A few random thoughts: (1) double-blind testing ... while granting some practical limitations (like the hangover problem, or the number of trials you need to make, or how long you need to listen to each sample, or making it really blind), this does have a very valuable contribution to make in answering the question "is there a difference?" Not, of course, "is this better?"! But if a snake-oil salesman or his victim can't tell the difference between A and B, then there really isn't one, regardless of whether you favour an "objective" (measurement-driven) or "subjective" (ear-driven) approach to evaluation.
The consequence of this, in response to the last post, is that it's not very helpful in comparing gear, but it is helpful in determining whether a tweak has any discernable effect. (2) comparing gear ... the problem with this is that in the end, we have to make a subjective judgement about what sounds best to us. This is some mix of the behaviour of our ears (we do all have differing frequency-response curves, my audiologist sister tells me), the behaviour of our brains in interpreting the sound we hear, the impact of our musical preferences, and of course non musical influences like the price or the pretty lights. Does that make me a pure subjectivist? Well, no, because objective measures are hugely useful in arriving at shortlists of stuff to listen to, although reviews written from a subjective viewpoint can *sometimes* be helpful. (3) audiophilia as religion ... it really is, you know. Hence the holy wars that keep springing up on this board. Even worse, we are not talking about one religion attacking another, what we have here are two sects of the same religion which, as history tells us, gives us the worst kind of religious war! (4) subjectivist/objectivist/realist ... going back to the very first post, I agree that the subjectivist and objectivist are contrasting positions, but I'm not sure that "realist" is distinct. I suspect that the "realist" is someone between the two ends of the scale. And lets not forget that there is another, orthogonal scale, ranging from "raving audiophile" at one end to "really don't care" at the other. (5) bringing my last two points together... the interesting thing about the subjectivist/objectivist spectrum is that unlike many other such lines, where few people occupy either end but most people are somewhere in the middle, in this one there are plenty of people at each end... more of an even distribution than a normal one, say. So, in conclusion, audiophiles are not normal ! :) Ceejay -- ceejay ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ceejay's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=148 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
