Sorry it didn't work for me, same SQ

[Alexh]

To add: there have been proposals on here to test the sensitivity of blind tests, for example by blind-testing two components known to be measurably and audibly different. Those proposals have been vigorously decried. Not sure why.

This is a test I would like to see performed, I wonder how it would go :

MP3 compressed V CD = Fail
Radio source V CD = Fail
In phase v out phase= Maybe pass

Need I say anything else

 

[Purité Audio]

This is a test I would like to see performed, I wonder how it would go :

MP3 compressed V CD = Fail
Radio source V CD = Fail
In phase v out phase= Maybe pass

Need I say anything else

You don't believe you would be able to tell the difference between MP3 and 44.1
unless you could see the format?
Keith

 

[whatsnext]

Whatsnext
Did the Plattermat have any effect on the sq of your record player?

Muzzer

I had a session yesterday and things sounded a bit "firmer". Time will give a better conclusion. Cannot see any reason not to keep it even though John Ruddles seemed to think I was going to return it.

The lack of static is worth it's weight in g...

 

[Alexh]

You don't believe you would be able to tell the difference between MP3 and 44.1
unless you could see the format?
Keith

No, I would like to see how all the DBT religionists would get on if they themselves were to do the test.

Do you fancy a go at it ?

 

[Ciunas Audio]

So why blind test, for what purpose?

No, I would like to see how all the DBT religionists would get on if they themselves were to do the test.

Do you fancy a go at it ?

Keith always disappears when asked a direct question so don't expect your offer to be taken up!

 

[Purité Audio]

Keith always disappears when asked a direct question so don't expect your offer to be taken up!

You can't tell the difference either John?
Keith.

 

[adamdea]

I agree, that has been my experience too. Where we differ is in our conclusions. You conclude that there is therefore no difference. I maintain that that is not a valid conclusion, and that we have to eliminate the possibility that the blind test is itself masking real differences, before we can reach that conclusion.

You cannot argue, on the one hand, that hearing perception is a multi-sensory phenomenon, and yet on the other hand, that reducing the available sensory inputs does not materially affect that perception. This is also where BE and I are failing to find common ground. It may prompt the elimination of sighted bias, but it may also cause the reduction in the sensitivity and subtle discrimination of ones hearing. We don't know if it does or it doesn't, which is precisely the point. Until we do know, one way or the other, we can't simply accept the findings of a blind test, even if conducted with statistically significant rigour, without question.

I think you've got wildly carried away with all of this.

There are clearly specific problems with specific sorts of "blind" tests- and here the blanket expression "blind test" is going to take you into the undergrowth. Are we actually reducing (or manipulating) the sensory inputs?

Tests which involve people using unfamiliar systems/room have to be approached with caution. Why? Because the listener doesn't know what it's supposed to sound like, and is this clearly may cover things up. Some time should be allowed to acclimatise

A test which necessarily involves genuinely removing or altering perceptual information would also be very odd eg perhaps actually blindfolding someone, or flashing weird coloured lights at them while listening.

But what sensory inputs are being reduced in a blind test? They aren't actually blind are they? Lots of people listen with their eyes shut, or the lights down low, or with kit behind cupboard doors. In any event unlike the lips in the McGurk effect, the front plate of the amp isn't actually telling you what it's playing. Your perceptual system has not evolved to decide on sound quality based on what the amp looks like; or has it?

Many Blind tests don't involve interfering with the listener in any other way than that they don't know the answer. Examples of these tests include the many distributed file tests which people can down load and lay on their own systems at their leisure. The miraculous "blind test effect", whereby the brilliant and gifted suddenly can't tell the difference between things they swear blind they can normally, still seems to apply to these tests.

Then we have the test where someone doesn't know which dac or amp is playing (but can see them). Now what credible theory do you have as to why simply not knowing which amp is playing could affect someones general perceptual system such that it interferes with their ability to decode the sound.

After all the wife is supposed to be able to hear the difference from the kitchen isn't she?

As I said unlike the lips in the McGurk effect, or for that matter the visual information about location in the case of visual steering of sound, the front plate of the amp isn't actually telling you what it's playing. If not being able to see the front plate of the amp causes you to change your opinion of the amp, then what conclusion do you draw? The hypothesis that what you think you hear is conditioned by the slight of the amp turns out to be exactly what the "blind" test is designed to expose.

And here we get back to where we started.

 

[Ciunas Audio]

You can't tell the difference either John?
Keith.

He addressed his challenge to 'DBT religionists' - directly to you!
Your efforts at deflection are telling

 

[Lee T]

This is a test I would like to see performed, I wonder how it would go :

MP3 compressed V CD = Fail
Radio source V CD = Fail
In phase v out phase= Maybe pass

Need I say anything else

So you think mp3 compressed sounds cd quality?

 

[Lee T]

Is there no pressure on the tester? Especially if they have been challenged? And of course there IS some knowledge of what you are listening to; cables, or amps, etc. And often the item in question may be in your memory, and you may be trying to remember the characteristic sound of it.
For example, if A sounded harsher than B, and you are given A,B and C to listen to, what if C is even harsher? Unless the question is simply whether there is ANY difference at all. But even then there can be pressure to "perform".

