Articles You Feel Should be Shared

djones51,

Yes, it's just one of those quirky takes on the subject from a mainly neutral outside observer.

It's not necessarily an indictment of all audiophiles, more of a warning against the perils of puting the equipment before the music and the dangers of lapsing into the "so-called lunatic fringe".  

Talking of outsiders looking in, here's an extract from an article by 'Bad Science' author Ben Goldacre.

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Blindingly obvious: hearing is believing 

Ben Goldacre Fri 3 Feb 2006

So let's talk about the high end hi-fi industry. I wrote about their very expensive power cables last month, ranging from £30 to a whopping £1,800, for what is, after all, a kettle lead to connect your stereo to the three pin power socket in the wall. 

The various manufacturers claim that their cables will filter out radio frequency interference in the power cable, and that this will improve the sound. 

I doubted this, and the outpouring of bile that was subsequently vomited in my direction (references on badscience.net) surprised and delighted even me. 

But what was most interesting, to students of this stuff is that the angry outbursts came primarily from the natural constituency of Bad Science readers. 

Several were deeply wounded. Homeopathy was one thing, they said, but this time, I had clearly got it wrong.

And that was when I started to notice the frightening similarities between the thought processes of the alternative therapy fans and the hi-fi freaks. 

Both make an appeal to personal experience, as the highest and most valid form of measurement; both use mystifying, scientific-sounding terminology in their publicity material; and both use the appeal to authority.

But the most striking parallel is the widespread notion in the hi-fi community that blinded trials - where you ask listeners to identify a cable without knowing if it's cheap or expensive - are somehow intrinsically flawed. 

This is exactly the card that the alternative therapy community have been playing, almost since blinded trials were invented.

I give you the editor of Stereophile, a respected hi-fi magazine of 33 years standing. He's talking about blinded tests on amplifiers:

"It seems," he says, "that with such blind listening tests, all perceived subjective differences ... fall away ... when you have taken part in a number of these blind tests and experienced how two amplifiers you know from personal experience to sound extremely different can still fail to be identified under blind conditions ..."

Now I'm getting worried. Here comes the money shot.

"... then perhaps an alternative hypothesis is called for: that the very procedure of a blind listening test can conceal small but real subjective differences."

Ouch.

"Having taken part in quite a number of such blind tests, I have become convinced of the truth in this hypothesis."

What voodoo is this?

If there is a difference to be heard, then you will hear it.

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The full Grauniad article can be found here.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2006/feb/04/badscience.uknews

Hilarious. I can only hear the difference when I can see the difference ! 

cd318
Talking of outsiders looking in, here’s an extract from an article by ’Bad Science’ author Ben Goldacre.
“I give you the editor of Stereophile, a respected hi-fi magazine of 33 years standing. He’s talking about blinded tests on amplifiers:

“It seems," he says, "that with such blind listening tests, all perceived subjective differences ... fall away ... when you have taken part in a number of these blind tests and experienced how two amplifiers you know from personal experience to sound extremely different can still fail to be identified under blind conditions ..."

Now I’m getting worried. Here comes the money shot.

"... then perhaps an alternative hypothesis is called for: that the very procedure of a blind listening test can conceal small but real subjective differences."

Ouch.

"Having taken part in quite a number of such blind tests, I have become convinced of the truth in this hypothesis."“

>>>Ben Goldacre is a piece of work. Typical pseudo reviewer/scientist. IMHO. Perhaps he should change his name to Ben Wiseacre. 😀 I know the guy JA from Stereophile and he’s right. Blind tests are at best inconclusive due to all the things that can and do go wrong. Ben Goldacre should not quit his day job. At least the name of his blog “Bad Science” is apropos and ironic. Ouch,

Testing Audiophile Claims and Myths

Following on from my posting above I feel I should bring to attention this thread which has been running on Head-Fi for a good while now - over 10 years to be exact.

