I see the issue with ABX blind testing


I’ve followed many of the cable discussions over the years with interest. I’ve never tested cables & compared the sound other than when I bought an LFD amp & the vendor said that it was best paired with the LFD power cord. That was $450 US and he offered to ship it to me to try & if I didn’t notice a difference I could send it back. I got it, tried it & sent it back. To me there was no difference at all.

Fast forward to today & I have a new system & the issue of cables arises again. I have Mogami cables made by Take Five Audio in Canada. The speaker wire are Mogami 3104, XLRs are Mogami 2549 & the power cords are Powerline 10 with Furutech connectors. All cables are quite well made and I’ve been using them for about 5 years. The vendor that sold me the new equipment insisted that I needed "better" cables and sent along some Transparent Super speaker & XLR cables to try. If I like them I can pay for them.

In every discussion about cables the question is always asked, why don’t you do an ABX blind test? So I was figuring out how I’d do that. I know the reason few do it. It’s not easy to accomplish. I have no problem having a friend come over & swap cables without telling me what he’s done, whether he swapped any at all etc. But from what I can see the benefit, if there is one, will be most noticeable system wide. In other words, just switching one power cable the way I did before won’t be sufficient for you to tell a difference... again, assuming there is one. So I need my friend to swap power cables for my amp/preamp & streamer, XLR cables from my streamer to my preamp, preamp to amp & speakers cables. That takes a good 5-10 minutes. There is no way my brain is retaining what I previously heard and then comparing it to what I currently hear.

The alternative is to connect all of the new cables, listen for a week or so & then switch back & see if you feel you’re missing anything. But then your brain takes over & your biases will have as much impact as any potential change in sound quality.

So I’m stumped as to how to proceed.

A photo of my new setup. McIntosh MC462, C2700, Pure Fidelity Harmony TT, Lumin T3 & Sonus Faber Amati G5 & Gravis V speakers.

dwcda
dwcda OP

With usual my computer speaker (Bose companion 3),best sound (0:17), 2nd best (0:50), Worst (1:08).

This shows the difference between listening to sound where we know what we’re hearing and can be influenced vs a blind test.

I agree. Human ears are tricky and our hearing is influenced always.

While I agree on your above statement, below things should be clear. The info about ABX material must be clear and correct.

1) My audio system sound is cleanest in the world (in reproduction audio) and it shows coloration of 4 PC’s sounds clearer than any other system. Editing video damages the sound in it. Your video sound is very different from my video. Your video is colored like other video’s sound. So, it is harder to hear the difference.

2) You wrote there are 7 PCs but it was not 7 PCs. Some were just repeat. It’s like a trap and bring a confusion.

IDing the sound is hard and you had wrong info with degraded sounds. You believe they are same sounds but it’s not. It’s not a good ABX case.

I and many a’philes I took decades to earn seasoned ears. Seasoned ears (who can hear the cleaner, un-veiled, less colored sound) can hear more easily (still not easy) the clean and better sound. However, it is very hard (impossible?) for un-seasoned ears (listening harsh sounds for all life) to hear the clean and better sound. It will take some times to have open-ears. Not in a couple of minutes for sure. Alex/WTA

@mahgister Always talking about acoustics, he is right and I say that with a unique perspective making recording all over the world and listing to my own recording all over the world.

I greatly appreciate your feedback on my own experience . I dont have yours in all the world studios then i am way less credible than you are ...

But you certainly can imagine that 2 years full time in a dedicated homemade acoustical room with hundred of experiments along basic acoustics concepts convince me of what you just said in the rest of your posts...

Most people cannot do what i have done because it takes a room your wife will never enter into 😁... And so much time that it had been full time reading, thinking , tinkering 2 years being retired...

Now i learned enough to be cured of gear upgrade audiophilia...

thanks for your kind word ...

 

 

 

2) You wrote there are 7 PCs but it was not 7 PCs. Some were just repeat. It’s like a trap and bring a confusion.

ABX implies that you listen to A, then B and then X which will be either A or B. Paul McGowan of PS Audio is of the same opinion that you are, he doesn't like the X part of ABX as he feels that he's being tricked. But it's not meant to trick you,  it's meant to discern whether you  can actually distinguish the difference between A & B and identify them when you don't know which you're listening to. If, after hearing A & B you can't tell which thing X represents that's a pretty good indication that they are indistinguishable.

I'm content with where I've ended up  on  this journey & you sound like you are too. We can part as friends & move on.

I'm content with where I've ended up  on  this journey & you sound like you are too. We can part as friends & move on.

I wrote a trap (bit offensive) in my defense. This thread has been a joy to me. I learned few lessons and I like this topic very much with many knowledgeable participants. Cheers. Alex/WTA

The problem with the X part is that we distinguish sound qualities differences by our unconscious body feeling not by conscious remembering .We felt a change we do not always perceive it clearly. we will perceive it more clearly by changing some acoustics parameters in the room or the gear. ..

The double blind ABX   test cannot be successful nor useful  out of our usual sound environment including our system/room  anyway ...

What is indistinguishable in some environment is distinguishable in our own .

You cannot do that by double blind testing with ABX method at all ...

The x part will introduce a conscious interference ( a suspicion and a self doubt the stress of being tricked ) that will impede your relaxed spontaneous body feeling continous reaction in each acoustics  continuous parameters change when you adjust and tune an Helmholtz resonator mechanically for example as i did. ...

 

The goal is not a circus test , or an industrial statistical test on a hearing population but the goal is for you improving in an incremental but continuous way your own acoustic environment ...You cannot do it and felt compelled to prove it at each minor improvement... It is preposterous... Only people with no psychoacoustics understanding can propose that or people in the business of debunking gear marketing... Like objectivist techno cultist... 😊

Simple blind test is useful and enough for any individual audiophile.

 

 

2) You wrote there are 7 PCs but it was not 7 PCs. Some were just repeat. It’s like a trap and bring a confusion.

ABX implies that you listen to A, then B and then X which will be either A or B. Paul McGowan of PS Audio is of the same opinion that you are, he doesn’t like the X part of ABX as he feels that he’s being tricked.