Let me pose a question. But first a story! Once there were two coffee machine firms called Caffefile and Cafmart. The Caffefile 200 was top of the range, made of premium parts and designed by coffee lovers, for coffee lovers. The Cafmart Express was an overall similar design, built using sound engineering - yet built with off the shelf parts and mass manufactured. The Cafmart Express was half the price of the Caffefile 200.
Technical chemical analysis was carried out which showed that the coffee produced by the Caffefile 200 differed from the coffee produced by the Cafmart Express. Now, most people who had the chance to sample coffee made by both machines didn't have a preference. They couldn't tell the difference between the coffees produced by these machines. These people, of course, tended to buy the Cafmart Express. Some bought the Caffefile 200 anyway but because they felt it looked cool or it was easier to use. A minority, however, preferred the coffee made by the Caffefile 200. They could tell a difference. For them, the coffee from the Caffefile 200 was smoother and purer. The difference was to them "night and day". In addition, they felt more comfortable drinking more coffee over longer periods of time using the Caffefile 200. The majority who could tell no difference scratched their heads, but said live and let live. And, mostly, they continued to enjoy their Cafmart Express. Then, someone came up with an interesting test. Each person was given a challenge - to identify a series of cups of coffee as being made by the Caffefile 200 or Cafmart Express. They asked the lovers of the Caffefile 200 under what exact circumstances the Caffefile 200 outperformed the Cafmart Express. Some said, with any coffee - white, black or espresso. Some said they found that just the espresso was better, or just for stronger coffee. And so on. Some participants said they felt some aspects of the difference could be appreciated only over an extended period - but, even these people admitted this did not prevent them from appreciating the "night and day" difference between a simple cup of Caffefile 200 coffee as compared to an inferior Cafmart Express cup (under the right circumstances they had described). To accomodate those who appreciated the difference only under certain circumstances, the drinkers were allowed to choose whether their coffees were to be random, or just espressos, or just strong coffees, or just black, and so on. As they tasted each mystery cup, they were also allowed to drink from a similar cup known to be from a Caffefile 200 and a similar cup known to be from a Cafmart Express, for reference. Being coffee lovers they were used to drinking coffee for literally hours each day, just for the pleasure of it! Nevertheless, to make the test as fair as possible, they were allowed to take breaks as long or as short as they themselves felt they needed at any time in the test. Also, they were allowed as long or as short a time to drink, taste and appreciate each cup as they themselves felt they needed. Finally, they could choose how many cups they themselves wanted to test. The test was carried out over a period of weeks and the result was that the coffee lovers as a whole identified the origin correctly for 200 cups out of 400. My question is, what conclusions would you draw from the test? Darren -- darrenyeats SB3 / Inguz -> Krell KAV-300i (pre bypass) -> PMC AB-1 Dell laptop -> JVC UX-C30 mini system ------------------------------------------------------------------------ darrenyeats's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10799 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=56712 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
