lawrie,

i think the point of myself and those others mentioned by dat is that it takes longer than a few minutes to decide if you like a component or not. when tony and i visited jj at som, we listened to some very, very round earth kit. now neither tony or myself are round earth types so when we put on some sonus faber speakers that had some flat earth leanings we both sat back and said - best speakers all day. in fact 15 minutes later we were thouroughly cheezed off with them and their incredibly boomy bass. in a blind test we would have found that the sf's were preferred which would have been totally the wrong conclusion after extended listening. of course you could say that blind testing could go on longer but i cannot see the possiblity of blind testing over the days or sometimes weeks necessary to fully evaluate a preference as viable.

as for what goes on at bakeoffs, well, why not see for yourself, the next time someone posts about one sign yourself up. no we don;t do blind testing as a rule, usually as there is too much kit to hear in one sitting anyway. it's more about hearing some new components and listening to other peoples music - and perhaps finding something new that you like.

cheers

julian