Anyone heard the GBP7000 NAIM CD Player?

Excellent work WM. Your reputation on Alpha Centuri is not undeserved.

BTW, will there be any of those cheese cracker thingys on offer at the next proposed convention. These human ones, despite my misgivings, really know how to make a proper cracker.

 

Timpy,

I can understand that you wouldn't want to go through with this level of buggering about but I think that sort of buggering about is necessary to get a meaningful result from double-blind type tests. Since hardly anyone will go to these lengths this could be the real reason to invalidate double blind ie. a practical reason. I remember reading Martin Colloms describing a double blind test he did at Audiolab where two almost identical 8000 series amps were used, only difference was he type of shunt resisitor in one part of the amplifier. He could reliably tell them apart, pity this test wasn't expanded and made into an article.


Cookie,

Apologies for my use of laguage, it was uncalled for. I still take issue with your views on progress or lack of it and I can't think of many things that take wtwice as long, even the M25 seems to move better in recent years ;->


Cheers

Jason

 

I missed that bit which you added on. Doesn't sound so life threatening now.

The answer to the revised question is quite straightforward, in that it passes a rather long day at work, sitting on my arse doing nothing, save picking up the occasional book or cup of tea. I have to be here, as progress demands it. There are no hunter gatherers living in Berkshire, and i have to pay my taxes, for all that hospital treatment which will hopefully one day save my life.

I don't like to feel as though time is really 'wasted'. That makes for quite a depressing atmosphere, and merely serves to promote regret and stir hopes for more time. Of course, if there is a project to complete, with an implausibly tight deadline, then there will always be the shadow of wasted time........

 

Sounds familiar, it's the same in Surrey ;->

Jason

 

Obviously never been on the Sunningdale course after dark
oops, worng side of the Great A30 Divide - that one's in Suwway, home of the Shaman Sex Gods.

 

Hi Joel

Good point, and as an actual manufacturer of expensive cables ( ), I do largely agree.

What I find worrying though, is the way that blind listening tests are espoused as the definitive way of testing things. Yes, in theory double blind testing is pretty close (potentially) to the ideal where only the sound is the only influencing factor, but it is bestrewn with pitfalls as well, and in practice not ideal.

Also, I doubt I would need 16 goes to identify one of our cables, but I have the advantage of familiarity with them. As an average buyer, looking to upgrade and rifling through total unknowns for the "best" one, 16 goes wouldn't be good enough for me. Firstly I'd be bored by then and want to do almost anything else instead, especially if I had 4 or 5 to choose from; and then even if I narrow it down to 2 or 3 I'd still want to take them home to see if I could live with them. We do a lot of testing here, mostly sighted but some blind as well, and the more you do, the more you realise you're not doing it for fun!

Cheers

 

So, up for any DBTs on Saturday then?

Graham is spot-on here I think. Personally I don't feel any desire to buy kit based on DBT, I'm quite OK with the idea that psychoacoustic factors play a large part and am happy to spend my money knowing that, but I am rather surprised that so many people reject the whole idea of unsighted testing as in some way flawed in principle, when allegedly the point of audiophilia is to do with how it sounds, and nothing else. I detect some defensiveness.

-- Ian

 

Not at all

If it helps to dispel any flavour of righteousness in my dialogue, or simply to take an alternative perspective, it could quite confidently be said that my questioning of 'knowledge', in all its guises, and insults towards science, is merely a symptom of, and exasperation towards my own complete lack of 'knowledge'.

The M25 does indeed flow more freely with the introduction of variable limits and other ingenious devices. It still resembles phlegm moving through a straw though, and it's only there to serve the bigger organism which lies within, whose necessity is also subject to scrutiny.........

 

Hi Ian

You bring the curtains and a referee

The other guys present would have to agree as it will take up a room, so it might not be practical, and we're not trying to have anything too regimented, but it there's the opportunity and interest in it then we can have a go.

Well I'm not being defensive, it's just with having tried to do two in the past, I'm just disappointed/disillusioned with them, particularly the one with the amps. Waste of a perfectly good afternoon that was, getting it all set, everyone saying they were all the same, and after all that, them finding that they were actually different enough for them both to want the same one. Is that a useful outcome of any test? Surely it's fundamentally flawed somewhere?

Cheers

[Apologies for edit, managed to delete the second bit the first time]

 

I'll be happy to be referee. I'm totally unbiased, and also an 'outsider' with no ulterior motives. Plus, i can take bribes behind the curtains.

