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RE: What's your methodolgy and how is it based in reality?

Do you really need an answer to your question? Your post and the questions at the end are somewhat confused.

Tony Lauck
"There is definitely a phenomenon to understand: people paying money for trinkets on the basis of claims that the devices improve sound quality.

At least two good explanations come to mind:

(1) People sell snake oil and other people are duped into buying it.
(2) The trinkets improve sound in some mysterious way, perhaps according to a trade secret, or perhaps a mystery to the manufacturer as well.

What's your methodology to discriminate between these explanations? How do you know that this methodology is "based in reality"?"

Well, that's not an audio phenomenon. I ordinarily expect people to talk about audio here, what makes a significant audible difference, what may not, and in some degree, what actually constitutes good performance.

1) First of all, one must know what is meant by the "snake oil" metaphor. You haven't specified.

I would say that "snake oil" is a product that does not do what is claimed for it. There are obviously degrees of this. Before there were standards for rating amplifier power, for example, it was impossible to say just what an amplifier had to do to qualify as a 50 watt amplifier. Even with standards, many products do not quite meet some of their specifications, but that does not necessarily mean they do not function quite well for the people who use them.

There are other products, such as interconnects and speaker cables, which will perform their function quite satisfactorily, whether inexpensive or expensive. They become snake oil only when claims, whether express or implied, about their performance or sound which fail to be verified.

There are other products or procedures which are not in the signal path and which do not seem to do anything to the sound which is anywhere near audibility. What claims are made for them? Do consumers dupe themselves sometimes?

2) For the kind of discussion I do here, I see no particular reason for substituting "perception" and "cognition" instead of hearing and perception. Anyway, it is not necessary to know an explanation before one finds a phenomenon to explain. If there is an audible difference, there are methods of establishing that.

Your questions are as follows.

Tony Lauck
"What's your methodology to discriminate between these explanations? How do you know that this methodology is "based in reality"?"

Unfortunately, as should be clear from the previous discussion, what you propose as explanations are not all that clear. "Snake oil" in this context is too vague, and not everyone who buys expensive products that actually do not perform better is duped. There may be all sorts of reasons for preferring them besides. So the alternatives you propose are somewhat confused.

Then you talk about "reality." I do not generally talk in terms of real and unreal in this sort of discussion. People's perceptions and cognitions are quite real, but they are not completely determined by the physical sound. What you mean by "reality" as opposed to non reality is hardly clear.

What I tend to look at is whether people can distinguish between the different sound introduced by changing some components in a system on the basis of sound alone: is it likely that they would be able to detect said differences in a blind test?



"Probability is the very guide to life."---Cicero

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