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Let me rephrase. Testing is important to separate the claims of charlatans and those who know not of what they speak from the facts. There is a lot of noise in hi-fi. Noise being generated by those who consciously or unconsciously try to obfuscate issues. Noise from those who pursue their own financial agenda and who put out outrageous claims often enough where people assume that those claims are factual, etc.
Testing weeds out the noise. It allows one to enjoy the same musical experience on hi-fi, however, it also allows one to have that SAME experience without over paying or buying based on false claims and noise. So, there is real value in testing. It does not interfere with one's ability to enjoy a musical experience on hi-fi. But it does identify what's real and what's smoke and mirrors.
BTW, I read your road trip on 6 moons. I guess I'm one of the "unhappy" audiophiles you refer to. I'll post a response in a thread once I figure out how to present it in the most concise manner.
Thanks for the correction. I thought it was from the "If music be the food of love, play on..." speech from "Twelth Night," but I must have been having a senior moment. :-)
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
I think you are mixing up two separate issues - price and performance. What something is worth is purely subjective. Besides, I know people who like to overpay. Some people even enjoy broadcasting that fact. That's why some designers put their logos so conspicuously on their couture.
On the subject of audio, charlatans and false claims, I see this as a self-regulating hobby. I don't feel the need to be told what I should and should not buy. I feel it
That's fair enough. If one wishes to "overpay" or pay for the bells and whistles, it's all good as long as it's an informed decision.
No one needs a hi-fi. This is a hobby and a true luxury in terms of both time and expense. That's why I don't understand all the fuss.
"Oh dear, I think I've overpaid for this Bordeaux. It's simply flaccid and I don't get even a hint of black fruits like the review said. And I do so enjoy my hint of black fruits. Call the authorities."
I think we've beat this issue into tedium but I will say that I judge the success of a hi-fi by how much it makes me want to listen to music and more importantly how much new music I discover through using it. And you can't play an LP on a Bose radio.
Somehow this thread seems to repeat itself about every four months, so I'm not sure why I'm going to post. Something about NCDrawls joke about needing to correct "someone who's WRONG on the Internet" Heh.
Anyway, I really wonder about all the fuss too. Where does anyone think that all or most consumers are unduly swayed by appearance and/or price? Huh? I don't get it. You mean to say every time you hear a component or system, either at a store or some one's home, if it's pretty or expensive you are swept up by an uncontrollable urge to be impressed and like it?
WHO here does this actually happen to? PLEASE- tell me now- who here ACTUALLY experiences this form of hypnosis on a regular basis? I can't remember ANY time I chose something based on those criteria. Yeah, I do care about appearance, but only after I've settled on sound. How is that so hard to fathom?
I used to work in a high-end store when I was in college, and often I could set up the whole reference system ANY way I wanted. I couldn't afford any of it anyway, so price sure didn't matter. But rarely did I chose the "best" or biggest. The only exception was the VPI TNT always was my front end, but after I'd pick out maybe some Quicksilver amps and pre-amp, often Spendor LS3-5As, maybe some medium sized ProAcs. You get the idea. I could choose anything and didn't pick the biggest, baddest, prettiest or priciest. And as the years have gone by and I could afford more, I haven't changed that approach. I listen, I like, if I can buy, I do. I don't need to DBT each and every piece, or any. You can hear it-- and if you get that worked up about what you see, you are not listening IMO.
And testing is all good, at least for SOME aspects of quality and performance. But it's not listening to music and never will be.
Your inability to appreciate the pricier stuff is a clear indicator of your reverse bias.
Err.. Jan V?
"Your inability to appreciate the pricier stuff is a clear indicator of your reverse bias."
Funny- well, as I said, in some cases I DID pick the most expensive- that VPI with a Koetsu cartridge was in 1990 around 12 grand I think- crazy money. More than I could spend today even. But damn, it sounded sweeeet.
I think I have one of them reverse biases, too. Thank god.
Interestingly, I have neither forward nor reverse bias, I guess I conduct pretty normally.
Seriously, sometimes the more expensive thing sounds a lot better, sometimes it sounds a lot worse.
Especially with loudspeakers, quality vs. price seems to be quite decorrelated.
Quality of interconnects is also quite decorrelated. Once they have good connectors and a minimum grade of wire, they all seem to work the same.
