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In Reply to: RE: Hold it!!! posted by roio on October 03, 2014 at 02:22:58
There is a rather interesting experiment known as the Richard Clark Amplifier Challenge, which has been conducted many times with many listeners. Essentially, Richard Clark, who I think is an audio engineer, challenges the listener to discriminate, under proper A/B/X blind-testing conditions, between their own amplifier, a "standard" amplifier, and a third mystery amplifier X. The basic ground rules are that the listener's own amplifier has to satisfy some basic minimal standards with regard to distortion and frequency response. If the frequency response is too deficient, then Richard Clark mocks up a matching frequency response for his "standard" amplifier with a simple RC network.
Anyway, the upshot from the experiments is that apparently no one has ever succeeded in demonstrating a reliable ability to tell the amplifiers apart. (I think there is a $10,000 prize offered to anyone who succeeds.) Thousands of people, including professionals and amateurs, have tried, apparently.
So my suspicion would be that if the tests were conducted under rigorous blind-testing conditions, nobody would be able reliably and consistently to tell the difference between your Yamaha 2010 and an OTL amplifier.
Chris
Follow Ups:
The "Tweakers" have two responses to the clamor for double-blind or even single-blind testing:
(1) The switch or switching mechanism itself used in A/B/A or A/B/X testing is obscuring the differences one is trying to discern. It's typically impossible to convince extreme Tweakers that this issue can be overcome, because then they would have to give up or modify some cherished prejudices.
(2) Short term listening, as is typically done in this sort of testing, is insufficient to reveal subtle differences; you have to have the gear in your system for many days/weeks/months to do the comparison properly. This of course usually interdicts the possibility of true blinding of the participant(s). Actually, I am not so sure I disagree with this position.
I would add that IMO, the amplifier/speaker work as a unit. The "sound" of the amplifier will have more to do with how well its operating characteristics suit the speaker's impedance, efficiency, and phase anomalies, and the room acoustics, than anything else. Thus it is folly to test two very different types of amplifiers (solid state vs OTL vs SE) in this manner. Which is why I am an agnostic when it comes to testing and how to do it. I just know what I like, after 40 years as an audiophile.
Case in point to your second point, Lew.
I am experimenting with a speaker that has a series/parallel string of highs/mids crossed over to a series/parallel string of woofs. The impedance of the combination--measured at the speaker terminals--was less than three ohms. Powered by my Atmas the combination was truly struggling: it lacked dynamics and the highs were unacceptably rolled off. Conclusion: bad amp? bad speakers?
When I rewired the speakers such that each string was in series, raising the overall impedance to 18 Ohm or so (thanks, Ralph), both the highs and the dynamics were much, much improved. Conclusion: great amp! great speakers!
Is it real or is it Memorex?
BTW, Lew, you comin' to RMAF?
The Sound Labs 845PX speakers with OEM crossover and toroidal treble transformer (about a nominal 6-ohm speaker above 100Hz) vs the same speaker panels with only a low-pass filter on the bass transformer and a full-range transformer driving the treble (a 20-25 ohm speaker up to 5000Hz). Night and day.One RMAF seems to have been enough for me. I don't feel the urge or the need.
Edits: 10/03/14 10/03/14
" challenges the listener to discriminate, under proper A/B/X blind-testing conditions, between their own amplifier, a "standard" amplifier, and a third mystery amplifier X...."Accordingly to my indications, these comparisons enabled concluding that any significant difference would not occur in the amplifiers under exam. So, I don't see the problem.
Edits: 10/03/14
"However, I did not propose generic tests of musics, but experiments using pieces of classical music that, in my opinion, should better put in evidence differences (better if using a good CD player as source), from recordings of natural source (e.g., violins), whose real image everybody cold have as reference from concert halls."
As far as I recall, the listener was free to provide the sound source and the musical recording.
"If your suspect is too strong to led you to neither ascertain if the phenomenon occurs, I would only encourage you to try."
It's quite a lot of trouble to set up a proper double-blind test. I've never felt strongly enough about it to want to do that. But I'd be interested to hear of any other proper double-blind tests that have been conducted. Anecdotal reports of differences heard under less controlled conditions don't really tell us much at all. The human ear and mind are too susceptible to other influences for those kind of reports to mean much.
Maybe Richard Clark is still offering his challenge. In which case there's $10,000 waiting for the person who can actually demonstrate the ability to tell the amplifiers apart.
Chris
I don't like to play with the three cards like in Naples, because there is always a trick.
Roberto
Edits: 10/03/14 10/03/14 10/03/14
"I don't like to play with the three cards like in Naples, because there is always a trick."
I don't think Richard Clark is trying to trick anybody. He has simply realised what others should have done also, that the audiophile talk is sometimes lacking in solid backing. He is (or was) offering $10,000 to anyone who could prove him wrong. And thousands tried, and failed.
Anyway, if you could conduct some true double-blind tests of the Yamaha vs a tube circlotron, it would be very interesting to hear the outcome. My own impression of the various OTL amps I have built is that they sound great, but also that they are rematkably close in sound to a solid-state amp. (Perhaps because they have very little colouration from output transformers.)
Chris
"I don't think Richard Clark is trying to trick anybody. He has simply realised what others should have done also, that the audiophile talk is sometimes lacking in solid backing. He is (or was) offering $10,000 to anyone who could prove him wrong. And thousands tried, and failed."Chris,
do you really believe that if one wants offering $ 10000 for noting, he would not be sure of not trowing away money and, in the same time, supporting his interest? Who participated has only supported the idea that, in this play, differences are not perceivable. Should such a constant outcome attributable to sonic identity of amplifiers? You would say "yes". My interpretation is, instead, that these differences exist, but they are masked by the effect of the same tools that are claimed to be exploited for producing more objective results. Lew argued already on that.
Roberto
Edits: 10/04/14 10/04/14 10/04/14 10/04/14 10/04/14 10/04/14 10/04/14 10/04/14 10/07/14
"My interpretation is, instead, that these differences exist, but they are masked by the effect of the same tools that are claimed to be exploited for producing more objective results."
The trouble is that this kind of response sounds hauntingly reminiscent of the response of a spoon-bender or a mind-reader when a scientist's investigation fails to confirm the occurrence of the claimed phenomenon.
I think there is a serious point here, which cannot be simply brushed aside, namely that without the benefit of the visual and other cues one normally has, it can be astonishingly difficult to hear the differences that one believes exist between different amplifiers.
Chris
"...this kind of response sounds hauntingly reminiscent of the response of when a scientist's investigation fails to confirm the occurrence of the claimed phenomenon."I would say better: "...when a scientist's investigation succeeds in falsifying the occurrence of the claimed phenomenon".
I simply said that, however and for sure, I would give the same answer that Ms Clark expects by his tests. Why are you not happy for that? But you should concede that in science it matters to interpret the phenomenon that occurred during these tests, i.e, that no differences were perceived. You repute a spoon-bender or a mind-reader who hypothesizes that other causes would explain the sonic identity. But, why are we forced to eat the meal that Mr Clark (and you) are offering?
Roberto
Edits: 10/05/14 10/07/14
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