When people say they can't tell Cantillon Gueuze from PBR in a DBT then I'll know something is up. 🙂
This is often true indeed. But I don't think one knows whether a real audible difference becomes audible when pointed out, or whether you 'perceive' an audible difference when pointed out, (if you get my drift), which is as much a fact of life.
Fortunately, there is a way out; if the difference becomes audible after being pointed out, and remains audible when the test is blinded, it's, ehhh, audible 😉
jd
but exotic expencive cables doesnt sound like "in the spirit of DIY" 😱
Maybe better think about items/materials for DIY cables 😉
Well, I was only thinking DIY because it seems we are the only group that cares about audio science and we actually enjoy measurement and science related testing. Others who just enjoy music would care very little about something like this.
Hey Terry, you tell me exactly why you want that question answered and I will answer it for you.
How does everyone feel about directional cables such as the ones made by Audioquest?
How does everyone feel about directional cables such as the ones made by Audioquest?
I am still trying wrap my head around this. IMHO apportioning the monies differently would reap a higher benefit unless...
I was bringing people over to show them my system. I've noticed the higher end cables are much nicer to look at but since my wires are hidden, I can't accept that for a $2000 system you are spending 200 - 400 on the cables.
Stax headphones have been used in other DBTs and the listeners could tell the difference in audio codecs. Are you saying cables have a much smaller impact than that?
Dan
Very true tinitus 😉
A perfect example of this was when the DVI-D cable from my blu ray player to projector failed. I wasn't sure it was the cable but it worked fine on HDMI lead to the TV. One day i realised the PJ had an HDMI input so i checked & the PJ was still working, proving that the cable was now naff 🙂
I decided to watch a film & on one paticularly bright scene i noticed what looked like a line of pixels that appeared to be dead 😱 I couldn't stop seeing it from then on & got kind of annoyed. By the next day (due to a load of beers the previous night 😀) i'd forgotten all about it....
Next night i decided to have another film, this one was 1.78-1 rather than 2.35-1 & i noticed the dead pixels again. Started to drive me mad, then i noticed something odd, near the top of this line it split into two & went off at different angles????
I sat & thought about this for a few minutes, then i got up & went to the screen & removed the bit of spiders web that had gotten me so frustrated
Sorry for the off topic bit, but in this case cables did make a huge difference!
Technically speaking that would make sense. Codecs actually mutilate the signal and hope to fool your perception into not noticing it.
Whatever cables are accused of, compared to codecs it's orders of magnitude less, if any.
jd
It's worse than that
It's even harder than that, since often times scientific studies are marred by bad experiment design. There are graduate courses in mathematical statistics where they spend a few weeks just looking at billions of dollars wasted in bad experiments and examining why the design was flawed.
Take for instance Ella Fitzgerald, that's a pretty low "n". Worse I'm sure they didn't test with many different tapes and many different types of music, again low n values to draw any statistical conclusions. The best you can hope to do is determine with 95% or 99% confidence (or whatever CI you choose) that {X1, X2, X3, ..., Xn} cables doesn't sound any different on {Y1, Y2, Y3, ..., Ym} systems with {Z1, Z2, Z3, ..., Zo} pieces of music, then you have to control for the human factors, for example, I've lost active perception above about 14,000 Hz, though psychoacoustic research has claimed that people can tell the difference between two pieces of music, one cut off at 20k and another with all the higher frequency signal still left in, so then you've really got a mess trying to control for what each person is capable of actively perceiving and their ability to tell the difference between two pieces of program, one with the ultrasonic cut off and the other with the ultrasonic content left in.
Oh, on top of it you have to decide what you're measuring, what sounds "better" or what sounds "correct", which would mean having someone play live, but then you need someone to play perfectly identical performances live for each of the various pieces of music... ...a proper double blind study really is a hopeless dream unless someone wants to fund a hyperexpensive study.
It's even harder than that, since often times scientific studies are marred by bad experiment design. There are graduate courses in mathematical statistics where they spend a few weeks just looking at billions of dollars wasted in bad experiments and examining why the design was flawed.
Take for instance Ella Fitzgerald, that's a pretty low "n". Worse I'm sure they didn't test with many different tapes and many different types of music, again low n values to draw any statistical conclusions. The best you can hope to do is determine with 95% or 99% confidence (or whatever CI you choose) that {X1, X2, X3, ..., Xn} cables doesn't sound any different on {Y1, Y2, Y3, ..., Ym} systems with {Z1, Z2, Z3, ..., Zo} pieces of music, then you have to control for the human factors, for example, I've lost active perception above about 14,000 Hz, though psychoacoustic research has claimed that people can tell the difference between two pieces of music, one cut off at 20k and another with all the higher frequency signal still left in, so then you've really got a mess trying to control for what each person is capable of actively perceiving and their ability to tell the difference between two pieces of program, one with the ultrasonic cut off and the other with the ultrasonic content left in.
