Was the D-Premier upgrade a waste of money?

[f1eng]

I think expectation bias plays a huge part, both ways. Without a doubt, it does for me. As is the case, I suspect, with just about all listeners and with just about all quality electronic audio equipment.

And, in my opinion, it goes hand in hand with why reviewers never submit themselves to robust blind tests (recognising as I do the imperfections of that process).

These things gladly keep much of the industry in place, and therefore lots of choice of big boys toys for us all.

I find the corollary of what you are saying rather depressing. It suggests we can't trust our own senses let alone the judgement of others. 

Guillaume

Hi Guillaume

Well I'm sure my intention was not to imply the corollary is robust. 

It could have been better written, less extreme, maybe by saying that, I suggest that, for a material proportion of listeners, expectation bias may play a significant role.

And of course purchasers should trust their own senses (that is inevitable!) and make choices how to trust the view of others.

I quite agree. Audio memory is notoriously short, so almost all tests will have too long a gap between the listening to remember accurately what the first sound was.
The most important thing, though is how it seems to the individual. If you are convinced something is better it actually is, for you, and nobody else matters.

As an engineer who has made a few advances in my field I have never, ever, found any genuine change which can not be explained by physics and measured.
So there are several areas of popular hifi folklore, if you will, which I am completely unable to accept since there is no known, by me , mechanism by which they could possibly be taking place.
I always am interested in what people are trying, and why, though.
From an electrical standpoint audio is quite simple, and pretty well everything we know about it has been known for >50 years. From an acoustical point of view it is more complex to implement, but there is still pretty well nothing about it which wasn't known about 50 years ago.