do people really believe this when they write it?

Absolutely. Wine tasting by the pros is also reasonably exact "science", ie a good wine connoisseur can accurately recognize wines just by looking at the colour and smelling/tasting them. Even the most golden eared hifi reviewers would fail miserably in any "name that component just by listening to it" test. Even if you reduced it to "name those speakers" or "name that source" it wouldn't get any better.

This is because taste and smell memory is very accurate, whereas auditory memory is very poor.

Doesn't change the fact that Jancis Robinson describing a wine is a load of waffle that gives you no better idea of the taste than reading the label

Michael.

 

Granted. Except when she says it's poorly made, or plain bad. Then you can trust her and buy something else.

 

i'm not a big specialist but i saw once a program on Discovery chanel about "taste memory" and the conlcusion was that our mind can full us big time in this area too.

 

That is not because she doesn't know what she is talking about, but because that is what the punters expect.
There was a reasonably interesting article in today's Torygraph about a new film that investigates the murkey world of the reac terroiristes and the Parkerite collabos. Interesting stuff. Dear Jancis seems to have gotten right up the nose of Robert "91.259%" Parker (which I think Sir Galahad alludes to...). One can only applaud her for that.

 

Yes. I remember reading about an experiment (possibly on same programme) where wine tasters were fooled in a sighted test by colouring white wine red. They all used adjectives to describe a red wine. BUT the tasters were then blindfolded and this time they correctly identified it as a white wine. And some even got the correct grape and region.

Of course, blind testing doesn't work in hi-fi cos' everything that measures the same probably sounds the same. Until proven otherwise, of course.

 

What's this Michael, silly season again?

How the fukc do you know that would be the case? Have you got results from tests? Would you be able to tell the difference between your Dac 64 and the latest little wonder if you had to? If not, why the recent raving as to it's superiority?

You switch sides so much I'm starting to think you might have a little Italian in you

 

I'm pretty sure that speakers are spottable.

Paul

 

Paul, I tend to agree with you on this one

 

I am not sure if I could tell the difference between my CD6000OSE LE and my Sony CDP530 in a blind test. However I would be eble to easily spot the difference between amps. You can tell by listening to how well the music is gripped, my Marantz PM6000OSE is a lot more snappy than my parents PM4000 for example.

Blind testing amps with a similar output wattages is probably a different matter though.

 

I can tell the difference between my speakers, one has "L" written on the back, the other "R".

-- Ian

 

Calm down merlin. Get out of bed on the wrong side today did we?

If you read my post properly you'd see that I wasn't suggesting that people can't tell equipment apart in an A/B test. What I said was that I doubt that anyone could identify a bit of kit just by listening to it, eg, if I stuck a digital source that you claimed to know in your system you wouldn't be able to tell me what it was just by listening to it. I'm not saying you wouldn't be able to tell it apart from your current source, just that you wouldn't be able to identify it. I'm quite sure that no one could do that with any kit, even most speakers. Even if I made it easier my reducing the possible choices down to 5 products I still don't reckon anyone could do it.

Michael.

 

Out of interest, why do you say that? Looking at your signature you don't appear to be a cable skeptic...

 

OTOH I've seen some quite spectacular demonstrations of wine recognition abilities. At a party at my parents house in Paris (when we lived there) there was a Hungarian chap who got every single wine we tried on him 100% correct, down to the year and everything. I then went out and bought the cheapest bottle of Bulgrian plonk I could find and we tested him with it. He said "I don't recognize it, you've got me. However it tastes rather like that Bulgarian shite I used to drink as a student" .

Michael.

 

Ahh, but Michael, in listening a bit of kit there are so many variables which would affect the sound "as you know it"

Not so with a glass of wine (possibly depending on how many you'd tried ., of course )

 

Wrong, if I may be so blunt. Your perception of the wine can be affected by the shape and size of the actual glass, the temperature of the wine, whether the wine has been decanted or not, and some will add the company and your mood ... and yes, you're right, the amount of wine you've already had.

 

I have to agree with Sir G here guys, the old man has a vineyard just outside St Emillion, and man the lengths these guys go to makes my efforts with hifi seem ordinary

 

Hope you'll introduce me to him some day

 

no i'm not.
it just seems exagurated to me.
listening to cables looks funny for most people leave alone listening to plugs.

i actually use walker sst which suppose to improve contact quality.
i can't say that i heard dramatic difference after i started using it.
places with bad contacts (like some tubes in my system) were improved indeed and became perfect (at least i can't hear any problems anymore from those places) but places were was no audible problem i can;t hear any improvement.

so if this didn't work i don't really understand how new plugs work.

another example - in one very nuce looking magazing i'm reading a review of tube integrated amp.
reviewer say "amp is getting hot so it's clearly class A design".
i'm sorry, but this is stupid statement.
this amp has a pair of EL34 in each chanel and rated 30W - it's clearly push pull class AB design.
most tube amps are getting hot - this is doesn;t make them class A.