens occasionally to me during my electronics experiments. When I do recording or mixing, I sometimes spend 1/2 hour or so adjusting settings only to find I was adjusting the wrong channel! Because of this version of the placebo effect, I have to be very careful that I'm not fooling myself when I'm working with audio electronics. I'm an electrical engineer, not an audiophile, so as I am trying to make changes to sound, I have to be sure the changes are real and not imaginary.

 

[Moon-Spinner]

I use to work with a band that had a female singer. During the sound check she would do the usual “Test Test” in to the microphone, then make requests of what to change. Most of the time I would only pretend to adjust something and she would say “Yes, that sounds better”. One time she made a request to change something about her monitor, and I wasn’t even standing near the mixing console, but she didn’t see where I was and said “Yes, that sounds better”, the rest of the band looks to where I was standing and break out laughing (they were all aware that I was scamming her most of the time).

 

[Jyera]

Very interesting section, especially the second account.
The self-proclaimed audiophile Bruno Putzeys *saw* the CD being treated with some kind of brush, and subsequently he could hear improvements that had him devastated.

Unless I'm misinterpreting this, Mr. Putzeys *knows* that the changes are imaginary, and nonethless he could hear them clearly. Interesting to hear this coming from an audiophile. Although I suspect that other audiophiles will be less frank, both with themselves and with others...

You mean the act of "Treating CD with brush" is imaginary?