tc-60guy said:
Hello TC-60guy! You've nailed the problem on the head! The problem with the blind-faith acceptance of DBTs by audio objectivists is they have taken something that works in the medical field and simply choose to believe that because the science works there means it must work in audio equally as well! What tests have they done to verify this? Wouldn't a truly objective person want to be postive they're correct and not just assume so?
So the question is are objectivists reallying being objective or scientific when it concerns DBTs in audio? I believe DBTs is a major area in audio where the "supposedly" objective objectivists are in fact practicing voodoo or pseudo-science. What's actually happening is audio objectivists have taken scientific terms and arguements out of the context they were actually meant to be refered to (which in this case is medical DBTs) and then twisted and inserted them into an audio debate to disquise what are really their subjective opinions as being "supposedly" objective opinions supported by science!
The reality is that medical and audio DBTs differ completely. Here are some of the ways:
(1) In medical DBTs people are typically given a passive role (take a pill.) In audio DBTs people are asked to perform (identify X as A or B), and thus in audio DBTs the people are subject to possible performance anxiety ---{performance anxiety is a state of an intense anxiety that occurs prior and/or during a performance}--- I's often used in reference to speaking in front of a group, or acting but it can also pertain to ANY SITUATION where a person's actions are under scrutiny, such as taking tests (yes DBTs qualify), having sex (where performance anxiety can even cause impotence) etc. Yet for some strange reason the scientifically orientated, rational, impartial, "supposedly" objective objectivists simply ignore these differences or discard it as being unworthy of any real consideration.
(2) DBTs in medicine are driven by the desire to find actual differences between a drug and a sugar pill. In audio, on the other hand just the opposite occurs. The proponents of DBTs are actually not impartial but rather are more interested in not finding differences in like kind audio components tested. This is required to support their "supposedly" impartial objectivist belief that it's impossible for a "properly designed" amp (whatever that means) which isn't broken & is functioning correctly to sound different at matched levels, if each has high input impedance, low output impedance, flat frequency response, low distortion, low noise floor, and is not clipped. These are hardly the actions of an objective person seeking the scientific truth. Instead they are actually the actions of a person with an agenda to prove.
(3) In medical DBTs there is concern about falsely attributing a subject's improvement to the placebo effect when in actuality the improvement was a simply a result of natural self-healing over time. In audio, there seems to be little concern about falsely attributing negatives to the placebo effect. In fact in audio DBTs we find whenever no difference is heard, this is presented as proof postive of imagined audio differences, but should there be an indication of audible differences, the DBT's procedures are immediately questioned and/or dismissed as being faulty by the same "supposedly" rational, impartial objectivists who are willing to blindly accept the results when no audible differences are heard. Is that how a scientist would perform these tests? NO!
(4) In medical DBTs you may hear about attempts to completly eliminate the possibility of bias through triple-blind testing (persons administering the test, those tabulating data, etc. don't know what the test is about). In audio DBTs triple-blind is seldom if ever considered.
(5) In medical DBTs the training, experience and test-taking abilities of the subjects do NOT affect the results of the test because the subjects aren't asked to perform. The tests are passive (see step 1) In audio DBTs the subjects are all required to perform! Therefore the training, experience and test-taking abilities of the subjects matters. So with audio DBTs, unlike medical DBTs, it's more of a test of the test subjects than a test of the actual differences between the components.
(6) In medicial DBTs the tests have been scientifically validated for this use. In audio they haven't. Strangely once again to the "supposedly" objective, impartial, scientifically orientated audio objectivists this difference doesn't seem to matter as they proclaim the "supposed" validity of audio DBTs of a period of many years.
MYTH: Failed DBTs provide proof of imagined perception of difference beyond doubt.
FACT: Failed DBTs are merely unsuccessful attempts to prove perception of difference beyond doubt. This does **not** imply the claimed perception of difference is imagined beyond doubt. Nor does it imply the differences in the stimuli are to small to be perceived as different.
