Pableson, I find your posts interesting though not really responsive to the initial thread by TBG about the place of DBT in audio. Nor, have I felt that your posts have been responsive to my similar concerns and additional concerns about experimental validity (though I am sure that not all have been invalid), for instance, the very interesting and amusing 1984 BAS article where the Linn godfather not only failed to differentiate the analog from the digitally processed source, he identified more analog selections as digital. But... this was an atypical setup that would not be found in any home. We can’t really generalize from this, and this has nothing to do with advocacy of the "subjectivist" viewpoint. If you would be true to your objectivist bona fides, wouldn't you have to agree?
Then, there’s the issue, supported by your citations, that there have been DBT’s going back years that have demonstrated noticeable differences between individual components.
So, I think there is a background issue, and this was also mentioned in TBG’s initial post. Many adherents of DBT seem to be seeking the very "conformance" that you want to point out in others. That "conformance?" That until the very qualities claimed to exist can be proven to exist they must be assumed not to exist. Intoxicating argument, but ultimately revealing of a distinct bias, the invalidation of the experience of others as an a priori position until they can meet your standard. This "you ain't proved nothin'" approach is especially troublesome when one reads subjective reviews and realizes that the points they raise, creative writing they may well be, could never be addressed by DBT, ABX, or any other similar methodology. The majority of what we are able to perceive is not amenable to measurement that can be neatly, or even roughly, correlated with perception. To claim otherwise is an illusion. Enter the artists with some scientific and technical skill and we have high end audio. Sadly, with them come the charlatans and deluded along with average and "golden eared" folks who hope that they can hear their music sound a bit more like they think they remember it sounding somewhere in the past. Add something like cables and it seems the battle lines are drawn.
I’m a bit suspicious that you might not allow the person who can reliably detect a difference between two components to write whatever he wants in your forthcoming journal. You claim that once the DBT is passed, he can describe a component any way he wants. It doesn’t really make sense to me because a "just noticeable difference" is not the same as being able to notice all of the differences subjective reviewers claim, does it? If someone can tell the real Mona Lisa from a reproduction, even a well executed one, do you really care to hear about everything else he thinks about it? I don’t. I might want to see it myself, though.
I don’t think there will ever be anything like being able to recreate the exact sonic experience of a live musical performance in a home or studio. What we can hope for are various ways to recreate some reasonable semblance of some aspects of some performances. DBT probably has a place there.
In the meantime, I’d like to suggest a name for your journal, The Absolutely Absolute Sound. I think Gunbei has a supply blindfolds.
Then, there’s the issue, supported by your citations, that there have been DBT’s going back years that have demonstrated noticeable differences between individual components.
So, I think there is a background issue, and this was also mentioned in TBG’s initial post. Many adherents of DBT seem to be seeking the very "conformance" that you want to point out in others. That "conformance?" That until the very qualities claimed to exist can be proven to exist they must be assumed not to exist. Intoxicating argument, but ultimately revealing of a distinct bias, the invalidation of the experience of others as an a priori position until they can meet your standard. This "you ain't proved nothin'" approach is especially troublesome when one reads subjective reviews and realizes that the points they raise, creative writing they may well be, could never be addressed by DBT, ABX, or any other similar methodology. The majority of what we are able to perceive is not amenable to measurement that can be neatly, or even roughly, correlated with perception. To claim otherwise is an illusion. Enter the artists with some scientific and technical skill and we have high end audio. Sadly, with them come the charlatans and deluded along with average and "golden eared" folks who hope that they can hear their music sound a bit more like they think they remember it sounding somewhere in the past. Add something like cables and it seems the battle lines are drawn.
I’m a bit suspicious that you might not allow the person who can reliably detect a difference between two components to write whatever he wants in your forthcoming journal. You claim that once the DBT is passed, he can describe a component any way he wants. It doesn’t really make sense to me because a "just noticeable difference" is not the same as being able to notice all of the differences subjective reviewers claim, does it? If someone can tell the real Mona Lisa from a reproduction, even a well executed one, do you really care to hear about everything else he thinks about it? I don’t. I might want to see it myself, though.
I don’t think there will ever be anything like being able to recreate the exact sonic experience of a live musical performance in a home or studio. What we can hope for are various ways to recreate some reasonable semblance of some aspects of some performances. DBT probably has a place there.
In the meantime, I’d like to suggest a name for your journal, The Absolutely Absolute Sound. I think Gunbei has a supply blindfolds.