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The best audio system on earth?

adamdea said:
1) <Bangs head on table>
2) The reason this is not a blind test is not because it isn't blind but because it isn't a test. And confirmation bias is primarily an issue with experimental analysis- as here. Apart from those two points, what does the reasonable person conclude from a claim that two identical bitstreams sound as different as two pairs of speakers?
You prove too much
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Can you, for the benefit of the thread, provide an example where a person would not require an ABX (or simple blind) test in order to successfully evaluate/compare an aspect of sound reproduction correctly? What is the threshold you are referencing to determine the limits of another's perception? And can you reveal how you selected or identified this threshold?

I'm genuinely curious what the bias threshold is for what people can hear.
 
karlsushi said:
A bold claim perhaps, but I think there are plenty of people that attended the Audio Show Deluxe over the weekend that can attest to the Boyer Room surely being the pinnacle of audio reproduction in 2024. This wasn't about 'flavour' or 'personal preference', just the ultimate in realistic and accurate audio reproduction. It took 'being in the room' to a whole new level.

I wanted to start a thread on this because it has opened some interesting talking points.

Firstly to say I have no vested interests or long-held opinions that I want to push here, I simply want to highlight some cold hard facts of what were in that system, that may (or may not) have led to it being the best audio system on earth. How much influence each aspect had on the sound, remains to be seen, but these are the main take-aways from my own observations:

- Big fat power supplies, especially at the digital end (as demonstrated by the huge separate supplies powering the WADAX server and DAC units - and incidentally, the most expensive bit of the system - sources first!!)
- Cables matter (there I said it - but sorry guys, this system used big expensive cables from start to finish. Shunyata cabling throughout including their £25k Omega speaker cables - ouch!)
- Power distribution matters (again, Shunyata kit used here including that big Everest tower - with a few more boxes besides)
- They used two different sets of speakers, but a very interesting talking point here was that the Kromer Atelier stand-mounts they were premiering (and which sounded nigh-on as good as the big floor-standers), were, as far as I could tell, by far the cheapest component in the entire chain when that system was hooked-up. In fact, the Shunyata cables plugged into them cost a grand more than they did - go figure).
- Valves reign king - sorry again folks, but the preamp and power amps were all-valve from front to back, including the power supplies. 845 output valves in the stunning (and massive) Engstrom ERIC encore Monos. As an aside, we all knew this really, but 70W is plenty in what was a massive room (into 89dB sensitivity speakers).
- One to boost the measurists here, the speaker drivers were made by Purifi.
- They had a turntable, but I'm not sure they used it all weekend. Would have loved to have heard it and no doubt digital was largely used for practical reasons, but in terms of sound quality, that debate is surely now put to bed.

Anyway, take a bow Boyer Audio.
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Wrong. The best audio system on earth is whichever is currently playing Trout Mask Replica.
 
hc25036 said:
The potential bias here is my favourite - dominant participant bias. If someone in the room is (eg), older, wiser, better-qualified, louder, owns the kit or has a specific interest in the outcome, subconsciously there is a tendency for participants to agree with them (if they have expressed an opinion) or to comment in a way that would (they might believe) please them.
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I’m ex-Pharma FWIW.

There was no dominant participant of relevance here. I guess there could have been some sort of rigged-dem shenanigans as some of us have seen at shows (encouraging head nods or whatever) but in the absence of those I don’t believe there was any reason why the guinea pig would know which was to be the most host-pleasing response.

No one in their right mind is going to conduct a peer reviewed, evidence-including-measurements based, statistically significant double blind study when drinking coffee with a friend and trying something out on them. It’s a hobby!
 
TheFlash said:
I’m ex-Pharma FWIW.

There was no dominant participant of relevance here. I guess there could have been some sort of rigged-dem shenanigans as some of us have seen at shows (encouraging head nods or whatever) but in the absence of those I don’t believe there was any reason why the guinea pig would know which was to be the most host-pleasing response.

