Pretty much by definition, if they are not heard, they are not there.
Not talking a one-off event here, or even a single user necessarily. I'm talking about real, statistically defensible testing.
+100%.
I trust my ears also.
I generally find that I identify equipment sound 'faults' by the end of the first song, and then starts the 'improvement' process.
For gear that is close to sonically 'perfect', it can take more extended listening to identify subtle 'nasties' that in time grate and irritate.
Short term ABX listening is useless in this context.
Dan.
Yes. That's exactly the basic process, once one tunes into the method, it can be refined or altered to suit the individual - I have set of very "nasty" recordings which throw all the playback defects into your face straightaway, the sort of "problems" that the typical listener immediately dismisses with a "Gee, that's a bad recording!!" retort. Those behaviours are my oscilliscope screens, telling me exactly where the system is misbehaving - a piece of expensive high tech would be almost useless in giving the real information I need.
Edit: Statistics need need not apply - statistically, people can put up with, and enjoy really crap sound, therefore vaguely good enough sound is good enough, on average ...
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There may be no generic "good" recordings, as we all hear differently at differing frequencies. Furthermore, different media seem to be recorded to suit different playback applications. I've settled on 3 eq and crossover settings, 1 to suit vinyl, 1 to suit cd/digital, and 1 to suit cinema sound.
I have only 2 phono preamps, two DACs , 2 CD players,and two bluray players to have checked these settings with, but the results are consistent in my home- good sounding playback for one media doesn't necessarily cut it for another.
Furthermore, 89.3% of audiophile statistics are malarkey .
Yes, you've got me there, aardvarkash10! Couldn't help but throw a dart - good thing I'm the only person on this forum who throws things at people when what they say bugs me a bit, 
.
The reality of life, standing apart from the insular and quite theoretical world of "perfect science", is that a lot of the truly good stuff is done by people who are just intinctively good at what they do - and that includes full-blown scientists as well, of course. The people who truly achieve significant movement forward, outside of the "correct way" of doing things, should always be given full recognition - sniping from the back stalls doesn't show anyone, I repeat, anyone, in a good light ..
.The reality of life, standing apart from the insular and quite theoretical world of "perfect science", is that a lot of the truly good stuff is done by people who are just intinctively good at what they do - and that includes full-blown scientists as well, of course. The people who truly achieve significant movement forward, outside of the "correct way" of doing things, should always be given full recognition - sniping from the back stalls doesn't show anyone, I repeat, anyone, in a good light ..
I find I hear distortion, I don't hear frequencies - if someone doesn't like intense treble then they would find it impossible to be in a room with someone aggressively but competently playing a real trumpet; I OTOH would get a tremendous buzz from that experience.
That's the direction I'm coming from ...
I want to remind the general audience that there are 2 significant types of errors in these tests: 1. Hearing something that is not there.
2. NOT hearing something that IS there.
These are sometimes called:
Type 1 and Type 2 errors.
Now, it is true that people can be effected by visual perception. Sometimes, sleazy manufacturers will make a great looking outer case, and put a very marginal design inside.
Once, I saw a French preamp design, with a race car driver's name, that cost many thousands of dollars, perhaps twice as much as most anything else, YET it had some uA709 op amps with cheap parts all around. They had this amazing volume control that looked like it could control a 747. This product does not appear to exist today, I wonder why?
You can fool all the people, some of the time; and some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all the people, all the time. That is what I have found in practice.
Now, is it the right thing to go for the
Type 1 errors, and virtually ignore the Type 2 errors?
I think not, but that is what ABX tests tend to do, and that is why I don't use it.
2. NOT hearing something that IS there.
These are sometimes called:
Type 1 and Type 2 errors.
Now, it is true that people can be effected by visual perception. Sometimes, sleazy manufacturers will make a great looking outer case, and put a very marginal design inside.
Once, I saw a French preamp design, with a race car driver's name, that cost many thousands of dollars, perhaps twice as much as most anything else, YET it had some uA709 op amps with cheap parts all around. They had this amazing volume control that looked like it could control a 747. This product does not appear to exist today, I wonder why?
You can fool all the people, some of the time; and some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all the people, all the time. That is what I have found in practice.
Now, is it the right thing to go for the
Type 1 errors, and virtually ignore the Type 2 errors?
I think not, but that is what ABX tests tend to do, and that is why I don't use it.
The type 2 errors will often be masked by the mind, interpolating the elements of the better version of sound onto the lesser - the hearing of the "qualitities" of your favourite song on the car radio, which sounds like crap to everyone else in the vehicle, syndrome.
A good way around this "problem" is to reduce the emotional impact of the music, turn the exercise into listening to a very short segment of sound, which registers as a meaningless waveform - it's a piece of noise which has certain technical qualities; you're bypassing a lot of the "naughty" processing that your mind would otherwise be doing on the sample.
A good way around this "problem" is to reduce the emotional impact of the music, turn the exercise into listening to a very short segment of sound, which registers as a meaningless waveform - it's a piece of noise which has certain technical qualities; you're bypassing a lot of the "naughty" processing that your mind would otherwise be doing on the sample.
Can you tell us how you've removed those types of errors from your tests?
With Type 1 errors, I try to match everything with level, absolute phase, and frequency response. These are controllable factors, and I address them. I have gone even farther with power amps in 'matching' the damping factor. All that I find that I need is an A-B comparison, even if I don't know what A or B is specifically. I can be fooled, if someone lies to me, sometimes. Is this really useful to make better audio designs? (to fake differences)
Part of the 'conspiracy' seems to be to dumb down what audio will deliver, reduce it to a general level of mediocrity, with no special expectations of much being possible beyond that - of course, when something is artificially stifled, the human species being what they are will always be able to perceive the deceit in some way, and attempt to bypass those "limits" in various, often crazy ways - hence all the "funniest snake oil" stuff - the "conspirators" have brought it down upon themselves ...
Hmmm.....
Hearing something that is not there..... like overly bright treble just because it is a solid state amp.
Not hearing something that is there.... like not hearing the smoothness of the treble in the same solid state amp.
Sounds like someone is trying to be a bit too clever with this type 1/2 stuff.
Hearing something that is not there..... like overly bright treble just because it is a solid state amp.
Not hearing something that is there.... like not hearing the smoothness of the treble in the same solid state amp.
Sounds like someone is trying to be a bit too clever with this type 1/2 stuff.
Lets parse this down shall we John.
"I sometime adjust all the equipment so that it is broadly similar in settings and configuration. I then listen to them one after the other, knowing which is which. If I don't know which is which, I sometimes get it wrong. I don't understand the purpose of testing for false positive."
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