Beware the audio guru

Not that Geoff Kait needs me to defend him but it’s pretty easy to check his feedback on the other side of the site, a staggering, to me, 3587! These forums are supposed to be fun, an exchange of ideas sure from time to time some arguing. But let’s lay off attacking the credibility and integrity of people we don’t actually know.

^^^^ Yea, staggering.

The Yanni vs. Laurel thing pointed out how people can hear the same input differently. (I am a Yanni.) The results are very consistent. It follows that differences in perception can translate into different preferences in a sound systems. I don’t think anyone disputes that.

What I have trouble with is the commercial contingent making claims that product “X” sounds so much better than product “Y”. Not to mention that “X” us usually much more expensive and a recently released product. These “reviewers” couldn’t pick “X” out of a line up if their life depended on it and they refuse to try because their wallet depends on it.

There was a video posted on another audio site of the Stereophile crew doing a parody of audio forum people and their knowledge. What was ironic was that the Stereophile guys actually bring less technical qualifications than some of the people they were mocking. On hearing tests alone, Floyd Toole’s research shows that the “pro” reviewers were less adept (consistent) at picking out the same speakers than “enthusiasts”.

I agree with the OP. Your own evaluation plus commons sense will get you more value in audio than reading audio magazines that are essentially marketing copy masquerading as a “review”.

Everybody gots themselves a little tiny Dunning-Kruger inside.

All it needs is the right stimulus to get it up an’ a’ goin’.

When we each reach our limit on a given thing, we move from safe ground to unknowns, or not fully fleshed out stuff..where ’facts’ and ’suppositions’, or things inferred, begin to mix..and then that moves over to the level of full unknowns as we get further off our knowledge base.

Where exactly that occurs in the given mind, is individual. We tend to play all things safe, it’s a life and being alive thing.

Fear first. It’s how the body works.

Survival first and foremost and all others things are ’allowed’ to ’be’ after fear is satisfied. No heartbeat, no body, and the rest means nothing. Fear first. Fear wants assurances and facts, otherwise it upsets the body and then the whole edifice is messed up, chemically and otherwise. We are wired for this as our primary filter in thought, ego, body, and so on. Love is in the mix, of course, but fear and desire are the primary filters for the body and the hindbrain. Everything runs through them first, foremost, always, in every heartbeat. When they are settled, reason can emerge.

Except for the point that the reason and logic centers were never meant to run all the time, it’s too energy taxing so they were designed to come up, solve a problem and then go back to sleep. The danger of first answer found, which can easily and often is, incorrect. The brain is half in - half out, half conscious, half subconscious instinctual automaton. importantly, it is run by the unconscious and that unconscious is more potent and intelligent than the conscious mind but - is driven quite differently.

Be conscious of the design and don’t make the first answer found mistake that we are literally wired for. If you look at politics and Machiavellian manipulations in all areas of the world, this is what you see. The manipulation of this fundamental hindbrain phenomena. So all those logic and reasoning suppositions and projections become paramount in the body’s constant scan for survival.

It is estimated that 97% of the population live in this mental state as primary function and 3% are not of such wiring. That the 3% are more mentally aware and awake more of the time.

It’s a complex subject, but we can see that when we get into even the slightest aspect of a subject that is multifaceted. Argument ---is the norm.

It can be no other way.

This is the danger of science and engineering that touches the edges of our collective and individual reality frameworks, it is rife with insistence in facts, when it is, in reality... [reality is] fundamentally all theories that are subject to change.

The less a person knows in this [given] area the more the fundamental of the human body insists on the projection of knowing. To get it right, the person has to be more aware of the vehicle they occupy, and this is a very weak area in scientific engineering. Lack of awareness of the bottle the being is in ...and how deeply it affects the drive, projections... and outcomes. Ie, bad facts, bad projections, that temporarily work, but end up circular and in a blocked corner.

Good science, by aware people, can sweep the blocking false end points away. They end up fighting with those who insist on the blocked end point, as it is 'safe' and a 'known' thing. this mentality...it can't project into the complex new.. so the new must be false. The cry of the weak position, about charlatans and whatnot.

Eg, in case you did not know, Einstein received death threats from other scientists, when his original relativity works were proposed. It's not the science, it's the humans in the science.

Be your own Guru.It is easy.Stop believing anything some other idiot writes.Base everything you do in Audio on your own experience, or on experiments you have actually tried yourself. If you think some idea is worth investigating. Do the experiment. Did it make any difference?And if it costs money? (Particularly if the money goes TO the Guru!) skip it

When others write something: If it based on 'theory" they have? or can they explain what they did or experienced to give them that notion?
Gurus used to be way rarer than today. Since there are so MANY self appointed gurus, they are totally watered down and few folks are disciples anymore.So I blissfully listen to my own internal Guru, and laugh at the rest of them.