Really?
If you need some forum references, I know of at least one for each of these products that would quickly open your eyes.
Sorry I'm talking reality vs fantasy that is you can take pictures or see things that are not possible. Please give me a reference to the optical version of cable lifters or any products that claim violation of basic physics.
Show me an optical product with this level of hubris
Last edited:
No need to apologize, perhaps you can enlighten me.
Please explain where the reality settled with regard to telescopes, for example.
A recap.
Reflecting telescopes are available relatively cheaply, and have no chromatic aberration. The also have either tilted optics or central obstructions.
Refracting telescopes have no central obstruction but have, to varying extents, chromatic aberration.
There are other designs with other trade-offs, all have their adherents.
So, what telescope design has the best performance?
You mis-understand my point, within the amateur astronomy community all these trade offs are discussed as technical issues there are no magic tweeks that are not understood by conventional theory. There are very expensive eyepieces (for instance) that give you better eye relief, etc. but they are simply something that takes a lot more effort to produce i.e. cost more money.
Friends, wouldn´t it be better to leave the (implicit or explicit) "ad hominems" aside? Instead of assuming that your discussion partner wants to evade a question or promoting some hidden agendas, it is imo much better to ask specifically again for the point that interests you.
We all are most likeley constantly misinterpreting forum posts and our own posts aren´t always as clear as possible. It happens often to me, someone discusses a post of mine and when rereading it (did i post what he thought i did? ) i think i could have expressed myself much better/clearly.
No, mmerill99 only responded to the volume setting suptopic.
Level matching was always a problem when comparing audio devices, sometimes due to lack of measurement equipment, but mostly due to lack of adjustment element without introducing an additional device.
The usual routine was reducing the volume to zero, then swapping the device and then bringing the volume back to the point where all participating listeners agreed (or seem to agree) as having the same "loudness" as before.
Of course it was almost never "the same" , but this crude method nevertheless seems to be sufficient.
The drawbacks are that it either raises the "noise level" (if the level difference is randomly assigned) or it introduces a systematic error if inattentionally one of the compared devices always gets a higher level.
It´s an interesting question. We checked the above mentioned routine and found that experienced listeners (means both experienced in evaluating audio devices and doing this sort of comparisons) were routinely matching the levels (using music) to a "0.3 - 0.8 dB" range, more often hitting the lower numbers as expected (right skewed distribution).
So, although raising the "noise" isn´t ideal, the listening impressions are durable across the randomly assigned level difference.
In the casual listening situation i think the impression is durable again, as it usually doesn´t help me to raise the level if i don´t like the sound (of a specific device).
In case of a short term experiment i´m not sure .....worth a try.
We all are most likeley constantly misinterpreting forum posts and our own posts aren´t always as clear as possible. It happens often to me, someone discusses a post of mine and when rereading it (did i post what he thought i did? ) i think i could have expressed myself much better/clearly.
No, mmerill99 only responded to the volume setting suptopic.
Level matching was always a problem when comparing audio devices, sometimes due to lack of measurement equipment, but mostly due to lack of adjustment element without introducing an additional device.
The usual routine was reducing the volume to zero, then swapping the device and then bringing the volume back to the point where all participating listeners agreed (or seem to agree) as having the same "loudness" as before.
Of course it was almost never "the same" , but this crude method nevertheless seems to be sufficient.
The drawbacks are that it either raises the "noise level" (if the level difference is randomly assigned) or it introduces a systematic error if inattentionally one of the compared devices always gets a higher level.
It´s an interesting question. We checked the above mentioned routine and found that experienced listeners (means both experienced in evaluating audio devices and doing this sort of comparisons) were routinely matching the levels (using music) to a "0.3 - 0.8 dB" range, more often hitting the lower numbers as expected (right skewed distribution).
So, although raising the "noise" isn´t ideal, the listening impressions are durable across the randomly assigned level difference.
In the casual listening situation i think the impression is durable again, as it usually doesn´t help me to raise the level if i don´t like the sound (of a specific device).
In case of a short term experiment i´m not sure .....worth a try.
As mmerrill99 said, it is part of any forum discussion routine since a couple of years.
