I see the issue with ABX blind testing

So, someone needs to achieve a 92% rate of success in your test before you consider it a pass? 

You're a hard grader.  People are bombed based on "Confident" as there's no way to be absolutely certain unless you can see the person you want to bomb. 

By the way, Paul McGowan went through something similar when a friend came over and asked him if he could hear a difference, not knowing what was being changed and when it actually was changed, he was correct in all of his assessments. His friend was swapping out a fuse away from Paul as he sat and he couldn't see what was going on, let alone what his friend was doing. 

That really pissed off the measurement crowd. So much for parlor tricks.

All the best,
Nonoise

The human brain can retain & compare audio for about a fraction of a second. If it takes 5-10 minutes, or even 1 minute to swap cables, your ability to remember what you heard and compare it with what you're hearing now is effectively zero. 

I remember the Pink Floyd concert I saw in Raleigh, NC back in 1988 perfectly.  They sounded great.  I don‘t remember what I had for dinner last week.

The human brain can retain & compare audio for about a fraction of a second. If it takes 5-10 minutes, or even 1 minute to swap cables, your ability to remember what you heard and compare it with what you're hearing now is effectively zero. 

Don't believe me? Take this test... 

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

First :i could not pass this test at all because i never listen and will never listen seriously this pop song studio mixing soup to begin with...😁

Second : we must use a music we know perfectly well to do any test and do it in our own room system...😊

Third :the brain conscious memory of a couples of bit of sound is short in milliseconds yes...

But the unconscious emotional body who had memory engrams of the music we love and know is very powerful and i use it all along my tuning of my room ...it is not a conscious act but a feeling of the body...A reaction about what is good for me or what is bad... this memory endure and is related to long pieces of music we learned deeply in our known acoustic environment ... A change in sound here will be detected.

Reality is more complex than any techno-cultist ideology ...😊

But from what I can see the benefit, if there is one, will be most noticeable system wide. In other words, just switching one power cable the way I did before won’t be sufficient for you to tell a difference... again, assuming there is one. So I need my friend to swap power cables for my amp/preamp & streamer, XLR cables from my streamer to my preamp, preamp to amp & speakers cables. That takes a good 5-10 minutes. There is no way my brain is retaining what I previously heard and then comparing it to what I currently hear.

 

@dwcda

Why the hell would i pain someone to swap every cable in the rig?? We do one cable at a time. For example, i passed the swaps 25/25 times between a SVS speaker cable and the AQ Thunderbird (not too long ago), both of which i own, etc.

@nonoise

You’re a hard grader. People are bombed based on "Confident" as there’s no way to be absolutely certain unless you can see the person you want to bomb.

Who said passing blindtests was easy? I only run blindtests on specific material i know very well. I subject to being the guinea pig with a couple of violin pieces i know very well. I am a hobbyist violin player of 40+ years and I don’t attempt blind tests on other material.

My friend’s a sax player (professional musician). I test him on his material that’s embedded all inside of him! The third guy’s an African artist (golden ear bat/professional musician) and there’s specific material he goes with, when he’s the subject. It’s only the 3 of us, we live close to each other and I don’t do it with others. These 2 cats have passed their respective tests with flying colors.

Having said that, I am fairly certain that the 3 of us might be pulling teeth on some tests, if the treatments in my room were taken away. Having a high resolution room is critical. The rigor and training a test subject may have went through in life (a specific instrument/sound) can matter a lot because these can be very subtle changes.

The cable denying hardliners (ASR types) may dismiss these 2 guys and myself as anomalies (treat us as datapoints that can be discarded), if we are 3 out of 50 test subjects, i suppose. If that’s the case, so be it...I don’t need to convince anyone of anything. All is well in the world.

@deep_333 Good to hear you only use material you're intimately familiar with.  Most other ABXers I've encountered on this site, online and in mags don't feel that way.  

I, too, primarily use music I know inside and out from repeated listening when swapping cables, listening for the cues I know to exist. Only on unfamiliar or casually listened to music can I be tempted to like something when trying out some of my lessor cables. I'll leave them in for a while only to have that sense of missing something and swap back in my references cables and presto, change-o, everything is right with the world. What I viewed as romantic and full was smeared and undefined. 

For me, the patently obvious changes are not to be dismissed, discarded, or passed off as some fancy of my imagination. Yes, all is well in the world. 

All the best,
Nonoise