BLINDTEST: Midrange 360-7200hz, NO audible difference whatsover.

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Why did you use a class-D amplifier?

Why do you describe the dac as a $4,000 studio dac rather than describing technically for what it is, an outdated PCM1794 dac?

I'm not going into an electronics debate. Been there, done that.

Blindtest related to DACs exists, check the link in the first pages.
Also, subjectively, Forssell converters are well-appreciated among sound engineers. Do your researches, please.

And I will not even respond about the class-D amplifier, that's just silly...
 
People allergic to EQ (DSP, digital processing of any kind, etc..) are all over the place on Audiophilia. Our friend, Planet10, waits for a 24/192 DSP... Many reasons, many angles, many types of allergies. But it's not my circus, not my monkeys. People are free to choose what they want, exactly as I am.

As for the EQ sloppyness, I took it for granted that people here would understand that ''sloppyness'' would actually HELP to identify the drivers. Not the other way around. Simple logic.

My JOB, as a blindtest organizer, is to be sure no participant will identify ''X'' with clues that are not part of the test. By exemple: We had a protocole to turn the rotative plate 10 seconds in ''random'', just so the participants wouldnt know if, say, after ''B'' was presented, ''X'' was identified as ''B'' just because the plate didnt rotate... You know what I mean?

I'm not saying people are cheaters, I'm just saying that people that are extremely focused on something will try to grasp any clue available. Especially in this somewhat competitive context (testing people's own skills).

So, that story of EQ sloppiness is entirely irrelevant as a potential ''test flaw''... Actually, on the contrary, it just SHOWS how overestimated are our ears/brains combo.

Not good enough. You've been asked a number of times to provide proper details, and all you do in response is claim it is irrelevant (!), and post a quote which you carefully misrepresent as though the poster in question had said anything specific about your findings. Which you will note that I hadn't. What I have pointed out is that self-confessed sloppy methodology, a total absence of actual data taken, and a haphazard set of comments about some of the equipment used, is, bluntly, rubbish practice for anyone, especially for somebody who sees fit to write on the forum from an authoritative stance, and therefore you should not be surprised that some people do not take your currently unsubstantiated word at face value. The refusal to post such information and data, together with attempts to write it off as meaningless, may lead some to regard that as being significant in itself.

Now, giving the benefit of the doubt (which until your last post I was disposed to do), what, exactly, do you think your data, currently conspicuous by its absence, 'proves'? Nothing that isn't well known in acoustics, i.e. that in the nearfield, for a given SPL, assuming HD levels are held in check, FR dominates. Not exactly news.
 
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Silly if we were talking about comparing subwoofers, not necessarily in this case.


You probably didnt read my posts and links provided in the first pages... So here it is:

According to all the blindtests I participated in, including ones made by others, in a more casual way -but still valid to my eyes anyway- here is what sums up my perspective of the audiophilia planet:


A cheap class-D amplifier, with a cheap DAC, with some cheap IC/speakers/power cables, playing a compressed AAC 256kbps music file, on a cheap bandpassed 360-7200hz midrange driver...

WOULD BE INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM:

An expensive class A amplifier, with the most exotic/expensive/praised/technology advanced DAC, with the most exotic/expensive/praised/technology advanced cables, playing a lossless/uncompressed high-definition music file, on an exotic/expensive/praised/technology advanced bandpassed 360-7200hz midrange driver.



And if I don't make myself clear enough, here is some numbers.

You can spend 500,000$ in equipement, and 1000 hours to tweak said equipment, I am SURE it would still be indistinguishable from a bunch of equipement that would cost few hundreds at most, in that blindtest context.

I am so sure. SO SURE. That I would be willing to bet anything I own on that. And I would feel ashamed to steal the money from an hypothetical gentleman who would bet against me.

I hope my actual position about all this is made more clear with that explanation.

I don't ''believe'' in amplifiers anymore. I don't believe in DACs. I don't believe in cables. And now I don't believe there is any major differences to the ears, in regards of drivers. Not as I thought before.

Power response, max output potential (SPL) and frequency response (EQ correctable or not). That's about it.
 
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🙂 Interesting. You said it was your job to do this, is it? There are quite a few people here who have businesses connected with audio, some of them are bound to see things in a different light than the hobbyists.

I see DIYaudio as a very high quality discussions forum. Quality people. From around the world.

