I’m far from convinced that some of the statistical and theoretical problems that may currently exist with audio DBTs conducted in the lab can ever be overcome.

They've already been overcome for the most part. Dr. Toole's DBT efforts at NRC in Canada were very thorough. As well, ongoing research at CRC in Canada also involves a very sophisticated blind subjective evaluation listening lab.

While I am not personally qualified to rubber stamp either of these efforts, I fully believe both labs have put a significant and detailed amount of effort into ensuring that potential biases (especially sighted ones) are reduced to insignificant when listeners are subjectively evaluating sound.

The problem using these as examples is that Dr. Floyd Toole was doing research into speaker design and his goal was a good sounding speaker not a fool-proof DBT process. So the result of his work is essentially JBL speakers, not a DBT protocol. He did, however, present an AES paper on the effects of sighted evaluation vs. blind evaluation.

The folks at CRC have built upon the DBT protocol that Dr. Toole developed and now have a very sophisticated lab that is geared towards developing voice compression and coding algorithms. Various techniques for reducing data requirements are formulated on paper and then tested through implementation and blind listening. Again, the goal is not to standardize blind testing methodology, but rather to develop effective audio compression techniques, much like mp3 and Dolby Digital. These people realize that evaluation of sound, using subjective trained listeners, must be double blind.

So, I feel that the methodology is available, but I have yet to see the motivation to apply these techniques to audio cable comparisons. The people who have adopted these DBT techniques have had concrete, viable goals, none of which relate to audio cable sonics.

And that is most curious and unfortunate. So there we have it. A viable method, yet no takers. Who is going to step up to the plate? Cable manufacturers? Casual hobbyists? Physicists seeking a Nobel Prize? You? Me?

What is the point? Is it now at least possible that people in the scientific community do not follow leads that are likely to result in a waste of time and money? Yes, of course that is likely. So what are we left with? Cable manufacturers. If a cable manufacturer could come up with a DBT that showed their cables were better than even zip cord or Radio Shack, I'm willing to bet a thousand dollars, they would. So why don't they?

 Wireworld Comparator - Atexanathome 17:31:03 11/20/02 (0)
 Re: This is to Phil Tower and whoever else cares.... - john curl 10:15:43 11/14/02 (3)
 Re: This is to Phil Tower and whoever else cares.... - Monstrous Mike 09:03:28 11/17/02 (1)

...

Show full thread outline!

 Wireworld Comparator - Atexanathome 17:31:03 11/20/02 (0)
 Re: This is to Phil Tower and whoever else cares.... - john curl 10:15:43 11/14/02 (3)
 Re: This is to Phil Tower and whoever else cares.... - Monstrous Mike 09:03:28 11/17/02 (1)
 Re: This is to Phil Tower and whoever else cares.... - Phil Tower 20:42:42 11/17/02 (0)
 Sorry John, but you are wrong!!!!! - kevb 23:10:34 11/16/02 (0)
 Why & who says what? - NEAR SOTA 01:17:27 11/14/02 (0)
 Re: This is to Phil Tower and whoever else cares.... - RGA 20:22:22 11/13/02 (0)
 Re: This is to Phil Tower and whoever else cares.... - Rod M 18:09:40 11/13/02 (6)
 Actually, not quite. - jj 21:36:41 11/13/02 (0)
 Rod you are a genius !! - Penguin 18:50:29 11/13/02 (4)
 Re: Rod you are a genius !! - eico1 20:33:23 11/13/02 (3)
 You do not need DBT for that. - Penguin 05:47:27 11/14/02 (2)
 Re: You do not need DBT for that. - John Escallier 15:18:33 11/14/02 (1)
 Cute :-)~ - Penguin 15:53:24 11/14/02 (0)
 Re: This is to Phil Tower and whoever else cares.... - Phil Tower 15:07:24 11/13/02 (3)
 Toole, CRC work, etc. - jj 18:13:23 11/13/02 (2)
 Gotta Ask.... - kevb 00:07:12 11/17/02 (1)
 WEll connectors ARE important... - jj 16:07:47 11/17/02 (0)

I recognize that the NRC, CRC and Dr. Toole are highly respected, and they may very well have developed extremely reliable protocols and are probably using defensible statistical analysis in interpreting their raw data. However, I don't ever recall seeing a detailed description of their protocols or the statistical analysis used, nor am I aware of any of their work having been peer reviewed. I very well could have missed all this and it may very well be readily available.

I would assume that the CRC facilities would be available to whomever was willing to pay to have them conduct DBTs on cables and components. However, as your posts suggest, there has not been much commitment to providing those funds from any source.

If a cable manufacturer could come up with a DBT that showed their cables were better than even zip cord or Radio Shack, I'm willing to bet a thousand dollars, they would. So why don't they?

You and I have been over this one several times at AR. My position is as follows.

First, the cable industry is mainly a cottage industry. Very few cable companies can afford to even advertise, let alone afford the cost of outside, independent testing. It would certainly cost less to run their own tests, but if they achieved positive results many people I am sure would attack such results as unreliable because they had not been independently verified.

Moreover, I can see absolutely nothing to be gained by a cable company being able to prove that their cable can be distinguished from others in blind testing. The vast majority of their potential customers (sometimes broadly referred to as “subjectivists” or “yeasayers”) really don’t care about DBTs. These people, rightly or wrongly, already believe that different cables can often be easily distinguished sonically, and believe that just about any after-market cable is better than zip cord.

