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I think, therefore I think I am?

Hi Bob,

I've been getting the impression you don't like to listen because your responses seem to be quite resistant to the idea without your having read about a double blind test beforehand.

I've continually suggested trying a simple, 5 minute listening test using some easily made roller bearings (or an even more easily made air bearing for that matter) under your CD player but you've never said "okay, I'll spend 5 minutes". Instead you've told me that wouldn't be an adequate test. Five minutes. It would seem from your posts that's too much time to risk. That's where I get the idea you're afraid to listen. If that isn't true, why not give it a shot? (Please see more on this below.)

From other posts, it seems you find listening an acceptable way for a musician to judge say, a piano but haven't yet responded to how that would be different from adjudicating a CD player or amplifier. Why doesn't the musician (as well as the salesman) have to be blindfolded when auditioning the piano? Note I was referring to how the musician feels about the sound of say a Steinway vs. a Kawai vs. a Bosendorfer, not the action or any consideration aside from the tonality.

When you are contemplating speakers for your own system, do you double blind test them?

As to the last question, regarding proof of your own existence, quoting Descartes (more like: I think therefore I think I am) isn't the same as supplying the results of double blind testing. It appears you want us to take you at your word based upon your own direct experience. No "proof" beyond that? Personally, I take your word for it but from your posts it seems you'd want further "evidence" if someone merely talked only about direct experience.

Okay for self, okay for piano but require double blind for amplifiers. This seems inconsistent.

All I've been trying to say in this thread is that a direct audition performed by an experienced listener using a system and environment with which they're familiar can be a valid way to assess how something sounds. Of course there are always some, usually with considerably less experience, or perhaps less skill, that can be fooled but this isn't always the case. Experience can help avoid pitfalls (for example rapid A/Bing of one mix with a natural sound and another with a very hyped treble can lead one to erroneously conclude the natural mix sounds "dull"). After all, the products are designed for nothing other than to be listened to.

As with the piano and with one's own existence, sometimes direct experience of an audio product can give one a pretty good idea of what it actually sounds like.

It is possible to remember a sound. If I were to talk about the sound of a JBL speaker vs. the sound of an AR-3, I'd bet you'd know what I was talking about. Would you agree? Or less subtly, the sound of a Quad electrostatic vs. a Dayton-Wright electrostatic. Experienced listeners have a memory of what these sound like and can (to varying degrees of success) describe those differences.

Similarly, if I am very familiar with the sound of my system and a change effects that sound, I can describe it. I understand you are skeptical (to put it mildly?) of being able to discern such changes in the absence of a double blind test and here is where we have to agree to disagree. I trust adjudication by listening if the listener is experienced, familiar with the system and environment and the results are consistent and repeatable.

One of the prerequisites I have for deeming something an improvement (and not a mere change) is the differences in the sound of various recordings. Experience with master tapes showed me how very different each is sonically from all others. Any improvment must reveal these differences. Conversely, any diminution of system quality will make records sound more alike, those similarities being the colorations superimposed by the system. Well conceived vibration control measures easily fill this requirement. (I understand you do not accept this and feel listening by itself an inadequate means of adjudication.)

Thanks for the dialog. I'm frequently in touch with others who feel the same way I do but it is in contacts with those of diametrically opposed viewpoints where I like to challenge my own perspectives.

In the past few years, I've given away the specs for my own (copyrighted) design for a roller bearing device, which I call Hip Joints. In the posts I've put up about the experiences that led to the creation of Hip Joints, I've asked others to undertake a similar journey and to please confirm or deny what I've said. So far, I've sent the specs to a few hundred people all over the U.S., Canada and several countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. To date, all that have had them machined have unamimously confirmed my findings. The power of suggestion? That's not impossible but the numbers are starting to get pretty large and I would doubt suggestion could be the case in every instance.

Anyway, again, thank you for the dialog.

Happy Listening!
Barry


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