Cal Weldon said:
much like capacitors, the best wire is no wire at all ...
just kidddin, every body knows that 'skeptics' make the best wire .
http://images.google.com/images?cli...wire&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
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thetubeguy1954 said:
What makes these cables special? Can you send me some more information? I think i might do a little research.
audio-kraut said:
Hello audio-kraut!
One might equally posit the hypothesis that being aware of participating in a test will cause performance anxiety aka stage fright! This is when the anxiety, fear, or persistent phobia which may be aroused in an individual by the requirement to perform in front of an audience, whether actually or potentially (for example, when performing before a camera).
Quite often stage fright arises in a mere anticipation of a performance, often a long time ahead.. It has numerous manifestations: fluttering or pounding heart, tremor in the hands and legs, diarrhea, facial nerve tics, dry mouth. Stage fright may be observed in people of all experience and background, from beginners to professionals. Some musicians use beta blockers to avoid stage fright during auditions, and performances.[1] In other cases, performers use alcoholic beverages to ease their stage fright. There have been many cases in which this habit has led to alcoholism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_fright
I have personally suffered from this since I was a child. Once it was realised by one of my teachers, from kindergarten to eight grade I had to take tests alone with the teacher to reduce this stress as much as possible. It was so bad, often times I'd vomit while taking the test. I still suffer from it ---{but not so badly}--- and in 2006 when I had to take a test to become an insurance agent I vomited 3X on the way to the test and sat outside for 1 hr to calm myself before actually taking the test.
Thetubeguy1954
Phillip Byers said:
Phillip,
I honestly don't know. Mike will only tell me that he does something no one else does with speaker wires (to the best of his knowledge) and his speaker wires capacitance measures in picofarads (pF) like I know Nordost cables do. http://www.nordost.com/productdetail.asp?ProdID=33
Perhaps that's why they replicate highs so well without seeming etched while still having great midrange & bass? If you'd like you can email me at thetubeguy1954@yahoo.com and I'll forward any email with questions you might have about his wires to Mike R himself!
Thetubeguy1954
Yes, you sure can posit this hypothesis. And in the situations that you portray this stress can be debilitating.
There is however a difference between a test, that when you fail can affect the rest of your life - as in a performance, or a job interview, a final test for your degree, and a test that tries not to measure performance, that is only used to help falsify or confirm a hypothesis. It is the difference between proving yourself - and proving nothing but confirming or denying a difference perceivable by you.
The stress in this case should be only you personally challenging your own beliefs, or the acuity of your own senses.
There might be persons who are debilitated by such an endavour - but then a result really would be skewed and not acceptable.
They simply should not participate.
Nobody forces them, nothing is to be lost or gained by their participation or lack thereof. Some apparently survived the harsh selection process.
Most likely a result of cooperation.
Those participating especially in audio tests are very often self selected and are in the contrary quite confident to blast the null hypothesis to smithereens.
The stress usually sets in when shown the results, when they have to realize that they were unable to reliably spot differences.
thetubeguy1954 said:
That is a very true phenomenon for many.For 11 years,I was one of the two sound engineers to cover the sound for the beauty contests here.Everything in the rehearsals run smoothly.Five minutes before the contest,all the symptoms you have mentioned above were suddenly present.Those three hours,seemed endless.No obvious mistakes,but what we felt was exactly what you said.One reason for this IMO is because this event happened only once every year.No such symptoms in any other routine live transmission like talk shows,news because we had these everyday.
scott wurcer said:
Should have been written:
MIT or not, to be
I rest my case,
if you know,
What I mean
Seamus Heaney couldn't have done any better
Pano, it seems that SY has access to all the spiked wine he wants. Come to my place; I will let you give me all the glasses of Pinot and/or Cab you can afford. 😀
For our test panels, tasters were given wine spiked with different contaminants (e.g., ethyl acetate, TCA) to determine sensitivity levels. I don't recall anyone having "stage fright."
audio-kraut said:
Of course that _could_ be; that´s the main point in the game, everything _can_ be and the experimentors task is to show what _actually_ _happened_ in the experiment. 🙂
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Normally the percentage is really higher- Nousaine reported 70-75% wrong answers in the "non switching case", in the Olaf Sturm test the number was ~73% overall.
But if you remove these, you still haven´t shown that the remaining participants are more able to hear differences than the removed group.
That is the reason why an experiment should include negative and positive controls, as you don´t know the results in front.
[/B]
Statistics can´t help in this, as raising the number of trials will only better the approximation to the "real" result.
Please remember, that we try to generalize from a small data set to a bigger population. If you test a lot more people which all will perform worse in this sort of test then you´ll get a very reliable result that people are not able to detect a difference under these test conditions.
Does that mean, that the (maybe existing) difference is not audible? No, because you don´t know what a difference would have been detected in the experiment.
audio-kraut said:
Hello Once Again Audio-kraut!
While there is a big difference between a test, that when you fail can affect the rest of your life - as in a performance, or a job interview, a final test for your degree, and a test that tries not to measure performance. However performance anxiety does not differentiate between these types of tests. For Example: performance anxiety can cause a man to be unable to obtain an erection when having sex with an exceptionally beautiful woman. Even if the man had never had problems performing before the thought that he might not please this exceptionally beautiful woman can cause performance anxiety. Yet that "test" if failed, certainly doesn't and will not have an affect the rest of the man's life!
