Problems with tests

Nobody can turn off their 'systems'. This is why 'listening tests' have to be blind, so you don't have to turn your 'systems' off.

If you never choose any part of your music system, say you simply take the advice of someone you trust, then none of this matters. But as soon as you sit down to listen with the intent of evaluation equipment then you need to know why sighted tests are not just (or even mostly) about what you can hear.

It's a very honest approach to choose a brand based on any criteria that pleases you and simply buy a system from them that fits your budget.

You don't seem to be grasping the point that what you are actually saying is,

'If it looks better, it is better'

Paul

 

Man, you just gotta love this This is going the way that most mana/bub/marco threads do decending towards the ringpieces of oblivion, at high warp, no shields, busted jockstrap holder, naff all bog roll, snapped (red braces), and 'Chester' from accounts bleeting his decimal place has stuck at 34 to the power Pie R squared, you mums lost her false teeth, the captains chair has sprung a leak, but the biggest piss off of all, is that your system now sounds great, don't you just love Mondays
Oh and I made a electron flow transmission device sonicaly different from the last one, and with all the same measureable variables, life a bundle of laughs really

 

Tony,

Thank you for your reply.

Ah, we agree on something - even if it is only disagreement . And yes, it is an emotive subject. Yet good, though, that polar opinions can be fairly discussed. The thread, even now, hasn't nose-dived as so many have in the past - the points being raised are being fairly done so by their posters. And that's really something for a cable thread...

 

That's exactly what i've been saying!?

but furthermore,

both sighted and un-sighted tests are not just (or even mostly) about what you can hear?

You're trying to make uniform that which is entirely in flux? However strict a listening test maybe, the listener is always subject to infinite variability? If we start taking this to its logical conclusion, we would of course be discussing whether or not the cable actually exists. But redundant issues such as this are of no interest. I am primarily a feeling individual, and if something feels better, i will make no attempt to try and deconstruct the contributing factors other than for curiositys sake. To me it is wholly irrelevent and impossible. You're trying to prove something which is unprovable to me. And whether it is or isn't i have no interest in it whatsoever. Which draws me to the conclusion that a blind test serves no other purpose other than the actual pleasure derived in the pursuit of the method itself (which is as legitimate as any other method of passing the time), with a sideways glance out of the corner of ones eye, at the ultimate truth and the proof of objective reality. Its completely meaningless to me. Hence if something sounds, looks, smells, feels, tastes better, or is better due to operations at work within my organic structure which are truly incomprehensible, then the sum effect is still the same - it IS better? I have no desire to question the method nor the enumeration of the contributing factors and their constituent ingredients.

 

Only notaclue has answered my question:

If cables A and B were scientifically 'proven' to be 'audibly different' in both a qualitative and quantitative fashion, confirmed in blood by the worlds most trusted and honoured men in white coats, would there still be an audible difference if you couldn't hear one? (addition of the word 'audible' to satisfy detractors)

notaclue confirmed that there would be and that his ears would be deficient. In which case, how do you go about getting out of bed in a morning. If you can't trust your senses, how do you have faith in your own existence. Or is the 'world' communicated to you chaps through other mediums, as i have already proposed.

And if the answer to the above is No - then what is the point, as i already keep emphasising - other than for the thrill of it.

 

But I think the great men in white coats would be able to test our hearing and confirm differences in our ability to hear too. So even if it turned out I could hear the difference in two cables but the men in white coats said my hearing was proven to be 'bad' and I wouldn't be able to hear the difference, then I would accept that I couldn't hear the difference and that I was 'wrong' and they were 'right' because, after all, they are the ones with 'coats of white'.

 

Essential reading for anyone interested in the double-blind argument is to be found here in a Stereophile article. Ignore the editorial comment between the columns - it tends to verge on the hysterical and offers a rather facile reading of what the columns are about, trying to make it look like the various contributors are completely at odds with each other, when in fact they're not really.

 

Its been put forward that i am missing the point. Well maybe i am. But i'm quite convinced that you're missing my point, or you're winding me up, and i'm particularly gullible.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE HEARING THE SCIENTISTS 'CORRECTLY'???!!!

Faith in God and faith in the electron are two sides of the same coin are they not?

 

I would question though, Cookiemonster, what happens if someone were to say "cable/cd player X just blows cable/cd player Y away. So much more bass, detail etc. etc." but then fails to tell which was which if they couldn't see which one was connected. The cables haven't changed sound. Only the conditions of the listener have changed and this has impacted on what they heard.

I suppose we could conclude that the differences heard were not merely down to the cable/cd player in isolation but a combination of the cable/cd player and the life experience, expectations, bias etc. of the listener. Or we could conclude that blind testing was in someway faulty and served to confuse/desensitise the listener.

I notice you say "if it sounds better, it is better" but what would you say we could conclude in a case like this? As it did sound better but then it did not. So is it better? Or is it only better/not better under certain listener conditions?

 

I would conclude that you were upset at not being immortal. Which is quite understandable.

 

But if I were to think I was immortal, would I then become immortal?

 

Trust me here boy's it's not all it's cracked up to be (immortality that is), you do get some what disenchanted from time to time, (which time you may ask , even Wm (in his current form, decides that travelling the same pathways through the eons can't be a tad m/f like, it's fun to try a different twist, hence the human form, limited as it is, it has a fun factor and worth having to cope with the limited intelligence, but hey you can't have it all) , you mortals see time as linear, loose your preconceptions, it's pretty simple really, like a/b testing really, which, and trust me on this have no relevence on the grand scheme of things, so just loosen up, chill, relax, think quiet wooded glades and birds twittering, It's all to much getting wound up over cables or small idosyncratic irrelevenices. lifes too short (for you guys) Wm

 

I think absolutely, that if blind testing either makes better music for you, improves the hifi experience, makes vegetables taste better, brings you closer to God, or does nothing whatsoever other than providing for an agreeable way of passing the time, then i think you should go for it big willy style. You may even prove that there are audible differences between two seperate cables. Although first, you would presumably have to prove the existence of the cables themselves? Either way it doesn't matter.
I just feel that there is an inherent contradiction or catch-22 at work somewhere, and i find baffling the attempts to rationalise the irrational.

At the end of the day, for me it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference

I don't know. Infinity is like cheese. Tasty, but full of holes. Try it anyway, or ask WM what its like. Perhaps with enough double blind tests, you could become immortal, but you still wouldn't be able to reach a conclusion about the experience, as there isn't one? Just think of all the wives you could have though.

 

This is my quiet wooded glade WM. And you folks are my birds twittering

 

Cookie monster, I feel on occasions those birds, do morph to meadowlarks & doth terrise the locals a touch. Wm

 

As Woody Allen said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it by not dying".

-- Ian

 

Then by the look of him lately I'd say he's achieved it and in style too

 

Ah, yes. http://212.58.224.36/radio3/classical/ram/cdmvwilllarkasc.ram