jh901 wrote: > Sure would be interesting if any number of bickering audiophiles lived > near one another! Well, southwest PA isn't what I'd call audiophile > country, but we do have about the hottest new food scene in the US > (subjectively speaking). Perhaps we'll find a well regarded member who > does live nearby?! >
It is probably no coincidence that the two audiophile groups that may have sucessfully done more interesting DBTs were SMWTMS (located in Southeastern Michigan - Drtroit area) and The Audiophile Society of Westchester County , New York. > > I might make it over to Radio Shack tomorrow. My interest has been > piqued. I've probably upgraded parts of my system 20 times in the past, > oh, five years. Maybe more. I enjoy the improvements I've experienced > each and every time, yet I rarely give much thought to the specific > engineering principles which deliver these improvements. I am a natural > skeptic, but I'm simply not inclined to doubt my sensory perceptions > (hearing, in this case) to what I believe to be an irrational degree. > That said, I can appreciate some aspects of the anti-establishment > sentiment and I am generally aware of how our emotional state can fool > us. This discussion is unfortunately headed into the usual abyss of frustration and failure that curses most initial audiophile DBTs because the listening tests that form the celebrated cause are inherently futile. They are designed to be frustrating. Their outcome is set by the laws of physics, and will be random guessing, It relates to audio cables which are bound and determined by he laws of physics to produce null results - random guessing. The only way to do an audio cable listening test that is both valid as a test and produces positive results would be to involve audio cables that are stupid bad. Something like comparing two pairs of 8' speaker cables, one 12 gauge and the other 24 gauge and also using some speakers with relatively low (4 ohms) and varied impedance curves. Since nobody has a quick-switching facility, the listening test will be accomplished by cable swapping which further reduces the sensitivity of the listeners. Between their inexperience and the lengthy switch over times, even if there was a difference to hear, they wouldn't hear it. Between inexperience with doing listening tests that are actually listening tests and therefore put a premium on listener training, and doing listening tests that are by design destined to produce random-guessing type results, it is easy to predict that a bad time will be had by all. This is a classic case of the blind leading the blind, and by blind I mean unknowing and inexperienced. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ arnyk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=64365 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=96407 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
