Why is Double Blind Testing Controversial?

A): The audible differences between cables is usually smaller than audiophiles report (though I believe they are there); and B): Short-term memory is indeed just a few moments long and not sufficient for such tests even when the switching is immediate. (If you're using a continuous piece of music then you haven't heard the part after the switch with the first configuration so there is effectively no comparison. If you're switching back to the beginning of the test music at the switch, then there is a time lag of at least the duration of the snippet of music you heard). So given that human short-term memory is only moments long, blind and double-blind tests are inherently flawed and fairly useless -- unless the differences really are "night and day".

I largely agree with TWL that objectivists use double-blind testing as an excuse not to spend more money, while deluding themselves that they can't do any better.

Having started this thread, I will weigh in with a comment. First, I can't understand how Judit can flatly say that DBT "serves no useful purpose." I DBT'd cables using a Marantz 8300 DVD-A/SACD/CD player (this has two L/R outs so cables can be directly compared back to back, and also has coax and optical digital outs to compare those). The result was that by keeping everything else in the system constant, we were able to listen for differences between the IC's we compared (Audioquest Python vs. Tributaries SCA 150 and Nordost Red Dawns). We were also able to identify the sonic characteristics of each cable. Some of the differences between the Pythons and the Red Dawns were subtle, but readily identifiable. I found the ability to DBT invaluable. I then put both cables into my system for a while to get a "feel" for each over time and many different LP's and CD's. I certainly don't say that DBT is the be-all and end-all of decision-making, but it is difficult to say that it serves no useful purpose. I am waiting to DBT cables several steps up from the Pythons and see what a huge expense in $$ buys in identifiable differences! I think Redkiwi is also correct in saying that sonic differences do not necessarily translate to more musical enjoyment.

I have had Elmuncy's experience many times: noticing a dramatic change when I first put in a new component, only to have the improvement slip away after a time.

That said, I hasten to add that I have Valhalla speaker cables in my system and find them consistently miraculous. I've not done a blind test with them, but I should and would be willing to certainly. Blind testing may be bogus for all I know, but why do people seem so afraid of it? Methinks thou dost...

One piece of empirical "evidence" I have collected: when you go around the rooms at a show, is it the tweaks and little things that make the difference? If Valhalla, just to pick on that product, is so transformational, then I would expect the rooms using it would, generally speaking, be the better sounding rooms. Or perhaps the rooms with the Aurios MIB devices, or the Hydras, or the Sistrum stands, or the demagnetized CDs, etc. etc. Hell, even the rooms with the Audio Aero CD players.

Of course there are many variables that contribute to the sound of a system, particularly at a show, but my experience has been that the gross components, not the tweaks, account for a lion's share of the overall sound. And the little things, those things that we audiophiles so often proclaim to have DRAMATIC effects on our systems, amount pretty much to squat in the overall sense we get of a system when we first hear it. (Yes, I know this reasoning is shaky: even a great pair of speakers can sound wonderful in one room and dreadful in another.)

I think there is something going on, some way in which tiny, incremental changes in our own systems appear greatly magnified to us, magnified out of proportion. Sometimes I think it is change itself that suggests improvement. Ever had the experience of going back to something you had long since decided was dogmeat, only to find that--hey--this thing is good, what was I thinking?

Still, I'm not getting rid of my Valhalla. But I did dump the Hydra.

Sad, isn't it?

I once blind tested a Ford and a Chevy. With the Ford I bounced off a cop car, hit a little old lady in a crosswalk-- she survived, and ended the test by crashing into a garbage truck. The Chevy was much better in most respects, I only killed a dog and the test administrator was taken away in a straight jacket. When released from prison I bought the Chevy, which was then 5 years old but the radio still worked and the car was well broken in. Anyway, this experience caused me to be skeptical of blind testing. My loss I suppose. Cheers. Craig