lol... o.k, where is it?

[Thompsonuxb]

You could take two people with the same aural capabilities, and even if they hear the same thing, they could very well describe what they hear in different ways, giving the impression they both heard something different.

Also, even though their hearing is of the same ability, what aspect of the whole musical performance are they concentrating on? They can't concentrate on everything. Are they listening to the bassline, the drums, the vocals, the guitar, the soundstage, bass, treble etc? If one of the systems is better with regards to bass, those listening to vocals won't hear a difference.

And speaking of people concentrating on different aspects, does everyone listen to the instruments/sounds that are presented directly in front of them? Or do they also take in the ambience of the venue in which the performance was recorded? Are they listening to any spatial information produced by the instruments, or just the instruments? Sometimes the differences can be in the subtleties, much in the same way as looking at two screens, one showing a DVD and one showing a Bluray. A close up on someone's face can look pretty similar, as DVD, despite being a heavily compressed format, can reproduce detail very well for objects in the foreground. But smaller objects in the background that are also in focus look like mush, because DVD just can't produce such small detail clearly. Now the Bluray, while still a compressed format but to a lesser degree, can produce very small details with the clarity needed, so everything in the background and foreground are all in focus, giving a more pleasing picture and allows those users concentrating on such details to see the difference. I'm not saying that cables are working in the same way as DVD and Bluray from a technical point of view, as cables are being given the same signal, but there can be small differences there for those that are listening to the right aspects of the music.

I hope that makes sense.

You guys really need to read this, thats what its all about.........

nice post David, I can relate to it.

 

[the record spot]

Yes, totally what it's about. Scope creep. Talk about describing a piece of music - and this really can be very easy and not the big issue that David's scambled together. You can focus on instruments, which seems to make most sense to me, or at least the major performers. You can highlight "ambience" should you so wish. Nothing to stop any of that. Nothing really to get in the way of anything except realising that the majority of the claims of what we hear comes right down to how well we do or don't describe what we hear and precious little to do with our golden eared capabilities. The human hearing thresholds are well known, proven and not readily stretched. At least, not in the numbers some of the sudiophile community appear to think.

 

[busb]

Again, I lay down my challenge for someone to produce scientifically verifiable evidence that the methodology actually works. I abhore bogus science that legitimises bad practice!

Depends what you are trying to measure. If you want to remove all fatigue and listener bias, you have to use machines, not humans to do it, and the second you do that, some people cry foul and say that couldn't possibly measure what they hear, so we're left in a stalemate situation, and even moreso when the tests happen and people outright refuse to believe the results because *they* can hear a difference.

Therefore, I would conclude that even if you could produce a test to suit what you are suggesting, people would still ignore it or challenge anyways.

You may well be right! My problem is that all the wrong people (engineers in particular) seem to have faith in a possibly dubious test as if it was completely foolproof. Some people insist that many of the differences that many others state they hear are merely imagined but without whorthwhile proof. If no one can verify DB ABX testing works, many of the claims made should be dropped. It's that simple. I've also suggested some modifications to the methodology that would test its veracity.

Any serious blind or ABX test have to rely on the statistical analysis of psycoacoustic data. Given a rigorous method and sufficient samples the probability of worthwhile results becomes very high but of course at no point does it become an absolute.

The idea that a methodology should be dropped because it can not be proved to be totally effective is I think a nonsense. Apply the same logic to sighted evaluations, which we know to be flawed, then all listening tests/demonstrations should be dropped also.

Just put all the options into a hat.

I think you are absolutely spot on! Very few ideas, theories or anything else can be proved 100%. Some mathematical axioms get close but everything else just has to get close as possible but still stand up to some scrutiny otherwise it's closer to opinion than theory. I'm trying to add some scrutiny, that's all guys!

What I'm suggesting is that DB ABX methodology doesn't get close! Im suggesting it is a convenient method to prove a whole section of the Hi Fi buying public is imaging differences. "Proved" by a theory that may well be false even if any equally large section of the comunity swear by it. Ironically, all ably-sighted Hi Fi buyers/users carry sighted tests pehaps dozens of times but have never taken part in blind testing. My view is that they do not fulfil the same thing. One is formal testing & the other is for personal use where if the pitfalls are considered in advance, can be very useful.