Are audio companies all involved in a huge conspiracy? - Page 77

Too busy flogging my women and slaves.

Our biases tend to cause us to perceive what we want to believe. Mirages in the desert always seem to be of lakes where there is really dry sand, and not dry sand where there is a lake. When we read we tend to read what we want to be told even when this is different from the clear meaning of the words. Smart politicians don't need to lie to people, they just say things that allow people to hear what they want to believe.

 

Why don't you just research it and find the thousands of ABX tests that were mentioned?  Arny provided you with a link to a paper that confirms it and I provided a link to a web page where there were about 50 tests conducted all with the same result. There isn't some sort of worldwide conspiracy going on here - the truth is that when ABX tests are done, the result is invariably the same - people canot hear any differences between the amps under test. You have had a quoted comment from Richard Clarke himself who has been involved in ABX tests for years and he confirms the conclusion that the others have also confirmed.

 

I suspect you keep asking to see literally thousands of ABX test results before you will be satisfied because you know nobody is going to post such a list and that enables you to duck out of answering a single question asked of you. And I suspect you want to duck out of answering because you actually have no answers.

 

LOL!  Those are terrific - and so apt. As you read the descriptions a lot of names immediately come to mind - especially so of the filibuster one where reams of cut and paste are used as a weapon of attrition. Thanks for posting the links.

There are many more than those three, but I thought they were the best for this particular thread. I like to review the whole list of "flame warriors" on a regular basis, both to catch new entries and to catch myself so I don't behave too much one of them myself (well, except perhaps the kung-fu master, lol). These archetypes ring true because in large part they are.

 

I just spent more time than I have ATM reading a good selection from the list. They are very accurate observations! 

I can't find something which doesn't exist. The link that was provided does not claim that thousands of negative DBT had been conducted. There is nothing to support that claim.... anywhere. The claim should therefore be amended. Expecting me to scour the internet to support your own claims, sir, is just not good form.

*tips hat*

 

OK - suppose I say that there are hundreds of tests?  Will that satisfy you?  How about 50?  I have already linked you to a site which has results for about 50 tests. The real point is that whether there are 50 tests, 100 tests, 1000 tests or more - the results are invariably the same: people cannot reliably tell the difference between unit A and unit B. This is likely to be the case no matter how many tests are conducted, in the same way that we can test a coin toss 100 times, 1000 times or 1,000,000 times and the answer will always be the same: roughly 50 heads and 50 tails.

 

I suspect no answer I give will be acceptable to you, because if it is, then you will, by your own admission, have to start providing the answers to the numerous questions asked of you. In order to avoid answering you fall back on this lame argument that we are lying to you. Why?  Because you don't actually have any answers, are not prepared to come into this with an open mind, blindly ignore all factual arguments put to you and prefer to repeat yourself ad infinitum. Anything to avoid having to provide evidence to defend your own position. You cited ONE test that allegedly supported your position yet you demand from me that I provide thousands of such tests. Well, I have provided 50 to your 1, so how about some of the answers now?

The skeptic's role is just to doubt the believers and to insist on rationality and good evidence. He doesn't owe any answers.

 

That would be fine except for the fact that he has said he WILL answer questions posed to him but only when a list of 1000+ ABX tests is provided, which he knows isn’t going to happen, so it makes a nice shield to hide behind.

 

As for rationality and good evidence, he has had plenty of both provided to him, which he ignores or rebuts, but never giving any good reasons for doing either.

 

Demanding certain standards from others while feeling free to not apply them to onself - hmm, there's a word for that and it has been used recently. I won't repeat it because I try not to use personal arguments or attacks.

Sure, I accept that there may be 50 published negative tests, perhaps more, although there is a difference between 50 and 1000 negative reports. That number was made out of THIN AIR. The egregious assumption is that based on a small sample size ALL DBTs will result in the same null outcome. That's just faulty logic.

You could quite literally assert that 100000 DBTs will produce negative results without actually providing any evidence of it. How convenient. It's just highly presumptuous to make those kinds of claims. It really is speculation on your part - no facts, no evidence, but speculation. From the same sample of tests you extrapolate that null results are the only outcome, as if it were the default position.

Sorry, but that just isn't good enough. What questions do you ask of me anyway? All I want is for people to shoulder their claims, not make hypothetical he-said-she-said claims, but actual references that show what you claim. Otherwise no one has to believe any of it. And if I can't for any reason shoulder my own claims that does not, in ANY way strengthen your own position.
Edited by Heinrich S - 3/14/13 at 7:16am

 

It's not speculation - it is extrapolation. Go back to the coin toss - sample of one person (me), I toss the coin 50 times. Result is 47/53 heads to tails. I can do that a million times and it won't affect the result because there are only two outcomes and statistically it is as likely to be heads as it is tails. In an ABX test, there are only two outcomes too - 1 that the testee can hear a difference and 2 that the testee cannot hear a difference. Given that in all the ABX tests I have read about the result is very close to 50-50, what does that tell you?  Suppose you do just one test with 5 people involved and you get that result. You then repeat the test another 10 times, with any number of people you like and you STILL get that result - what does that tell you?  After 50 such tests, you are still getting the same result - see a trend here?  Why would you expect the next 50 tests to produce a different result? What would you do - keep going for 1,000 tests or 100,000 tests until you get the answer you want - that 80% could hear a difference and on;y 20% couldn't?  And if you do that, you have 1 anomalous result out of thousands, so what does that tell you?