How would you have a memory of something you have never heard?

 

[awkwardbydesign]

How would you have a memory of something you have never heard?

You wouldn't. But don't blind tests frequently involve something you HAVE heard?
And out of all those points, that is the only one you questioned?

 

[Lee T]

Remind me of the points, i have lost track of this thread

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I think you've got wildly carried away with all of this.

There are clearly specific problems with specific sorts of "blind" tests- and here the blanket expression "blind test" is going to take you into the undergrowth. Are we actually reducing (or manipulating) the sensory inputs?

Tests which involve people using unfamiliar systems/room have to be approached with caution. Why? Because the listener doesn't know what it's supposed to sound like, and is this clearly may cover things up. Some time should be allowed to acclimatise

A test which necessarily involves genuinely removing or altering perceptual information would also be very odd eg perhaps actually blindfolding someone, or flashing weird coloured lights at them while listening.

But what sensory inputs are being reduced in a blind test? They aren't actually blind are they? Lots of people listen with their eyes shut, or the lights down low, or with kit behind cupboard doors. In any event unlike the lips in the McGurk effect, the front plate of the amp isn't actually telling you what it's playing. Your perceptual system has not evolved to decide on sound quality based on what the amp looks like; or has it?

Many Blind tests don't involve interfering with the listener in any other way than that they don't know the answer. Examples of these tests include the many distributed file tests which people can down load and lay on their own systems at their leisure. The miraculous "blind test effect", whereby the brilliant and gifted suddenly can't tell the difference between things they swear blind they can normally, still seems to apply to these tests.

Then we have the test where someone doesn't know which dac or amp is playing (but can see them). Now what credible theory do you have as to why simply not knowing which amp is playing could affect someones general perceptual system such that it interferes with their ability to decode the sound.

After all the wife is supposed to be able to hear the difference from the kitchen isn't she?

As I said unlike the lips in the McGurk effect, or for that matter the visual information about location in the case of visual steering of sound, the front plate of the amp isn't actually telling you what it's playing. If not being able to see the front plate of the amp causes you to change your opinion of the amp, then what conclusion do you draw? The hypothesis that what you think you hear is conditioned by the slight of the amp turns out to be exactly what the "blind" test is designed to expose.

Well, an interesting point. But it also touches upon something I said in my response to Basil, not far back in this thread. He likened a blind test to an exam, and I made the point that the purpose of a blind test is supposed to be to see whether A can reliably be distinguished from B. However, your scenario above does imply, particularly the closing remarks, that at least one purpose is to see whether individual X can reliably distinguish A from B, ie that the listener is the test subject. This is denied, but seems to me to be, if not an overt intention, then at least an inadvertent one.

The general premise remains: a blind test is a somewhat unnatural and artificial process. I suspect that it messes with one's head, to some extent.

Perhaps this can be ameliorated with training, practice or familiarity but, again, I don't think we know exactly what is going on.

 

[awkwardbydesign]

Remind me of the points, i have lost track of this thread

There was one once. Wasn't there?

 

[MVV]

Remind me of the points, i have lost track of this thread

"The thread is quite pointless for obvious reasons."

 

[whatsnext]

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Ballad of a Thin Man, Bob Dylan

Music. Remember that?

 

[adamdea]

U

Well, an interesting point. But it also touches upon something I said in my response to Basil, not far back in this thread. He likened a blind test to an exam, and I made the point that the purpose of a blind test is supposed to be to see whether A can reliably be distinguished from B. However, your scenario above does imply, particularly the closing remarks, that at least one purpose is to see whether individual X can reliably distinguish A from B, ie that the listener is the test subject. This is denied, but seems to me to be, if not an overt intention, then at least an inadvertent one.

The general premise remains: a blind test is a somewhat unnatural and artificial process. I suspect that it messes with one's head, to some extent.

Perhaps this can be ameliorated with training, practice or familiarity but, again, I don't think we know exactly what is going on.

The problem is that without there being any control you cannot really have an experiment. The test here is whether the results are based on purely sonic information or on something else. I guess that those who have invested a lot of their self-esteem on one particular set of results may experience stress. But that's their problem and it isn't the result of perceptual deprivation is it? It isn't going to affect the bulk of the population who have nothing much invested in it. It seems to me that at some point we reach an irreducible minimum of test interference based on the notion that some people have superpowers on which any form of testing is kryptonite.

 

[BE718]

He addressed his challenge to 'DBT religionists' - directly to you!
Your efforts at deflection are telling

he said deflecting the question ...hahahhahahah

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

The problem is that without there being any control you cannot really have an experiment. The test here is whether the results are based on purely sonic information or on something else.

Yes. and one possible control for a blind test regime might have been to blind test two items known to be measurably and audibly different but, for whatever reason, when this was proposed it was resisted and went no further.

As to your other point, I think we are all invested to a greater or lesser degree (else why would we spend so much time here?), so to claim that some are susceptible and some are immune to subconscious influences is perhaps indicative of the level of self-awareness or personal insight on the part of some.

 

[Joe Hutch]

"The thread is quite pointless for obvious reasons."

Pointless threads are teh best; they certainly seem to attract most posts.