Of course, if you're testing new wires, and you have RCA connectors, PLEASE unseat and reseat your OLD CABLES FIRST, several times, and then listen to that as a reference.
RCA connectors are hardly the end-all of corrosion resistance, to say the least.
Excellent advice. Indeed, failing to do so is surely the main reason one might hear a difference after swapping wires. Or just try the originals again after. This reminds me of that famous audiophile quote (paraphrasing):
"I replaced one wire with another and the sound got better. Then I put the old wire in and the sound got better again."
I have been concerned about this. You would expect that as price increased, you would see convergence in the sound quality and measured performance of expensive loudspeakers as performance errors can increasingly be addressed with engineering solutions. But you often see _divergence_. I'd be interested in your opinion on why this should be.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Well, then, you do not require blind testing to back up any of your claims.
You, sir, are the standard!
At last.
Nicely done.
I also have neither forward nor reverse bias.
I'm not j_j but I have a theory, and it applies to tube gear too, but especially loudspeakers.
A lot of people are amateur loudspeaker building enthusiasts. So they make a speaker, think it sounds good (never actually having heard a good speaker), and decide to go into business. The better they think it sounds, the more they think they can charge. I see a lot of speaker companies come and go, and I see a lot of tube gear come and go too.
--Ethan
Nonsense.
Well, part of the issue is that different people PREFER (Oh, that word again) different amounts of direct to diffuse sound (in the listening room, not the original venue) as well as different timbre for direct vs. diffuse sound in the listening room.
Different speakers, say Magnapan to B&W, provide radically different solutions, and hence are preferred by people with specific preferences.
This all comes down to the fact that the ORIGINAL direct/diffuse ratio, even in the rare chance that the recording was done live, is rarely captured in any meaningful way.
You've heard one way to capture it, I know.
You have to admit it was non-standard. 
Just so you know, I had some actual analytic (i.e. measured) proof of this once.
I heard something really funky in the reverb tail of one of the PSR recordings in the old AT&T listening room.
So I started to debug (I knew it wasn't the recording). At one point, I put the old AA501 at the inputs to the power amps. Yikes, look at that distortion. Connect the scope, holy cow, something is centerclipping like a (*&(*&.
So, I tried the input to the system. Hey, no center clipping. Checked the next stage, no centerclipping. WTF? The wire is centerclipping?
Nope, put it back on the amp inputs, and AFTER MOVING ALL THE CONNNECTORS AND THUS SCRAPING SOME OF THE CORROSION, no more center clipping.
Oookaaayyyy..... The problem was a classic one, the tinned vs. goldplate connection in one connector set. After it sat a while, it started to build a semiconductor junction of tin/gold needles due to solid solution mechanisms, which is some of the wierder materials sci I've seen.
I apologize if you've already received the same response I'm about to give. I haven't read through all the posts.
I readily agree that the failure of a particular DBT to reveal differences can never prove that no differences exist . It's always possible that a different listener, using different music, with different associated equipment, would notice a difference.
But why in the world does that make DBTs useless? Wouldn't your argument apply much more strongly to traditional subjective reviews? If Sam Tellig says the beautiful tube amp currently in his living room sounds better than the solid state one he had last month, can we be sure his perceptions are accurate? Can't we think of a thousand reasons why his testing is faulty? (Maybe his memory is off; maybe he used different music; maybe his speakers have broken in more since last time; maybe his perceptions are clouded by the beauty of the tubes, etc. . .. )But you probably accept that subjective evals are useful despite their obvious limitations.
DBTs are at least as useful. For one thing, if they do reveal an audible difference, that's conclusive proof that one exists. On the other hand, if a well-designed DBT, using skilled listeners and high-quality associated equipment, reveals no audible difference, it would seem that any actual difference is probably fairly small. For example, if a Stereophile reviewer did not detect a difference between a $1000 CD player and a $10,000 one, I might question spending the extra money. I'd feel even more strongly about that if the reviewer preferred the cheaper player in a DBT. (Keep in mind, the purpose of DBTs isn't always to see whether a difference can be detected. Sometimes differences are quite obvious. But a reviewer's sense of which one is "more musical", for example, might differ under blind conditions.)
