John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

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For the record, we were matching outputs more than 50 years ago, when making serious sonic comparisons, Lipshitz came 10 years later.
Personally, I prefer open tests where I listen to a product or design over a period of time. Next best, for me, is a,b,c comparisons, where I don't know what a,b,or c is, until the test is over. ABX confuses me, why I really don't know for sure, but I have some good ideas on the subject, and I think that ABX is the wrong way to evaluate audio equipment.
 
How to distinguish between a blackbird and a lark when you are in the dark?

Ancient Chinese proverb with two schools of thought. One says that you can't; one has to see the birds, because the darkness disturbs the inner rest required to make meaningful distinctions based on their song alone. The other school....., well, you can fill in the dots yourself.
 
abx is wrong because our hearing cannot work best when it is not associated with a physical form that you can see.The problem is that even if we have all the amplifiers in the same case, we need different colors for them and people might like some color more...time scale is indeed important too because we're not in the same mental shape everyday.
 
Markw4 is exactly correct
No, he is not.

abx is wrong because our hearing cannot work best when it is not associated with a physical form that you can see.
Our hearing can work better when it's not distracted by visual sense. Look up McGurk Effect. Gorilla among basketball players video is another example of distraction vs concentration. Blind person makes better use of the hearing because of less number of senses to focus on.

The problem is that even if we have all the amplifiers in the same case, we need different colors for them and people might like some color more...time scale is indeed important too because we're not in the same mental shape everyday.
Sure, if you are judging the looks.
 
No, he is not.
About the conscious perception of the gorilla, he is correct - it's nothing to do with expectation (JJ is wrong) & all to do with cognitive load & the finite limit of our working memory which is a shared resource used by auditory/visual memory.

What I think JJ is getting at is that we can remain unaware of a sound/flaw in sound until we somehow (by training or someone demonstrating it) sense it & then it is obvious - that's why trained listeners are usually used in formal blind tests
 
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ABX confuses me, why I really don't know for sure, but I have some good ideas on the subject, and I think that ABX is the wrong way to evaluate audio equipment.
You don't have to justify.
John, you are an audio designer. Your nick name is "the legendary". If they are honest, the only thing that Audio designers have in commun is they try to do their best. The tracks, the methods, the believes, the discoveries, each one has to find his own, that works best for him. Some run to get better numbers, others rely more on their feelings ... the only thing we all know for sure is ... we know little of the secrets of the universe and the skin color of the electrons.
We build puppets with string and paper. The result is judged on arrival.

But what are these junk little censors who want to endlessly impose their narrow prejudices on others?

Especially since we did not see them often at the finish line, did we?

It's unbearable.
 
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I. First of all 'expectation' as shown in the slide is the wrong word, it should probably be 'primed.'

'Expectation' is exactly the right word. We also speak of 'expectation bias' in this context.

This is more than just a sementical point. 'Primed' would one to believe that cognition is an mechanistic process, which it is not. Based on sensory inputs, the construction by the brain of a model of the reality it represents is an active process. Because our sensor pod never provides full information, assumptions or expectations are required to complete any model of the world we recreate in our minds. If these assumptions or expectations are wrong, the model of reality we recreate is bound to be wrong. This is the cause of many accidents or incidents.

It also means that if your expectation is that ABX does not work for you, it won't. In that respect, JC and others may be right. It does not work for them. However, to conclude on that basis that sighted tests do work, is a logical fallacy and self foolery imco.
 
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Is that why in Mark's DAC threads he accepts other member's listening impressions without any examination or judgement of their methodology or training?

Formal tests in threads? How do you know what I accept? Do you always say everything on your mind?

'Expectation' is exactly the right word. We also speak of 'expectation bias' in this context.

Expectation Bias:
"The tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.[45]"

List of cognitive biases - Wikipedia

You sure that's the bias you wanted to use? There might be a better fit in the table if you take a look.
 
Is that why in Mark's DAC threads he accepts other member's listening impressions without any examination or judgement of their methodology or training?
I am not sure to understand well what you want to say, but I can testify to the way Mark has accepted and advised, the 'retarded' in digital design that I am. With remarkable patience, without ever imposing his views, but by making me share something difficult to convey with words: listening impressions.
I thank him, it will allow me to advance a little less in ... blind.
 
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