Haha!
So he took all of the common psychological effects that crop up in audiophile circles - all the stuff that a proper double-blind listening test lays bare as being entirely due to sighted listening and listener expectation or priming - named it after himself, won't explain how any of this information is used in order to create better products because it is "proprietary" and too "technical", and then uses it as marketing. I mean, I kinda like the balls of it. Frankly, the people who believe in all of the crap that's included in this "Phoenix Effect Distortion" kinda deserve to get ripped off. They're self-delusional. So why not market to them? They know, just like everyone else does, that we can measure everything to do with electrical signals with extreme precision and accuracy. That such measurements can prove without any doubt that cables don't make any difference unless there's something wrong with them. That all competent amps produce nearly identical output until they near their output limits. That "break in" does not exist for solid state electronics. On and on. And yet, when something costs more, or it looks prettier, or they are TOLD that one item is better than another, they magically "hear" that difference. And yet, put the very same products in a blind listening test, and they cannot pick them out or replicate the results that they'd swear to if they knew which products were playing.
Phoenix Effect Distortion is just psychological distortion. And how do you adjust a product to account for that? Easy. Just increase the price, make it prettier, and TELL people it's better. Bam. Phoenix Effect Distortion corrected!
Brilliant.
