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Re: Good rebuttle. lol

c-J:

I don't disagree with a lot of what you say. I too think that at the end of the day, its the listener that has to be drawn closer to his music - and not further alientated. And the "sound" associated with such an engaging and involving system will vary from person to person. This is virtually a universally accepted tenet.

So why then did I get all up in arms? Very good question.

Two reasons:

1. A person was sent three discs. He obviously knew which disc was which (they must have been labelled somehow) since the sender was able to determine that he 'failed to pick the correct floor' but made amazingly different observations - and all three discs were virtually unique from the others.

1. I find it curious that the recipient of these discs simply sat down and 'took notes' on each of the discs - knowing that everytime he inserted a disc he knew which disc it was. He made no effort to have someone help him try and differentiate between the discs without the psychological bias of sighted trials. Again, if he was predisposed to detecting differences, then it would definately be advantageous to know which disc was which - and even refer to previously made notes or comments on that particular disc. The best part of all is that five adjectives were used to describe EACH disc and this resulted in FIFTEEN different adjectives. NO TWO discs had even ONE sonic quality in common - just from being stored in different rooms!! Wow. Were the rooms on different planets for 1,000,000 years?!? Or is the tester creating results (either conciously or unconsciously) to suit the expected outcome?

Let's look at those descriptions again shall we?

CD 1 velvet, dark sibilance, capped highs, dry, little reverberance
CD 2 hollow, fresh highs, cloudy, misty, reverberant
CD 3 bubbly bass, vague, clumsy, spongy, coarse dynamics

Amazing! Now can he tell which disc is playing - blindfolded? Of course he can't. :o)

2. It was really the statement about how 'if (aka since) storage location makes a difference then a particular CD tweak MUST be valid.)

2. I don't really think this reasoning is sound at all. Providing very weak (at best) evidence that ONE crazy tweak works is supposed to validate ANOTHER crazy tweak - since, they are of course, BOTH CRAZY?? This goes to show how far people will go to attempt to sway others with outlandish claims and faulty logic. It seems there was intent to simply "lower the bar" of believability - "This tweak is SO crazy that it makes the usual suspects seem very reasonable". This type of argument gives me a rash and makes my hair fall out.

I stand by my assertion that this "golden ear" disc tester could not differentiate between discs in an ABX, or come up with consistent "descriptions" by only listening - and not knowing which disc was in play. It was this knowlege that permitted the tester to "trick" himself into thinking that he heard three COMPLETELY different discs.

Why can't we trust our ears? Oh ears are very trustworthy. It's too bad, however, that they are connected to a human hearing system that includes an easily tricked and biased mind that is very succeptible to the powers of suggestion.

I don't really want to go on and on about this. I just think that when someone makes claims (publically) their credibility is directly proportional to the type of evidence with which they support their claims. "I mailed the discs to an audiophile and he 'confirmed' that all three discs were VASTLY different"... well that's just a little but of a stretch for most of us, subjective or otherwise.

Cheers,

Presto

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