Thiel Owners

Tomthiel,

I strongly agree with your statement about ABX testing and the pressure it puts on the judgment skills of the listener. I have participated in ABX tests of auditory judgment online and am able to tolerate the ABX procedures when the discriminations are not subtle, but as you say "ABX is irrelevant to nuance." 

What is often overlooked by proponents of ABX is that the judgment of whether two sounds or musical passages are different requires only to find a single element of "difference" while confirmation of "sameness" requires exploring all possible elements that can be perceived and matched by the human ear/brain. This task quickly stresses my cognitive systems and makes me want to shut down completely or simply focus on one or two possible elements to evaluate for sameness or difference. 

Unlike many critics of ABX, though, I do see the value of blind testing in addition to extended non-blind testing. For me, blind testing should be preceded by training the listener to hear differences between components in open listening and then confirming or disconfirming the results in blind testing. I also would argue for eliminating the "sameness" judgment that requires excessive cognitive processing and instead make it clear that each sound/music sample in a blind test is being played on a different component. The paradigm would still be blinded because the listener wouldn't know which component is which and the probability of success with random responding would remain at 50%. 

I am still using Thiel speakers after 28 years because you, your brother, and other folks at Thiel Audio heard nuances in your speakers that still make them a joy to listen to today.

sdl4 - Thank you. As you know, our undertaking was more heart and soul than the standard business model. We took pride in how long people used our speakers, sometimes for generations. Subtlety and nuance was a requirement, not a nicety.

I agree with your ABX comments and can add a couple more. You are not alone in "shutting down". I believe the judgement process is not only nearly impossible with the auditory chain, but actually misleading. I believe that several key factors are overlooked in the ABX model. Central among them is that the auditory processing response is closely linked to fight-flight / survival. We must immediately recognize the size, shape, weight, direction and speed of whatever made that noise in the woods. Sound is wired globally in our being. As such, the cognitive analysis of the sound is specifically shut down, especially in the right ear. Analysis is a luxury that the primal being can’t afford. So by applying ABX analysis and judgement, we are trying to short-circuit our primal experience of the sound (music).

I believe that the global direct experience in fact contains the information that we need as designers and want as music listeners - connection to the stream of energy. I still use a refinement of the evaluation process we developed in the 1970s at Thiel Audio. Here goes a story demonstration:
Some of you might remember Natasha, my young friend who listens to bats talk. Tasha happily has found love and moved out of town, which is great news for all concerned. But my ageing ears still want help. Good news is that I have found Marina Harris, a young singer-songwriter musician with outstanding natural hearing abilities. She is taking well to learning and relishing the listening that Tasha left behind. We have had two productive sessions, which served to underscore a very important element. That is Trust. Until she became secure that I was not "pulling a fast one" by repeating the musical segment with the same conditions, she was somewhat shy about proffering her opinions, and indeed could not really form them well. Once we established and she believed that I would always tell her the truth, and there would be no "fast ones", then she leaned into the task.
The procol goes like this:
Describe and agree on the protocol.
No idea what we’re testing for.
Play A while taking listening notes.Play B while taking listening notes(B has advantage of second hearing of same cut).Play an agreed part or all of A again - taking notes.Play same selection of B again - taking notes.Compare notes and discuss.Describe and discuss what we are testing for, such as doubling up the speaker cables, swapping an interconnect, speaker iterations, etc. including some description / speculation about how our notes relate to the systems under test.Then, armed with this experience and learning:Repeat A / B, A / B and discuss again.
Note that by design at no time is a commitment required, and at no time can the listener be "caught out". ABXers consider that a cop-out. I consider it a necessity and my experience is that a valid session is always (and must be) replicable after scrambling A and B double blind. In other words, a third party can re-assign channels and substitute different audition material before the subsequent validation test.

This protocol produces a wealth of information from many aspects including, technical, performance, emotional, memory/evocative, etc. I use it in evaluating recording sessions, mixes and masters as well as equipment and rooms. It makes ABX seem thin and poor.

As a historical note, in the early 80s, when developing the CS3, we had developed a relationship with the University of Kentucky. They were willing to collaborate with us using medical, music and engineering students, if we were willing to use the ABX protocol. We did some trial runs, which served only to muddy the waters, and provided little if any productive information. Therefore, we opted out. I am convinced that if we had gone down their path, we would have ceased refining our multi-faceted development process. Plus we didn't have the time to indulge their ABX plan unless it provided valuable information for us, which it did not.

I hope you’re all enjoying your opportunity for seclusion. I’m getting more time in the studio since the phone stopped ringing.Tom

After mowing the lawn for the 3rd day in a row ,
(1 acre with an electric mower ) I thought I'd do something fun like
checking out other Thiel owners virtual systems , they are beautiful !
Soon ( I hope ) my room will be presentable enough to show .

Also some lite reading http://www.linkwitzlab.com/frontiers.htm .
It's long but very informative .

In Memoriam: Siegfried Linkwitz, 1935–2018Blogby Robert E. Greene | Oct 14th, 2019
After reading the artical in The Absolute Sound I learned why 
every time I tested an audiometer I had a dip in hearing in both ears 
at the 3-4khz frequencies . 

tomthiel,

I am so impressed by your thoughtful and systematic approach to listening tests. Using a combination of unblinded and blinded testing is ideal. The problems with ABX testing have never been related to the fact that ABX is blinded, but rather the fact that it ignores basic characteristics of human perception, cognitive processing, and decision making. Your linkage to primitive fight or flight reactions is interesting and not something I have considered before.

Happy Friday! All