 

You can argue this for ever (seems like you will) but the fact is that in all the ABX tests conducted, there is never a case where one unit is clearly discerned as different from the other unit in any statistically meaningful way. What does that tell you?  Does it a) tell you that there is no discernible difference between the amps or b) that the tests must all be wrong?

That's a role reversal. He isn't playing the part of skeptic, just trying to frame his arguments in that fashion as a deflection.

Sure it does. Science and logic support the null position. Controlled tests, however many there are, support the null position.

The opposing claim is quite extraordinary. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. If you are unable to supply any, the null position becomes all the more likely.

I can not believe that ALL amplifiers sound the same, under a load they can handle. This quote is from "The Carver Challenge" : "Carver claims that the original, unmodified 1.0 amplifier had been designed to sound “the way he wanted it to.” If, in fact, he could make it sound any way he wished, as seemed to be proven with his success in this experiment, why then did he elect to go with a typical mid-fi “solid-state sound” instead of emulating the sound [of] one of the best-sounding solid-state or tubed amplifiers on the market?"

If a designer can make his amplifier sound different, maybe even artificially (say to boost bass), then two amps will sound different. If you're arguing PURE theory, that two identical designs will sound the same, then I concur. So maybe every Yamaha sounds like every Denon and every Sony. But does every McIntosh sound like every Yamaha? Possibly, or possibly the McIntosh designers know that they are usually mated with a certain type of speaker (say electrostatics) and modify their design to sound better with that type of speaker design. There are too many combinations to say EVERY amp sounds like EVERY amp.

A painter can make the sky green and the grass blue if that's his aesthetic choice, but that doesn't make it accurate and true to life. An amplifier should do only one thing: Amplify a pre-existing signal into a larger version of that same precise signal. Timing of peaks and valleys along with relative magnitude should be preserved to a high degree of fidelity. Departure from this ideal is a defect, as far as I'm concerned.

As far as posting a link to a third party verification of every DBT conducted, enough with the charade. Clark alone says he performed this test at least hundreds of times. Most of these were witnessed and have been commented on in various articles, papers, forums, etc. I'm not willing to call everyone who has personally witnessed these tests, including some on this very forum, liars just because all the details for every single test don't meet the standards for peer reviewed publication. There have been several other tests written about in various magazine articles mentioned in this thread many of those also covering numerous subjects in each test. I have personally conducted tests that included a total of several dozen subjects over the years. Many other such independently conducted tests are documented in years of posts on sites/forums like matrixhifi and hydrogenaudio. I see no need to call them all liars. Thousands? Sure. Will anyone ever turn up links and detailed publication worthy documentation for each? Of course not. No one claimed to be able to do that.

You on the other hand claimed to be able to produce such documentation for positive tests and failed to produce even one.

You say small sample size, but even just the well documented tests dwarf the sample size of positive tests, that being zero. Extraordinary claims require more proof than zero. On the other hand, science and logic supported claims are perfectly happy with the amount of supporting evidence that has been documented.

As logical as that may sound, unfortunately it is not true. If we could tell what a tester had * heard*, the game would be over as we would know with 100% certainty what is audible! Alas, we can't. We don't have ESP and hence no knowledge of what the person heard. What we know is how they voted. Those are not the same things although very well could be.

A good example is the DVD Forum double blind tests to determine the high definition video codec for HD DVD (which later became that of Blu-ray). In that test, a number of codecs were being tested against the original in a side-by-side display of the original on one side and the one under test, on the other. In the mix was also the original itself as a control. The scale was something like 1 to 5. The original got a score of ~4.7 or something like it. Clearly no tester "saw" a difference between it and the original because by definition it was the same file. What then explains the difference? One of two things occurred: the tester imagined seeing a difference. Or more likely, he saw no difference but gave it a low score anyway under the assumption that all the samples were degraded and he did not want to be the only schmuck who didn't see it!

The story gets better. In one test, one of the codecs actually scored higher than the reference itself!

Human psychology and bias is at play even in double blind tests. And males can be terrible this way and corrupt test results as they tend to want to "win" any competition to find the right answer. I hope one day we can discover what you say: the ability to determine what is being heard. We have to get the person voting out of the equation. This is why if we can show something with measurement and math, it is much more preferable than relying on tests where we can't as easily as above determine incorrect voting.

How 'bout you just use some common sense? No scouring required.

We know the limits of human hearing and the sensitivities within those limits on a large enough scale to establish max and minimum capabilities. So when equipment that exceeds those capabilities by leaps and bounds proves there is no audible signal change between amp A & amp B, that isn't good enough proof? The counter to that is subjective sighted evaluation? C'mon.