People question sighted impressions demand "blind tests" (preferable doubleblind) and there the available software comes into play. At the beginning it was PCABX tool and today it is very often FOOBAR (in between there was another tool even allowing to do ABC/HR tests but that option was imo only rarely used)
It seems so, but we shouldn´t forget to mention that these people not only trained in tasting overall but got additional training (including positive controls) in "blind" testing.
Btw, it is often needed to ask for the terminology used as usually the terms "single blind" and "double blind" have a different meaning in the wine world.
There are similar events in audio but who cares about it?
If the "belief framework" predicts that no difference can be heard what kind of evidence is needed to change that?
I´d say it wouldn´t have changed much.....
@scott wurcer,
so we have the unlucky situation where people demand "blind" tests from others -often used as a knockout argument, and only accepting negative results as valid - which leads to the usage of the available software tools, but nobody usually tells the users that they most likely have to invest a lot of time for training/accommodation under the specific test conditions to get useful/correct (useful/correct wrt their actual listening abilities) results.
As said before (publications already cited) the number of correct responses (proportion correct, abbreviated as p(c) ) is considerably lower in ABX tests than in other test variants, when testing the same sensory difference.
so we have the unlucky situation where people demand "blind" tests from others -often used as a knockout argument, and only accepting negative results as valid - which leads to the usage of the available software tools, but nobody usually tells the users that they most likely have to invest a lot of time for training/accommodation under the specific test conditions to get useful/correct (useful/correct wrt their actual listening abilities) results.
As said before (publications already cited) the number of correct responses (proportion correct, abbreviated as p(c) ) is considerably lower in ABX tests than in other test variants, when testing the same sensory difference.
Exactly! I call it a pseudo-science parlor game where people are encouraged to try it (or demanded to do so) & told how amazed they will be when they realize how unreliable their auditory perception is - that they can't hear a difference they were sure of when listening sighted. In other words, the proponents of such forum ABX testing know that 99% of the time the results will return a null & this is then portrayed as proof that there was REALLY no difference to be heard - this must be the truth.
Magic tricks work on the same principle & were popular parlor tricks sometime in the past - they use knowledge of the workings of our perceptions & take advantage of this knowledge using misdirection & other techniques to 'amaze' the unwary.
Forum ABX tests are the same, they fool the unwary because of their seeming simplicity & because of the propaganda & misdirection that accompanies them - 'just using ears-only listening' 'gold-standard test' etc. Knowledge of how auditory perception works will lead one to understand just how fragile perceptual testing is & what checks & balances are needed.
The misdirection is in leading people to believe that these ABX tests are just a simple case of removing sighted bias.
Yes & it needs to be pointed out that this is with trained listeners & tests run in a professional manner, not forum ABX tests - I would suggest that the results for forum ABX tests would show a very high rate of false negatives but we will never know this
Last edited:
You keep on telling us that but is it really the case on this forum as a whole ? Call to DBT are rather scarce on most subforums : speakers, amps usually, certainly tube gears or instruments.
They are only somewhat common for digital, line level (not that often though) and accessories (cables).
The reason is simple: in many cases, the differences claimed are unlikely. We're speaking of electrical signals easily compared to 120db down. No overload conditions, no clipping, no interference with a room, nada. It might be the only field I can think of where people claim to perceive stuff that cannot be measured.
In such a situation, the burden of the proof is on the ones making claims. It's there a better way out there than DBT ? What do you propose? A bunch of anecdotes won't do, especially not in a field so ripe with shady marketing and lemming effect.
I would assume parlor tricks, propaganda, and misdirection can apply to both "sides" of the issue. Jakob makes a good point about level of blindness, when evaluating wines they were usually served double blind but everyone was presented with the list of what was there, is this single blind? In our case even the host did not know the order since the wines were transferred to unmarked bottles with a hidden code.
Hello,
Some think the brain is a precision instrument and don't know, or don't want to know how easily it can be fooled. (for example 90% + of peoples brain fail this test @ YouTube Or look up N-rays, that fooled multiple "experts".
Those that do realize how fallible the brain is, want quality testing so they have reason to believe the results are actual reality and they are not fooling themselves. Believe it or not, the scientific method does work and has taken us to space and down to the sub atomic level.
