Amir and Blind Testing
Let me start by saying I like watching Amir from ASR, so please let’s not get harsh or the thread will be deleted. Many times, Amir has noted that when we’re inserting a new component in our system, our brains go into (to paraphrase) “analytical mode” and we start hearing imaginary improvements. He has reiterated this many times, saying that when he switched to an expensive cable he heard improvements, but when he switched back to the cheap one, he also heard improvements because the brain switches from “music enjoyment mode” to “analytical mode.” Following this logic, which I agree with, wouldn’t blind testing, or any A/B testing be compromised because our brains are always in analytical mode and therefore feeding us inaccurate data? Seems to me you need to relax for a few hours at least and listen to a variety of music before your brain can accurately assess whether something is an actual improvement. Perhaps A/B testing is a strawman argument, because the human brain is not a spectrum analyzer. We are too affected by our biases to come up with any valid data. Maybe.
Posting something like this which is the opposite of what’s in the link, imbues you with what, pray tell? A silly sense of accomplishment? All the best, |
This has gone assbackwards the device under test is the listener not a DAC, amp, whatever. The measurements have shown no difference in two devices say DACs, person makes claim to hear differences, the ABX is for the person not the DAC. If the person can pick one DAC from the other better than chance, which is where statistics enter, then his claim is taken seriously and viewed as objective not subjective nonsense about blacker blacks and wider soundstages. If a company wants to show their fuse, cable, smear on goop, DAC etc.... affects the sound then the type of blind tests being discussed using sufficient people shown to have excellent hearing etc.. would be conducted by a third party to avoid company influences. Not that any of these companies that claim this stuff will ever do them. |
A sound proposed in a blind test, and disconnected from the listener room historical intimate soundfield and proposed to be evaluated in a testing unknown room alien soundfield with a different relation with the speakers/system used cannot prove anything certain about the alleged difference claim by the listener... Why? Because the interpretation of a sound difference is ALWAY different coming from system differences in the test, or coming from the speakers/room specific differences for example... The way a dac translate a specific soundfield from a recording trade-off set and propose it through a specific system FOR another room soundfield is completely specific and always vary...The difference between sound coming from gear in different room conditions can even be huge... My dac cannot be judged to stay the same after changing the room compared to before for example and this is also true of my amplifier, cables, speakers, they give something which is the same by virtue of their designed qualities but in a complete different way when i modify the A./P.A. conditions..... I myself could not be able to detect all differences i can detect in my room with my gear transported in other acoustic conditions ... I know that WITHOUT blind test and with a CONTINUOUS Listening experience where the affective and acoustic cues are never disconnected and where my memory then can goes on working...it is how i tuned my room....ANY CHANGE CAN BE DETECTED, even sometimes a single straw acting like an Helmhotlz diffuser or a single straw variable perimeter and lenght working as the neck of an Helmholtz resonators.... But mark my word here, I have ORDINARY hearing ability in my age group by the way but an history of listening experiments for years in MY ROOM which explain how and why i can did what i did... Then mocking me with the false claim that i pretend to have bat ears is BESIDE MY POINT.... Proposing to test me by blind test make no sense at all....We learn to hear in some condition and with particular tools or instruments and devices...This is this content we learned to identify not by superpower but by learned habits in a KNOWN context with familiar sound/speech/files/albums... Blind test prove nothing generally in an audiophile tool fetichist deconstructing context... But those using these blind test to debunk some product are , like the opposite group those who promote these same products in the same gear fetichist war FORGETTING acoustic/ psycho-acoustic (A./P.A.) conditions and science... But when this is said, i dont think that Amirm measures are useless, not at all, but used by his disciples cohort of fetichist tool measured specs, which are not an absolute anyway, they go and stay in an audio dead end, ... In the same way audiophile focusing on the brand name gear goes in a dead end forgetting the relation between A./A.P. to idolize the gear piece overestimating his power contribution to the final S.Q. experience and undersestimating completely the crucial relation of the gear with A/P.A. conditions ... Prove me wrong... It is my personal experience i dont pretend to be a scientist, but i learn something in the last years in my room... 😁😊 The difference between piece of well designed gear in the same bracket of the S.Q./price ratio EXIST but are way less diffrence than the improvement make on them by putting them in the right acoustical embeddings settings... The diffrence here is HUGE....This is true for all piece of gear at ny porice tag... No speakers beat the room like said some unknown acoustician... This is true for a dac, an amplifier and for any piece of connected gear in the system...
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prof
Is this just like how you want to imagine that every person in the world has the same hearing? Might the following article might help you? Scientific Study - not imagination Search the net and you will find many more scientific articles - not "religious" articles, as you mentioned. Then there is the wax build up, hearing loss, genetics, etc.
Fortunately I do not fall in that group. I use my ears for listening. And the brain translates that into emotions. Eyes are great to see the numbers and study the equipment. But what we hear dictates our preference and that translates to emotions we experience. If a scientific study cannot convince you that we all hear differently then only Amir can help you. Good luck. |
