Amir and Blind Testing
Let me start by saying I like watching Amir from ASR, so please let’s not get harsh or the thread will be deleted. Many times, Amir has noted that when we’re inserting a new component in our system, our brains go into (to paraphrase) “analytical mode” and we start hearing imaginary improvements. He has reiterated this many times, saying that when he switched to an expensive cable he heard improvements, but when he switched back to the cheap one, he also heard improvements because the brain switches from “music enjoyment mode” to “analytical mode.” Following this logic, which I agree with, wouldn’t blind testing, or any A/B testing be compromised because our brains are always in analytical mode and therefore feeding us inaccurate data? Seems to me you need to relax for a few hours at least and listen to a variety of music before your brain can accurately assess whether something is an actual improvement. Perhaps A/B testing is a strawman argument, because the human brain is not a spectrum analyzer. We are too affected by our biases to come up with any valid data. Maybe.
Quite so (along with your other observations), and I took the liberty of changing your quote slightly so that it has a wider audience amongst audiophiles. |
Perhaps (I thought it was more like the early 80s, and as always I am happy to be corrected), but I suspect that technology and knowledge has advanced since then to accommodate such characteristics in general without the pain of fingernails on blackboards. edit - folk who have amps from the 70s may recall, for example, amps such as Marantz, Sansui and many others being capacitor coupled. I’d like to see those (refurbished, of course) put over the measuring bench. |
@noske - as I recall, the Japanese receivers were boasting incredible distortion specs in the 70s, but the high-end stuff started becoming more well known in the 80s. And by well known, I mean by a very small percentage of the population who were reading the audio critic and absolute sound. Remember, way back then, most everyone had a stereo setup in their living room flanking the TV, but the early high end stuff was relatively rare. |
@chayro OK, granted, I stand corrected. I didn’t know that. I wonder what kind of gear they used at discos? Incidentally, I do notice from some pics here that some folk still do have their setups flanking the TV, perhaps for home theatre reasons. |