But all my blind tests were private, funded by a business and, therefore, would never, ever, have the authority of studies made independantly, such as one made by a University.

Doubts would always remain, no matter what. It's basically a built-in conflict of interest, even though the results of those tests never lead to anything commercial...

So, from the start, I didn't want to present those test as something as serious as a university's study, because it's not.

This thread and all the others similar as this one, it's merely an invitation to question the ''truths'' we swallowed for decades. It's an invitation to question everything at the source: our ears. And it's also an invitation to organize your own test, if you feel it would be interesting to do so.
 
You need to go back and read Toole again. He says no such thing as you claim. You are making it up.

In fact, he says quite the opposite. While he does say that the experienced listeners are operational immediately (page 52), he makes the point that there are major differences in the ability of various people to be judges of sound quality (pages 53 and 54). Here is a direct quote:

"The results shown earlier in Figure 3.9 reveal that the trained veteran listeners distinguished themselves by having the highest performance rating by far..."

Nowhere does he say that the experienced and inexperienced point out the same things.

And that returns me to the major flaw in this entire discussion. Specifically the qualifications of the listeners, which has never been revealed. And yet we are somehow expected to accept the results as being useful and even perhaps as a basis for our own future purchases. I don't see any useful takeaway whatsoever from this thread.


I havent reached page 53 yet. But on page 35 he writes that - and I quote:
"Lack of experience in both sexes shows up mainly in elevated levels of variability in response (note the longer error bars ), but the response themselves, when averaged, reveal patterns similar to those of the more experienced listeners. With experienced listeners, statistically reliable data can be obtained in less time."


Anither quote on page 35:


"The good news is that if the appropriate controls are in place, experienced and inexperienced listeners of both genders are able to deliver useful opinions. Inexperienced listener simply take longer and more repetitions to produce the same confidence levels in their ratings"



I might have interpreted it differently than what he meant - but I did not make anything up - intentionally 😉



I believe this is actually one of his core arguments, why blind testing is so important - simply that just because you have experience - does not make your statement anymore valid - if you know what you are listening to.
 
You probably didnt read my posts and links provided in the first pages... So here it is:

According to all the blindtests I participated in, including ones made by others, in a more casual way -but still valid to my eyes anyway- here is what sums up my perspective of the audiophilia planet:


A cheap class-D amplifier, with a cheap DAC, with some cheap IC/speakers/power cables, playing a compressed AAC 256kbps music file, on a cheap bandpassed 360-7200hz midrange driver...

WOULD BE INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM:

An expensive class A amplifier, with the most exotic/expensive/praised/technology advanced DAC, with the most exotic/expensive/praised/technology advanced cables, playing a lossless/uncompressed high-definition music file, on an exotic/expensive/praised/technology advanced bandpassed 360-7200hz midrange driver.



And if I don't make myself clear enough, here is some numbers.

You can spend 500,000$ in equipement, and 1000 hours to tweak said equipment, I am SURE it would still be indistinguishable from a bunch of equipement that would cost few hundreds at most, in that blindtest context.

I am so sure. SO SURE. That I would be willing to bet anything I own on that. And I would feel ashamed to steal the money from an hypothetical gentleman who would bet against me.

I hope my actual position about all this is made more clear with that explanation.

I don't ''believe'' in amplifiers anymore. I don't believe in DACs. I don't believe in cables. And now I don't believe there is any major differences to the ears, in regards of drivers. Not as I thought before.

Power response, max output potential (SPL) and frequency response (EQ correctable or not). That's about it.


We tried a Behringe EP4000 on a set of Magico Q7 - instead of a set of Dan D'agostino mono blocks. It was sighted - but we still could easily live with the Behringer - that small was the difference 😉
The owner was also suprised. But he has the money and likes the big meters in the front - so fair enough 😀
 
And now I don't believe there is any major differences to the ears, in regards of drivers. Not as I thought before.
Depending on the breadth of that qualifier, in real world systems that conclusion is a stretch. The trials imposed time, power, environmental and, as a group exercise, social protocols that don't reflect common use.
Dismissing the possibility of longer term familiarity increasing sensitivity to driver differences also seems premature.
 
Depending on the breadth of that qualifier, in real world systems that conclusion is a stretch. The trials imposed time, power, environmental and, as a group exercise, social protocols that don't reflect common use.
Dismissing the possibility of longer term familiarity increasing sensitivity to driver differences also seems premature.


