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No, I'm not making that up (long)

SEJ,

And as for the scientific literature generally, while it's true there's a lot of it I haven't read--that's true for pretty much everyone--I've actually written a little piece of it (though you probably meant the scientific literature wrt DBTs, which I've had nothing to do with).

Anyway, thanks for your message, because it helps me make my point to BJH--the point about different mindsets and different people's cravings for scientific proof. You're completely right--and I said this in the post you were responding to--that DBT is the only route to certainty. Isn't that what you're saying? BJH was upset because I expressed regret over their passing. In his view, there's nothing good about DBT's; good riddance.

But I don't think rigorous science is the only route to knowledge or insight...though it is, as I said, the only way of ever being sure of anything. I can know that something is true without ever being able to prove it--and I'm not talking about Jesus or Allah...but about everyday stuff, like the fact that one CD player or wine gives me more pleasure than another.

My point is that in an audio context DBTs are impractical in most circumstances. I don't doubt that it's possible to do them successfully, even in audio, but it is harder than most people credit, there have been repeated failed attempts. And there's a HUGE amount of evidence--non-scientific, anecdotal, not rigorous, but still convincing--that the phenomena those tests failed to legitimize REALLY DO EXIST. The alternative is to believe that hi fi audio is a hobby based on mass delusion; there's certainly an element fo that, but as a general conclusion it's inconsistent with my own, non-rigorous experience, and anyway there are people I greatly respect--among them scientific-minded people and people with a great deal of listening experience--who have rejected the "rigorous" approach as definitive after initially embracing it. John Atkinson is the best example I know of.

I'll admit that in that post I didn't phrase it very well. Mathematically, there's nothing wrong with DBTs. The problem is that may people don't analyze the data properly, and as a result, positive results are under-reported. Furthermore, a truly sensitive test--one that gives the test-taker an honest chance of proving (to a reasonable confidence level) that s/he hears what s/he thinks s/he hears--requires many more trials than the usual data analysis suggests.

So to be a little more precise than I was in my message to BJH, the problem isn't with the test itself; it's with people taking the test and with the difficulty of the task. These tests are just too hard for us. Listening to music--heck, listening to anything--is a deep, emotionally resonant experience. It's very hard--it requires Zen-like mental control, which I lack--to reduce it to a scientific exercise. And that's precisely what's required to consistently recognize--consciously--very small differences in sensory perception and to prove it via double-blind tests.

People like to make the wine-tasting analogy, and it IS useful. Why don't wine magazines do DBT wine tasting? It's because it would be exhausting, and no fun (including for the readers), and because it's so far removed from the experience of actually DRINKING wine. It's because wine experts rarely are trained in a rigorous scientific approach (which is an interesting fact when you think about it). I'm sure there are other reasons.

Which absolutely means that wine tasting isn't rigorous. It means it's highly subjective. It means that I'm probably as likely as not to prefer the lower-rated wines (I prefer simple wines that go well with food to ultra-complex sipping wines) than the fancy, expensive, higher-rated wines. But it does NOT mean that there's no merit to subjective wine tasting. It's hit-or-miss, but it has value. If you're a wine enthusiast, the thing to do is to find a couple of subjective reviewers whose taste jibes with yours--whose wine recommendations you've enjoyed--and take their advice and ignore the others.

I'm trained as a scientist. I love science. DBTs are scientific, so I love them too. I crave certainty, but I've learned to live without it. I do, indeed, regret the fact--and I believe it IS a fact--that though they might work in particular, narrow circumstances, DBT's are very rarely efficacious for audio testing and evaluation. There's nothing wrong with the concept; it's their application to subtle sensory (and emotional) phenomena that I question, and that many others before me have questioned.

Jim



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