Measuring something that you've adjusted by ear so that you can see what it is about it that you find appealing has absolutely nothing to do with any type of logical fallacy.
If anything, it's a helpful suggestion.
You're suggesting that sighted testing "trumps" DBT? Then why bother with DBT at all? If the "testing" that trumps DBT is filled with bias, then how could anyone take it seriously?
John, earlier in the thread, I posted about 25-30 references. Start there. The HK stuff is terrific, very carefully done and documented.
We all thank you I'm sure, though there are probably more than 12 of us.
Wait a minute, I thought I was *your* disciple, not the other way around. To quote the great Coad, this is very confusing.
Expectation bias. You "knew" what to expect before you listened to it. Your ears corroborated the written description.
Not knowing the make of speaker when listening and writing out a similar description would've made for a more reliable conclusion.
Often, a listening group can arrive at the same conclusions yet their valuation can be worthless.... I have seen peoples opinions on sonics change as the listening group beat down a dissenting opinion. Such groups would be contributing invalid data into the data set.
Without blind testing, comments about equipment sound quality are essentially worthless.
I agree. Though I have no commercial interest in audio. Even for cognition it is next to useless.
I really think all the people that abhor blind testing of audio gear are simply regurgitating little bits of anecdotal garbage that they've gleaned from internet posts, simply because they've been made a fool of during a blind test and now scream and claw at whatever evidence they can find, no matter how terrible, unprovable, or inaccurate.
You can pick the better television without your ears or nose.
You can pick the more comfortable couch without your eyes or ears.
You can pick the better apple pie without your eyes or ears.
Yet somehow, a test of audio gear in which you don't know which piece of gear is playing by seeing it somehow transcends logic and becomes an invalid test.
Sounds an awful lot like "That test didn't go the way I wanted, so it's stupid."
Ever stopped to think carefully why, John?
Here's what I'm getting at. Over in Europe, in most countries, Brtish audio mags are usually the reference. You can best see that by the fact that for example What HiFi? has local (national) editions in many countries. And you'd have to be blind, deaf, dumb and stupid not to notice that British products alway lead the way, with very rare exceptions to this rule.
But, that aside, the gear they use for testing is composed of usually British products, and in case of group tests of loudspeakers, the amps are almost always British made.
Now, I believe there are such things as "schools of reasoning". Perhaps not as defined in text books, but in general ways definitely so. Americans do it in a particlura way, they start off with a fully complementary designs and go on from there. This is, of course, not to say there aren't any other examples of a different approach there, of course there are, but the majority sticks with "the norm". In a similar way, the Brits have a logic of making amps, with not much variation between unrelated companies, or even competing companies. Their views are well outined by Douglas Self. Briefly, make it amplify by 80 dB, throw in 60 dB of NFB, and never ever forget a low pass filter with its cutoff point no higher than 60 kHz (although newer designs go a bit higher up, and some young Turks actually hit 100 kHz).
There is no doubt that this recipe works and has produce some noted models every now and then. In my view, it has a built in fault, as the pahse shift at high frequencies will produce a significant square wave tilt at 20 kHz. And it can be heard well below 20 kHz, as anyone who disables it and listens again to the same music will quickly notice. To me, most British ams which do that tend to sound blurred at high frequencies, and not rarely sound somehow lazy, slow to respond.
Now, you organize the best organized group test of loudspeakers using such an amp. Flawed from the get-go, no matter what that group decides, the result will not really be fully representative of what those speakers can do.
I wonder what would happen if they used a better amp, not necessarily American, or German, or anybody's, but an amp which can deliver serious power into difficult loads. British, why not, say Tag McLaren, or Boothroyd-Stuart Meridian. But they generally don't, it's usually a small, slim box, with a token heat sink inside, delivering 40-70W into 8 Ohms at best.
If I was setting that up, I'd ask which is the speaker that can accept the most power, say 150W programme material, and I'd put in a 200WPC amp, just to make sure the amp wasn't any kind of bottleneck.
As opposed to that, I'd sooner trust H/K, at least they offer (or used to) some seriously powerful amps, e.g. Citation 22 (200WPC into 8 Ohms), and even today, they have a 150WPC integrated amp on sale, the H/K 990 Signature. 6 pairs of 15A trannies in the output section of each chanel- It can seriously rock, or boogie, or do symphony orchestras.
Think about it.
The relativity of any blind test by any panel is really a way for many to delegate their buying decisions to others, often I find because they can't make up their own minds.
So a panel tells them what's best by a majority vote/rating. That's still only the majority, which by default means there were dissenters.
How do you know your ears wouldn't put you among the dissenters?
Can you duplicate EXACTLY the conditions under which the test was conducted? Meaning same room, same acoustic conditions and same gear?
What if your say amp showed up the winning say speaker to be, in fact, a dud, because once presented with serious resreves of power, itshowed that it was compressing the sound?
I heard exactly such a case more than once. For example, the B&W 602 speaker, the triumphant winner of several blind panel tests in the UK (in its price class, of course), when attached not a Creek or some such 40-60 WPC amp, but to my Karan Acoustics KA-i180 integrated amp, capable of delivering 180 WPC into 8 Ohms, sounded rather congested, compressed over that speaker. And I was not trying to discover how much power it can take before it melts down, the oscilloscope clearly showed that worst case impulses peaked at just below 80 WPC, which is within the speaker's specs.
Those who actually do trust their ears (because of experience and innate ability) know that it doesn't matter either way,
regardless of pseudo-scientific pronouncements. The proof is in the results, not the process. In fact, much scientific progress
is made without full (or even any) understanding at the time of the underlying mechanism involved.
Last edited:
Amen to that.
Have you noticed that those who trust their ears in most cases somehow always and up with better sounding systems than those who rely on panel test result?
Have you also noticed that those who trust their ears most suffer from "changeitis" far less than the others?
Last edited:
But you still need to peek to distinguish these "superior" products from what John sneeringly refers to as "mid-fi." Ah, well. These excuses have been made for over three decades, just like with alien abductions, astrology, dowsing, homeopathy, and the rest of the zoo of unlikely beliefs.
Evidence, that's the one hurdle that the hucksters can't cross.
Evidence, that's the one hurdle that the hucksters can't cross.
I just ordered a new book on this sort of thing:
'Extraordinary Knowing-Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the mind' by E. Mayer Ph.D a former professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.
I don't need anyone to tell me what I hear is not real. I hear what I hear, and usually my designs are successful. It is ONLY when, as I have sometimes done in the past, I did NOT listen to my design, but just relied on measurements, that I have failed. Still, with my new test equipment, I hope to find even more measurements that might correlate well with listening.
Right on, DVV and Rayma.
'Extraordinary Knowing-Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the mind' by E. Mayer Ph.D a former professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.
I don't need anyone to tell me what I hear is not real. I hear what I hear, and usually my designs are successful. It is ONLY when, as I have sometimes done in the past, I did NOT listen to my design, but just relied on measurements, that I have failed. Still, with my new test equipment, I hope to find even more measurements that might correlate well with listening.
Right on, DVV and Rayma.
Last edited:
Again, I get the impression that many of these DBTs are run the "wrong way" - I'm not interested in what "sounds better", I'm listening for the defects in the sound; like a mechanic listening to an engine - I don't say a BMW engine sounds "better" than a MB one, I say that the engine in that one vehicle over there has a peculiar knocking noise, every now and again, and that's a problem that needs to be sorted. You get rid of every one of those abberant noises, and optimised sound then automatically falls out of the mix ...
- Status
- Not open for further replies.