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Scientific Truth

You wrote:"Such results are valid only for the people taking the"

In fact, the common assumption that null results from a listening test mean that a negative occurred, is patently false.

Even the most well done listening test (and there are very few of those where consumer audio products are concerned) does not PROVE that there was no sonic difference. It was merely a failure to detect. Period. No other conclusions can be legitimately drawn.

Now if a baseline of sensitivity was established (very VERY seldom is this done with the typical consumer audio listening tests), then IF some sort of correlation can be made with the baseline sensitivity and the phenomenon being investigated (we really can't do this very accurately yet either), then you might have the beginnings of a bit of evidence of some sort. But then, virtually all of the listening tests cited by naysayers do not meet these criteria, and the few that actually establish a reference baseline, do not convincingly show the correlation with what we can hear.

I think that the most telling aspect of the lack of correlation, is that we are told that according to psychoacoustics research, unless the Harmonic distortion is above one or even several percent, or unless the noise floor is above XX dB (this number varies a lot more), etc., we shouldn't be able to hear any sonic differences on sine waves, much less with real world complex music. But I keep coming back to the dither algorithm evidence: different dither algorithms are audible, despite being at -90 dbFS, which according to the above criteria, shouldn't be audible.
Jon Risch


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