Not really. Nobody knows what they're doing until the very end when a sealed envelope is opened, revealing which subject took what.
It is very easy to be a little bit more "negligent" or "selective" with the measurements of the $500 amp when your goal is to prove that the $5000 one is "better".
The audio "objectivists" camp should be presented with two identical sets of terminals, where they can measure whatever they want, without knowing which set corresponds to which brand and make of amp.
Experimental design is dependent on what questions are being asked. Gage R&R is critical to good measurements. Lots of people don't understand experiment design, you're not alone in this.
I guess you haven't paid much attention then. The main question in "audio" is "which is better, A or B"?
With this thread debating a subset of that question (i.e. which (pre)amps are better, those using opamps or those that don't).
With this thread debating a subset of that question (i.e. which (pre)amps are better, those using opamps or those that don't).
How does it happen, that by my plugging in a black 8 pin chip, that you can't see what it is, will alter what you hear, when you have no way to know what the chip is, or even if my plugging it in is not a ruse in itself?
So, the test would be valid if there was a screen and a third party did the switching of chips? That person would have none of these magical abilities to influence you (or me)??
What is the basis for this "effect"?
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So, you will not hear something in your own system as better or worse without a DBT?
It doesn't exist without the DBT? What if you go back and listen and again you "hear it"? (never happened, I guess)
You've never altered or changed something you've built for your audio hobby/system/or to be sold because
you heard something you did not like? If you heard something you did not like, it was always confirmed by a DBT??
Really?
Wouldn't that be unusual?
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the idea is that you'll have 10 chips marked 1, 2, ... 10 and nobody knows what they are until the sealed envelope is opened.
"Only"??
Lay out the metrics you wish... it has been said over and over that all "stuff" below some number of dB below is inaudible, time and again. What metrics do you wish to specify? (everyone seems to get very very quiet when they have to say something defining a position and not merely being negative about everyone and everything else.)
You chose to miss the point.
The point is that Geddes seems to have found that human preferences do not correlate to merely low distortion figures. So, my point is that all this ranting about "measurements" has limited benefit and meaning - unless you incorporate something else along the lines of what Geddes' research suggests.
Ok now?
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Fine, explain how it matters IF the human plugging them in knows anything at all?? He's not listening or making a judgement?? Would it be better if a robot did it? How would it be better??
Secret signals?
Telepathy?
Body language?
How about a person who knows nothing more than when and how to do the plugging in??
All you have to do is listen, if the difference is too subtle to be certain, we can skip ahead to the issue of where is the point of diminishing returns - I'm talking about far less than subtle differences.
Apparently what is being said is essentially that there is so little audible difference between (can we say) many "good/modern" opamps that they are virtually all interchangeable, except for cases where specific issues may be present (you know low noise, unusual common mode signals, etc...) - which is fairly rare in most cases. But for these "normal" applications, they all sound about the same, to the point where it's nearly impossible to tell them apart, yes? That's the proposition offered??
And it's a useless question to ask until audibility has been established, no?
The only metric I wish in the end is objective verification of perceived rankings.
I said I wouldn't feed the monkeys. But I didn't say anything about bears. I was just now reading some ancient audio history and found this,
"The best answer I got on why silver might sound so good came from Randy Bradley at Bear Labs, a maker of well-regarded silver cables, who offered "Nobody knows why, but when properly applied, it does.""
"The best answer I got on why silver might sound so good came from Randy Bradley at Bear Labs, a maker of well-regarded silver cables, who offered "Nobody knows why, but when properly applied, it does.""
Yes, the crux -what is perceived as 'real'. I don't want to use the Q word but on the op amp question, massive gain with multiple NfB paths may be the root problem.
The music gets screwed up with another flatland?
En may be involved too.
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This is to avoid that a self-interested operator could knowingly rig the test in favour of his favorite opamp. Subtle things like sitting in front of a speaker to muffle sound, keeping his hand on the terminals to introduce extra noise, mismatching volume etc.
In the medical world you can easily rig blood pressure readings by keeping subjects more stressed or more relaxed, allowing more or less settling time before/between the reading(s) etc.
Defining a position makes you vulnerable since you'll eventually have to defend it. It's much easier to just throw "flapdoodle" around.
I bet that if someone succesfully manages to promote the idea that "silver is bad", we'll soon have premium "silver-free cables" (pretty much like we have the "oxygen-free" ones).
Both Cu and Ag are pretty reactive with atmospheric gasses, so maybe there's a place for wires that go from extrusion through encapsulation in pure nitrogen (and I'm talking a N2 purged conduit around the wires to minimize any contamination).
😉
😉
Fashion trends get everywhere, wait long enough and it'll become fashionable again. Valves and vinyl etc.
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