Archived from groups: rec.audio.high-end (
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BEAR <bearlabs@netzero.net> wrote:
> Steven Sullivan wrote:
> > BEAR <bearlabs@netzero.net> wrote:
> >
> >>Michael Mossey wrote:
> >><snip>
> >>
> >
> > JJ, was also a stone objectivist -- and a tireless champion
> > of bias-controlled listening tests. I kind of doubt you'd have found
> > him supporting your side in most of the threads you've participated in
> > on RAHE.
> >
> Thank you for that input, Steven.
> My side?
> I do not take sides, nor have a side, but if it is easier from your
> perspective to handle, it is sufficient to say that I appreciate
> scientific testing fully - I do not think it has yet has correlated what
> is measurable to what is percieved. Thus, the door is open, not closed.
'What is perceived' is already *known* to run a real risk of being
completely imaginary. So why take it as the reference point?
> > Well, that's one of the larger straw men I've seen put here lately.
> > Congratulations.
> >
> > All the 'objectivists' I've seen accept the possibility of audible
> > difference in any comparison; they merely ask that a *conclusion* of
> > audible difference be properly supported -- a requirement deriving from
> > the bog-standard,utterly uncontroversial existence of perceptual bias.
> On the contrary, the so-called objectivists that I have read on this
> particular forum appear to take a slightly different position - that is
> that they *conclude* that audible differences usually can not be found
> unless they are gross differences, therefore everyone who thinks they
> hear *something* are probably delusional or fooling themselves at best??
Key word is *probably* -- which, as I said, allows for possibility of
audible difference.
> Have you heard of or can you cite any "blind" tests that have produced
> any statistically valid "differences"?? Curious about that too... btw.
Yes, Sean Olive and Floyd Toole perform them routinely on speakers
and listeners at Harman, and have published same. Carlstrom/Kruger's
websotie also lists some positive ABX results, including for amps.
MP3 development is also replete with them.
If you're asking 'where are the positive results for CD transports, cables,
DACs' -- well, that's a good question....where *are* they?
If you're trying to suggest that blind tests always produce null results,
that's simply wrong. If you think about it, they wouldn't be considered
useful at all in perceptual science if they did that.
> > None of them say 'all X sound the same' without some important , and
> > well-supported, qualifications.
> Yeah, ok. Well, Dear Steven, after a year or so away from rahe the song
> remains the same? To take the "devils advocate" position, the so-called
> subjectivists position is that "all X may sound different" with some
> important and well-supported qualification??
Why* would* the 'song' change? The qualifications for 'all X sound the same'
shouldn't change unless new data has come in. It hasn't.
What are the important and well supported qualification for 'all X may sound
different'? Indulge me, please, becayse I've never seen subjectivists qualify
their claims of difference.
> What does all that mean? Nothing.
Actually, the details are crucial.
> > Now, when the audiophile community starts *properly verifying* its claims
> > of difference -- which are rarely qualified in any way. but merely taken
> > as *given* -- then maybe there will be a *point* to taking it
> > seriously.
> Well, are you the final arbiter of that issue then?
Please read the posts in context.
> And, why do you assign ME to have to carry the "cross" of the
> "audiophile community" in the first place??
> "...it ain't me babe, it ain't me you're lookin for babe..." - B. Dylan
Because you apparently choose to carry it, in this particular thread.
> > It's funny that in every other field of discovery, the fact that not
> > everything is known doesn't invalidate what *is* known. That requires
> > actual *good data* which contradicts the current models. The audiophuile
> > community hasn't offered up much of *that* , either.
> Ummm, and neither has the "objectivist" community? Who apparently you
> believe that you are not and the other "objectivists" do not count
> themselves as *part* of the audiophile community??
Well, I agree, objectivists *haven't* offered up data that invalidates current
models of sighted listening as being a terrible way
to ascertain the existence real, yet subtle, audible difference.
Objectivists, in fact, accept that model because of the good data supporting
it.
Subjectivists, on the other hand, haven't offered any good data to
invalidate the model, een though their assumption that sighted
llistening is a valid reference point, *depends* on that model being
invalid.
You're right, I shouldn't have written 'audiophile community'. I usually
stick to 'audiophile culture', which has a different connotation.
> Btw, did I read that you just went to your *first* "hi-fi" show ever,
> Steven?? Congrats if you did. :- )
You did. Thanks. It'll very likely also be my last, unless I go to
CES.
> Outsor, who said anything about "wires"?? Why mention wires? What was
> the reason?
IIRC, you sell audiophile 'wires', do you not? Have you ever
tested them in a scientific way?
> To me (to use a metaphor) this is akin to those who are off to one side
> of the political spectrum calling centrists "lefties"... absurd there,
> and here, imho.
Remember what I said about perception being unreliable?
--
-S
It's not my business to do intelligent work. -- D. Rumsfeld, testifying
before the House Armed Services Committee