Hi Kevin. I see what you mean. But some things are just not practical for DBT, like comparing digital with vinyl - I can see major logistical problems there.
Hi Scott, I would have that the question in most people's minds was philosophical, not religious. Is truth an abstract or an absolute?
And the context was DBT.
Isn't DBT about finding the truth, or is DBT not just a philosophical approach as much as a literal one? Is it not also a philosophy?
I was never against DBT, just the way some have approached it, as somehow being the only way to the truth. What makes me have doubts re DBT is that it forces people to make judgments by imposing an unnatural way of listening. Most people when they listen, are not listening in an analysing mode, they listen for the sake of the enjoyment. Where is the natural enjoyment of listening when the mind is in DBT gear?
OK, I will get off my soap box here, not trying to sow discord. Just that it is worth thinking about - and there will be cases that DBT is still useful, just not infallible.
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When statements are overly general or extreme the care in testing them gets easier. I'm not sure a deep meaning of truth need be invoked when what is being tested is, "My special capacitor makes a difference so obvious anyone can hear it in 10 seconds or they are deaf".
Bill posted that "sound" of dozens of capacitors guide with paragraphs of colorful poetry to describe in detail what they do to each part of the musical spectrum. Sorting out the truth of that is something I have no interest in.
A while back someone took me up on my suggestion to google op-amp rolling and just see what they found. The results were as expected all over the place in many cases there was nothing in common from listener to listener.
Yep! Doing a sensitive AB/X test of digital with vinyl is almost impossible. You just can't do quick A to B switches (they won't stay in sync).
Even if you make a digital copy of the vinyl and then play them back one at a time, the needle talk from the vinyl will give it away.
Sorry, but it wasn't me that asked the 'What is truth' question, please go back and see that it was DF. I just made a humorous quip and actually never uttered the words 'What is truth'.
But since it was brought up (and not by me):
Truth can be abstract, relative or absolute. The last one is quite rare, maybe a court of law wants that. For most other cases, it is the first two that are common.
But, as DF brought it up, what is the actual aim of DBT?
I would like for somebody to answer that, if it is not truth, or some kind of truth, then what it is it? Sounds like a fair question to me.
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Perhaps I'm dense, but why on earth would you try to use ABX for vinyl vs digital?!
ABX is about threshold of perceptibility. Not about preference. There are other infinitely better tests for that. But also when it's this obvious (ummm surface noise), then good luck maintaining a veneer of blinding.
You gotta match what you're trying to determine with the test at hand or it's an apples to rocket ships comparison.
ABX is about threshold of perceptibility. Not about preference. There are other infinitely better tests for that. But also when it's this obvious (ummm surface noise), then good luck maintaining a veneer of blinding.
You gotta match what you're trying to determine with the test at hand or it's an apples to rocket ships comparison.
Quite true.
What my problem with ABX/DBT is that it puts a listener into the judgment seat, not the pleasure seat.
Is that a recipe for 'impaired judgment' - just asking?
I am sure it has its place, but some seem to think it is more infallible than it really is?
What my problem with ABX/DBT is that it puts a listener into the judgment seat, not the pleasure seat.
Is that a recipe for 'impaired judgment' - just asking?
I am sure it has its place, but some seem to think it is more infallible than it really is?
Listening to sound is hardly pleasurable, listening to music is.
Since human conscious awareness can only focus on one thing at the time, you can either listen to the music, or to the sound, but not to both at the same time. That is the first error in your logic.
ABX/DBT is all about making judgements. To use this as a point of criticism against ABX/DBT is your second logical mistake.
Your third one concerns your last sentence, which makes no sense at all. It is just an open ended array of words that seemingly convey some content, but they don't.
Yes, conceptually it is that simple, but usually - given the fact that this discussion is running now for roughly 50 years - we still don´t know what degree of "maximum presicion" or "minimum changes" is sufficient perceptionwise.
If we add the hypothesis that different EMI effects might be the reason for percepted differences but weren´t normally not reflected by the usual set of measurements available,it gets even more complicated.
My point is more, that we don´t really know wrt to a certain recording which way does introduce more distortions.
In a statistical sense the "as linear as possible" approach might be correct on average but might often be a quite strong distortion itsself.
Quite true.
What my problem with ABX/DBT is that it puts a listener into the judgment seat, not the pleasure seat.
Is that a recipe for 'impaired judgment' - just asking?
I am sure it has its place, but some seem to think it is more infallible than it really is?
For good reason literature on Design of Experiments offers more than the sentence "use an ABX test in every case and be happy".....
An experimenter has the obligation to clearly express his/her research question (be as specific as possible at that point) and to design an experiment that is able to address that question as good as possible.
There are lots of protocols out there (if you count all variants) and an experiment has to choose an appropriate one but there the DOE does not end.
Of course you´re right in mentioning that a lot of "blind" tests in the audio
field aren´t as well designed as they should be.
Is it an error? I think that is exactly what Joe Rasmussen mentioned too in his first sentence... ?!
Please reconsider it.
If you take into consideration the way "ABX results" were used in audio forum discussions (presenting often the categorical conclusion from a negative ABX result that there couldn´t have been a perecptible difference)
that seems to be the point that Joe Rasmussen is addressing.
I found this: #52
I used JCx's model with some simplifications to plot the closed loop output Z for different values of Cn from 0pF to 100pF.
The circuit behaves quite like the data sheet, assuming the data sheet shows the output Z for unity gain closed loop mode. The Z knee increases in f with a maximum when Cn=50pF (red line) and then shows a 2nd order shape (40dB/dec).
However, the theoretical circuit of fig 33 does not behave like this. In other words, the additional parasitics and components in the implemented circuit change the behaviour. I'll show this shortly.
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I don't want to come across as entirely in the 'anti' camp. But I do think that there are good reasons to question the value. Some have said that everything ends up sound the same, but as Scott pointed out earlier, some of is so obvious that you would have to be a deaf cat (is there such a thing?) to not hear it, but then, you don't actually need any ABX anyway. So is this really just about the subtle details only and whether they are audible? Then whatever you are testing, you are always going to have arguments. And then what has settled, what has been achieved? Just asking.
I think I will just chill a Hardy's Chronicles Rose' and naval gaze about it some more while listening to Steely Dan and Gaucho. That's worth my time.
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