What you're failing to understand is what's the root of the actual cause of the anxiety itself. It is not caused, as you're apparently assuming, from a fear that the failure will affect the rest of their life - as in a performance for a job interview or a final test for your degree but rather it's caused from the insecurity that you'll be unable to perform a task you know you can do when not under the pressure of being tested or asked to perform! Therefore even though someone is absolutely certain they can detect differences in wires and audio components, the fear that they might fail doing so when tested ---{whether the fear is consciously or subconiously felt}--- is enough in itself to create performance anxiety!
So how do we eliminate these people from the tests if they're not consciously aware of the problem? This is just one of the many problems with audio DBTs that objectivists, in a very unscientific & unobjective manner simply disregard as being of no concern. Whether you believe so or not, having to take a double blind test is making someone perform! Not only that but their performance is being tested and perhaps the worst part of it all is most times they're being tested by people who:
1) think they're charlatans.
2) tell them in 3 decades of testing no one's ever passed this test.
3) would love to post how one more subjectivist couldn't pass the test.
4) use wires, audio components & an ABX box they're completely unfamiliar with.
Do you really believe that wouldn't create any pressure to perform? I think the best DBTs would be ones no one knew they were taking. How that could be done would be anyone's guess. Don't misunderstand me, I think it's best to remove any possible biases but, I've yet been able to think of a way to do that without somehow making the person aware they're taking a test of some sort and thus introducing the possibility of performance anxiety affecting the results of such a test.
Thetubeguy1954
Rational Subjectivism. It's An Acquired Taste!~
thetubeguy1954 said:
You should welcome the ABX box most of them are poorly designed and can be "learned" after a few trials. Then you can perform at 100%.
Does anyone know who's idea was the ABX box/test?May I suggest a ABCDEFX1X2X3 BOX?And then we will see if any one dares to claim he can tell which is which.And the arguments will end for ever...amen.Or is it easy to "learn" that box too?
If the ratio of false positives is actually that high, where does that leave any testing?
That indicates an "expectation" bias, which might mean that this testing is unusable, and the noise drowns out any actual results.
So, what methodology then to use to overcome this bias?
In this case, as suggested by the thetubeguy - not knowing that any test was occurring at all.
How do you test without knowing there was one?
Even in the case were no switching was announced, the participant just had to evaluate if he was able to hear differences during the playback of a pink noise or actual music piece (I prefer pink noise, in my experience small differences are easier to detect because of a constant dynamic level and you really concentrate on the sound alone) the participant knew that he was undergoing a test.
This kind of test could be done - as an example - by asking the participant to evaluate sound every 10 seconds starting 5 seconds into the test, on a continuous sample where the wire is or is not switched every ten seconds.
This could be done automated, so completely blinded.
That indicates an "expectation" bias, which might mean that this testing is unusable, and the noise drowns out any actual results.
So, what methodology then to use to overcome this bias?
In this case, as suggested by the thetubeguy - not knowing that any test was occurring at all.
How do you test without knowing there was one?
Even in the case were no switching was announced, the participant just had to evaluate if he was able to hear differences during the playback of a pink noise or actual music piece (I prefer pink noise, in my experience small differences are easier to detect because of a constant dynamic level and you really concentrate on the sound alone) the participant knew that he was undergoing a test.
This kind of test could be done - as an example - by asking the participant to evaluate sound every 10 seconds starting 5 seconds into the test, on a continuous sample where the wire is or is not switched every ten seconds.
This could be done automated, so completely blinded.
IMO pink noise could be used for those who know how to listen to it.Is this what we want?What about those who claim they can hear diferences and have no idea even what pink noise is.To them all will sound the same with pink noise.
A similar "test" as said by thetubeguy I have done to a friend.I say similar because I actually asked for his opinion between two cartridges,but without telling him,I actually switched cables.He has heard a diference and when I repeated this 5 times,he scored 5/5.
A blind test without box,will be done in my place in a few days on power and Interconnect cables.All three of us will pass from the "electric chair"and we will try our best not to influence the listener in any way.The reason of doing a test like this is because we believe that it is the closest to a simple blind test for someone who wants to buy a cable,in a dealer's demo room.Not perfect,but better than nothing as a start.
A similar "test" as said by thetubeguy I have done to a friend.I say similar because I actually asked for his opinion between two cartridges,but without telling him,I actually switched cables.He has heard a diference and when I repeated this 5 times,he scored 5/5.
A blind test without box,will be done in my place in a few days on power and Interconnect cables.All three of us will pass from the "electric chair"and we will try our best not to influence the listener in any way.The reason of doing a test like this is because we believe that it is the closest to a simple blind test for someone who wants to buy a cable,in a dealer's demo room.Not perfect,but better than nothing as a start.
Panicos K said:
I disagree. In pink noise it is very easy to hear differences - trained or not.
BTW, no need to quote an entire post that was just above yours, it only clutters up the thread. - thanks!
panomaniac said:
Sorry about that🙂 And those who are about to compare two cables and choose one for their music?They surely want to compare them listening to music.It is easy for you perhaps,but IMO even you cannot say which "sounds"better on music by listening to pink noise.
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