I understand your point.

But everything possible was made so the participants were comfortable, including listening A and B before guessing X as much as they wanted, with music excerpts they wanted, with lenghts they wanted.
Also, no social pressure whatsoever: one participant at a time in the test room and individual results were kept private.
 
FYI: the general ambiance with the participants -even among hardcore audiophiles- was a rather relaxed one. They were thrilled by the whole test and were curious to see the results: overall results and, obviously, their own performance.

I had no complaint whatsoever, except for the lack of donuts in the waiting room. 😉
 
I havent reached page 53 yet. But on page 35 he writes that - and I quote:
"Lack of experience in both sexes shows up mainly in elevated levels of variability in response (note the longer error bars ), but the response themselves, when averaged, reveal patterns similar to those of the more experienced listeners. With experienced listeners, statistically reliable data can be obtained in less time."


Anither quote on page 35:


"The good news is that if the appropriate controls are in place, experienced and inexperienced listeners of both genders are able to deliver useful opinions. Inexperienced listener simply take longer and more repetitions to produce the same confidence levels in their ratings"


Tool ?

Well, his premise was wrong to begin with.

You can't start with any kind of evaluative process if you don't go through an identification process first.

Qualifiying listeners MUST start with proving their abilities to simply hear differences. And the only valid way to do so, is by using blind testing.

It's a well-known and proven scientific method that is used in the multi-billion pharmaceutical industry for decades.
 
Blind testing is also widely used in another subjective-driven industry:

WINE

A lot of wine tastings are done blindly. For good reasons. One can be impressed by a producer to the point that even a mediocre wine would have stellar reviews.


There is tons of stories about pro wine critics who have been fooled (and even humiliated) with blind tests... 😎
 
Kudos. It sounds like a genuine effort was made to control for every reasonable and achievable metric of the format. Especially the social dimension, which I've seen dismissed as hand waving.

I consider that aspect very important.

Any kind of social pressure or performance pressure can distort the results.

Therefore, participants were not paid. Also no prize was offered to the ''best'' performers because it was not a competition event of any kind.

That being said, before the final and global conclusions were made (that nobody succeeded to identify any of the drivers) some were anxious about their own skills and earing capabilities, because they were told at the end of each sessions that they didnt succeed.

Egos bruised, but no drama. Especially when the final conclusions came out saying that nobody was better than them...

Well, all very human reactions.
 
Now, giving the benefit of the doubt (which until your last post I was disposed to do), what, exactly, do you think your data, currently conspicuous by its absence, 'proves'? Nothing that isn't well known in acoustics, i.e. that in the nearfield, for a given SPL, assuming HD levels are held in check, FR dominates. Not exactly news.
Perhaps an indication of how important FR is or maybe the importance of direct sound and minimising the influence of reflections, I get the most enjoyable sound from my speakers listening nearfield but I'm not convinced it's due to a flat FR. Maybe also an indicator of why it wasn't necessary to spend too much time EQing the speakers flat, that wasn't actually what made them appear to all sound the same. It's a real shame there are no measurements of the FRs, a gaping hole in the test in my view.
 
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I'd like to point out also that during the 7 years I made those tests, we failed to find the so-called ''Golden ears'' that would prove better than others.

YES, we had people performing better when a threshold was find (MP3 v.s. HD test) but nothing really out of the ordinary.
 
Perhaps an indication of how important FR is or maybe the importance of direct sound and minimising the influence of reflections, I get the most enjoyable sound from my speakers listening nearfield but I'm not convinced it's due to a flat FR. Maybe also an indicator of why it wasn't necessary to spend too much time EQing the speakers flat, that wasn't actually what made them appear to all sound the same. It's a real shame there are no measurements of the FRs, a gaping hole in the test in my view.

The test wasn't conducted in an anechoic chamber, nor that the SPL was so low that room's acoustic was made out of the equation. Not at all.

Also, and more importantly, the tonality of the drivers, the so-called ''sonic signature'' of the drivers, were absent.

So what's left, really?

SPL output and power response.

If you don't need more than 100db, you have plenty of choice, no need to spend thousands.

Also to what extent the power response would affect our audiophile's sessions?

Educated-guess here: not that much. There is plenty of drivers that have a power response that is manageable, and plenty of acoustic solutions anyway.

So, again, what's left, really?
 
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