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Where do they get their confidence (from Science)

At least outside of high end hifi, it is a known fact that blind testing is often the only reliable way to extract data which would be corrupted by subjectivity (and be in error).
For example, research into medicine was stymied until blind testing could eliminate the placebo effect.
The problem is simple in audio too, people can be fooled, easily believe something they did or believe in has effected the sound.
For example, it is common story in Recording an Pro-sound to hear of an engineer laboriously tweaking an eq or other gear getting the sound “just right”, only to find the bypass button pushed. In that industry at least, it is acknowledged that it is a real effect.

The premise of blind testing in hifi audio after all is to see if there is a difference between A and B using only ones ears, without prior knowledge of which is which.
If you can hear an audible difference there is one, after that it is a matter of doing it ‘enough’ to satisfy the statistical mathematics if you care to.
The results are often enough to shake ones confidence in what you can hear though, but that is the point, when you rule out looks, what you think and prior knowledge, all that is left is what you hear.

Further confusing the issue you have brought in the subject of magazines.
Keep in mind, their job (where the money comes from) is not from subscribers (although it does make one feel like your paying for valid information), it is from advertising.
There job IS NOT to make the story any more confusing that necessary, or find real differences for that matter. Drawing attention to problems or “issues” does not make advertisers happy.
I don’t recall ever seeing a bad review in a magazine where the mfr has advertised; again, magazines are a marketing agent for the mfr’s not a source of unbiased information.

So, the question might be rephrased “What gives those that scoff at DBT’s the confidence that their world of hifi is entirely different than everything else around them?”
“What gives them the confidence that they are different than the rest of human kind and free of these issues?”

Best,

Tom Danley

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