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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: How is a "flawed DBT" worse than a sighted test? posted by real_jj on May 17, 2006 at 03:16:42:
My my, we did get excited?How can a DBT be worse than a sighted listening session?
That's an easy one, when the DBT fails to achieve a statistically significant positive (what I often refer to as a null result), and you are left with NOTHING.
Oh, I know, if you conduct enough of these, with controls, with reference anchored conditions, etc, etc., then one can actually draw SOME conclusions, but when we are talking about one SINGLE test, even with all the proper controls and such in place, a null just doesn't provide any real information. The DUT's _could_ sound the same, or they might not, but we don't know for sure. In other words, we don't know diddly-squat.
On the other hand, many people who have had a lot of experience with listening sessions, and have learned to listen beyond the simple first flush of involvement during a listening session, can make some pretty shrewd observations about the sound, and the DUT's, even though they may know which is which. In many cases, they can legitimately draw relevant conclusions from the experience, and from each others observations when comparing notes, etc.
Given that so many of the DBT's that are commonly cited as "evidence" for one thing or another concerning audio components and how they sound, have significant flaws and problems (see list of examples below), the end result of a DBT that ends up with a null result is that you have nothing to show for it, except confusion and uncertainty.
While on the other hand, the dreaded and horrible 'sighted' listening may be able to allow one to draw useful conclusions and derive some sort of useful information from the results.
Is it a "pure" situation, is it an iron-clad and undebatable result? Naw, but in many cases, it is preferable to ending up confused and without any end result, and no direction as to which component might be preferable/desirable, etc.
LIST:
Greenhill, Laurence; "Speaker Cables: Can you Hear the Difference?" Stereo Review, Aug 1983, pg. 46-51.Nousaine, Thomas; "Wired Wisdom: The Great Chicago Cable Caper", Sound and Vision; Vol. 11, No. 3 (1995)
Shanefield, Daniel; "The Great Ego Crunchers: Equalized, Double-Blind Tests"; High Fidelity, March 1980, pp. 57-61
Masters, Ian G. and Clark, D. L., "Do All CD Players Sound the Same?", Stereo Review, Jan. 1986 pp.50-57
etc.
Jon Risch
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Follow Ups
- Re: How is a "flawed DBT" worse than a sighted test? - Jon Risch 21:33:28 05/17/06 (1)
- Stuff and nonsense - real_jj 03:11:45 05/18/06 (0)
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