I've always been skeptical about the validity of the ABX testing, including the double-blind tests. I will try to briefly discuss one aspect of testing that makes me uneasy about the whole arrangement.
It often happens that, while listening to the playback on my system, I experience moments of heightened exhilaration. Something leaps out of the speakers and grabs me by the heart strings, and I go into the much coveted musical nirvana. That moment may happen during the playback of a well worn, extremely familiar track. For example, an acoustic guitar may leap out of the right speaker, or a snare drum may materialize before me in its full lucidity, almost as if there is a real, physical snare drum being hit by a drum stick in front of me. Not exactly sure why are these things happening, it may have to do with atmospheric conditions, or with my body chemistry; who's to say? These things are uncontrollable, to say the least. But the thing that makes me skeptical about the validity of any side-by-side testing is the fact that, even when I rewind the playback to the very moment when the magic happened for me, I cannot reproduce the magic. So, everything else being equal, including the planet alignment, the atmospheric factors, my body chemistry (and, of course, my audio chain), I still cannot re-live that magic moment. Even if I replay that passage only a few seconds later (I have a remote control as I'm listening, so I can quickly rewind), that spectacular leap out of the speakers doesn't happen again. In conclusion: if I can't even consistently repeat two consecutive moments in a reliable fashion, what gives me the arrogance to think/believe that I'll be able to reliably achieve a conclusive test when changing some links in my audio chain? -- magiccarpetride ------------------------------------------------------------------------ magiccarpetride's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37863 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82600 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