 

I wasn't being entirely serious, but if anyone else is up for it, I'd be happy to take part in an unsighted test. If nothing else, it may prove that my inability to detect significant cable differences is purely a prejudice against expensive cables; if I don't know whether or not I'm listening to an expensive cable, but can consistently hear jaw-dropping improvements with expensive cables in place, I'd get my credit card out there and then...

-- Ian

 

Wow, and I started this asking wether a seven thousand pound Naim CD Player was really the thing to go for and could it be so much better than something costing so much less.

From reading through the responses I think I conclude that there isn't the "jaw dropping", "night and day" , or whatever adjectives one uses to justify buying outrageously priced components over other more modestly priced components from CDP's to Amps to Canles/Interconnects.

I am really surprised to see an almost abject fear of any kind of blind or double blind testing from those who state they can definitely identify their "superior" components. If they are so superior, why be afraid and so antagonistic???

There are others who have good kit but seem to be open minded about DBT. I really can't understand it ..... but then there does seem to be a number of dealers on this forum who are going to have vested interests and others who are so one eyed and evangelistic that they would argue black was white.

No one has commented or countered Dunlavy's article about the great cable scam. He had a vested interest but made asses of the "Golden Ears."

It's been a most interesting thread and I guess the feeling I come away from it is that I'm probably not missing much by not forking out seven thousand pounds for a CDP.

I genuinely have to thank all - from both sides - who have contributed their views and assure all that my questions were genuine and I feel the forum and this thread has been helpful and meaningful to me and, FOR THE TIME BEING, prevented me from making a "blind" purchase of a very expensive item I was considering. (This was my problem ... I would have had to order "blind" as I have no opportunity to audition these esoteric products in Vietnam.

Many thanks to all.

 

So....Many....Innuendos

 

These dodgy Blackburnians.

Maybe if the contestants are of the following variety (note the audiophile DBT blindfold (minus the sperm) in a real testing situation) :

http://www.d-v8.co.uk/Shop2/media/9591.jpg

erm, am i allowed to show that?..........i've kept the audio theme going? erm.......how did i become so immoral

[EDIT by michaelab: whilst I know I'll probably be accused of all sorts of things, I've changed the image to a link instead. The forum is open for read to anyone (including kids) and whilst that picture is no worse than Page 3 of the Sun it probably isn't appropriate here and I wouldn't want it to set a precedent Sorry to be the killjoy ]

[EDIT by Robbo to add : and people viewing at work - not the sort of thing to be looking at when you boss comes up and looks over your shoulder. At my place you get the sack for viewing this kind of stuff!]

 

I'll let Michael make a decision on that one Cookie!

Fantastic breasts though!


I hope no-one thinks Im afraid of DBT of hifi equipment, or defensive about it.

Thats far from the truth.

I just think its deeply, deeply sad.

So sad infact, I imagine exponents of DBT measuring their cornflakes in the morning for uniformity, and lining their shoes up in the cupboard in order of descending size and colour. Fashion choices for said DBT'ers are lab coats and inch thick NHS spectacles. A thermometer and litmus paper is used to make sure a cup of tea is of the appropriate quality and temperature.

The gimp suit is for the DB test itself, less sight or touch enter the equation.

I could go on!

hehehe
Chris

 

Don't need a double test for that clean living sort of a lass , Idf you turn her left nipple 90 degrees to the right, can you recieve Radio 1?

 

Chris, you're stereotypical 'DBT'er' (will have to inform the OED about that one) is most entertaining.

:ffrc:

'clean living sort of a lass' - you come out with some belters!

BTW, i'd just like to say i've been provided with a thoroughly entertaining afternoon, and the day has gone most swiftly, with no time wasted at all. Thank you. Apologies for not helping with the serious discussion.

 

If I came across that way let me just state that I'd be more than happy to subject my kit to a blind test but I'm not going to go out of my way to arrange it. I'm nominally against DBT in audio just because I don't think it's terribly useful or reliable as a way to evaluate kit.

I also object to the sometimes holier than thou approach some "scientists" take to hifi: "Ha, ha, ha look at those fools who know nothing spending their money on cables when we can prove that all cables are the same" - type of thing

Michael.

 

Well you know the law on mordiless prime is 'laugh last & only repent at someone elses leisure' cookie

 

I find this close-minded attitude rather depressing.

It's impossible to take many hifi claims seriously simply because they are placed out there without any offered foundation. Take cable burn in or directionality for example. If either of those are 'true' then there's some very interesting materials science to be done. The only way to tell whether these are 'truths' is with a listening test. The proponents of these effects and especially those who aim to profit from them, are almost universally opposed to such a test, let alone interested in organising one for themselves.

Astrologers, homeopaths and spoon-benders live in that same twilight zone of claims they're prepared to sell but not to backup.

Paul