Clever Little Clock - high-end audio insanity?

Russ: Thanks for reminding us of that fact, I must have forgotten it because I did read that thread several days ago. I think you are correct however in assuming that the anecdote doesn't really contradict my argument on this point, because the test subjects were informed what it was they were auditioning, and a combination of lucky guesses and a predisposition to 'dislike' the Clock for whatever reason could have resulted in the observed response from this individual, which of course must be taken as just a part of the much greater number of subjects who couldn't demonstrate that they heard anything and/or claimed they couldn't as well. I think longer-term trials by people actually laying down their own money for the Clock would be more reliable at indicating whether unintended real effects were a strong possibility, same as with any other gear, and so far I've seen none reported by that group.

BTW, I agree very much (in principle -- in reality, I can't say that I really care! :-) with your idea of doing the next trial without announcing what's being tested, or maybe even that there's a test taking place. Another good idea from my perspective would be to conduct that exact same test as you did the first time, except under false pretenses with no Clock actually present at all. Then I think the best wrap-up would be to do a fully-sighted test with the Clock being in play.

I think our members are clocked out, but I think I'll probably do something to take the clock in and out without anyone knowing and see if anyone notices. We've got a speaker manufacturer demoing and I don't want to steal his spotlight. I have done the test sighted with two of our members, neither of whom heard a difference but both of whom were quite skeptical about such a device, to put it mildly.

Rcprince, heard a difference or heard an improvement?

Tbg, the two who took the sighted test heard no difference with the clock in or out of the house. In the NJAS test, I as the tester was the only one who knew when the clock was in or out of the system, and asked people to tell me if there was a change, not whether there was an improvement or not, though several members did put down their subjective impressions of any change they heard.

In both of these tests, there was a definite negative bias against the clock making a difference, though people were asked to keep an open mind. A far better test would be where a single subject is alone in a room listening to music and asked to tell if there were any difference in the sound of the system from time to time without knowing what was being tested or changed, if anything, in the system.

Rcprince, is there a lingering presence of the CLC? How did you deal with this? As I understand it, this was why there was no demonstration at CES. I had hoped there would be.