The placebo effect is very real and used in medicine also. If it works, it’s another tool in the box for sure.
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Need more detail. My “digital streaming” set-up is far superior than my CD transport at this point (night and day difference as they say). Qobuz 16/44.1 sounds better than me putting the CD in the CD player. That isn’t a resolution thing; that’s a “different electronics” thing. When people compare one resolution to the other, from same master, rarely are the electronics the same.
However, if it was Qobuz 16/44.1 vs. Qobuz 24/96 with all other electronics the same then I will promptly apply palm to forehead for your friend 
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Expectations indeed. I was in my local hifi shop and the team I knew well invited me to listen to a very high end system they’d just demonstrated and sold to a new customer. They’d set it up and left him.to listen for a whole morning. He’d praised the wide soundstage etc etc.
30 seconds of listening and it was obvious to me it was out of phase, they hadn’t bothered listening to it after set up. Sure enough reversed leads to the speakers.
Hmmm
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If you want understand the value of Hires digital music I recommend The Hanz Beekhuysen channel. The issues comes down to sample rates very compelling.
No, as I pointed out, it was a Qobuz 16/44.1 (correctly labelled) vs Qobuz 16/44.1 (mislabelled as 24/96) “comparison”. BTW, I didn’t post this to make fun of my neighbour. I like him very much. He is a very successful concertmaster and has an excellent Hifi system. My example just illustrates how much our perceptions can be influenced by expectation/confirmation bias. Nobody is immune to it!
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The people who imagine such differences, although they aren’t really there, are neither deaf nor stupid. Something like that could happen to anyone.
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Yes, but not many people are honest enough to admit that - not even to themselves, let alone to others.
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Are you being ironic?
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Confirmation bias is part of how our brain works. Everyone experiences it every day in their life. Like any bias, it is an unconscious mechanism that has nothing to do with intelligence.
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That isn’t entirely correct. Expectation/confirmation bias requires intelligence. The former can’t exist without the latter.
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I have to admit that I do feel a certain psychological satisfaction when I see 24/192 displayed on my DAC.
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Even though I know that the vast majority of people cannot tell the difference between a Red Hook CD and Hi Res, I too find some satisfaction in seeing my DAC displaying 44/96 or above. But it all means nothing. The music industry is pushing Hi Res so hard due to the steeply declining sales of albums and CD’s. So that factors into the entire subject. And then there’s MQA!
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It’s to do with removing artefacts in the digital transmission not hearing higher frequencies. MQA does this supremely well in my listening experience. Some may call it placebo but I don’t care… I like what I am hearing
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I don’t really care if it’s hi-rez foollishness or not. To me, hi-rez and MQA sound better most of the time. If I switch to my Apple TV 4K, the SQ is definitely inferior to anything streaming through Roon.
Reminds me of the time when Watson, when a puppy, chewed through the speaker leads to one of my Quad ESLs. I repaired it and thought no more about it.
Until the time when someone came to buy some equipment I’d posted for sale on Marktplaats (the Dutch version of Ebay). I demoed the Quads to him, and he said: “er, are they out of phase?”
Yup. they were, and I hadn’t clocked it. Oh, dearie me…
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What sounds best to you is the key. I like MQA as well. One thing MQA does as soon as playback starts, is increase the gain. Instantly your speakers and music sound better.
I expect there is more to it than that. I use a Meridian 518 for my TV sound and raise the gain 12 db (along with noise shaping etc) to bring it in line and get what I would consider and optimal sound. For DAB radio I find 3 db works very well.
Is gain the same thing as simply turning up the volume, or is there more to it than that?
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The gain brings up the level as I understand it, think of the image in the progress bar being made bigger. There is only so far you can go though before you are compressing the signal. (The loudness wars)