Thanks Peter, i'm hardly an expert, some of this comes from basic
behavioral 'testing', i.e. when you do polls or try to get an honest opinion
from a subject; some of it, just my experience as a listener, i.e. i think i
have pretty 'quick ears,' in the sense that i can detect differences, but
deciding which is better or worse takes longer, not only in time, but over
various material.
It sounds like you have a Leviton, a Hubbell, a Porter (which may be a
tweaked Hubbell?) plus a total cheapola? I think that's a little too much on
the low end,* I'd vote for including a couple of top dog receptacles, I don't
know the model of the recherche Furutech and i thought a lot of folks
switched to that from the Oyaide, but if you could make room for that too, it
might be good. If it is a question of expense, I'm sure you could get several
of us to send you 25 bucks each to buy some of the fancier ones. I'm happy
to contribute if others are too, i know you weren't soliciting- but it's a
minimal investment for the sake of science. :)
I participated in a similar test years ago to pick the best exhaust for a
hepped up Porsche turbo. (Had a GT2 at the time). I agreed to buy the Ruf
exhaust if it tested best, paid for it, Ruf delivered it to the shop that ran the
test and lo and behold, a cheapo exhaust actually delivered more power
than the Ruf. Ruf graciously took the exhaust back from the test shop, and
refunded the money to me (it was a pretty expensive muffler). I bought the
el cheapo one that won the test. Hated it! It was so fking loud i couldn't hear
myself think.
*PS not implying the Porter is low end, that's actually what's in my current
room right now.
PPS: I have to believe there are some scientists here who know test
methodology, including some behavioral science types who could help you.
I know, over the years, I've read various articles about blind testing.
Here's a link to one, i am not endorsing it, but you'll see that the description
of the methodology, as well as some of the letters criticizing the approach,
can stimulate your thinking.
http://www.stereophile.com/features/113/index.html
FWIW, having listeners familiarize themselves with the pieces of music first
is a good idea. You also have the issue, not just of listener fatique, but of
'vinyl fatigue' for lack of a better word- you shouldn't be playing the same
cuts over and over- it will kill the record and probably not sound as good
after several back to back plays. I know the AES also has some papers,
Floyd Toole, etc. but I'm out of my depth here, and the first to admit it.
Interesting to see what others can contribute on the test methology. I will
note that having folks listen to 8 different options is going to make it pretty
tough to choose, by the time you are on choice 8, can you remember what
choice 1 even sounded like? Maybe that's taken care of by repeat testing
and averaging it out, but the sample population then becomes an issue too,
I think- is it a big enough sample to be significant?