The original poster, Prog Rock Man has compiled a record of various blind listening tests that have come to his attention and their conclusions.

I hope neither he (nor Head-Fi) will mind me sharing his valuable hard work here.

This is exactly the kind of endeavour that could be of enormous value to all potential customers of audio equipment.

For that, we the consumers owe it to ourselves to at least consider the findings.

A word of warning to those unfamiliar with the history of controlled blind listening tests, after all press and dealers are unlikely to point them out, the following may come as a considerable shock.

Here’s just a few of his summaries:

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

A test of interconnects and speaker cables found that no one could pick out the differences between a series of wires from ‘blister pack $2.50 to $990 speaker cable.

All the results were even with approximately 50% going for the cheap and expensive options.

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3 - Do all amplifiers sound the same? Original Stereo Review blind test.

A number of amplifiers across various price points and types are tested. The listeners are self declared believers and sceptics as to whether audiophile claims are true or not.

There were 13 sessions with different numbers of listeners each time. The difference between sceptic and believer performance was small, with 2 sceptics getting the highest correct score and 1 believer getting the lowest. The overall average was 50.5% getting it right, so that is the same as you would expect from a random guess result.

The cheapest Pioneer amp was perfectly capable of outperforming the more expensive amps and it was ‘striking similar to the Levinson‘.

As an extra to this and for an explanation of how amps can all sound the same, here is a Wikipedia entry on Bob Carver and his blind test amp challenges

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Carver#Amplifier_modeling


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8 - Secrets of Home Theatre and High Fidelity. Can We Hear Differences Between A/C Power Cords? An ABX Blind Test. December, 2004

A comprehensive article with pictures and the overall result was 73 out of 149 tests so 49% accuracy, the same as chance.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...s-12-2004.html

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18. DIY Audio forum, confessions of a poster. 2003

A forum member joined and confessed that "Then I started to hear about some convincing blind tests and finally conducted my own. I was stunned at the results. I couldn’t tell a $300 amp from a $3000 in the store I was working at.

Neither could anyone else who worked there."

Then he did his own blind test on a mate between an Onkyo SR500 Dolby Digital receiver and a Bryston 4B 300 wpc power amp and a Bryston 2 channel pre-amp owned by his mate.

The ’red faced’ mate could not tell the difference.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/12752-blind-listening-tests-amplifiers.html

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20. Cowan Audio, an Australian audiophile and a blind test between CD players 1997

A $1800 un named (they were reluctant to name it) versus a $300 Sony which resulted in both only guessing and getting about 50%.

William Cowan stated that a sighted test before hand made them say "This will be easy, lets get on with the blind test".

Ooops!

http://www.cowanaudio.com/

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31. AV Science forum, Observations of a controlled cable test Nov 2007

A blind test between Monster cables and Opus MM, which as far as I can find is $33,000 worth of cable

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=941184

but the owner of the very high end kit and cables was unable to tell the difference.

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35. The Wilson ipod experiment CES 2004. Stereophile Jan 2004

Tenth paragraph down. A ’trick’ blind test where a group at a consumer technology tradeshow thought they were listening to a $20,000 CDP, but were actually, happily listening to an ipod and uncompressed WAV files.

http://www.stereophile.com/news/011004ces/

Sight really does have a major role to play in sound!

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And many, many more examples.

Whilst loudspeakers have clearly been reliably identified via blind listening tests, the same cannot be said for cables, DACs, CD players, amplifiers, Hi-Res files etc.

The implications of this are enormous for the entire industry and should not be repeatedly swept under the carpet.

The consumer is always at liberty to buy whatever components he/ she may wish to, just as long as they are clear it is unlikely to be on the basis of any identifiable sound quality improvements.

Once again I would like to give my thanks to the original poster over on Head-Fi, Prog Rock Man.

Thanks again.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/


*and now for the inevitable brickbats from all those with various vested financial interests in disputing, denying or decrying the findings by any means possible. But not necessarily a blind listening test!