For an audio DBT to mean anything:
A) The ABX box & the DBT itself MUST be qualified as able to test the attribute that's intended to be tested.
B) It MUST be shown as able to consistently & reliably resolve the relevant data, so false positives & failures due to insufficient resolving ability are kept to a minimum.
Without such qualification, the faith in claims of sonic differences by subjectivists is now being substituted for the faith in a DBT's by objectivists. Now armed with nothing more than blind faith in the validity of audio DBTs, objectivists are mistakenly claiming:
C) A failed DBT by subjectivists proves the subjectivist's faith in sonic differences of audio components is flawed.
D) Many years of audio DBTs it's been "proven" that subjectivists cannot hear any differences when the name brands are hidden from them.
But the reality is these DBTs hasn't proven a thing! The fact is failed DBTs are inconclusive, period! NOTHING has been proven or disproven. Therefore objectivists who still wish to proclaim DBTs are valid in regards to audio, are at best simply stating their SUBJECTIVE OPINION & at its worse it's a deliberate twisting of the truth to substantiate their unproveable beliefs. For any objectivist to now claim that failed DBTs by subjectivists proves an imagined perception of percieved differences beyond a doubt, reflects a complete lack of understanding of the science these same objectivists claim to champion. These actions on the part of objectivists are the exact opposite of what real science demands. This is in fact voodoo or pseudo-science being practiced by these objectivists & is often accompanied by additional faith in the unprovable "null hypothesis", which is also (like their faith in audio DBTs) espoused as if it's an undeniable scientific fact. True science is about discovery & understanding the way things are through observation, theory & experimentation. This is NOT what occurs in audio DBTs!
Another Approach
As it seems my opinion is in the minority here let me try this from another perspective, ok? As a subjectivist my biggest problems with DBTs in audio is due to the insertion of an ABX box and a second set of interconnects! As a subjectivist I believe wires and components have a unique sonic signature of their own. Therefore when doing a DBT via an ABX and a second set of interconnects, I cannot compare amp A vs amp B. In reality I'm asked to compare amp A, an ABX box and a second set of ICs vs amp B an ABX box and another set of ICs. That's too many unknown variables.
The fact is there's no equivalent of adding an ABX box and a second set of interconnects in medicial DBTs, like there is in audio. That alone would seem to be a significant difference between the two different types of DBTs. From my admittedly limited understanding of medical DBTs. I believe if somone added 2 substances of unknown inertness (which would be like adding the ABX box and the additional interconnects and their unkown additional "inertness" i.e., the addition of their sonic attributes or lack of them) would automatically invalidate the medical DBT in and of itself!
I propose a possible solution would be to allow the ICs to be switched manuelly by a person who' both unseen and unheard by those taking the DBTs. This person wouldn't be told why they're switching the wires and they'd be isolated from everyone else ---{to remove the Clever Hans problem}--- with the instructions that when a light comes on in their room/location they have 30 seconds to either change the IC wires or not ---{as they see fit, providing they actually change them at least once}--- and then record the actions they took. Changing the IC would be equal to an ABX selecting amp A or amp B.
When the subject finished taking the DBT all that would need to be done would be to compare the subject's results against the results recorded by the person switching the ICs manuelly. I believe this type of DBT would go a looooonnggg way towards bridging the gap between subjective opponents and the objective proponents of DBTs. I fully realize it doesn't remove every objection to DBTs but it does remove one major one!
Any comments?
As it seems my opinion is in the minority here let me try this from another perspective, ok? As a subjectivist my biggest problems with DBTs in audio is due to the insertion of an ABX box and a second set of interconnects! As a subjectivist I believe wires and components have a unique sonic signature of their own. Therefore when doing a DBT via an ABX and a second set of interconnects, I cannot compare amp A vs amp B. In reality I'm asked to compare amp A, an ABX box and a second set of ICs vs amp B an ABX box and another set of ICs. That's too many unknown variables.
