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Is blind testing suitable for audio use?

merlin said:
Indeed a degree of supposition.

The hifi press in the UK is showing a circulation of 5,000. Let's say 80% of those buying the magazines would not entertain blind testing. That's 4,000. Out of a population of what? 65 million?

I think you will find it's closer to the truth than you might imagine. I have a lot of friends with no interest in audio whatsoever. They cannot hear differences where clear cut, scientific differences do not exist - even sighted. That's because they haven't been fed misinformation from magazines, retailers and manufacturers alike for thirty years or so.

They understand the scientific position entirely. More than one think audiofiles are absolute fruit cakes and you can, I'm sure imagine, what they say about them.
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You may not consider yourself an audiophile these days, but I reckon asking one of your mates to do the switching between a couple of dacs while you listen "blind" would, in the mind of your mate, place you squarely in the fruitcake category.

merlin said:
This Steven, is the overwhelming majority of the population. That is not fabrication nor open to question. If it were, the audio business would not be in the dire straights that it is in. They would be selling these improved products to more people than perhaps 0.0005% of the population.
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merlin said:
That in no way is meant to demean those that choose to spend money on audio. I do it myself - much to the amusement of friends. I choose to do it because I always wanted a top stereo system. But I would not claim that science is wrong in what it knows about audio. I once would have, but you could say, I've lost my faith.
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Interesting bit in bold there. I haven't seen anyone claim science is wrong until your comment there where you said you once would have made that claim.

As an aside, reading your latest round of posts leaves me wondering where we actually disagree.

Robert said:
Part of the reason we see so much heat in these discussions is I believe down to exaggeration of audible differences.
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No. It's nothing to do with exaggeration of audible differences at all. That's a very weak excuse for a lot of over-reaction from objectivists. The heat in these discussions invariably comes from the objectivists by how they react to virtually any comment made of a subjective nature. The subjectivist does not post about an audible difference in a heated manner, someone makes a comment on how something sounds and then the insults generally start in reply. I've seen threads of an obvious subjective nature just by looking at the title where the first 3 or 4 replies to the OP are insults. That's where the heat starts.

Robert said:
If someone compares say two similar spec amps and feels one is a little softer, warmer, cooler, livelier, whatever than another, I doubt anyone would really care.
The problems arise when people state things such as 'well I swapped a Naim amp for a Cyrus and it tall became unlistenable' or (my favourite in recent years) 'Quad amplifiers made the singer sound like she's singing face down on the carpet. Or the guy who thinks he can improve the system bass response by changing his interconnect, and so it goes on.

Such things are demonstrably wrong using the simplest of blind tests - totally wrong, and their acceptance makes it near impossible to have reasoned, politics free discussions around the subtleties that can exist and truly deserve discussion.
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Such things are also demonstrably wrong by using sighted tests. A comment such as the reference to Quad amps can only have been made by an idiot, so just ignore it and move on. Let's be honest, although I post genuinely in reply to interesting points you make you do ignore everything I post, so why not just ignore the tripe you mentioned above? :D You know it's wrong and that's enough surely?

Steven Toy said:
For me it isn't a question of faith. I also set my bar much lower regarding burden of proof than you - I set mine at "balance of probabilities," I suspect you set yours at "beyond all reasonable doubt."

Regarding what the non-subscribers to audiophilia may be thinking, I suggest that you don't read minds. They may lean more towards scepticism with the likes of interconnects, mains leads and supports than they do with digital sources but on the whole my supposition is that they are agnostic.

I suggest that the more resolved believers that things must sound the same until sufficient evidence proves the contrary beyond all reasonable doubt are not amongst the general population but amongst the ex-audiophiles, those whose fingers have been burnt playing the audiophile game, the disillusioned, perhaps those, for example, who subscribed to Beltism and have since lurched from one extreme to the other.

Ex-audiophiles are like ex-smokers and born-again god-botherers; there is a certain pattern at least.
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I've long suspected this to be the root cause of the issue.
 
avole said:
One thing I'd have to say is that blind tasting of wine helps you focus in the wine, different flavours, aromas etc whereas sighted tasting does not.
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Very true. My main problem with wine tastings is that my palate becomes confused and dulled after about a dozen sips. Also you get the effect that the very upfront wines impress when sips are used but I often find a more subtle wine will impress if you drink it over an evening.

Nic P
 
Nic P said:
Very true. My main problem with wine tastings is that my palate becomes confused and dulled after about a dozen sips. Also you get the effect that the very upfront wines impress when sips are used but I often find a more subtle wine will impress if you drink it over an evening.

Nic P
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My main problem with wine is it is all bad. Very bad.

I drink tap water, tea, coffee, guinness, brown ale and brandy and I drink them all with my eyes open. I know what they all taste like so I don't need to do any testing, I just get on with it. ;)
 
Nic P said:
Very true. My main problem with wine tastings is that my palate becomes confused and dulled after about a dozen sips. Also you get the effect that the very upfront wines impress when sips are used but I often find a more subtle wine will impress if you drink it over an evening.

Nic P
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Nevertheless, if you taste something immediately when sighted and you don't taste it immediately when blind then that is useful information.
Darren
 
Brian said:
Let's be honest, although I post genuinely in reply to interesting points you make you do ignore everything I post....
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Yes, I have noticed that (with my posts as well).
I wonder if it's because the middle ground view is not as easy to pick holes in?
 
S-Man said:
Yes, I have noticed that (with my posts as well).
I wonder if it's because the middle ground view is not as easy to pick holes in?
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Yes, that's what I've been thinking for awhile now, if you aren't at some extreme it just doesn't add up and you must be a troll. ;)
 
It's interesting that very few of the middle grounders bother to post more than once or twice on a particular topic, so even though I suspect there are quite lot of them they get drowned out by the extremists.

Maybe we should change the emphasis away from subjective versus objective and move it towards extremists versus middle grounders? Of course that would not work because the middle grounders will not be sufficiently bothered to argue back.
 
S-Man said:
It's interesting that very few of the middle grounders bother to post more than once or twice on a particular topic, so even though I suspect there are quite lot of them they get drowned out by the extremists.

Maybe we should change the emphasis away from subjective versus objective and move it towards extremists versus middle grounders? Of course that would not work because the middle grounders will not be sufficiently bothered to argue back.
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Polls often show that there are many people not contributing much to extremist threads. Some may be middle grounders, whilst others may be bored to death by such threads.

Nic P
 
Robert said:
Not the case at all Neil.
Any issue due to memory is present in both sighted and blind testing.
The blind test can only remove some detractors, which is why it's a better test method, not a perfect one.

The rigour of the test should reflect the subtlety of the effect under investigation, beyond simple removal of visual clues. Therefore determining claims that amp A has lots more detail, is too bright, sounds dead, is too lush, is more exciting etc requires very simple AB blind testing.
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Hi Robert, I think you just validated my point. I agree that auditory memory affects both sighted and blind tests. If we take 3 minutes for a song with 10 components and allow time for making changes from 1 test item to another that would give about 40 minutes or thereabouts to play 1 song on all 10 items. Such a large group makes the test pretty poor scientifically speaking.
 
One thing I'd say is that beyond a certain level the law of diminishing returns kicks in hard. I'd say that the point where that kicks in has gone down in price significantly from when I bought my first system. The move from turntable based systems to Digital front ends has certainly been significant in that change.

From the perspective of the general public we are all insanely obsessed in that not only do we tend to have more than just an iPod or single unit system but we also spend time on what is, let's face it, a very geeky forum. The way some on here use the term audiophile/fool as if they are somehow different in the eyes of the general population is rather absurd.
 
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