Sighted loudspeaker evaluations are contaminated by non-auditory visual and social cues

Evidence

For decades it has been assumed that choosing a loudspeaker must be a subjective choice, finding a match to a person’s perceptual characteristics and preferences in sound quality. What has been largely underestimated in this scenario is that such subjective evaluations are almost always “sighted”. Listeners see the physical loudspeakers, the brand name, they may know the price, perhaps they have read reviews or heard opinions from respected people. All of these factors influence the listener in some way or other, so that the final opinion is not only about the sound they hear. What is also largely underestimated is that humans are very good at adapting to flaws in loudspeakers and find pleasure in music and movies in spite of them. But, why should we have to? — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 50

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the sighted vs blind-test methodology debates common in audiophile discourse and to placebo effects in perception more broadly.
• SEED: Sighted listening bias is a ready-made article angle: why the entire high-end audio review industry is epistemically weakened by non-blind evaluation.