How much weight does ABX carry?

[TNT]

Hi!

If these are to be tested on speakers I would suggest that You either replace them with the same shape/weight or better, try to hang hem (close) above the speaker so not to interfere mechanically or acoustically.

Are You sure You are willing to put a lot of effort into this? I'm sure that irrespectively of the result, You will receive comments on why the test was flawed.

Before You start maybe some thinking around why ABX is not considered reliable (check the Randi thread) by some people and try to meet or remove the obstacles that is being put forward.

I think it would be interesting to have two test-groups - golden ears and "ordinary" people.

Good luck - please report progress and result here - it's really interesting !

/

 

[5th element]

Hi!

If these are to be tested on speakers I would suggest that You either replace them with the same shape/weight or better, try to hang hem (close) above the speaker so not to interfere mechanically or acoustically.

/

This is what I was going to comment on. Although the things you are putting on top of the speakers probably dont weigh that much. Its is well known that if you put something heavy on top of a loud speaker it can sound better because it helps make it more solid etc. You dont want that happening with your magic rocks.

I personally would like to see the results of a test like this because I just cannot see how its going to make it sound better. I was at a hifi show where someone had brass cones on top of the loudspeakers, the guy in the room then went and moved them from the back left corner on top of the speaker to the front right. He obviously thought this was making it sound better, but I just left the room laughing.

Also I do think you need people who are aware of the intricacies of sound and have the ability to talk about it. If you used my friend youd have a field day, she didnt think my hifi sounded any better then her boom box.

The differences that this test could make are going to be absolutely tiny. You are going to need people who know what to listen out for, to see if it makes any change to critical areas.

Like for instance in other experiments or tests to see which is better. Tea tasters for instance, they actually have been proven to have much more sensative sense of smell (aquired through learning the brain is better at interpreting the signals), which allows them to detect much smaller differences between two blends of tea then the rest of us. You would not get anyone off the street to taste tea because they are not as good at it and probably couldnt detect the difference between the two. There are probably other graphical tests that could be done, but if you dont know what you are looking, listening, tasting for then your not going to be able to detect the tiny differences.

When I sit down to a hifi the first thing I do is check for good focus of the central image and then the width of the stage, then the tonal balance. Then all the other little intricacies that I rate a loudspeakers performace by, maybe not in that order. I certainly know from my own experience that have been the last few years as Ive gotten more educated with hifi, that if you put me infront of a test like your talking about, if it was when I started the hifi stuff - I certainly would not have know what to listen for and would be far less useful then I am now. I didnt even listen out for a soundstage when I first started, it didnt even occur to me, so because I didnt know about it and wasnt listening out for it, it didnt matter if it was there or not, because it didnt matter.

Whether this means I actually would have picked up on it anyway I dont know, but i do know that now I have learned a few things that I would be better equipt for a test etc.

I still think however that you need to have joe puplic on the listening panel to give I nice wide spread of answers.

 

[Prune]

You should consider another format of a blind test besides ABX, as ABX seems to be a dirty word among some audiophiles. ABC/HR is a commonly used format for example. Also, you can be more rigorous and make it a double blind test; then results would hold more weight.

 

[planet10]

You should consider another format of a blind test besides ABX

Indeed. It is the nature of the forced choice -- the X -- that limits ABX.

dave

 

[planet10]

p10, as a fundamental logical matter, there cannot be any test whatsoever which can conclude that two devices sound the same. At least if "by sound the same" you mean "sound the same under all circumstances to all listeners."

The way the test is set up the DUT could be anything (ie twinkies). And i did say statistically.

dave