True believers in anything will believe regardless of any argument or tests that counter their beliefs. Discussion is rather pointless because of this. Just let it go that some will never agree.
Some think the brain is a precision instrument and don't know, or don't want to know how easily it can be fooled. (for example 90% + of peoples brain fail this test @ YouTube Or look up N-rays, that fooled multiple "experts".
Those that do realize how fallible the brain is, want quality testing so they have reason to believe the results are actual reality and they are not fooling themselves. Believe it or not, the scientific method does work and has taken us to space and down to the sub atomic level.
True believers in anything will believe regardless of any argument or tests that counter their beliefs. Discussion is rather pointless because of this. Just let it go that some will never agree.
Parlor tricks passed off as scientific, gold standard, only applies to one side, sorry to say.
The other scott is right, why hasn't this thread run its course? The cable fraud thread did.
Hm,. . . I've been reading this thread since the first day. I have been quite amused by the very strong statements made by several of the participants here. Just a small point...
1. If the differences between the various devices under test are so small that the DBT can not pick them up, even with upgraded speakers/amps, how important ARE these differences even if they exist? To me, not very important. I would rather spend the delta on better places, like speakers.
2. If DBT testing is so poor at finding such subtle differences, please provide a clear statement of a methodology that will show them, without attempting to trash existing methods that have been used for years.
My history includes owning a high-end audio shop, and buying the coolaid about "tubes are better" for years, even though I could never hear this myself. Some customers clearly could hear such differences.
1. If the differences between the various devices under test are so small that the DBT can not pick them up, even with upgraded speakers/amps, how important ARE these differences even if they exist? To me, not very important. I would rather spend the delta on better places, like speakers.
2. If DBT testing is so poor at finding such subtle differences, please provide a clear statement of a methodology that will show them, without attempting to trash existing methods that have been used for years.
My history includes owning a high-end audio shop, and buying the coolaid about "tubes are better" for years, even though I could never hear this myself. Some customers clearly could hear such differences.
Sorry i could have been more clear on that (thought it would be a given in this context and considering the ongoing discussion in this thread), as i meant "discussion on questionable/questioned effects"
As you might remember, i´ve asserted several times that the personal belief framework is important in this regard. One corrobation is imo the fact - that you mentioned too - of rare blind test demand in speaker threads, although we have a lot of evidence that listener´s judgements were heavenly biased in sighted/open tests. Therefore my comment in an answer directed to you, that you might have helped a member saving some money in not buying another cable (or whatever questionable thing) but did nothing to hold him back from loosing the same money on buying the wrong speaker.
It is often not about differences that can´t be measured, but about measured (or measureable) differences that allegedly can´t be heard.
More precisely your demand of proof is directly dependent on your personal belief about what can not/should not make an audible difference.
And that leads to the important question what kind of evidence you were willing to accept although running contrary to your (prior) belief.
My experience over all those years in audio forums is that only negative results were accepted, positive results were not.
(I´ve asked that question in another forum and maybe should open a thread in the lounge here)
A list of arguments (for not accepting positive results) i´ve already posted some time ago.
There surely is shady marketing and lemming effect (did i already mention that most likely there exists fraud where humans are interacting?
) but you should admit that it could affect (beside ignorance, ego drive and so on) the "non golden ear side" equally. Nobody benefits from a dollar spent elsewhere ...(ok there are exceptions to that rule...)You asked what i propose; i strongly recommend to learn to listen for evaluational purposes. In case of fear that it might limit your joy in listening because you can´t stop thinking about evaluation, you might only try to consider your emotional response.
Use educational material like the EBU SQAM samples i mentioned some time ago, listen to different material on the same reproduction chain and take the same material to different locations (different in acoustics and gear).
It is a matter of experience and listening to real acoustical events helps as well to get a fealing for the restrictions and possibilities of the various reproduction schemes.
Use qualitative methods, like describing in a refined way where differences in the presentations are, find out what happens if you hear over a prolonged time span (means for a session and for days/weeks/months as well).
Use "blind tests" as well, but train for it. It doesn´t have to be "ABX" (means in most cases it should not be "ABX"
),as the ABX only helps answering the mainly not important question.Use known differences for training and try to find out which kind of setup/protocol works best for you. You will learn something about your perception, but don´t be disappointed to find out that it most likely will not help in forum discussion when you got positive results.
