PhilNYC;176850 Wrote: > I think for those audiophiles who are not physicists or > electrical/mechanical engineers, the thing that we trust the most is > our hearing. The only way to evaluate something is to try it and see > what our hearing tells us. So that's what most of us do...we try > things (even the most ridiculous things!) and see if we can hear an > effect. > > Now your response is surely going to be "a double-blind test is the > only way to really be sure that you are really hearing what you think > you are hearing"...and this might be absolutely true. But for many of > us, sometimes the differences heard are so significant that the idea > that a DBT would be needed to confirm the change would be like saying > you needed a lab test to verify that Coke tastes different from Pepsi, > or that leather felt different from vinyl. And the results are > consistent and repeatable in single-blind tests to our own ears. > > One thing I'd like to see when someone cites a DBT that results in > something like "50% of the participants couldn't tell a difference" is > some measurable way of evaluating the quality of each participant's > hearing. In the same way that DBT proponents are skeptical of non-DBT > testing methods, I'm skeptical that DBT are accounting for the various > levels of hearing ability and "listening training" of the participants. > And don't take this as me saying "you need golden ears"...but there's > no question in my mind that people do have different hearing ability, > and this should be taken into account as much as testing methods...
Excellent point about each listeners ability, Phil. Sometime a blind test might only be "testing" each listeners ability to decode aural info, or,at least that is one component. -- tomjtx ------------------------------------------------------------------------ tomjtx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7449 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32301 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
