The Truth About Power Cords and there "Real" Price to Performance

atdavid

I am sure it is not just me that questions the agenda of someone that actively tries to suppress people learning.

I don’t see any indication that anyone here "tries to suppress" learning. That’s just a silly claim. In fact, there are many users who visit here regularly and share their experiences along with asking questions and responding to the questions of others. So there seems to be quite an appetite for learning here, notwithstanding the noisy minority that thinks it has all the answers.

One doesn’t need to do "tedious" testing processes in ones own home.

Exactly. One can simply listen for pleasure, and make observations accordingly.

One just needs a friend that switches cables (or lies and tells you that he did), so you don’t know what you are listening to. No huge study design, no exhaustive testing procedures, and the perfect testing system and environment .. your system, your room.

What you describe isn’t double-blind and has no control for the tester’s bias. So the results would be essentially useless, and certainly not scientific.

Anyone who tells you there is no value in doing a test this way is lying to you.

There’s no more value to the test you described than there is to the sort of fully sighted tests that you repeatedly assail so passionately.

I’ve participated in a few scientifically controlled listening tests. The trials were conducted by real researchers, not self-appointed audio forum experts. They were tedious - something the organizers cautioned about at the start of the undertaking - and it explains why not all of the subjects who started the test were willing to complete them. Proper, scientifically-controlled listening tests are a time-consuming, laborious undertaking for pretty much everyone involved. Those who claim such tests are simple, fun and easy to conduct have obviously never been responsible for any such test.

Cleeds

I’ve participated in a few scientifically controlled listening tests. The trials were conducted by real researchers, not self-appointed audio forum experts. They were tedious - something the organizers cautioned about at the start of the undertaking - and it explains why not all of the subjects who started the test were willing to complete them. Proper, scientifically-controlled listening tests are a time-consuming, laborious undertaking for pretty much everyone involved. Those who claim such tests are simple, fun and easy to conduct have obviously never been responsible for any such test.

Care to share the results of the test?

OK, I’ll be the first one to bring it up. There’s no such thing as a “scientifically controlled test,” at least for anything audio related, because nobody can control all the variables involved. There’s no MIL-STD for controlled test, even AES doesn’t have a protocol for Controlled Blind Testing. The Amazing Randi had a protocol for controlled blind testing calculated so nobody could pass. Geez, nobody even know what all the variables are. But if you want to pretend test, be my guest! Hey, that rhymes! 🤗

A good overview indeed... :)

I am beginning to question the very concept of the ABX test. Is it a real thing? 

Before you get upset and slam your keyboard (yes, I am talking to you the mighty keyboard-warrior), this is just a joke, but a tongue-in-chick joke nonetheless...

Isn't the "ABX test" something that the "slayers of snake oil" throw in your face every time someone shares his / her experience of anything in audio making a difference? More often than not, without even doing any such tests themselves. 

It's beginning to look like it. To the point of me starting to detest is, as only those guys use it, in every audio forum they can find.