JohnnyLightOn;131813 Wrote: > I would be happy to do a blind test (can't be double-blind, as my wife > will have to know which setting she's choosing, but it will at least be > single blind). I will not be able to do the test until at least Tuesday > night. We will switch off, so you can have her results, too. I will > report back. > > Remember people, this is the audiophile forum. Audiophiles make a > hobby out of audio. A hobby is often technical, but its primary > purpose is fun. DBT is no doubt worthwhile, but to discuss sound and > make every discussion hinge on the results of DBT, which in turn > sometimes creates opposing viewpoints of people who have also conducted > DBT and have achieved a different result, takes a lot of fun out of > things. Hobbyists want to know what is working and not working for > others, try these things themselves, and then decide if they like it. > Most of us decide these things with our own ears, and by living with > our gear and settings over time. Some of it can sound like hocus > pocus, and some of it is, but most of it is real. However, not > everyone hears everything, and not everyone prefers the same sound.
The standard reply to this is that a blind test only needs to establish that a consistent difference exists -not any preferences. However, there are other problems with blind tests. The first, and major problem, is that a negative doesn't prove anything. All it proves is that under blind test conditions, and with that system, a consistent result couldn't be obtained. That doesn't mean, of course, that a positive would have been possible. It just basically proves nothing about other people's results in other contexts, or even the tester's own results in other contexts. For example, perhaps the process of testing leads to listening in a different manner than normally. Perhaps trying to force a "result" in a short time to speed things up a bit. I have noticed that the ABX-brigade often see negative results as proof of something, wheras it isn't in a scientific sense. The most lame "proof" is when someone has never heard a difference, and therefore claims that it doesn't exist. (Which would "prove" that 128 kbit mp3 is just as good as 16/44, BTW.) -- P Floding ------------------------------------------------------------------------ P Floding's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2932 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=26436 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
