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In Reply to: RE: Anti-cables... posted by Swamis Cat on February 11, 2016 at 11:02:09
Double blind and ABX tests are UN SCIENCE. They ignore the requirements of human cognition. The typical questions to the listener are "is it different"? "Is one better"? These are nonsensical as that is never what we listen for. The answers are "I don't care" and "better at what"? respectively. Garbage in and garbage out.
We are not oscilloscopes. We are observers over time. .If you had a bunch of test data without any indication of which product you measured and under what conditions would you be able to say if the products are different?, much less determine which is "better" at anything?
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Opthamologists/optometrists, etc. do this type of thing all the time, and if you use corrective lenses, that's why you wear the ones you have.
I always get asked "better now or better now"? Is there any reason this can't be done with speaker wires and listening (rather than ears and sound)?
Perhaps this also in fact applies to hearing aid evaluations. (My eye MD once even to play a little trick me up, making the switching noises but not the lenses.
Given young listeners with outstanding hearing ability, I don't believe they could consistently conclude which is the 'better' wire. And allow it to be in the same sense of 'better' as in choosing corrective lenses (and no matter how any 'lawyer' here tries to 'worm' their way out.
That is because what is tested is your performance with the hearing aid or glasses, You are highlighting what is exactly my point. It is not a test of the equipment being evaluated it is a test of the listener. Guess what, we don't give a hoot about the listener, we care about the equipment's performance.The other issue is that you are evaluating very particular sensory perception not anything as esoteric as what we audiophiles listen for.
A friend with hearing aids has gained a bit of an audiophile superpower able to easily distinguish cables and various digital data transmission schemes, DLNA and pull protocols from the NAS vs. USB push and even DoP on SPDIF vs native DSD on USB.
Thanks for the replies Moricab and Satie,
Is there a link to the objective review on single blind, Moricab? I would really like to see when some listeners can and can't distinguish differences or preferences.
Satie, if the differences between cables are clear and obvious, then a blind test could be designed to try to quantify the differences. You and I could easily design the test.
You may be right that blind tests are unable to differentiate the cables, but that longer range experience would reveal differences and preferences. But that would itself be an extremely revealing empirical finding (and would still contradict 90% of all cable and power cord reviews I have read). Here are some potential hypotheses which are testable:
1). Differences between cables are obvious to everyone in blind listening tests
2). Differences between sufficiently different cable types/technologies/constructions are obvious to a limited group of extremely attentive listeners in blind listening tests (some people can differentiate some cables)
3). Differences between cables or cable types are not statistically identifiable in blind tests to anyone yet discovered
4). Same as three but some are still objectively able to distinguish differences over time through extensive listening
I assume Moricab believes 2 to be true, and possibly Dave does as well. I encourage both to set me straight. From your response I assume you are leaning more toward 4. Again, I am not sure though.
Sadly, I never actually reported it as a think piece or a review...wish I had now but on the other hand it would have been given a lot S#)T from the scientific politically correct. All, I will say is it was satisfying to me as the listeners (4 in total) were nearly 100% correct in choosing between 4 different interconnects design types (telling ribbon vs. wire) and like 80% correct telling between specific cables. We had 2 wire and 2 ribbon...all using solid silver construction. A copper wire cable would have probably stood out like a sore thumb in this group.
The wire vs. ribbon though made by far the biggest difference in this single blind test...the ribbon interconnects had far better decoding of space and relations of performers in space. It simply made more sense and the bass was meatier and more solid.
Anyway the gear at the time was my Silvaweld SWC1000 preamp and Sphinx project 14 amp. We were changing between amp and preamp then DAC and preamp.
It is beneficial to hide the commercial name and appearance of the items you are evaluating and providing each with a different generic label. Then let them play what they need to so as to learn the characteristics of each item. Then ask how do they differ on a set of characteristics. Do not ask just "are they different" and definitely don't ask if one is generally "better" unless there is a clear superiority in most or all the characteristics, as the personal preference of the balance of characteristics is what you would get as an answer and that is useless to anybody else.
The resolving capabilities of the equipment and good matching are also very significant to the results you would get. Well executed stats and ribbon or ring radiator diamond or thin VD beryllium tweeters are usually key requirements for having a chance at making clear observations. Planar low mass midranges like BGs help too. E.g. using JBL centuries stock I didn't care enough about the differences between zip cord, monstercable basic and DNM cables. With Yamaha NS1000 Berylium tweeters the differences were very obvious, very much more so with my own RtoR recordings.As far as appearances went, the zipcord was least obtrusive and the other cables looked distinctly ugly. As to audio jewelry I tend to view it as lipstick on a pig. It is still a box or a cable..
Interconnect cables were relatively easy to hide because the gear was in a rack so the players were behind the rack.
I agree about the speaker resolution. Good ribbons or stats or horns are usually essential. My Ref 3as were not too bad at showing differences too as they were upgraded with Be tweeters and the midrange is quite revealing with them. That said my Odeon horns are quite close to what I used to get from my Acoustat Spectras but with a more front row live Jazz kind of feel.
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