This method of testing has flummoxed me enough to conclude the same: the test just doesn't do it for me. Discerning differences hasn't been so difficult in my admittedly sparse critical listening experience. The question of which has been superior has proven more difficult for me and has required more extended listening. (Actually, I've also thought about Heidegger re:audio, at least vaguely [e.g., "opening a world"]. To be less vague, I'd have to read him again, and that's unlikely to happen anytime soon). Anyway, this is why there are 30-day trial/audition periods, right?
Back to the original intent of the thread, I'm only mainly able to talk about this stuff with friends who really, really enjoy music. Most people I know like songs--they focus on the songs and rarely on how they sound. I do a bit of community theater, and talking to audio engineers can be very frustrating, because so many of them see it as their sacred duty to debunk flaky audiophiliac observations. To think too much about it seems silly and almost childish to them. Certainly, there's some serious audio voodoo out there, and it's nice to have clear heads with grounding in the fundamentals and hard experience to balance that out. But their general attitude seems to be that if you get stuff that's correct and set it up correctly, then everything will sound correct. Case closed. For them, "correct" is enough, regardless of obvious differences; it seems that sonic differences are tolerable as long as they aren't technically incorrect. I've regarded this as the general pov of mainstream consumers (e.i, "most people"). Audio purists are a narrow contingent.
The "zeroes and ones" argument is a bit simple, isn't it? There's error correction, timing, d/a conversion, output, etc. Does your brother regard these differences as audibly imperceptible?
Back to the original intent of the thread, I'm only mainly able to talk about this stuff with friends who really, really enjoy music. Most people I know like songs--they focus on the songs and rarely on how they sound. I do a bit of community theater, and talking to audio engineers can be very frustrating, because so many of them see it as their sacred duty to debunk flaky audiophiliac observations. To think too much about it seems silly and almost childish to them. Certainly, there's some serious audio voodoo out there, and it's nice to have clear heads with grounding in the fundamentals and hard experience to balance that out. But their general attitude seems to be that if you get stuff that's correct and set it up correctly, then everything will sound correct. Case closed. For them, "correct" is enough, regardless of obvious differences; it seems that sonic differences are tolerable as long as they aren't technically incorrect. I've regarded this as the general pov of mainstream consumers (e.i, "most people"). Audio purists are a narrow contingent.
The "zeroes and ones" argument is a bit simple, isn't it? There's error correction, timing, d/a conversion, output, etc. Does your brother regard these differences as audibly imperceptible?