The bottom line is that it seems silly to completely reject double-blind testing, when no alternative is necessarily any better. A test doesn't have to be perfect or conclusive to be useful. Even highly unscientific, single blind experiments can be a useful part of a review. (For example, "my wife switched back and forth between the two inputs several times while I listened for the differences.") If audiophiles could just get over the idea that the purpose of DBTs is to prove their entire hobby a fraud, they'd see the benefit of them.
By the way, I don't buy that subjective reviews are generally "dishonest." I think DBTs would probably confirm
many of the points made in subjective tests.
--David
Science can not prove the existance of a negative, so this goes without saying.
What science can do is provide a preponderance of evidence, which it has done in this case.
Many posters in this thread are confusing DBT's with their own desired methods of determining preference, etc, and then blowing their stack about this or that. A few people are taking the quacked position that DBT's don't work, when there is concrete, testable, verifiable evidence that they do.
The real dispute ought to be over "is it relevant", and well, it is to science, it is to people who care ONLY for sound, but how many of us is that? Do you care how something looks? Do you care if it's reliable? Sound is one important facet, indeed.
Then, the claims of "I have better hearing", well, all I can say is that such hearing never seems to reproduce under controlled conditions. The mechanics of human hearing are quite well understood, and the sensitivities ditto, and outside of some very singular and unpleasant pathologies, there is no evidence of "golden ears".
Reged:
I'm not sure we really have much disagreement. But I wonder what you're relying on for the idea that there are no "Golden Ears." I don't think you'd say that if you worked in the audio engineering field, as I did. There is no question that good engineers hear things that mediocre engineers (much less the general public) do not. That's how they make great sounding recordings. They have to hear all sorts of tiny differences that end up amounting to big differences in the long run. That they've actually heard the differences if often objectively verifiable. For example, with multiple instruments playing, and multiple mics on some of the instruments, the engineer might say: "i think there's a bit of distortion on the left overhead drum mic." Nobody else noticed that, but when the mic is soloed it becomes obvious to everyone. Or the good engineer says: "that bass doesn't sound like it's compressed" and sure enough, the assistant forgot to turn the compresser on. Another obvious example is that an engineer might immediately notice that the speakers are hooked up out of phase because the soundstaging is off, whereas the musicians never notice the difference. That the engineer was correct is easily verifiable by tracing the wires. Another example is noticing that the playback from a tape deck doesn't seem quite right, and the manufacturer later verifies that there was a defect with that batch of tape. To be sure, noticing these things is to some extent a learned skill, but that's part of what it means to have "golden ears," I think.
I don't claim that I was the greatest audio engineer, but I do notice some things other people dont. For example, my wife doesn't notice that the vocals on TApestry are distorted whereas I think the distortion is extreme. I imagine that John Atkinson feels the same way about some audio problems that I don't notice.
Of course, there may be some audio tests in which even the most golden of ears cannot distinguish differences between certain things, even though they think they can.
I'm partially deaf in one ear due to a loud noise. Would it be better if I test equipment blind or with sight?
Um, does 30+ years in the field in everything from grunt to lead researcher qualify?
There are people who listen well, who have trained themselves well, but they do not have lower thresholds, they understand more of what they hear.
ETA: Sorry, had somebody stop by for a speaker demo (I just built some new, rather large, speakers), and had to log out.
Anyhow, what I was going to say is that training, which is what 'golden ears' are, is learning how to interpret and understand, focus, etc, on what the ears can detect.
However, there are fundamental limits to what the ear can hear, and they are not that remarkably good, understood in the right framework. See "what can we hear" from http://www.aes.org/sections/pnw/ppt.htm for a lightweight introduction. There is no evidence that people can do substantially better than the ear's limits.
There is lots of evidence that people can process what the ear detects very differently, and in that, we have our golden ears.
The question is irrelevant. If you want to find out what you PREFER, you use the way you PREFER to determine what equipment you PREFER. Really.
So maybe the title should be, "The Dishonesty of what you PREFER"?
Why?
When doing scientific research, or when claiming that there is more going on than a mere individual preference, the situation is entirely different? An individual preference is sacrosanct. A claim to universal preference is not. It would seem that you are simply wanting to argue.
So, what would it be if someone did a single speaker trial and extrapolated his result into "the audio industry is dishonest?"
No - but that's not just what Sean said. He also said that:
With such conclusions, I think referring to sighted tests as being "dishonest" is reasonable.
