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How are you hearing no difference?

In my experience, I've never heard two pre-amps that sound exactly the same, nor two DACs that sound the same, nor two amps...etc. Yet, occasionally someone will claim that they heard no difference between Product A and Product B in their system.  I find it difficult to believe.
128x1284hannons
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cleeds
6,033 posts
 
guidocorona

Listening with just your ears does eliminate the effect of psychoacoustics quite plenty if you are totally blind ...

This is mistaken and a common misnomer. It is impossible to listen "with just your ears." Just as with vision, what we perceive is determined as much by our brain as it is by the physical hearing mechanism. There is simply no way to completely eliminate psychoacoustic phenomenona from a listening test. Those who completely reject scientific blind listening tests - and I’m not one of them - often cite that as a flaw in blind testing. It’s a valid point, but doesn’t completely discredit the value of such testing, imo.

... ask the in-store consultant not to tell you which one of the several amps, or preamps, or players, or cables, etc... in the lineup you are listening to ...

If you want a meaningful blind test, it has to be double-blind. And there’s more to it than that; to be scientific, you need to match levels, and you need to provide quick switching while also allowing the subject to listen for as long as he likes to each DUT, such as is provided in the abx protocol.

Conducting a valid, double-blind, scientific listening test is a tricky business. And even when properly conducted, it’s easy to misinterpret the results. For those reasons and others, I believe that audiophiles have very little practical use for blind listening tests.


brf
1,715 posts
 
Hearing, just like the rest of our senses can be refined and educated over a period of time.  As an example, top chefs and wine sommeliers have educated their palette to discern subtle taste differences that most would miss.   Perfumers have developed their sense of smell to the point that they can deconstruct a perfume formulae.  Or how a conductor hears the orchestra differently than the audience.  
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cleeds
6,033 posts
 
brf
Hearing, just like the rest of our senses can be refined and educated over a period of time.
Quite so! In fact, when professionals conduct blind listening tests, they commonly begin with some training to help the subjects know what to listen for.
4hannons's avatar
4hannons OP
187 posts
 

Some very good points made here. I take care quite often to have a friend come help blind test; I also compare over time, and get my wife's "golden ears" opinion until she gets annoyed (humor).

I understand and agree that certain components will sound similar, especially DAC's. I've had to do some very careful listening to reveal the smallest of differences. On one occasion, the difference was so slight, it came down to a two second section where I could hear a difference of a faint bongo beat that DAC A presented with more percussion than DAC B (about the 6:56-58 mark on the song "Morning Mist" performed by Ahmad Jamal).

If you think that two components sound the same, then you need to keep listening until you hear the difference.

I'll admit that sometimes the differences can be so small they aren't worth mentioning or not meaningful enough. In the DAC comparison I described above, that difference had meaning to me, small as it was.

n80
2,133 posts
 
cleeds, I do not think it would be that difficult at all to design a randomized, double blinded study for audiophiles. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a little complex but it wouldn't be hard.

The issue is who would need such a test and why. I do not think it is useful for an individual audiophile for whom the only determinant is "what do I like better".

However, for critics (whose descriptions of equipment SQ all seem to sound the same) or for magazines/web sites that compare equipment I think such tests would be very valuable and legitimizing if results corroborate critical assessments. I deeply suspect that they wouldn't.....and that's why it isn't done.

Many areas in medicine that were once dominated by the diagnostic proficiency of experience physicians have gone by the wayside because studies show that many aspects of the physical exam are not nearly as sensitive or specific as physicians claimed and swore that they were.

4hannons, if I think two pieces of equipment sound the same then I'm done. Why spend time trying to hear a difference that is so minute as to be irrelevant? As you say, the key word is "relevant" I suppose.
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