Double-blind testing is a tricky thing -- there's a whole science to it. In terms of audio, done over time with one or two people, it is valid. Use different lengths of music. Do it over different days, even. Tally the results.
Otherwise, you need a larger sample to correct for individual oddities. That's what I like about the Bay Area Audiophile Society test -- they actually bothered to do it correctly. On a forum I participate it -- highly reputable, the Robert Greene forum -- a member posted to the effect that, after years of fiddling with interconnects, he decided to try a test himself. He had his wife change cables every few days over a three week period. There were three different cables. They ranged from very expensive to reasonable. In the end, he couldn't tell any difference, do he kept the reasonable set (Bryston) and sold the others. That's a sound a approach. adamslim;143980 Wrote: > Thanks - it was a pleasure to read the thread this morning. I hoped > that doing the flaming in the initial post - and hence without target - > we'd get a nicer discussion, which seems to have worked. > > Do people think that double-blind tests are genuinely accurate? It > strikes me that there are two potential flaws: > > - The person is in a different mood. At the start of the second test > he has just heard Time Out, and is about to hear it again. Therefore, > I suggest that it is necessary to do the testing dozens of times, and > see if the consensus is statistically indicative. Man that would be > tiring! > > - I have always found that the important matters about hi-fi take a > long time to assess. Do I find myself jumping up to put the next disc > on? Am I transported to the live venue? Is this the right music for > me to get into, right now? I like to test things for several days, and > then go back to the original again to reconfirm my opinion. All an A-B > does is show differences, which is not relevant to me. I need to know > what the difference really means, in terms of my enjoyment of the > music. > > So to conclude, I posit that double-blind testing may not always be an > appropriate method of comparing gear. I think it is useful, but would > treat the results with some caution. However, I recognise that my > system of testing, by not being blind, cannot be scientific. Is there > a third way? -- highdudgeon ------------------------------------------------------------------------ highdudgeon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2195 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