Anecdotical evidence might help; the tricky part is to find out which other human you can trust, because his/hers internal music processing is similar to yours.
As i´ve said surely before, imo audio isn´t that different from other parts of our live. We constantly get recommendations or judgements form other humans and have to sort out what is of relevance for us.
Works often quite well even without demanding scientific proof, but sometimes it obviously fails........
Last edited:
Sure, but as one side claims to be represent the scientific point of view, it is imo fair to demand more "science" from them and less "propaganda" .
The procedure might be "double blind" and when done by a sensory lab it most probably is, but in the wine world the term "single blind" means that the participants get some informations about the wine in the flight (grape, region, age and so on) while he term "double blind" means the participants get no information about the wine.
In this context a "double blind" wine tasting can nevertheless be single blind sensory experiment. Obviously, the kind of test scott wurcer describes , a same/different trial will be rare.
Was then "double blind" in wine jargon and "double blind" in sensory evaluation terms.
Imo the cable fraud thread was closed way to soon (it´s frustrating not being able to answer questions because overnight a thread gets closed, happens quite often to me) and closing a "DBT thread" will not make the topic "DBT/ABX" disappear.
So why not try to get to the ground and maybe even settle some points?
Looks like a reasonable argument (and was in fact already asserted after the first justified critic of the ABX attempts was published in 1986) but generally it is hard to say. I don´t want to repeat the "inattentional blindness/deafness" examples but it is know that even quite large differences can remain undetected in controlled experiments, provided the "distraction level" is sufficiently high.
The detection rate depends on the degree of a difference and the detection ability of the listener under the specific conditions of the test.
So even the opposite can be true; a perfect detection rate of a listener (in a test) does not ensure that the difference is of relevance for you not even that it is for the listener when considering the normal,daily listening.
We are not talking about "DBT" in general but about specific experimental methods used in the audio field and specific tests that were done.
@Jakob: thank you for the (as always) well considered and polite answer. A few short points.
As years go by and I listen to more stuff, my overall feeling is that I'm getting better at discerning and describing differences between speakers, headphones or even amps. Probably in more sober terms than in the past. On the other hand, I feel exactly the opposite with DACs for example. The lower end stuff has gotten quite a bit better, at a pace outstripping my progress. Maybe not exactly more reliable though.
I'm more a headphones guy than a speaker guy. I actually don't mind the dozens headphones I've been through. Mostly on the basis of Internet advice. It's hard to audition headphones. It's been a fun journey. Amp wise, as a diyer, I've slowly lost my illusions. Most competent designs I've built sound remarkably alike, tube, opamps or discrete. They're fun to build however.
I don't expect to save anyone from buying the wrong speaker. It's like wine, too subjective. When I advice a friend, my position is: don't waste your money on cables (above what's needed for something solid and reliable), be aware of the crazy diminishing returns, if any, for amps and DACs once you're above 1000$ (more for high power amps) and you're on your own for the speakers. So listen, listen, listen (to the speakers, not the salesman). Once you've found something you like, we will find the rest.
As years go by and I listen to more stuff, my overall feeling is that I'm getting better at discerning and describing differences between speakers, headphones or even amps. Probably in more sober terms than in the past. On the other hand, I feel exactly the opposite with DACs for example. The lower end stuff has gotten quite a bit better, at a pace outstripping my progress. Maybe not exactly more reliable though.
I'm more a headphones guy than a speaker guy. I actually don't mind the dozens headphones I've been through. Mostly on the basis of Internet advice. It's hard to audition headphones. It's been a fun journey. Amp wise, as a diyer, I've slowly lost my illusions. Most competent designs I've built sound remarkably alike, tube, opamps or discrete. They're fun to build however.
I don't expect to save anyone from buying the wrong speaker. It's like wine, too subjective. When I advice a friend, my position is: don't waste your money on cables (above what's needed for something solid and reliable), be aware of the crazy diminishing returns, if any, for amps and DACs once you're above 1000$ (more for high power amps) and you're on your own for the speakers. So listen, listen, listen (to the speakers, not the salesman). Once you've found something you like, we will find the rest.
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.