At the risk of making absolute statements on sensitive topics, double-blind tests are the only scientific way to gauge whether or not a subject can perceive the difference between two stimuli. This isn't limited to audio. There are plenty of perception tests around vision, smell, etc. that follow the same rules. Smell these test tubes--which one is different? And so on. This goes on in the very real scientific field of perception every day.
That said, setting up a controlled laboratory in your own home is not as easy as some objectivists may lead you to believe. There's the playback hardware itself, the listening environment, and several biological factors (can tinnitus be amplified by blood pressure variations and caffeine? I don't know, but it's plausible. What about mental distractions/altered states? Et cetera) If a double-blind test shows that the subject cannot identify the different stimulus with certainty, that does prove that the subject can't tell the difference--but only within the parameters of the test. If one of those parameters was off (say, the subject was hung over but did not want to inform the tester), then the test isn't really valid in other circumstances. So I guess my point is: objectivists are correct that all differences can be measured (go ahead, call me autistic!). However, failure to measure a difference may be a failure of methodology rather than an indicator that the difference cannot be perceived by the subject. People who classify themselves as subjectivists have a lot to offer in terms of setting up the test environment correctly, but it's not meaningful without the double-blind test at the end. That's my two cents. Really not trying to troll, perhaps succeeding anyway. My first venture into this fray. -- CatBus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CatBus's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7461 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28368 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