So, his conclusion:
" If you want to obtain an accurate and reliable measure of how the audio product truly sounds, the listening test must be done blind. It
mmm-kay, now, let's go with what I actually said. I said that it seems that way since I like more expensive sometimes, less sometimes, etc. This doesn't mean that I can avoid DBT's if I am trying to determine differences between two things due only to audition. Not so oddly, like the rest of us, I care about stuff like reliability, repairability, etc.
All it means is what I said, which is that I don't always like the more expensive, or the less expensive item, especially when it comes to speakers.
mmm'kay, you didn't ask, either. For some reason, the fact nobody asked means, in your world, that I'm "unable" to describe something. Nice attempt at asserting something not in evidence, fella, but I'll have to call you on it.
Really now, fella, what "walk" is this? Which straw man are you ranting on about now?
I think you'd better be exactly specific here, especially since you've engaged in obvious deceit already.
What "walk" are you crying about?
So, tell me, who do you think advocates that? I would suggest that you quote chapter and verse, and show beyond the shadow of a doubt that anyone even suggested such a thing. And you need to show all aspects, from "one speaker" through "shop for". Now, let's not have your own biased summary, you need to show us all where Sean Olive said 'EVERYONE SHOULD SHOP FOR A SINGLE SPEAKER, A SINGLE SPEAKER ONLY, AND SHOP ONLY VIA DBT".
You talked the talk, now YOU get to walk the walk.
" If you want to obtain an accurate and reliable measure of how the audio product truly sounds, the listening test must be done blind. It
I buy via sighted listening.
I am a dishonest listener.
I disagree with Sean's conclusion regarding speakers.
I do not believe that a one speaker listening trial warrants a conclusion that there is 'dishonesty' present or that the 'audio industry needs to grow up.' (It may need to 'grow up' for other reasons, but not Sean's.)
I walk the walk by buying via sighted listening and supporting what Sean calls a 'dishonest' industry.
I don't bullshit people with DBT one-speaker trials as some sort of proof of the necessity for DBT and then run out and buy speakers via sighted listening.
More clear?
I rarely feel as if we move forward in these 'discussions' but for me this is a real step. Thanks, I appreciate the effort and clarification. 'Is it relevant' is the point imo and a lot of the bickering seems to come about when people on either side feel as if the other guy is shoving their relevance down the other guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgl0W7k_Q-4&feature=related
Will the Circle be unbroken? By and by, Lord, by and by.
Probably not in this thread.
That's not entirely accurate. In fact, it's not accurate at all.
What I said was that all of my "important" speaker purchases have been after hearing them elsewhere, and mostly after hearing them many times over a long period of time. The one time I bought a speaker (big-ass Altec) I had heard only once, I ended up being disappointed after a few weeks and paid a lot to return it.
Buddha, please read this next part carefully, because it addresses directly your misunderstanding - and outright mischaracterization - of the issue:
A blind listening test removes expectation bias. It also tells us if something is truly audible or not. JA thinks he could identify my $150 Pioneer receiver versus some other high-quality amplifier, and a blind test will put that to bed for certain. JA may be correct! But the only way to know for sure is with a DBT. If someone can see which device is playing, then they'll "guess" correctly every time! I'm sure you can see the futility in that.
However, a blind test does not help someone to pick things based on their preference. Especially when the differences are large. Some people like modest amounts of distortion, or boosted or cut highs. This has nothing to do with DBT.
The only reason one could be opposed to DBT is because, when push comes to shove, they fear they really won't be able to tell which is which. So rather than risk losing face, people make up BS excuses why DBT is not valid.
--Ethan
I'm not opposed to DBT, I'm oppsed to a dumb ass generalized conclusion based on a one speaker listening test.
A shoot out between your Pioneer receiver and a Mark Levinson amp would be great!
I have posted about blind listening trials of my own, even. You couldn't cope with the result, saying one product had to be flawed.
I do a blind test that goes against your bias, and you choke. Sean does one that fits your bias, and you accept his finding as general validation.
Ethan, Sean's 'test' had nothing to do with how you listen or judge speakers, yet you look to his conclusion as validation of your own bias.
Sean's test was not real world, now was it? Why accept the conclusion?
Reminds of the time a buddy of mine woke up in the morning and saw a glass eye and prosthetic leg on his nightstand. One thing I can't stand is sleeping with a single legged cyclops.
