cognitive-dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance, or, I Just Paid $600 for This LP – Was That Too Much?

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More on the Subject of Hot Stamper Pricing

This letter came to us when we first started selling Hot Stamper pressings on our website way back in 2004-2005. Since that time we have received many other letters like it. Apparently, charging a lot of money for used records upsets people. Who knew?

Don, who wrote us the following letter, applauds us for being able to convince our customers to pay forty times the going rate for some of the records we sell — and like it!

The subject line of Don’s letter is Music.

What a great example of free market capitalism at it’s [sic] finest. Your web site is truly a unique example of marketing. You’ve taken a medium that [sic] completely relative and you can convince someone to pay upwards of 40X the going rate because….well, you said so. That doesn’t mean that the record will sound the same to them or that their experience of music is the same as yours as a reviewer. I guess if someone decides to spend $600 on a record they damn well better find a reason why it’s worth it even if they’re not completely convinced. (I took the time to read some of the other comments on your site.)

Don’t understand why someone would be upset about that or how they could argue that the records aren’t worth the price. They’re worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them as I see it. Maybe because they didn’t think of it first or they have some misplaced sense of ethics….who knows. I know it’s not worth it to me and thankfully there are plenty of other resources available for buying music. Another great example of capitalism…..

Sincerely,

Don L.

Don, honestly, I’m positively blushing at the thought that my “say so” is what gets people to pay the ridiculously high prices we charge for what appear to be fairly common rock records, the kind that might be worth roughly, oh, I don’t know, 1/40th of what we are asking? (Truth be told, probably even less.)

Ah, but here’s the kicker: there’s actually a scientific explanation for it!

It’s called Cognitive Dissonance, and it works like this. Let’s say someone decides to spend $600 on a record — sound familiar? — yet for some reason they’re not completely convinced it’s worth it — ring any bells? — so they find a way to justify the purchase to themselves by rationalizing one of two things: their actions or their perceptions.

In this case, although the actual record may not sound all that good when they get it home, because it costs so much they must find a way to make it somehow seem better than it really is. Failing to do so, this person, demonstrably $600 poorer, would have to conclude that he, like an idiot, has just let himself get ripped off, in this case by us.

Twisted Logic

The logic at work here is pretty straightforward. The buyer says to himself: I am not an idiot. Only an idiot would pay $600 for a record that doesn’t sound amazingly good, especially one that can easily be had for one-fortieth the amount of money I have paid, therefore the record must sound better than my ears tell me it does.

Which — let’s be honest here — may in fact be happening. I don’t know what these records sound like in my customer’s homes. How could I? They live all over the world. I have certainly taken some of my best sounding pressings with me while visiting customers, and they sure sounded good on their systems. But I can’t vouch for systems I have never heard and people I have never met. That would be silly.

You Are Correct Sir

You are certainly correct in pointing out that musical values are relative. The famous Latin proverb “De gustibus non est disputandum,” roughly translated “There’s no accounting for taste,” is one with which I am very familiar. (When somebody pays $600 for The Hunter on vinyl, you don’t have to tell me there’s no accounting for taste.)

As a skeptic I require evidence for what I believe in order to believe it. Although it’s certainly possible that our customers are willing to pay our admittedly high prices on nothing more than our say so, I see no evidence that this is in fact the case. All things being equal I think they must really like our records. They tell us so all the time, and they keep buying them week after week, so if they really are just fooling themselves, they apparently can’t stop doing it.

Occam’s Razor

The scientist’s and skeptic’s best friend, Occam’s razor, comes into play here. It holds that “the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible.” It’s often paraphrased as “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.” In other words, when multiple competing theories are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selecting the theory that introduces the fewest assumptions…”

Why assume people who buy expensive records are crazy? Why assume that the records they buy aren’t every bit as good as advertised, if not better? Why assume that the “other resources available for buying music” are even remotely as good, absent any evidence?

People assumed that the CD was going to be a cheap and easy resource for their music, and look where that got them.

Assumptions? Us?