Oh, on top of it you have to decide what you're measuring, what sounds "better" or what sounds "correct", which would mean having someone play live, but then you need someone to play perfectly identical performances live for each of the various pieces of music... ...a proper double blind study really is a hopeless dream unless someone wants to fund a hyperexpensive study.
This comes to mind
xkcd: Spinal Tap Amps
If we were as smart as we wish to believe we'd be out marketing our own $2000/ft cables.
xkcd: Spinal Tap Amps
If we were as smart as we wish to believe we'd be out marketing our own $2000/ft cables.
I was just wanting Soongsc's opinion.
I would like to point out that audio designers usually do not rely on double blind tests, because they are so insensitive to small changes. One would not expect a small change in a wire type or a component to make a major change. However, it is in the culmination of many changes, does one progress in making a better design.
There are many reasons cited for double blind tests having so difficult a time sorting out differences. That there was no real difference in the first place is but one of them, but the others seem to be ignored. We have looked at this seriously for more than 30 years. You have to look at ALL the inputs, before deciding that we are just kidding ourselves, when it comes to audio differences.
If HK wants to NOW go on the trip that Toole is 100% correct, then let us allow them to go out in the real world where their audio products will be compared to others. Bose did the same thing a while back, do you all own Bose today?
When I worked for HK, more than 30 years ago, wide bandwidth was considered VERY IMPORTANT. What happened to that? Otala was there for a few years, as well, and made some of their 'blockbusting' amps and preamps. What about Otala's input, today?
Open subjective evaluation was EVERYTHING at HK when I was there. Well, so much for that. Now, IF HK can show that they really make better products, or at least as good electronics as is really necessary, then they should win almost all listening comparisons. Let us see if they really do, what they claim they can do. If so, then we can all retire.
There are many reasons cited for double blind tests having so difficult a time sorting out differences. That there was no real difference in the first place is but one of them, but the others seem to be ignored. We have looked at this seriously for more than 30 years. You have to look at ALL the inputs, before deciding that we are just kidding ourselves, when it comes to audio differences.
If HK wants to NOW go on the trip that Toole is 100% correct, then let us allow them to go out in the real world where their audio products will be compared to others. Bose did the same thing a while back, do you all own Bose today?
When I worked for HK, more than 30 years ago, wide bandwidth was considered VERY IMPORTANT. What happened to that? Otala was there for a few years, as well, and made some of their 'blockbusting' amps and preamps. What about Otala's input, today?
Open subjective evaluation was EVERYTHING at HK when I was there. Well, so much for that. Now, IF HK can show that they really make better products, or at least as good electronics as is really necessary, then they should win almost all listening comparisons. Let us see if they really do, what they claim they can do. If so, then we can all retire.
So Toole, Olive, Voecks, Kanter, Bose, et al, aren't audio designers? Not to mention every manufacturer of signal processors, codecs, compression software...?
Sheesh.
They are ALL speaker designers. I should have said electronics designers. Codecs only pass, BECAUSE they are DB tested only.
This is quite a change:
Matrix HiFi --> Blind testing high end full equipments
How many caps, transisitors, wire etc... did they change? 😱
IOW what you are saying is that is a change is so small that it can't be heard blind, it could be heard sighted? I'm going to quit listening with my eyes closed. I don't want to miss out.😀
I'm better able to focus on the music w/ my eyes closed.😎 I tend to get a bit distracted with all the other visual input.
Dan
Hi,
Agreed.
The Stax SR Lambda Pro headphones were a great tool to listen for small changes.
And even those could be easily improved upon.
If I wanted to assess a set of interconnects I'd insert them between a decent headamp and a phono preamp and listen.
Off topic, I've always been shocked by the amount of sound degrading rubbish you more often than not find in even the most touted high-end gear.
Cheers, 😉
Agreed.
The Stax SR Lambda Pro headphones were a great tool to listen for small changes.
And even those could be easily improved upon.
If I wanted to assess a set of interconnects I'd insert them between a decent headamp and a phono preamp and listen.
Off topic, I've always been shocked by the amount of sound degrading rubbish you more often than not find in even the most touted high-end gear.
Cheers, 😉
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