Oh jeeze, I don’t mean to cause you any more work Keith!
But since you seem to be up to more testing...
Its no good to rely on concepts like “X person has no interest in the gear so if they report hearing a difference it can’t be bias and must be accurate.”
No one is immune to sighted bias effects. The mere act of listening for differences can make people perceive differences even if they don’t “care” about the outcome.
If you really mean to do some form of home-brew blind test, here are some ideas from my own ac cable blind testing, some or all of which you may want to employ:
The fact it will be a single blind test doesn’t completely invalidate the test, but single blind tests suffer from the possibility of “experimentor bias.” That is so long as the person conducting the test knows which cable is which, they can influence the outcome in subtle unconscious ways - including subtlety tipping off the subject in ways neither are aware.
To try to control for this I did the following:
1. Pattern of switching is randomized. This is standard for blind testing. Say you are going to do 12 trials (switches). The person doing the switching can flip a coin 12 times and write down the sequence of heads and tails. He can use that sequence to follow for switching the cables.
2. Use a blind fold of some kind if possible to reduce likelihood of peeking :)
3. Try to reduce communicating (hence reduce possible subtle cues) between you and the switcher. Best of you listen to your music selection and simply say “switch” each time you want (the switcher then following the random pattern arrived at with the coin flips). Best of the switcher doesn’t say anything at all during the trial.
4. I wanted to make sure I couldn’t tell
just by the sound of the plugs going in or out which cable has been plugged in. Therefore we did a little pre-trial of only the cables being switched on my command (blindfolded). The sequence being decided by coin flip. Once that trial established my guesses were random, I could be more confident I’d dealt with that variable.
Again: things to consider. It can be easier than many think to screw up blind testing, But even casual blind testing can be kind of fun and intersting.
Best of luck!
But since you seem to be up to more testing...
Its no good to rely on concepts like “X person has no interest in the gear so if they report hearing a difference it can’t be bias and must be accurate.”
No one is immune to sighted bias effects. The mere act of listening for differences can make people perceive differences even if they don’t “care” about the outcome.
If you really mean to do some form of home-brew blind test, here are some ideas from my own ac cable blind testing, some or all of which you may want to employ:
The fact it will be a single blind test doesn’t completely invalidate the test, but single blind tests suffer from the possibility of “experimentor bias.” That is so long as the person conducting the test knows which cable is which, they can influence the outcome in subtle unconscious ways - including subtlety tipping off the subject in ways neither are aware.
To try to control for this I did the following:
1. Pattern of switching is randomized. This is standard for blind testing. Say you are going to do 12 trials (switches). The person doing the switching can flip a coin 12 times and write down the sequence of heads and tails. He can use that sequence to follow for switching the cables.
2. Use a blind fold of some kind if possible to reduce likelihood of peeking :)
3. Try to reduce communicating (hence reduce possible subtle cues) between you and the switcher. Best of you listen to your music selection and simply say “switch” each time you want (the switcher then following the random pattern arrived at with the coin flips). Best of the switcher doesn’t say anything at all during the trial.
4. I wanted to make sure I couldn’t tell
just by the sound of the plugs going in or out which cable has been plugged in. Therefore we did a little pre-trial of only the cables being switched on my command (blindfolded). The sequence being decided by coin flip. Once that trial established my guesses were random, I could be more confident I’d dealt with that variable.
Again: things to consider. It can be easier than many think to screw up blind testing, But even casual blind testing can be kind of fun and intersting.
Best of luck!
