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In Reply to: Well, blind tests have it all over sighted listening for reliability. posted by Pat D on April 23, 2006 at 14:01:25:
Don't get me wrong I'm a beleiver in the Floyd Toole way of thinking with the multimillion dollar listening lab. Sure it's great when you can spend that kind of money to get repeatable tests. I takes that kind of facillity for you to get meaninful tests even with something with obvious differences such as speakers. You need a specialized facillity just to just to tackle the obvious room issues. Speaker evaluations in the same room are meaninless if the speakers are in different locations. If you move 3 feet the test is null and void. I don't think anyone would argue that the room and the speaker interaction will determine what we hear. That said no one normally listens, purchases or compares speakers under blind conditions. So asside from the obvious scientific uses they are pretty much pointless for the average guy on the street. If you can't do blind testing correctly on speakers, without the shuffle devices used in that facillity as an example, why would you expect any blind testing done casually to be of any merrit??? I see this arguement repeatedly where DBT advocates say the average guy needs to do this. Then simply ignore the fact that they can't. You can't have it both ways. Either it will work at home in my livingroom or it won't. If it won't it's pointless.
Follow Ups:
I don't especially recommend that consumers do blind tests for choosing speakers, unless they really want to! As far as I know, neither does Dr. Floyd Toole.Blind tests have shown a number of things that I find useful as a consumer:
Sighted perception is unreliable for small differences (which speakers seldom are).
Most people prefer speakers with certain general characteristics under blind conditions. (This is very useful to know!)
Evaluations of speakers done blind and sighted are likely to be different.
Level matching is very important.
Speaker placement is very important.
Listener placement is very important.
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"Nature loves to hide."
---Heraclitus of Ephesus (trans. Wheelwright)
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