Before a cable company could show under control testing that their cable is an improvement on zip cord, they would first have to demonstrate under control conditions that their cable can even be distinguished sonically from zip cable. For those of us who follow this issue, this would certainly be an extremely interesting demonstration. However, for the vast majority of the high-end cable consumers, it would be considered almost a non-event. Then, the company would have to demonstrate that a significant number of listeners who could distinguish, actually preferred the company’s cable over zip. Again, for most potential consumers this is going to be nothing other than a big yawner.

So, I suspect that virtually every cable company that is concerned with paying its bills and keeping the lights on would decide that their money would not be wisely spent hiring the CRC, or any other independent lab, to conduct tests on their cables (even if they could afford the cost of such testing), but would instead come to the conclusion that the money would be far better spent either on advertising or doing more of whatever it is that they believe makes their cables superior.

DBTs on codecs are cost effective, because the profit potential is enormous. That is simply not the case with most, if not all, cable companies. Which also happens to mean that there will most likely never be any public funds available to support sophisticated blind testing of audio cables.

If one were to accept the above argument (from past experience I'm pretty sure you don't), that then leaves the question of why even talk about DBT protocol and statistical analysis. Well, perhaps I'm overly Polyanna on this, but it seems to me that if this subject receives thoughtful consideration on this forum, perhaps some one person or group of people will be interested enough to use the results of these discussions to settle upon a defensible protocol and undertake to conduct their own independent DBTs on a certain cross section of commercially available cables, with the idea of bringing a little more sophisticate research to the Great Cable Debate than may have been the case in the past.

Compression schemes for trans-Atlantic phone calls and cell phones and so forth have an obvious benefit. The research is to come up with schemes that are acceptable and not noticeable in general. The point is not to produce a perfect signal as much as to produce the most compression without a noticeable loss. It's quite different.

Anyway, for cables, doing this type of research is too expensive and likely of little benefit to the manufacturer. It's like the old Pepsi vs Coke commercials. People don't buy taste tests anymore. On top of that, it can be extremely system dependent and preference oriented.

Besides, for the masses buying $200 receivers and $50 speakers, come on, these folks won't even spring for the $20 Monster cables.

Gilbert Soloudre from the CRC (where Floyd and Sean came from) has a peer-reviewed paper or two in the JAES. Ditto Ted Grusec. The people at Swedish Radio ditto, Deutch Telecom ditto, etc. There are quite a few out there, but they aren't the most common papers in the world, because they take a lot of time and work to create.

I don't have them all at my fingertips, but I'm sure of their existance, having read them.
JJ - Philalethist and Annoyer of Bullies

I still contend that DBT will prove nothing else than the fact that cables are different and for anybody who is already convinced of that fact it is just a big whoppie doooo. So what.

dee
;-D

THE CRC is a research facility and it's terrific...there is no government stamp of approval...it's a big building they rent out. If they rented out the B&W research building nobody would latch on. Nevermind that B&W makes speakers that actually sound better than the likes of the PERFECT DBT APPROVED speakers from Paradigm, Energy, PSB and JBL. B'ahhh

steve

Some coding systems, by the way, are very close to that threshold as well. While I've had, previously, some people insist very strongly that the coded signal was "obviously awful", it was interesting to note that the "obviously awful" signal was always the one that they thought was labeled coded.

Need I say that in such circumstances, their assumptions are often, well, not in line with reality.

Now, bear in mind that this is going during ***demonstrations***, not during any training or test sessions. Training and test sessions must be completely on the level.
JJ - Philalethist and Annoyer of Bullies

As a home user it still comes down to synergy & taste in your own system to what might work best.After a certain point it really does not make a difference to weather DBT's work or do not work or what wire or component is better than another.I bet Dr.O'toole would even concur that a certain speaker would not work well driven by such & such an amp.Same goes for cables.

In the end it comes down to synergy and taste. What one person thinks is great another might think sux.Some people think a 1970's reciever is great and that all high priced gear is a waste of $$.Some gear from the 50's is still considerd SOTA.Klipschorns were developed before WWII and are still considerd SOTA.

As the world turns.

dee
;-D

Cheers, John

What is your position on cables? I have seen you defend properly executed DBT (rightfully so), but what is your position on this subject? Perhaps I have missed it in the 3+ years I have been around here.....

I really don't have a firm, stated position because I have listened to cables of my own construction that are horrid sounding - but then a repair of the solder joint has changed the perception of the sound (not scientifically proven DBT - I know that - just more anecdotally).

I don't know where I am leading with this, but is it possible that a lot of the differences heard in cables are due to the quality of the connectors - more specifically the quality of the actual connection point?

Just musing.....

Kevin

Having said all that I have had cables produce differences, but at least in my case often in applications that a regular audiophile wouldn't usually see, like high noise environments, long runs, ferrous conduit, long runs in ferrous conduit, and the like.

Given the varities of equipment on the market, and the difference in output stages (for line as well as power amps) I'm sure that there is an interaction or two out there.

The debate about IF that should happen is more philosophical than scientific, I think.
JJ - Philalethist and Annoyer of Bullies

The thing that baffles me about Dr. Toole is that both JBL and Infinity produced pretty good speakers before H-K and Dr. Toole got ahold of them. Now, their primary claim to fame seems to be that they are heavily advertised and heavily marketed by Best Buy salesmen making all kinds of wild claims to unsophisticated consumers, the very thing that objectivists claim drives the high end market.

Yet nothing in high end audio that I'm aware of can even hold a candle to the degree of advertising and marketing hype that drives the sales of JBL and Infinity speakers at Best Buy. So I often have to scratch my head when I see objectivists singing the praises of Dr. Toole. I find myself scratching even harder every time I'm in a Best Buy and spend a few minutes trying to listen to a pair of the most recent JBL or Infinity speaker coming out of Dr. Toole's highly touted lab.