That wouldn't be the first time "the psychological field" as you call it was wrong about something, would it?

Music is about feeling and intuition, not lab tests performed on white mice, when something sounds GOOD you'll know it in a split second.

If only it were so black and white...

I've done a bit of reading on this as well, probably not as much as you I admit, as most of my time learning psychology has been for class material which has so far only had a few brief swims into brand-new cognitive research such as this.
This point is a valid part of testing for sure. I apologize for thinking you were talking voodoo - I cringe whenever I hear the word "precognitive" being used as a potential explanation for something.
Unfortunately one's intital intuition-type judgement on something is more often wrong than right. Scientists have known this for many years while the general public tends to ignore it and tells everyone to trust their feelings. Now of course as you mentioned some research is moving towards seeing if there's anything to that in a different sense - overanalyzing, rational thoughts introducing new biases, etc. The problem is that the rational thinking process is also used to be aware of and eliminate bias. Without it we are completely at the mercy of our prejudgements on something. Too often do we judge a piece of gear at least partially on its price, its look, its coolness factor, or because of what someone else said... all without really recognizing we do so. If we go only by that 1-second initial intuitive sense of a sound, we simply don't have time to eliminate those potential biases and think critically about the sound, nor do we have time to compare the sound to a memory reference of what we best like.
I definitely see where you're going with this and there is some merit to it. However I think the cons outweigh the pros by far. My opinion of course; perhaps my conclusion is incorrect, but certainly my premise here is right - all the bias research that has been done over the past fifty years is strong stuff.

As for the other posts here, I don't really want to be debating this. I don't think music is all about intuition - unless you think that mathematical reasoning (a logical process) falls into that, along with our cognitive functions that tie those mathematics into our emotional responses and hormones.
Anyway I respectfully bow out now of this side of the discussion. Sorry, just don't want this to get ugly. I'm sure we all know that it's impossible for people to argue beliefs and get anywhere.

The supported psychological side of it, and how that relates to gear, though, I am all for a continuing discussion so long as it doesn't get into repetition of the same points.

uhhh...what he said.

so which sounds better with its respective clock - rossetta or 16X?!

The point of the level matching is that if one was a couple or a few tenths louder, you won't necessarily hear it as louder, but rather "more open, more impact, more engaging, more detailed..." and/or all those sorts of descriptions. Psychoacoustically, louder sounds better. Even listening to the same exact audio simply displaced a few tenths of a dB in level, people will generally prefer the louder one. Level matching is very important when doing tests such as these.

ubik,
your da man! i am impressed!
and now please donate me your nicerizer and some compressors, eqs, mics and adda channels....

An old experiment with a virtual stocking market set up at an university, where the succesful speculators showed to be those with lower IQ, as well as an inquest among US leadership of politics, army and industry that reveieled IQs below average, support what Ubik describes.

However, Dasbins explanation about spontaneous conclusions appears very accurate to my ears.
I too always crinch when people talk about accuracy of first impressions or about their "instincts".

Ruphus

another common test to see the abilities of an adda converter is to play a stereofile out of the outputs and record it instantly into the ad.
and then with comparing the source file and the new recorded one, it is easy to hear what the conversion does.

With gear? Possibly...but not in life as a whole. Without trusting your 'instinct' or at least being aware of the energy and messages your body is sending, you would be a victim quickly and often.

Personally It scares me when people talk about forsaking the most reliable and intuitive source we possess. Detectives call it a 'hunch...Some call it vibes...mothers intuiton...etc. It is a bonafide reality.
If we behave based strictly on our 'scientific' conclusions or conditoning then what have we got? Proof? Of what?

Of course you can't 'measure' or 'calculate' mojo, vibe or soul...and that is where the sciences have a fit about it.

This is a played out debate...Science versus Spirit.

To each his own and to each I wish awesome music and livlihood!! Cheers Ruphus!

Your "instinct" has a lot to do with communication, or - in this case -receiving "signals" on a subconscious level. There are a lot of cultures that worship these "instincts", but our modern world has been set on denying them...

However, your brain is getting a lot of info without your concious mind knowing it . I try to get a feel and appreciate this type of unconcious communication more and more and try to develope it.

Now when comparing gear, is your subconscious mind telling you that the 0.1dB louder sound is "clearer, wider, bigger and more open?"