No one in their right mind is going to conduct a peer reviewed, evidence-including-measurements based, statistically significant double blind study when drinking coffee with a friend and trying something out on them. It’s a hobby!
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FWIW I was head of clinical research, designed scores of clinical trials and spent 25 years trying to ensure that biases didn't destroy man-years of research effort.

I am not for one moment suggesting (and never have on here) pharma-standard research standards are sensible here, but (as I stated above) I am trying to show what factors could lead to some of the certainties presented in these threads needing some caution. I'm not sure what definition of dominant participant you are using, but as always in experiments it is not the obvious dictionary definition of the words, but a name for the measured effect. As I said above, it doesn't have to be a tapping foot - a change in breathing pattern, a twitch of an eyebrow or a widened pupil will all do the job subconsciously depending on the situation. Again, I'm not suggesting that happens in every (or any) case where a difference is heard. It does explain the need some scepticism.
 
TheFlash said:
No one in their right mind is going to conduct a peer reviewed, evidence-including-measurements based, statistically significant double blind study when drinking coffee with a friend and trying something out on them. It’s a hobby!
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The place for that kind of testing is product development, where it is very relevant and significant.

But taunting audiophiles on forums by saying "if you can't prove your results by double blind testing they're meaningless" is just bloody minded.
 
Fourlegs said:
Obviously it is accepted that it is all anecdotal but I partly wanted to share the experience to see how many people come out of the woodwork to say what we heard couldn’t happen, or we fooled ourselves.
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Weighing the simple plausibility of the two arguments - I did something and heard something on one hand, and you're a self-deluded fool unless there is some rigorous, confirmed, white-lab-coat implementation of how you taste your scotch, salt your meal, or enjoy your hifi on the other - tends not to favor the latter.

No matter, you're still a self-deluded fool unless there is some rigorous, confirmed, white-lab-coat implementation of how you taste your scotch, salt your meal, or enjoy your hifi because this is the internet and I say so.
 
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hc25036 said:
As I said above, it doesn't have to be a tapping foot - a change in breathing pattern, a twitch of an eyebrow or a widened pupil will all do the job subconsciously depending on the situation. Again, I'm not suggesting that happens in every (or any) case where a difference is heard. It does explain the need some scepticism.
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I propose that that argument is not convincing. It fails not unlike the delusion argument fails: It's just not plausible. If it were plausible hifi shows would be swept by what amounts to a vast, decades-long group psychosis instead of what really happens. In reality, citing Fourlegs and a thousand other listeners, things have a sound and people aren't terrible at hearing them.

The notion that man is eminently equipped to do a hundred things by sense, feel, tune, and experience except in audio is silly. And the fear of this mysterious and unique delusion roaring through the halls like the plague is too.
 
For me, if someone says ’I can detect a difference but I can’t explain it’, that’s where the science starts, looking for possible answers.

The approach I often see in forum discussions seems to be ‘you can’t explain it (and neither can I) so there is no difference’. Science never even gets started looking for an answer.

I think we’re all aware to some extent about expectation bias by now. It’s depressingly common on forums for this to be put forward as the only answer in any situation where a difference can’t be explained, rather than just one possible answer.
 
Filian said:
The notion that man is eminently equipped to do a hundred things by sense, feel, tune, and experience except in audio is silly. And the fear of this mysterious and unique delusion roaring through the halls like the plague is too.
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Not sure what you are on about. We are well equipped, fortunately, to enjoy music without special training, and to assess audio equipment for that matter. "That sounded good to me" "that sounded poor" etc all fine. What we are not well equipped to do is to assess the benefit or otherwise of small changes that may or may not alter the sound. At least, not without blind tests and considerable effort.
 
kevinrt said:
I think we’re all aware to some extent about expectation bias by now. It’s depressingly common on forums for this to be put forward as the only answer in any situation where a difference can’t be explained, rather than just one possible answer.
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It would of course be massively advantageous to the exotic audio cable industry, for example, to publish the results of their rigorous double-blind tests demonstrating the effectiveness of their products. Given that fact, one has to wonder why there are few if any such papers published.
 
