I'm of the opinion that it is impossible to make all parties happy when it comes to blind audio testing. The urge to confirm a predetermined conclusion is very strong, and very subtle.
As others have noted, the goal of DBT is to eliminate the psychological issues that pervade all human undertakings. To pretend that they don't exist in audio, or that this is a special case where certain gifted or trained individuals can look past their subconscious is silly. (If you could consciously account for the subconscious, then it wouldn't be "sub", would it?) The long term listening experience is a worthwhile goal, but it vastly complicates and compromises the goal of maintaining single blindness to the equipment in use, much less double. I see little other than a stalemate. Those who advocate DBT are always going to challenged: there wasn't long-term listening; the switching mechanism (if ABX) added coloration; the listeners weren't trained or experienced audiophiles; the speakers, speaker-wire, or whatever, weren't "revealing" enough. That list is endless. On the other hand, the long-term listeners with their setup of choice, will find it nearly impossible to remain ignorant of the makes and models of equipment under test over a period of weeks or months. However, without that blindness, they will never have a truly convincing argument that the psychological issues have been addressed. In short, I simply see no hope of either side accepting any test done by the other. The need for the ego to find an excuse to discount undesired findings will always be too great. -- mlsstl ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mlsstl's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9598 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=37553 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
