DAC blind test: NO audible difference whatsoever

Been away for awhile, I heard this ABX was in the works long ago....the ABX results were as I had anticipated...
As usual, the methodology has been roundly criticised, disseminated, alternatives proposed, all for the likes of preserving a "faith" in differences.
There is very little outright quality(audible) differences to be had anymore, the CD & all its digital variants sealing the deal.
This said, what is the one link in this chain that has to perform THE most difficult task? This device does not have to record electrical waveforms, amplify waveforms, nor tweak waveforms in any way shape or form. It has the monumental task of converting electrical waveforms into a completely different energy, compressing air molecules, a far more difficult task...& an endeavour that should be the core of our focus towards audio "perfection".


---------------------------------------------------------------------Rick.........
 
And almost everyone ignores our 2nd type of hearing capabilitywhich degrades much less.

dave

A little known fact is that hearing loss occurs from the floor up, the threshold increases, but the top around 90-100 dB tends to not change. Music on the loud side sounds just like it always did for the most part.

Despite claims to the contrary by the OP, audiograms measure minimum SPL people can hear different frequencies, and do not indicate people can't mostly compensate for hearing loss by turning up the SPL a little.
 
Another objective measurement, in which one can also participate in is:
Gearslutz Pro Audio Community - View Single Post - Evaluating AD/DA loops by means of Audio Diffmaker As a studio guy, I use the top AD DA converter in the list, but I doubt I can hear the difference relative to the other DAC's.

Thanks a lot for posting this, its rather eye-opening that even the best studio DAC-ADC chains cannot post results better than -60dB. Who was it who was saying all DACs are essentially perfect?
 
I think i will have to repeat few things, here in that thread, every 10 pages or so...

That´s our destiny... 🙂
I´ve written about mandatory inclusions and considerations in controlled listening tests literally a hundred times, have cited the relevant literature did some example calculations, but somehow some experimenter still insist to repeat every error already known. 😉


Occam's razor: If nobody can hear a difference, it's probably because there is no audible difference.

That´s your assertion, but you didn´t provide the reasoning.
Let´s say the result of your experiment is that the null hypothesis couldn´t be rejected.

Two possible reasons:
1.) no audible difference exists
2.) the experiment was flawed

Please explain why Occam´s razor should lead to the conclusion that 1.) will be probably correct.
 
The lack of participant is a problem in any test that is looking for reliable answers reflecting a large comparable (population and/or typical users).

The type of participants (profile) is also very important. 8-10 years old girls wouldn't reflect the typical users of said digital to analog converters...

All that is simply common sense, really.

Please express your objective in two or thress sentences. As said before that should be the beginning.

Now, the lack of participant is to be taken with a grain of salt. Only 2-3 participants is a real problem, but chances that 15-20 participants are not qualified (deaf) for such test, are next to non-existent.

Deafness under test conditions is a different beast than "normal deafness".
Our topic is to ensure that the participants are reaching a sufficient level of sensitivity under the specific test conditions.

In any case, no absolute answers can be given, only more or less % of certainty.

I prefer probability but there is some progress as we do agree to something. 🙂

Put simply: a (hypothetical) 95% of chance that converter's sonic differential are inaudible would provide enough information to make decisions about that type of component.

Inaudible? To which population? To all or to the average or to 95% of the "audiophile community" (whatever that means)?
Please see above that is a crucial point and should be answered by your expressed objective of your study/experiment.

There is no need to dig any deeper or to make something simple awfully complex: absolute answers... are not the answer. Some audiophiles thought DACs were giving day & night kind of results, they're not, end of story for most of the population. Now, is some golden ear on the planet COULD spot one single difference in a particular context? Maybe. Maybe not. But does it really matter?

For most of the population: NO.

Please be specific in your objective; do you want to examine if a difference is "inaudible" (to whom, see above) or do you want to examine if a difference is like "night and day" (whatever the definition/meaning of that term is; would the "gorilla" already qualify for "night and day" or just for quite a relevant difference?)
 
Last edited:
That's true.

Oh wait, that's actually wrong. 😛

No, mark4 is correct. The audiogramm measures the sound pressure at each frequency point at which the participant detects the sound (it´s a 50% threshold).


dBHL is, in the very essence, the (audible) threshold of every frequencies.

Which means that dBHL is the normalized threshold of a "normal" listening ability. it is/was defined for the range from 125 Hz to 8Khz which was the traditional range for these measurements.
Due to this normalization the dbHL curve up to 8kHz is a straight line (although the dBSPL points are already very different for each frequency point) and therefore it is easier to spot any departures from this "normal" listening curve.

Above 8kHz the dBSPL values are reported.
 

Next time do an ABX test use two identical machines, no in fact just use one machine and see if the participants can hear the differences between the one machine. If they can then obviously ABX or whatever test is pure rubbish. Equally rubbish would be the auditory cr@p that some of the other "over literate" members try to push. mmerrill99 particularly jumps to the foreground 🙂
 
Only misplaced faith seems to be the faith that some people have in ABX.

I'm sure Galileo used some form of ABX in an effort to convince the powers that be...in addition to the "powers" of human vision.
Those logical scientific methodologies didn't work out too well for him...
I had thought humanity has progressed a lot since Galileos time, we see many examples that it has not.


------------------------------------------------------------Rick.............
 
Last edited:
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts—for support rather than illumination.”

To detect small differences in populations, the experimenter need lots of samples. JonBocani has stated that he does not have lots of samples; that his participants represent typical “audio heads” but not necessarily those will the most acute hearing (very young people).

Jon’s observations are that under his test conditions, he cannot find an audible difference between the DAC’s. Is there a difference between the DAC’s? Yes, of course. We know everything has variation. We know that based on variation there is a difference within DAC’s from the same company. Is that difference meaningful? The manufacturer would say no. Likewise, Jon is saying that his group of listeners cannot tell an audible difference between the DAC’s under test.

So for people who write paragraphs and pages how this “Hardware” is so much better than some other model, you would get the sense that even the most casual listener can hear a difference. They can’t. The golden ears would say then can. Fine. Send forth your champion.
 
Next time do an ABX test use two identical machines, no in fact just use one machine and see if the participants can hear the differences between the one machine. If they can then obviously ABX or whatever test is pure rubbish. Equally rubbish would be the auditory cr@p that some of the other "over literate" members try to push. mmerrill99 particularly jumps to the foreground 🙂
pls tell us what dacs you have tested and the setup, instead of just pushing your "theories"
 
Next time do an ABX test use two identical machines, no in fact just use one machine and see if the participants can hear the differences between the one machine. If they can then obviously ABX or whatever test is pure rubbish. Equally rubbish would be the auditory cr@p that some of the other "over literate" members try to push. mmerrill99 particularly jumps to the foreground 🙂

Apologies for being "over literate" for you - I'll dumb it down when replying to you & you can avoid reading my other replies, OK?