Again you totally miss the point. The point is Sean's article explains the failings of sighted tests using his speaker tests as an example. You repeatedly use a straw man by attacking the use of one speaker, or saying "Ethan doesn't use blind testing to buy a speaker," and so forth. This is unrelated to the subject at hand. If you want to defend sighted tests, or show a failing of DBT (good luck with that), then please address that and that alone.
--Ethan
Don't think it was me who made that claim, Ethan. Unless you are referring to another "JA."
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
OK, one more time to the brick wall of Ethan.
1) As to the failings of sighted tests, you yourself ignore his findings and perform your speaker listening tests in sighted fashion. If it's such a great conclusion, why do you ignore it? You give ZERO history of using blinded tests in your own speaker evalutaions, merely saying, "no blind testing needed to hear what I hear." Fine, but then why prop up his conclusion before soundly ignoring it?
2) A DBT can be fantastically valid for one speaker listening trials. However, it should not be extrapolated to anything else. It is NOT the foundation for a conslusion that the audio industry is dishonest or needs to grow up. It is a non sequitir between the test and the conclusion. That is the failling of his DBT. Sean's DBT does not have what we'd call 'clinical relevence.'
3) Quote Ethan: "If you want to defend sighted tests..."
I have no need to do that. You have done an admirable job by describing your own listening trials and shopping methods.
Maybe I read too much into your post #65080 - 04/12/09 03:19 PM earlier in this thread, but it seemed you were agreeing with Jan's condescending remark amount how little my receiver cost.
So are you acknowledging you might not be able to pick out my receiver blind, versus a really good and really expensive amp, assuming both are running within their linear range? I'm not challenging you, just curious what you think.
--Ethan
Yet again you address something that's unrelated to Sean's article, and instead talk about how Ethan chooses speakers.
Dude, you know I love you, but I give up.
--Ethan
Ethan, why don't you just tell me how you think Sean's article relates to speaker buying and listening. Buying and listening are about the only things we do with speakers, so help me out with what I'm missing from Sean's study that you have apllied to your pursuit of good sonics.
This from someone who has repeatedly made rude, uncivilized, unprofessional and uncalled for attacks on the sound and quality of my system without even knowing what components I use in my system and without ever hearing my systen despite desparately wanting to look at it when you used GoogleEarth to peer at my home...
Quote:
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... but it seemed you were agreeing with Jan's condescending remark amount how little my receiver cost.
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This is what I posted, tell me what is "condescending" about this statement ...
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Sorry, Frog, you're wrong on this one. The guy who started this BS only spent $150 for his Pioneer receiver.
Or was that $150 retail?
Probably doesn't matter, he's still asking around to see if anyone in the industry got their's for less.
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Are you running away from the fact you own a $150 Pioneer receiver and use it in your main system? That's excactly what you told us only a few months ago. You do own a Pioneer receiver, do you not? And the figure "$150" has been attached to that very receiver, has it not?
Are you so ashamed of that component that you find any mention of it to be an attack?
What is factually incorrect about what I stated above?
Dude, you know I think you're an unmitigated ass but condescend I did not and attack my system you have - repeatedly.
Get over your dishonest self!
Ethan has a Pioneer rack? Cool!
Yes you did, Ethan
I was laughing at Jan's statement that you were concerned that others might have paid less. It reminded me of something the late Peter W. Mitchell once said about his fellow "Yankee Audiophiles," that "they want perfection but they don't want to pay more than $49.95 for it."
I have no idea, Ethan. Perhaps your Pioneer receiver is astonishingly good in absolute terms. Or perhaps it isn't. As I have never heard it nor have I expressed any opinion on its sound, how could I answer your question? But given how poorly designed most amplifier DBTs have been, it's always possible that the Pioneer could not be distinguished from either my Mark Levinson No.33H monoblocks or an iPod under blind conditions. :-)
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Now that's funny...
That's one good way to get the roaches to run back behind the cabinets. LOL!
I second that. It's why I've always called DBT's "The Great Decimator". Given the fact that there's still controversy over such well established things as -cables-, it's clear to me that many have difficulty discerning (less than Cerwin-Vega sized) differences in audio, even under sighted conditions. Ask them to do so under blind conditions, which is like putting those differences through a meat grinder, and it's hardly any wonder so many audio DBT's come up with the same result: "no significant difference!".
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