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In Reply to: RE: LOL! posted by mkuller on February 21, 2015 at 10:13:23
...since objectivists like to demand listening tests which block another sense which can interfere, they want the tests done blind.
The same can be done with food testing!
Taste two dishes with your nose plugged and see whether you can taste a difference or which one tastes better.
Pretty objective and just as scientific.
Follow Ups:
I believe taste and smell are very closely allied.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
...as are sight and listening.Removing sight from listening tests tends to make small differences disappear.
Just like removing smell from a taste test.
One is just as scientific as the other.
Edits: 02/21/15
There is very little analogy between food/wine tasting and listening to audio equipment. Unless you are just saying, oh well, if a wine is so good, we ought to be able to tell it is good without someone else telling us 'the wine you are about to taste is really good'. In other words, deaf-taste testing, or blind-taste testing where we don't know that the wine won an award, or whatever. That's obvious.
In food tasting/eating, you're not generally asked to determine the difference between what's 'real' beef and some substitute. I suggest you and I could taste the difference immediately.
Whereas, when you are listening to an audio system, you know you're not listening to live music. The question is, can you, and do you want to, suspend disbelief in order to listen to the music, and how much effort does it take to do that?
I've never understood people who could sit still for 2 hours and listen to a piece of music on a stereo, or for that matter, in a concert hall.
One always wants either 1) more variety 2) to get up and dance 3) play or sing along 4) or do somthing else while the music plays, or 5) get up and move the speakers an inch left or right
Chances are, like watching TV, the critical faculties turn off anyway after a maximum of 20 minutes, and it does take mental energy to suspend disbelief even that long.
Now, if closing your eyes really does affect what the equipment sounds like, (I still don't believe that but I grant it for the sake of argument) then you also agree that the eye must be 'pleased' along with the ears. Which favors things that we like to look at, but which may have nothing to do with actual performance. It is, however, possible that if we believe that big drivers are necessary for better sound, we will tend to like looking at those big drivers/speakers. Or if we 'believe' that tubed equipment sounds better, than we will prefer to listen to tubed equipment.
I find, in general, what I see before me doesn't really affect what I hear, and I've heard enough systems. Of course, if speakers are not symmetrically placed, you won't hear the central image, etc., but you do not hear the central image because your eyes tell you you're sitting in the middle of 2 speakers!!
Of course, seeing is just another way of perceiving, so if I am blinded, my perceptual ability (and ability to be fooled) may be compromised. In such a situation I may believe what someone is saying, over my own acoustical perception.
I still believe quite firmly that if there is a real and important difference between two components under test, one should be able to identify the difference in a 'blind' (or closed eyes) test, otherwise the difference is simply not subjectively important. Now whether we can do that in a quick A/B without any practice on that system, that is also highly dubious.
OTOH, some argue that our ability to make up/compensate for changes with our ear/brain far outweighs our ability to identify what the differences are, and whether they are necessarily 'better' or 'worse' especially since 'better' in one sonic parameter usually means compromises in another.
The reason 'subjective reviewing' has taken off in the US is 1) audiophiles are inherently individualistic and 2) the magazines haven't had the resources to do really intensive, group testing under controlled conditions, which actually can and does tell you more about a component than oodles of verbiage, turd polishing, glossy pictures, and a few measurement graphs for the pseudo-scientists among us.
...my comparison was facetious.
Second, I posted this above:
"...is there objective proof for anything that provides you more emotional and sensual satisfaction?
Restaurant/food review
High performance automobile review
Wine review
High end hotel review
Audio equipment review using music reproduction
The point of each of these, and many others, is for the reviewer to describe their experience so you can try it yourself if it sounds appealing.
If you are unable to distinguish or appreciate the differences between one and another, then no amount of objective information will matter."
And finally:
> The reason 'subjective reviewing' has taken off in the US is 1) audiophiles are inherently individualistic and 2) the magazines haven't had the resources to do really intensive, group testing under controlled conditions, which actually can and does tell you more about a component than oodles of verbiage, turd polishing, glossy pictures, and a few measurement graphs for the pseudo-scientists among us.>
I disagree. This is a hobby. Like any hobby, people like to read about and discuss the opinions of "experts" to see how their experience compares or for guidance in making a short list of equipment to audition for themselves.
Subjective reviewing took off in the early 1970s when J. Gordon Holt decided he wanted to write about how the equipment sounded rather than how it measured. Today Stereophile does both.
I have seen no real evidence that group testing under controlled conditions (not easy to do correctly) is any better at identifying small audible differences than experienced observational listening.
But the important part of audio reviewing is describing the audible differences in detail - in terms of music reproduction - which no measurement or objective test can do.
That's not what's meant by blind.
Blind just means the listener doesn't know which he's listening to.
He gets to keep his eyes open.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Not in the same way.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
Then combine all of them ....... :)
And by "wow," I don't mean anything good.
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