Earl didn't say if the sound went better of worse, so we don't know!
By the way I don't know if I should be happy or sad for not being a guy who hears differencies in caps, cables, amps, etc.
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Attachments
The blind shall lead the blind.
Or "The blind shall reveal the truth to the sighted."
Listener training has some value, I agree, but IMO it makes far less of difference than prejudice does. In other words, I would be far more inclined to value the unprejudiced opinion of an average joe off the street listening blind than I would the prejudiced opinion of an acclaimed golden-ear guru in a sighted audition. Realistically, the guru can never be expected to set aside his philosophical convictions built over decades.
Sean also makes the case that while students are less stable, given enough of them their results are indistinguishable from the experts. They can do the job, just not as fast.
But, as I quote before, we found a case that was the exact opposite. And these were Harman Qualified Evaluators.
This is why you have to do a with-in subject variability. If you do this, which we always do, then you know what the subjects are capable of detecting.
Then there is the case when I was manager at Ford. I had a gauge R&R study done on or "expert listening group" - the in-house golden ears. All self proclaimed experts. Results - the gauge was "not capable" when taken across all ten listeners. There were two listeners who were capable, but as I said, all ten claimed to be capable.
No matter how you cut it, listening tests are never as easy as people want to make them.
Bill F., if I click on your name, another member comes up. Curious bug. I was trying to put a person to the name since it says SW Michigan.
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Weird. I get the same misdirect when I click my name.
I'm located in Berrien County, lower SW corner of MI. I've been posting on this forum for 12 years (1200+ posts). The main focus of my audio hobby is driver design.
Aren't you a Michigander, too? :edit: Novi, I see. Other side of the state.
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The standard procedure seems to rely on some voting technique. I have never found this to be useful; I like to pick audiences that have there own view, and in the end I can really understand how various people express their impression. The more deeper into the music they can base their opinion on, the more I feel is valuable. The advantage of the average person is that it may give you a more direct relationship with sales, but certainly not with how good the reproduction is.
Oh yea, SW, not SE, I get left and right mixed up a lot! Near where EV used to be.
There is no advantage to using average people other than they are more readily available. And if they give the same results as experts en-mass then sometimes they are the only option - with problems that can be circumvented. That has always been the case for me.
Mylar = Beryllium Revisited
It would appear that when your assertions lack scientific rigor, you mount an ad hominem attack on those who dare to question your methods.
Taking that tack is what brings your veracity into question, certainly not the questions that are reasonable to ask.
WHG
It would appear that when your assertions lack scientific rigor, you mount an ad hominem attack on those who dare to question your methods.
Taking that tack is what brings your veracity into question, certainly not the questions that are reasonable to ask.
WHG
Respect is a powerful thing, you should try it.
"then the horn most likely was masking the TAD's superiority" is not part of an objective question. It presupposes the answer, like "When did you stop beating your wife."
By the way, when did you stop?
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True. A past auditor and I had a chat, we exchanged experiences and found that people beyond a certain age seemed more experienced in identifying problematic areas, usually based on the desire to find better systems. Unfortunately this particular auditor passed away last month due to liver problems.
I have tried younger generation, graduate students of audio major, and music major., never got much useful information. It seems to me if you can meet the right people, it's a gift from heaven.
Hello Soongsc,
I agree wholeheartedly with what you wrote.
For me a listening session with an old renown and experienced audiophile able to translate his emotions and impressions in words understandable by the majority of people, brings one hundred time more informations about the flaws of a system than with one hundreds young and not experienced people (I experience that everytime in few associations in the audio domain I use to follow their activities).
Those younger unexperienced people don't know how to translate their impressions in words and they are always thinking their audition is perfect when everything demonstrate that it is much strained by bad habits.
The wised experienced old audiophile assume the defects of his own audition and take them in account when translating his impressions in valuable words. If additionally, he is fluent in measurement analysis, psychoacoustics and electroacoustics then, when you know such people it is a true treasury. I used to meet such rare guys (Jean Hiraga and William Walther were such, I think that Lynn Olson that I used to meet at European Triode Festival belongs to that group too and few other members of Diyaudio, though they are very rare and I am sad when I see so many post sent by a Young person the audition of which shows bad habits and who is convinced to have Golden ears).
Best regards from Paris,
Jean-Michel Le Cléac'h
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Sometimes I look back through my own learning process, it is interesting to see what I have been though in audio alone. My initial entry into audio was just to get some hands on experience with electronics to prepare myself to dig into control systems. But as I got into it, I started going through whatever periodicals I could find in libraries at that time archiving different ideas I found and trying some out. It is amazing that the pieces are only now falling into place.
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