Greetings,
Dirk

Thats when the hi-end sounds the smoothest heh

Hearing is a 'sense'...Literally.

Science and 'facts' can (and will) cloud judgment just as fast as anything else..simply because science DOES create an automatic bias or pre-judgment...Which seems to be the flaw you are finding in intuition or feeling.

Of course we have human / personal bias conditoning that comes into play with every action of our day...but to say "I definitely see where you're going with this and there is some merit to it. However I think the cons outweigh the pros by far"...is denying the rest of the equation.

You cannot have one without the other... This isn't even debatable IMO...it is a complete even mix.
How does a designer know when his gear actually SOUNDS good? When the tests line up? When the all of the components are correct? Inevitably they will simply have to listen...or get someone to listen for them.

Some people like to break down sound into numbers, bars, and mathematics...and of course that is entirely possible from one perspective....But...dang...

on the subject of "gut" feeling: here's another one for you guys to chew on.

During my studies in university, I followed some courses in Neuro Psychology. The team of professors in one particular course came up with evidence that all rational cognitive thinking is actually made up of tiny emotional processes. In a nutshell; ALL rational thinking was proven to originate in the "emotional" centres of the brain. Also these emotion paths grow and are stored, just like other processes.
Going for your instincts IMO can be seen as very intelligent decision making: bypassing parts of your brain that are not needed to make the decision.

The brain, has been tuned under very unfavourable circumstances. It seems logical to me that it can make critical desicions without having to resort to a possibly flawed "rational" process.

I have the papers and books of that, but it is in storage. If really interested I can drop some old friends a line, and retrieve it for you. But it will take some time... This course was in 1995/96 in the department of Neuro Psychology of the University of Utrecht. I'm sure anyone interested can find things about this on the www.

Interesting, except there are no real "emotional centers" in the brain as far as we can tell. The research I've seen indicates exactly the opposite; that all emotions and resulting reactions are caused by the interaction of logical processes - as well as lower-level non-conscious things of course, but all of which are an explainable PROCESS of thinking - with physiological responses.
This argument has gotten to much into "rationality versus emotion." They are not two seperate things; they are only perceived as such because one produces specific physiological changes which can be felt, and the other is physiologically neutral (in its purest, computational form, anyway). Everything is tied together in our brain. Rationality influences emotion and vice versa.
Instinctual response is a useful tool and has its place but it is not a part of the current scientific method, because time and time again it has shown to be extremely innacurate and innapropriate for objectivity. Every scientific test must do its best to eliminate all possible subjectivity in order to be considered valid. If any of you think you have a better, more accurate method of testing things, then please approach the world community with it and prove its worth because you will be heralded as the king of the new age.

This is definitely not the case. Look at the proportion of voices for the trusting of instinct even just here on this forum versus those against.
When was the last time you saw a popular movie whose message was NOT to trust our feelings? Star Wars is practically the staple of modern culture. We have a massive majority public who all think they know better than to trust the scientific method, because it 'feels right,' or whatever.

We could be trusting our feelings till the cows come home, but the Earth would still be the center of the universe, every world leader would be a Bush - attacking contrary to evidence, and probably none of us would have recording equipment or even properly designed musical instruments. Logical thinking and questioning of emotional validity advances knowledge, while utter trust in gut reponses almost invariably hold it back.

Again I will hope this discussion does not lead into philisophical areas.

Dasbin, that is exactly the point.
The whole distinction between "emotional" and "rational" thinking is just not there.
That research proved that parts of the brain that normally were seen as being strictly "emotional" centers are involved in "rational" processes. I think I wasn't clear enough on that.

But how to see those individual processes.... Being an orgainic computer there are tiny processes that make up a whole cognitive process, to put it simple. You can see them as logical. But as we are constantly under development, I dare say that there is a lot of pathways that are not exactly logical. Maybe more so in people that force themselves to be "rational" all the time...

trust your feelings heh
There is a lot of intelligent people here on this forum. also posessing a lot of "emotional" intelligence. Naturally this is mandatory in dealing with musicians, their music, or being a musician themselves. We do not work in a lab, but a funky lab. Therefore I think GS crowd is a balanced group.
The general public is played by many different forces. All of those use powerful massmedia, as developed in the fifties, to influence the general public, and thus to reach their targets.
There is politicians, but also there is people like George Lucas who want to form a counterweight to the scare politics. (hahaaaaaahatchou anthraxletter)
IMO it's all in the balance.

