mkozlows Wrote: > If ABX isn't practical, and the only options are sighted tests with no > volume levelling performed, and single-blind tests with by-ear (or by > cheap meter) volume levelling, the latter is still going to be more > informative than the former, even if it's not totally perfect. Indeed it is. I have a story about single-blind A/B comparisons that illustrates the point. My CD player (a Micro-Seiki CD-M100) dates from about 1990; at that time it was pretty much state-of-the-art. About 3 years ago I wondered whether a new DAC might improve things, so I acquired (on sale-or-return) a Lucid DA9624. The Lucid DAC is entry-level pro gear, a 96kHz/24bit capable device. The Micro-Seiki's internal DAC is a (selected) Philips 16bit 4x oversampler; the classic TDA15-something or other. I level-matched by ear using a test CD, then started a sighted comparison. I felt that the two DACs were close, but the Lucid had a little more definition. Then I asked my wife to switch between the two DACs while I tried to choose which was which, blind. At the end of the test, I had scored precisely 50%, indicating that in fact there were no audible differences between the two DACs (in my system). This doesn't prove that the DACs will always sound the same: my preamp and/or speakers could have been masking differences. But it does very clearly show that you can hear audible differences in a sighted comparison which turn out to be imaginary when you do a blind comparison.
-- cliveb _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