I couldn't agree more. However, isn't the argument going on that "All amplifiers sound the same?"

No. Some minimum requirements must be met.

That is true, but at least you're removing a variable to help reduce impact of that bias. Add in X and require multiple identifications and you further reduce the bias factor IMO. I'd assume there's a mathematical point where bias can be ruled out if there truly are no differences or vice versa.

The world has become an ethically confusing place, but I think that today, that's okay as long as they flog you later . . .

No doubt the opportunity to arrive at the wrong results using sighted testing is profound. My comment therefore is not in regards to abandoning blind testing due to the flaws that remain. But rather, making sure that we understand their true nature and hence, confidence in their results. While statistical analysis is a useful tool as you correctly mention, it is not sufficient (I can tell you stories about that too ). I like to see more innovations in how we test. A good example was given in page two of this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1425262/are-audio-companies-all-involved-in-a-huge-conspiracy/30#post_22324231. I personally have much less interest in knowing how two ancient amps in an ABX test were thought to be performing the same, especially when the results were not independently audited and verified, than having lots of newer data showing if an amp puts out something different than what is input to it as the reference test there may be showing.

Heinrich, at some point you said something to the effect that you made a component change that resulted in a an audible change which, by your understanding of DBT's an such, ought to have made no difference. Unless you're willing to disclose what the components were, what audible perceptions you noted and the conditions, what is the point of railing so strenuously? No one is looking to arbitrarily cut you down verbally. However, without understanding the specifics of where you're coming from, everything is quite in the dark. Now, if you've already presented this, then perhaps you can point me and others so your perspective can be understood.

Chu Gai, I think my perceptions will be ridiculed because that is precisely the pattern of play here. Certain key members will try and tear it apart, call me ignorant or whatever - I just don't see the merit in trying to convince others at this point especially when their own biases have steered them in a different direction. I don't think it is fair for one side to proclaim victory because the past indicated null results and therefore all DBTs on a global scale will result in a negative outcome.

No one knows how the tests were conducted, no one knows the state of mind that the listeners were in, no one can tell if the conditions of the test may have adversely affected the listeners short of having some form of telekinesis, which we don't have. Bias also exists in a DBT, how the test was set up may not have been perfect, it may not have allowed the listener the best possible chance to hear audible differences. Listener training in such conditions may have been poor to nonexistent - we just don't know any of these things, but the objectivists just take the null results as concrete evidence that no differences could be discerned and therefore apply it on a global scale. That is not only illogical, it's just plain unreasonable.

What would convince me? If testing were more in-depth, perhaps more comprehensive and more controlled. Independent verification to ensure quality control, to ensure that the test conditions were not set up in a way to result in a null result. I won't accept the results willy nilly as some objective truth that apples to all people in all situations. The fallacy is suggesting that I will forever deny the results which is untrue. If more detailed information on these tests were available it would be a good thing but we don't have much of anything which is certainly not reassuring.
Edited by Heinrich S - 3/14/13 at 12:22pm

I suspect that an AES member could ge thold f more than one peeer reviewed paper describing such test(s).

There is, for some of us, a kind of sense that tif there are differences they CAN'T be huge or they'd show up in blind listening tests. Maybe 10 or 100 times the expenditure for the last 1% makes some sense to somebody but for the last .0001%, maybe not so much.

Doubtless few of us are really acute listeners. I know with certainty that for any speaker that uses non-coincidental tweeters (ie not mounted in the center of the woofer) the frequency response MUST change as our point on a vertical axis changes, because the wavelengths are short enough that angle and distance can change whether the woofer and tweeter add or subtract at any given frequency. I can't remember EVER noticing a change in sound as I sat, or stood or outerwise changed my vertical-axis position vis-a-vis any speaker. My WAG is that this is culturally related. I've grown up, all my life, hearing those kinds of "normal"speakers, both cheap and expensive, both loud and soft, both consumer level and pro. I suspect that my brain simply ignores those changes because it has "learned" they are meaningless. But for all I know, there's some other mechanism at play. But I don't disbelieve folks who say that they CAN hear the differences (these are very clearly measurable) that occur across the vertical axis in the upper midrange of typical speakers. I know it is there, so I am not surprised that they hear it. I just don't for whatever reason.

This also makes an amazing assumption - that our current amplification technology is near perfect. Future amplifiers should not be tested because they sound the same as everything preceding it.

I have no intention of ridiculing you. If you want to take it to PM, that's fine.

Not necessarily. It just assumes that current amplification technology has approached a level where the differences between well-constructed systems are smaller than the smallest differences that are apparent to human hearing. What is so amazing about believing that after many decades of careful study and engineering we wind up ahead of biological systems? There is nothing particularly new about this. Airplanes go faster and farther than birds, cars go faster and farther than horses, guns do more damage at a greater distance than claws, and bulldozers move more earth in less time than a colony of any burrowing animal you might care to name.