Visual Confirmation Bias


Nice term, Paul. Very impressive. Very scientific.

And original. Well, at least I’ve never seen it before so I’m going to claim it as my own.

Visual Confirmation Bias (VCB) is a variation on confirmation bias that postulates that your brain causes audio gear, particularly speakers, to sound the way they look.

I came up with this idea a week ago when I got my new (used) KEF LS50s. (Note: I’m sure that dozens of people have been talking about VCB for a hundred years. I’m not particularly interested in who preceded me but raising points like that is one of the reasons that this forum exists.)


I had read lots about the speaker and I was expecting accuracy and soundstage precision. Their rich, full sound surprised me. These were not adjectives that were usually attached to these speakers.

I’ve been obsessed with these speakers for the past week, reading about them constantly. I find myself most in agreement with The Absolute Sound, which described the speakers—just after they were released—as possessing a “prevailing sweetness, a harmonic saturation that lends it a dark, velvety overall character, and a bloom that is so pleasing that I began affectionately dubbing it the butterscotch sundae of small monitors.”


But in the years that followed, listener after listener reported a “hard” “bright” sound. And when I look at the speaker, those words make complete sense. A tiny metallic driver in a small box? They look tinny and bright so no wonder some people hear that.

My own strongest experience with VCB: Many years ago, on the pretense of looking for a CD player, I walked into Sound By Singer at its old 16th St. location. After just enough feigned interest, I asked the salesman to listen to something “really pornographic.”

Surprisingly, he was happy to take me into one of the listening rooms. The only specific piece of equipment I remember was a pair of Wilson Speakers. I don’t know which model but they were white and just over six feet tall. Each the size of a restaurant-grade refrigerator. They were somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000.

Then I settled into the listening chair as the salesman started turning stuff on. Preamp, monoblock, monoblock, God knows what else. I just remember him throwing switch after switch. I have to believe all that gear equaled the price of the speakers.

If ever a system should have disappeared, it was this one. If ever the music should have been revealed to me, it was now. But even with my eyes closed, all I could see—and all I could hear—were these huge speakers looming over me. They could not have been more present in my listening experience.

Visual confirmation bias kept me from enjoying the finest pair of speakers that I’ll probably ever hear. The phenomenon is not to be underestimated.
paul6001
Unfortunately, my apartment is so small there’s no room for a sub. Although maybe the bathroom . . .

Actually, I find that I get the best out of the LS50s by playing “Singles Going Steady” by The Buzzcocks LOUD. Or at “elevated SPLs” as some might put it.

Opening with “Orgasm Addict” it’s one hit after another. You won’t believe how the songs come back to you. This is the real sound of ‘77.

The running length of the first five songs of the first five songs: 2:00, 2:52, 2:16, 1:47, 2:39. Even the Ramones have to envy that.
My audio room look like an atrocious mess created by a mad scientist.... Nothing is beautiful....

No confirmation visual bias here....

But a sound that is better to my ears than anything i ever listen to in the past and better than many 5 or 6 figure system in bad room on youtube...

The secret : Controlling the mechanical,electrical and acoustical working dimensions.... The 3 embeddings of the system.... Keep the esthetic, i cannot afford his price anyway, i will keep my audio room and my out of this world S.Q. at peanuts costs...

😁😊😎
Congrats to the OP for recognizing he is human! Lots of people with the disease of audiophilism are unable to recognize that their perception is subject to the human frailties of both conscious and unconscious bias. 

“Singles Going Steady” is a great LP that I haven't listened to in 40 years. Time to pull that one out of the vinyl archives...thanks!