No, just use your logic. Remember a bell curve for a normal distribution. You can be in the 10th percentile, 50th or 90th. If you are in 99.9th it would be easier.
Or you can think about programming...
Look at a complex software where you can choose how to process the input. Now you are writing a simple software where no option setting is provided. You set the default options.
me too 😛
The new Audiophile speaker cable was proving rather tough to fit into position...
I would suggest that group listening sighted is even less reliable than solo work, my own opinion from these sort of sessions is there is far to much bias especially if there is a 'Guru' in the room...
I employ the undisputed test for any improvement... I shout to the missis, who on cue stumbles out of the kitchen, clutching a 3/4 empty bottle of sherry roll up dangling lazily from her lips, as she enters the listening room her red rimmed watering eyes suddenly sparkle as she declares "well I'm not an audiophile, but that recent modification sounds like a veil has been lifted from the sound, the silences are darker and the midrange now has a silky sound like gossamer stocking scraping over my varicose veins"
🙂
In response to the "blacker blacks" , one of the listening crew remarks "And the plaider plaids!"
Sure,
I hypothesize that he can't tell the diff blinded.
Have a friend switch players (assuming identical digital out, no filt, updownallaround sampling, 'enhancements', etc...) according to a secret, pre-printed a random number list as 'blind' as possible: can't see screen, can't hear clicks, can't note load times etc ... (comp in one room, speakers in another.)
Repeat a statistically significant amount of times and tabulate results after tests are done.
It's a start ...
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XFxiLeQmb5k
You mean, have you found a turntable that reproduces music as accurately as a cd. The answer to your question would be: a digital source that has random amplitude and freq. modulation plus surface noise, ticks and pops, and a few other distortions.
You mean, have you found a turntable that reproduces music as accurately as a cd. The answer to your question would be: a digital source that has random amplitude and freq. modulation plus surface noise, ticks and pops, and a few other distortions.
Other than the loons on this thread the discussion has never been about accuracy, it's about satisfaction. satisfaction and accuracy are not always the same and as long as people don't confuse them we all get on swimmingly. Even frank writing audio reviews by listening to stuff off youtube on his laptop!
Imagine sighted testing, and attempting to train oneself to identify distortion, without having knowledge of the distortion being presented or within which sample the distortion occurs. The feedback loop of knowing right/wrong answers does not exist. No training can happen without that feedback.
bill, I'd go further... it's about difference and preference. Everyone would get along swimmingly when people realize that preference can exist without difference.
Yep, it's all about satisfaction in the end! So, the big dispute is whether that is also accurate ... 😉
In my sphere it is ... I've been doing this for 30 year odd years - nothing like a bit of history to give a smell of respectability to things, 🙂. And I have never had a magic moment of realising I've been thinking BS for those 3 decades or so - each new exposure to playback from a 'better' setup has only consolidated my thinking, 😎.
It's taking a while for some people to realise that 'accuracy' is about the audible absence of playback artifacts - they are mostly certainly from the playback, because when I change things they disappear, do not change, or get worse. So, they are not part of the recording!
Hmmm ... could it possibly mean that when I change the playback environment, and the sound is subjectively worse that it is more "accurate"? Something like, my car is not telling enough about the road I'm on - so, I'll stiffen the suspension much, much more - ahh, that's better, I can now feel every bump on the road, the slightest undulation is communicated to my backside, I understand perfectly what a bad job the roadmakers did with the laying of the bitumen - I feel so full of the Truth now, ... and aches and pains, and a lack of interest for getting into the car again ... 😉.
Actually, it doesn't work that way ... when you're less aware of deficiencies of the recording you are more aware of the intended content of the recording - it's a win-win, in fact 🙂.
Ah, but is it testable? You did notice that word in what I wrote, right? Doing science does require testable hypotheses.
How are you going to re-run the precise conditions that existed when he listened before? In order to get that information you'll have to gain his co-operation and how are you going to do that? Does he respond to fat brown envelopes and do you have one fat enough?
Don't forget, you too are part of the playback chain. Making a change is an effort, and effort *ought* to have an effect. How do you know it is not just the expenditure of effort that makes you think you hear something different?
Again, this is about the listener....The listener is the most important part of the stereo reproduction chain.
When I am relaxed, maybe a bit drunk and just want to hear music, I don't hear deficiencies.... the system sounds fantastic. Same system that the day before when I was grumpy and tense sounded awful.
When I am away from the city, the system is nowhere near as expensive. I've often thought the big rig being a waste of money, vs the laptop plugged into the powered KOSS 105Mplus....
How's that for proof that it is all about me and how *I* relate to the music. The nature of the system itself is largely irrelevant.
The "ought to" is key - I've spent vast amounts of time, after having a "brilliant idea", of altering things ... and nothing !!! I'm a bit pee'd at that moment; and sometimes it's got worse - so, I have to undo it all ... not happy !!!
The nature of the system is relevant! I only do alcohol with a system when I'm listening to an obviously defective one, and I need a means of being able to tolerate it for the period!
The "grumpy and tense" is an excellent test - if I'm in a bad mood and the system still refuses to sound unpleasant then it's yet another confirmation that all's good. A real instrument doesn't stop sounding real, just because you're out of kilter at that moment ...
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