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Warning: Hot Stampers May Cause Cognitive Dissonance

Check out the article that Wired wrote about Better Records and our pursuit of Hot Stampers.

If you have time, go to the comments section and read any of the 300 or more postings claiming that the very idea of Hot Stampers is absurd, not to mention the atavistic, borderline fetishistic attachment to vinyl that these self-described “lovers of sound” engage in, and don’t forget how ridiculously expensive the equipment many of them own must be, making a real trifecta of audiophile inanity.

As if you didn’t know already!

But all of this is true only under one condition: that you have never played one of our Hot Stamper pressings on top quality equipment.

Once you have played one, even the most skeptical audiophile often finds himself becoming as fetishistic about old records as we are (and have been for fifty years).

We sure get a lot of letters from folks who seem to like our old records. Can there really be that much Kool-Aid to go around? Can one sip really change your life?

Good news: there exists a way to find out.

If you live in America and you try one of our Hot Stamper pressings and you decide you don’t like it, we will cover the shipping cost both ways and refund 100% of the money you paid.

With a guarantee like that, wouldn’t it be more absurd to conclude, as so many have done, that what we say about records cannot possibly be true? All without even a hint of empirical evidence to support the idea?

The Real Risk

Of course, the real risk in taking a chance on a Hot Stamper is not financial, since we are covering all the costs.

The real risk is that you might end up proving to yourself that the ideas you have about records are mistaken.

Carefully cleaned and evaluated old records can indeed sound dramatically better than the ones they are making these days. We can actually prove it. You just need to let us send you the proof.

Now wait just a gosh darn minute, Mister Hot Stampers, I hear you saying to yourself.

I own so many of these new records! I’m a smart guy. I’m no dummy. How could I have been so easily taken in? Why did I believe them when they told me these new records were the best? You know, the labels that make them and the reviewers who review them and the forum posters who rave about them. Everybody. I thought we all agreed about this!

It’s not right that your Hot Stamper pressings turn all of what I know to be true on its head. Yes, your records are clearly better, but now I feel I was duped when I bought all these other pressings. I feel like a fool and I don’t like that feeling.

You can see how easy it would be for this turn of events to result in some serious cognitive dissonance, the kind that everyone — even me — does everything in their power to avoid. (Most of it is subconscious and automatic anyway, so you don’t really have to do anything, truth be told.)

The Right Choice Is Clear

Therefore the easiest choice, the smartest choice, the choice practically every audiophile makes (never mind the general public, they couldn’t care less), is to come up with some reasons why our records cannot possibly be as good sounding as we say.

That’s the ticket. This whole Hot Stamper thing makes no sense. It’s not possible. Your customers are wrong. They are deluding themselves. You guys are the ones who are suffering from cognitive bias, not me. You hear what you want to hear on these old records and you ignore what’s good about the new ones.

I’m pretty sure that must be what’s going on. How can everybody else be wrong and somehow you get to be right? That’s really absurd. You should be ashamed of yourself for ripping off gullible audiophiles who are too stupid to realize that what you are selling is the worst kind of snake oil. Either that or false hope. You’re cynically preying on those who have more money than sense and laughing all the way to the bank. That’s on you. There’s a sucker born every minute, and that’s why you will never run out of customers. Hah!

Fair enough. Well said. You figured out this whole thing must be a scam. Awesome. Good job.

As a bonus, you’ve just saved yourself a huge amount of work and avoided a lot of mental anguish. You proved yourself right without lifting a finger. (Well, you did some typing, so I guess that counts as lifting a finger. But it sure was easier than playing a record and critically listening to it. That stuff is hard.)

Now that all that Hot Stamper stuff is out of the way, please allow me to point you toward the one book that explains all the bad thinking we humans constantly engage in, this one.

In my experience, no other book explains more about audio and the audiophiles who pursue it, myself included. I guarantee that if you read this book you will never be the same. It is that eye-opening.

Kind of like playing your first Hot Stamper. Nothing is ever the same again. Even if it is a scam.

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