Re: Sierra-1 NRT vs Towers. No comparison??? A friend got me thinking.
Not really... They're testing to see if people can or can't hear a difference under blind conditions. The same people who fail the blind listening tests are usually the ones who claim that the differences are blatantly obvious, until you remove the bias/placebo and then they find themselves unable to differentiate a 300$ and a 20000$ amplifier...Originally Posted by phlw
It's not so much to test if a person is able to hear the differences, more to find out (test) if two pieces of electronics are distinguishable under blind conditions; when people don't know which they're listening to and can't be fooled by things like bias and placebo. It's to test whether listeners are really able to reliably differentiate the 'sound' of two amps for instance.
Well I did mention Tom Nousaine's tests in a quote... Or the guy who thought he was listening to a crap amp and started to denigrate it when it was in fact his own Bryston playing... But anyway. Performance anxiety is rather moot imho. Let's say you were nervous, would you fail a test to distinguish a red from a blue ball? Probably not... green and red? Nope... It would be easy because they would look very different.The fact that a person knows that he/she is being evaluated on their accuracy to pick out the better electronics is a placebo effect in itself that distorts the study (read Test Anxiety).
What if the balls were really closely matched though, pure red for one while the other had a very subtle hint of yellow, making the colors barely distinguishable... One person could claim that the difference is very obvious, and the one with the label "pure red" is indeed pure red and that it's obvious that the other color isn't pure red. But can he really or does he just imagine it? Can he really tell those two colors apart? He claims he can, how can we know? Blind test or DBT
By removing the label identifying the colors and shuffling the balls, it would be easy to see if the person really could. Nervous or non-nervous he should be able to do do so. If they're really different it would be easy to tell them apart, but if they're very similar then then the person might not be able to correctly identify the 'pure' red... If the person could reliably(statistically) correctly identify the pure red, bang, we know he can and we know the colors are different, case closed. If not, it wouldn't mean there's no difference, just that people couldn't tell them apart when they didn't know which was which beforehand; when bias/placebo was removed. In that case, you could easily conclude that their color was closely matched or at least very similar.
That's what seems to be going on with audio and amps. One sells a 500$ 'pure' red ball and everyone loves the pure red color, while others sell a 50$ non-pure red ball and everyone hates it because it's not pure red and it's really not as red as the other... Yet nobody can tell them apart if their colors are not clearly labeled! lol That's audio my friend... So no, imho, it's not performance anxiety, it's just two things which are indistinguishable from one another under blind conditions because they basically sound exactly the same...
Yeah these tests are very common and have been done, and they reach the same conclusions... Read up on the Matrix-hifi or other blind tests, very common.A better test would be either...
A) The person sitting in their own living room relaxing with a shot of fine scotch and nobody around.
or
B) A study with people that could care less about audio or the outcome.
Yeah they often do.. If an amp is tested, the volume is via pre which is often the same for both power amps. Most tests have details on test procedure, and the people who actually bother to do the tests make sure that the test is adequate because they know that if not they're simply wasting their time, so they make it as 'fair' and agreeable as possible.2) I know this is cheating when trying to normalize out variables in a test, but the test taker should have full use of the volume control at all times. This is more realistic to the listening environment.
Anyhow, audio is very much like religion, where you have some people who believe and you have people who don't. The data is there, the tests/proofs are there, yet, some people want to continue to believe one way or another. Some (snakeoil vendors for instance) have interest in pushing the myths just like church has pushing the religion.
There are so many similarities it's scary. When an 'audiophile' is told that his 10000$ amp doesn't sound any better than a 200$ special, they are basically shocked, offended, angry and reject the possibility. How could this person be wrong! He heard the differences so clearly! This is impossible, and they simply reject and refuse to believe it, they even refuse to consider it! Just impossible! It reminds me of this man right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VaBCikHGs Was he an audiophile and told his overpriced amp isn't better than a budget amp, he would say the same thing, he can't afford to make such error in his audio hobby, if it sounded the same he would never have purchased the amp, so of course it sounds different and the 10000$ amp is so much better! It just HAS to be!
People who think they can hear difference most definitely believe amps do not sound the same. But in many cases it's placebo/bias (interesting read if you're not familiar with them, lots of info to be found with google!) they are mistaken/imagining things. But anyhow, as I said, some amps are still better than others. Some can't drive 2-4 ohms speakers, some will clip sooner, some have higher THD&N, some have a skewed FR and act as an EQ, some have different features, maybe a better/worst crossover for the sub, EQ, etc. So not all amps sound the same, but proficient amps do, because they all do the same thing well; amplify an electrical signal.
And even again, in audio, take tube amps which unarguably have more distortion than solid state... How many people prefer tubes? How many prefer vinyls? Sigh...
I bet you 10$ no DBT, and only subjective opinion; placebo/bias error prone test
I think this simply supports my point... If you walked down the street for a few hours, you could probably find a handful of people who have recently seen Jesus or Elvis... People who claim to be able to hear differences between amps, cd players, DACs, etc., are many, but how many have ever bothered to test out their theories/beliefs? If someone posted that he saw Elvis with his own eyes in a bar 3 days ago, would that sway your opinion on the death of Elvis?
I'm not saying you're wrong, there could have very well been differences between the amps you've tested, or, there might have been none and you were simply mistaken; placebo/bias. It would only have been human... And there is the rub and the whole point. It's why blind tests exist and why people who care about the validity of their beliefs do DBTs.
I remember reading a stereophile review of some very high end speakers and the measurements found glaring faults in the speaker, and the reviewer mentioned that the speakers were designed by ear. Well there you go. Sounded fantastic to the speaker designer, but turns out it was actually 'crap' according to the measurements. You just can't rely on your ears/brain to identify minute differences between for instance 2 amps or drivers/woofers/croosovers/cdplayers/etc. Even if 2 things are exactly the same, you're likely to hear differences...
That's why DBTs exist, to remove bias and placebo... So that you can validate your listening results in a way that you can say with certainty that you are absolutely sure that you really did hear differences and weren't simply mistaken or imagining differences where there are none...
But not all amps sound the same ex: http://home.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_pwr.htm fact of the matter is that technically most amps measurements/specs indicate that they should sound the same and they do... Audiophile amps to me are largely like supernatural claims. People claim to be able to read minds or find water using sticks of wood or whatnot, and really believe they do, yet, when tested with a bit of rigor, all those supernatural powers surprisingly vanish, and the people are always so quick to find many excuses of why their supernatural powers failed.
I guess amps are a bit touchy because some do sound different... I personally don't know which is good/bad and which sound the same or different.. According to DBTs, most amps from big name companies should be more than decent. But who knows... sigh
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