It makes sense when you're playing the recording as well. Probably why I like Genelec but I do add a house curve which is where IMO preference is introduced.
Why Do So Many Audiophiles Reject Blind Testing Of Audio Components?
Because it was scientifically proven to be useless more than 60 years ago.
A speech scientist by the name of Irwin Pollack have conducted an experiment in the early 1950s. In a blind ABX listening test, he asked people to distinguish minimal pairs of consonants (like “r” and “l”, or “t” and “p”).
He found out that listeners had no problem telling these consonants apart when they were played back immediately one after the other. But as he increased the pause between the playbacks, the listener’s ability to distinguish between them diminished. Once the time separating the sounds exceeded 10-15 milliseconds (approximately 1/100th of a second), people had a really hard time telling obviously different sounds apart. Their answers became statistically no better than a random guess.
If you are interested in the science of these things, here’s a nice summary:
Categorical and noncategorical modes of speech perception along the voicing continuum
Since then, the experiment was repeated many times (last major update in 2000, Reliability of a dichotic consonant-vowel pairs task using an ABX procedure.)
So reliably recognizing the difference between similar sounds in an ABX environment is impossible. 15ms playback gap, and the listener’s guess becomes no better than random. This happens because humans don't have any meaningful waveform memory. We cannot exactly recall the sound itself, and rely on various mental models for comparison. It takes time and effort to develop these models, thus making us really bad at playing "spot the sonic difference right now and here" game.
Also, please note that the experimenters were using the sounds of speech. Human ears have significantly better resolution and discrimination in the speech spectrum. If a comparison method is not working well with speech, it would not work at all with music.
So the “double blind testing” crowd is worshiping an ABX protocol that was scientifically proven more than 60 years ago to be completely unsuitable for telling similar sounds apart. And they insist all the other methods are “unscientific.”
The irony seems to be lost on them.
Why do so many audiophiles reject blind testing of audio components? - Quora- ...
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PSB speakers are still voiced at NRC. Paradigm used to be based on NRC, then strayed, and now that the founders have bought them again they are returning to that philosophy. Paradigm also has double-blind listening rooms. Ascend is one of the few manufacturers to release a full set of graphs on their speakers, and they strive for "flatness." this is a good post that provides excellent context and background for what this pursuit is about - music reproduction that pleases the listener accuracy in and of itself as an end is besides the point, it is at best a pathway to obtaining beautiful sound reason being that a recorded signal fed through a system is itself usually imperfect, often emasculated, so it typically needs 'help' to get back its glory at time of performance or recording |
Mahgister, you protest way too much. My position is: if you are going to insist that I am incompetent or worse for refusing to spend thousands of dollars on wire even though I discern almost no improvement in sound at all, never mind an improvement that justifies the spending, you will have to prove it to me that I am that incompetent. In the world that I live in, which when last checked is at least tangentially associated with reality, I’m going to insist that the proof be ascertained via blind testing. Full stop. theaudioatticvinylsundays.com |
Mahgister, you protest way too much.You are TOTALLY right... But you misunderstood me COMPLETELY... I dont advocate to buy costly cables at all for example.... I will never buy one... BUT i am interested by this problem of "directed wire" for scientific reason and philosophical one.... "objectivist" obsessed by the cult of measuring tools think that all is measurable by the tools they own or know... "subjectivist" vouch for their costly branded name cables... These debate anyway between these 2 crowds is a debate between children in a schoolyard... But some credible people have listened and give their testimonies for this wire direction difference.... I trusted them...I dont want to bash them with some pseudo science reducing all human perceptions to measuring numbers, nor do i want to justify the pseudo science of cables sellers....Blindtest will not resolve this.... James Randy is not a scientist.... I am interested by audio experience testimonies from expert including those who speak about this difference, true INQUIRING science, and my own experiments....Not by cables marketing.... I hope i have been more clear.... |
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