Double blind test- over a month- could this be a reliable test for any equipment?

The demand that double blind tests be repeated a number of times in a row, sometimes as many as ten times, greatly increases the probability the person tested will fail. This is why The Amazing Randi never had to pay out $1 million in his Million Dollar Challenge. Not only for psychics - Randi’s primary target, a target 🎯 that Johnny Carson subsidized in his will - but also audiophiles, e.g., Intelligent Chip and exotic high end cables. It’s because when differences are small or subtle, which they frequently are, the pressure of having to be correct ten times in a row is too great. But Randi is a nice guy and knows a good thing when he sees it - audiophile sacred cows. 🐄 🐄 🐄

The reason musicians can play an entire song or album or opera without a musical score in front of them is because humans inherently have good auditory memory. I don’t recall seeing Keith Richards or Jimmy Page using a musical score during a concert. 😬 same for movies. Humans can recall entire scenes from their favorite movies with ease, even after many years. Video, music, dialog, sequence of events, what have you.

It takes us a little longer to absorb our fullest impressions aurally. Visually we catch on to a lot right away...aurally not so quick, we are predominantly visual creatures...but, yeah, we still have inherently good auditory memory.

DB test all you want, but there will never be a substitute for living with your gear for many months or even years. It’s certainly not the fastest result, but as tests of perceived audio quality go, it’s the most revealing.

The A/B-ing can tell us what differences in sound there might be, but it may tell us much less about which differences we might be willing to live with for now vs those for the longest run. What sounds fine enough to us today might sound more tiresome 5 years from now. Those are the chickens that most often come back to roost.

But all of that to me is just the nature of the beast.

Geoffkait,

I think you are right.  Ozzy Osbourne remained focused when he was biting those bat heads off.

I've had my kids switch my Nordost QX4 on and off randomly and I can tell the difference with certain passages.