onlyconnect said:
Not sure what you are on about. We are well equipped, fortunately, to enjoy music without special training, and to assess audio equipment for that matter. "That sounded good to me" "that sounded poor" etc all fine. What we are not well equipped to do is to assess the benefit or otherwise of small changes that may or may not alter the sound. At least, not without blind tests and considerable effort.
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Kindly elaborate on which phenomena acceptably fall within each category. Such a sorting will be a considerable time-saver and reference work.
 
hc25036 said:
FWIW I was head of clinical research, designed scores of clinical trials and spent 25 years trying to ensure that biases didn't destroy man-years of research effort.

I am not for one moment suggesting (and never have on here) pharma-standard research standards are sensible here, but (as I stated above) I am trying to show what factors could lead to some of the certainties presented in these threads needing some caution. I'm not sure what definition of dominant participant you are using, but as always in experiments it is not the obvious dictionary definition of the words, but a name for the measured effect. As I said above, it doesn't have to be a tapping foot - a change in breathing pattern, a twitch of an eyebrow or a widened pupil will all do the job subconsciously depending on the situation. Again, I'm not suggesting that happens in every (or any) case where a difference is heard. It does explain the need some scepticism.
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I hear you. I was global CIO for Drug Development for AZ so much further from the trials themselves but deeply familiar with the process as was part of the decision-making process at the gates between development stages.

I hear you but don't think there's a need for cynicism-as-a-default, just cynicism where appropriate. I once sat in a cable demo (I shall no name the manufacturer but I'm sure this will strike a chord...) where the dominant participant thing was frankly laughable.
 
onlyconnect said:
It would of course be massively advantageous to the exotic audio cable industry, for example, to publish the results of their rigorous double-blind tests demonstrating the effectiveness of their products. Given that fact, one has to wonder why there are few if any such papers published.
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They have no need to do that, though I'm sure they appreciate your advice! Most of them have thriving business without this. The only people demanding such tests and papers are those who have already decided they wouldn't buy their cables anyway!
 
A little side note regarding this system before things really start to...oh, they have...about 9 pages ago...

...anyway, what really stood out to me with this system, that until this point never really truly has for me, is the way in which the sound felt completely unaffected by the system. It was by far the most open window to the recording I have ever experienced.

Now of course none of us were present when the various recordings were made in order to verify the accuracy, but it really doesn't take an audiophile, golden ears or any other supersonic hearing to hear music and be able to correlate it to the real thing.

Seriously, who doesn't know what a drumkit, a violin or a guitar sound like in real life?

As I've tried to suggest before, the sound from this system transcended audio descriptions, it was simply the closest facsimile to the real thing that I (and it seems many others) have ever experienced.

How much of that was down to any one, or combination, of the components used is naturally still up for debate. I merely point out that it is a case of fact, that this incredibly realistic system, just happened to have those components in the chain.

So if one is keen on replicating such a system at home, it seems logical to take note of what was going on in that system.

Of course, feel free to dismiss aspects of the system at your (possible) disadvantage.
 
Alex S said:
I have a strong expectation bias that threads like this will turn to shit.
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So do I. Wild guess but it's probably something to do with who chooses to participate and how they choose to contribute, including whether on or off topic. I use the word contribute advisedly...
 
kevinrt said:
For me, if someone says ’I can detect a difference but I can’t explain it’, that’s where the science starts, looking for possible answers.

The approach I often see in forum discussions seems to be ‘you can’t explain it (and neither can I) so there is no difference’. Science never even gets started looking for an answer.

I think we’re all aware to some extent about expectation bias by now. It’s depressingly common on forums for this to be put forward as the only answer in any situation where a difference can’t be explained, rather than just one possible answer.
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^this
 
TheFlash said:
So do I. Wild guess but it's probably something to do with who chooses to participate and how they choose to contribute, including whether on or off topic. I use the word contribute advisedly...
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Fair enough. I responded to a post with what I thought was a valid technical observation. I’ll bow out…
 
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