When choosing new gear I decide what I need. But with both machines in the final shootout doing almost the same trick, you'll have to go for YOUR sound. The one that makes your hair in the back of your neck stand up.
Otherwise; what is your focus? Where do you want to go?
Just compressing is one thing.
But, AFTER knowing all the technical data about it, experimenting, and connecting this info with what you hear, THEN there is the point of just dailing in a setting, without "thinking" about it. Just because it feels good.
Is this emotional or rational? I think both.

(I think others here allready said this as well.. excuse me if I start sounding repetitive...)

Amen. Hey waiter, my straw is bent. Can I have another?

i cannot deny that this may be true for many (most?) people. i can, and do, deny that it is always the case for me.

any time i'm doing intensive blind comparisons on my own, i always massage volume to see how that affects my judgments. i'll make one a quarter db louder, flip them until i don't know what's what, and see where the cards fall. then i'll make the other one louder, lather rinse and repeat.

more often than not, despite the fact that it may be quieter, i still prefer one consistently over the other. if i don't, if i consistently prefer the louder one no matter which it is, then i figure the things i'm comparing have no *meaningful* differences to me and i end the analysis there.

does that make sense?


gregoire
del ubik

this is already happening, and this thread is just another part of that process .

and i offer this for your consideration: for all of its beauty, the scientific method is only one tiny, albeit very useful, way of looking at a reality that is, ultimately, unknowable. sometimes it helps us to predict a "what", and less often a "how", but never can it approach "why".

to avoid philosophy in this (or any) discussion, is impossible. in every one of your posts, your personal philosophies resonate loud and clear, as i'm sure mine do as well. facts are boring as hell; people, on the other hand, are fascinating, and all the conclusive studies on the planet don't mean a damn thing if i can't shoot the breeze and bat the implications of those ideas around with cool cats such as yourself and the other posters on this thread.

at least, that's what my gut tells me ; )


gregoire
del ubik

I wouldn't state this this black and white and all things being relative I stick to my statement that we have been underestimating our subconscious powers, a lot more so than for example some Asian or African cultures...

Back to the A/B/x comparisons: I recently upgraded my speakers and had 3 sets to test in my studio. The one I picked after some serious testing gave me the best feeling, that's why I chose them . But just a couple of A/B/C testing wouldn't have made me draw that conclusion, I need to work with the gear and after a certain time I have made up my mind.

Just flipping from converter (or reverb, or eq, or compressor) A to B to C... for an hour or so would never make me comfertable to make a decision. I have tried it in the past with reverbs and my conclusion was that I could fool myself and the other listeners quite easily...

Greetings,
Dirk

This indicates only the romatic factor to the topic of instincts. ( The same one that sells love. People chase what there is little. And I´m not trying to be sarcastic. It´s again the odd science saying so. )
Instincts are commonly mixed up with completely different kinds of recognitions, like above mentioned body talk etc.

However, science for certain reasons divides a number of `unconsciousness´patterns of which instinct is being one. It although is being regarded as none existant with humans.

There was a discussion about it before on GS. How could it not? Everybody wants to have it, hihi.

But as I said before heh why all that strive for it when it has been replaced by awareness.
Would any of you guys be liking to exchange his consciousness against instincts? I´d rather eat the wrong fruit at times than losing the ability to read my daily GS.

Thanks a bunch Rodney for the nice wishes, very appreciated. :O)

Ruphus

It's a very important skill when evaluating any kind of audio gear or processing. Instinct is great however ignorance of the fact that level and other factors can easily fool your instincts is the first step on the path to wimpy, small sounding audio.

Garden variety ABX tests are useless unless people have learned precisely what to listen for which is a very time consuming and often impossible process. Most people can't tell a cassette from a CD in an ABX test.

Unfortunately, some ADDA converters have a different DA "quality" than their AD counterparts.

I can't help but notice the frequency at which the Lavrys were assumed to be the Mackies, and the Apogees were assumed to be the Lavry's.

Preconceived notions?

When this key was posted, the dominant mind was that 2 is the best one, followed by 3.

These converters associated to their DA counterparts have been measured in a loopback test here and rank in this same order.