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Blind Testing is Dead - Long live My Wallet testing.

Hi Everyone,

I was seeing some discussions around cables, and reading other discussions about A'gon members asking for opinions on different alternatives for hooking up a DAC, or TV sound, or whatever, and it made me think of this.


I want to tie a few things together:

  • Most technical measurements consumers read were defined by the 1970s. It is fair to describe them as stagnant.
  • The cost to benefit ratio of a lot of products can vary a great deal.
  • I hear things I can't yet measure in cables and crossover components.
  • I like measurements. 
  • Someday measurements commonly discussed among consumers will improve and better tie our values to technology.

A lot has been made about double blind testing, and a lot of readers rely on taste masters (web sites, magazines and social media) and whether in fact these taste masters can hear anything at all. Reminds me a lot of blind testing of wines, or an article I read recently about how much super rare whiskey is fake.


When deciding on a bit of kit, I could not care less about double blind testing. I care about :

  • What audible value can I perceive?
  • Is the price proportional to that value?
  • Is my money better spent on a vacation or liquor?

We should also note that I'm a bit of an iconoclast. Most consumers also care about:

  • Brand recognition
  • Style
  • Perception of modernity (is it cutting edge no one else has)
  • Perception of construction (how much does it weigh, how is it packaged)
  • Ability to create envy.
  • Price ( if it's too inexpensive, it can't be good! )


What is my message then? My message is that this is all cute, like reading about movies or books or music shows, but in the end, it's my wallet, no one else's. John Atkinson is not buying my speakers for me. I am. My hard work creates value which I use some of (sometimes too much) to buy audio related products. The more you detach yourself from brands, costs and worries about measurements the more frugal, and happier  you will be.


Best,

Erik


erik_squires
erik_squires OP
16,395 posts
 
Gang,
I got a funny pair of e-mails from someone who did not want to get into an argument, but who then immediately wanted to argue with me! < hahahahah >

I'll keep his name out of here, but I did want to make something clear:

I do think it is appropriate for a manufacturer and researcher to use double blind testing as a manufacturer at times.


I do not care what the results were, except when testing generalized principles. Like, testing around speaker dispersion and what the population at large likes. That's kind of interesting, but the point of my original post is that is irrelevant to what I may buy.  Reams of reviews, double blind tests, and analysis from the NSF are not going to change what speakers or cables I buy.

I will however use NSF ratings for buying water filters!!


Just not really appropriate for why I buy gear.


Best,

E
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Which reminds me, Keith Herron wrote or said in an interview some years ago that one thing he discovered in working on his phono stage was people can hear differences of as little as 0.03dB. And no that's not a misprint, its three one-hundredths of a decibel. 

Well I bought his VTPH-2A last year and this was one of the things I asked him about. Yes indeed, 0.03dB, which he knows from double-blind testing.

What he found was he could influence a persons preference by making that small a change to frequency response. I didn't ask if that was measured in the air or calculated from a circuit. Either way, a pretty small change. And double-blind. Heck maybe triple-blind, given that he never seemed to care which way the test went. Just one of many things he did in his incredibly persistent perfectionist approach to product development.

So yes there are indeed perfectly appropriate uses for double-blind testing. 
erik_squires OP
16,395 posts
 
Hi millercarbon


I believe it, and 0.3 dB puts it in the realm of cables. So all this cable and noise filtering are just fancy tone controls.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
I choose to believe just because someone says something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. 
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