JezA wrote: > darren, if the only way to make valid judgements about a musical > experience is with a double-blind test, how can you make a judgement > about a live concert?
we're not talking about judgements of a single event - I believe - we're talking about comparing two events. you could, of course, compare two concerts, perhaps on separate nights. But it is unlikely the results of that comparison would tell you much about the technical side of the audio being produced. It's well documented that expectation bias can fool the ear/brain into "hearing" differences that aren't there (or vice versa). That's where a blind test is useful, in producing reproducible, unbiased, results. that is irrelevant, if you're happy with the sound you're getting, of course, no question. but some people like to find out: is it really worth paying out an extra X amount? Will it really make a difference? For those people, the results of a double-blind test gives some assurance that other tests simply cannot. As an aside, we read a recent article in the hi-fi press, extolling the virtues of a particular component. The lavish results were presented to a set of friends: these included all sorts of outlandish claims as to soundstage, timing, transparency etc, etc, and the friends were asked to guess the components under test. No-one could, but tt turned out to be analogue phono cables, connecting a portable mp3 player to an amp, or powered speakers. Needless to say, the test was fully sighted, and the high-priced cable won the test. Of course, it might well be the best cable, but the test is totally unreliable, so we're none the wiser. To my mind, designing a piece of electronic kit to achieve the quoted results would be a non-trivial task. Designing a piece of wire to do the same would be impressive indeed... :) cheers, calum. _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