The fact is there's no equivalent of adding an ABX box and a second set of interconnects in medicial DBTs, like there is in audio. That alone would seem to be a significant difference between the two different types of DBTs. From my admittedly limited understanding of medical DBTs. I believe if somone added 2 substances of unknown inertness (which would be like adding the ABX box and the additional interconnects and their unkown additional "inertness" i.e., the addition of their sonic attributes or lack of them) would automatically invalidate the medical DBT in and of itself!
I propose a possible solution would be to allow the ICs to be switched manuelly by a person who' both unseen and unheard by those taking the DBTs. This person wouldn't be told why they're switching the wires and they'd be isolated from everyone else ---{to remove the Clever Hans problem}--- with the instructions that when a light comes on in their room/location they have 30 seconds to either change the IC wires or not ---{as they see fit, providing they actually change them at least once}--- and then record the actions they took. Changing the IC would be equal to an ABX selecting amp A or amp B.
When the subject finished taking the DBT all that would need to be done would be to compare the subject's results against the results recorded by the person switching the ICs manuelly. I believe this type of DBT would go a looooonnggg way towards bridging the gap between subjective opponents and the objective proponents of DBTs. I fully realize it doesn't remove every objection to DBTs but it does remove one major one!
Any comments?
Hello Thetubeguy, My beery missive last night was not a plea for throwing out the methodology with the bathwater. I only meant to say that all ideas wether orthodoxy or lunatic fringe should be slapped around a bit to see if they can take the pressure. The problem with a lot of subjectivists is that they can't seem to accept ANY methodology which might prove them wrong.
Re: Another Approach
Well, that's exactly the methodology I proposed (see earlier posts). Largely because I don't have an ABX box, and obviously that itself may have a sonic signature. Just been busy, so not got round to it yet ...
Medical DBTs. Very difficult (I have practiced medicine for >20y). Drug A may not look like drug B, or taste like drug B, or may have a trivial but detectable side-effect with reveals to a patient which drug it is, or blinded researchers may suspect that drug A is a particular drug and bias their results accordingly etc etc ad infinitum.
Even more variables come in when it is treatment A versus treatment B. A study may compare a new treatment against just one of the current treatments - and perhaps not the best one. Placebos / null controls may be impossible for ethical reasons (you can't give placebo cancer chemotherapy).
It's a minefield, there are plenty of medical equivalents of the ABX box! Audio blinded tests are a piece of cake in comparison!
thetubeguy1954 said:
Well, that's exactly the methodology I proposed (see earlier posts). Largely because I don't have an ABX box, and obviously that itself may have a sonic signature. Just been busy, so not got round to it yet ...
Medical DBTs. Very difficult (I have practiced medicine for >20y). Drug A may not look like drug B, or taste like drug B, or may have a trivial but detectable side-effect with reveals to a patient which drug it is, or blinded researchers may suspect that drug A is a particular drug and bias their results accordingly etc etc ad infinitum.
Even more variables come in when it is treatment A versus treatment B. A study may compare a new treatment against just one of the current treatments - and perhaps not the best one. Placebos / null controls may be impossible for ethical reasons (you can't give placebo cancer chemotherapy).
It's a minefield, there are plenty of medical equivalents of the ABX box! Audio blinded tests are a piece of cake in comparison!
GA Briggs (Wharfedale) once said in a BBC interview that HiFi was a very strange business, because if you believe that placing a hot cup of tea ontop of your speakers will improve the sound then the sound will actually improve, you will hear it. He went onto say that this is not imagination but you will actually hear a difference.
So I have no doubt that people are hearing differences in cables etc.
I don't dismiss their experience but rather their explanation.
I get mad too when people don't believe me.
Hello Fredex, Briggs's comments remind me of those Shun Mook hocky pucks everyone used to go ape about years ago. An update of that lame concept are those little cones Totem sells. It's a shame because Totem speakers are pretty good! The demands of the marketplace seem to debase everyone!
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