Why Do So Many Audiophiles Reject Blind Testing Of Audio Components?

In blindtest to detect DIFFERENCE in sound working with the short term memory is the best yes...

But a difference in sound is an IMPROVEMENT or a DEGRADATION in some direction relative to many aoustical cues at the same time : timbre spectral evenlope, timbre time envelope, imaging, soundstage, dynamic, LEV/ASW ratio, reverberation time, and others acoustical cues relating to the head/torso relation to each speaker for each ears... Then to detect if a difference will be qualified good or bad we need TIME and the detection must be made in a KNOWN acoustical environment with a known musical cues...

To evaluate these changes only relatively long listening session linked to the body/feeling/ brain memory make sense in the acoustical room/ speakers TUNING direction..

We have very short term memory of sound yes but also a body memory linked to emotions associated with past sound long term experiences... It is why hearing sounds must be learned in acoustic and music....The long term memory is not a direct storage of the sound but a feeling engrammation related to the sound...

This acoustic feeling is what a musician use to qualify a sound/music well done... Perfect pitch hearing is another matter...Most musician must learn to reproduce and recognize pitch...They learn how to feel it...And the feeling associated with the tone nevermind the timbre is memorized...It is why a minor chord or a major chord own different feeling meaning...Joy or sadness for example...

 

 

By the way i studied practical acoustic in my room for the last 2 years, i discovered that we dont understand what sound really is...i say that but i am not a scientist for sure...It is my informed opinion based on my listening experiments...

Acoustic is a marvellous very complex field and philosophically super deep....

For example sound is not a wave but the wave is the image of the resonant body source....

For sure without air wave there is no sound hearing, but air also make possible fire but the air are not the fire but a cause of his qualitative manifestation.. To hear sound we need a resonant qualified body to be the source interacting though air wave with our ears ...To have fire we need a combusting matter interacting with air and our feeling body called that "hot".......

Human ears/brain are able to detect QUALITATIVE information from the resonant sound source by the mediation of the wave image...Like blind people use waves image trough a resonant echo to reconstruct without eyes the environment geometry and the object matter various densities around them ...

 

There is an acoustic signature of a room by itself, by virtue of his vibrating body...

All rooms differ...Even if i tune them, why?

For the same reason that the vibrating body of all violins differ from one another for an educated ear even when they are tuned by the musician himself... They always differ and this difference i call it yes their acoustic signature, their timbre ...

Then the 2 rooms like the 2 violins will produce the same musical tonal playing but with a different sound timbre perception, so subtle the difference could be and will be, the difference will stay...

This is the reason that we only know how sound an audio system in some specific conditions when we tune it ourself with the chosen room ...If we listen to it in another acoustic conditions , it will not change completely for sure, because like for the room which will sound different before and after his tuning , the audio system has his own internal acoustic signature which will express itself differently in different room ... It is his "timbre" expression so to speak...Like a human body can play the same tone than any other body but with a unique timbre expression...

This is the reason why there is no absolute room and no absolutely perfect gear system...No absolute timbre perception either...Perfect hearing of perfect pitch is not the same phenomenon than timbre perception itself...

«Pitch allows us to hear intonation in a language and notes in a melody. Timbre allows us to distinguish the vowels and consonants that make up words, as well as the unique sound qualities of different musical instruments. Combinations of pitch and timbre enable us to identify a speaker’s voice or a piece of music.»

Then pitch perception and production is linked to some precise frequency tone, timbre is a more complex phenomenon related to the resonant human and musical body in an acoustic environment ... Timbre phenomenon cannot be reduced to only a spectrum envelope for example there is also a time envelope and way more related to the interaction with the acoustic environment around the resonant body ...

Pitch perception will not change from a different room or from a different singer body to another one...

Timbre will change from one room to another and from a singer to another one....

 

In a word multiple trade-off are at play in acoustic/psycho-acoustic ....There is no perfect room, no perfect instrument, no perfect ears, only perfect musical tone yes...

Then your choice of words is neither true nor wrong...I only try here to convey my own limited understanding from my room tuning process...

Remember that i am not a musician nor an acoustician either, i only made listenings experiments in my room...

Then two room even tuned by me cannot sound similar, they own different signatures that i adapted to my own liking or ears/brain signature... If we put the same system in these 2 room, different in size, geometry, topology and acoustic content my tuning will transform them in something i like yes but different...( the audio system is part of this acoustic content of the room and the same system will sound in a different way in the two rooms)

All of what i just said dont contradict the fact that picking between some different pieces of gear in a room tuned by me is a good idea Why?

Because if i tuned the room i will not need a blind test to chose well... If i dont know the room signature it is better with a blind test yes...

My best to you....

 

 

Don’t you believe that if 2 rooms are properly arranged for your ears they will sound fundamentally similar but with their own signature?

 

Interesting indeed...

But my point was about the tuning of OUR  room/speakers relation by our specific ears for a specfic speakers/system.. I dont need blind test for that...

To choose a piece of gear i dont contest that this blind testing store is a good idea... Viva Barcelona!

Thanks for this interesting story...

astolfor

288 posts

04-05-2022 at 07:00pm 

@mahgister Speakers with blind masks like the ones some people use to sleep. :) components are behind curtains(?)/drapes.  I love the masks,  my brain and ears focus a lot more. Yes, I can cheat by looking but then no need to cheat myself 🤣 

The rooms setup are very smart, you can audition 3 different speakers on the same room, they are in a carousel that they can rotate quickly and adjust angles. 

Some have the ability to test 2 different set of components some 3, all can fit 2 turntables..

At the end if you are not sure on the components, you can get them installed in your listening place, there is a charge for the setup, that gets waived if you buy or are a repeating customer. The family is in the business since the late 30s one of the older audio stores in Barcelona and Spain.

Every other month or 2 there is a full day on listening on the store, you can sign up in advance, he also has launching products and clothing and lingerie parties for our wives or partners. 

I do not mind paying a little more not just for the addons but because their customer service is incredible too.

I wish there was something like this in the Seattle area.

 

How do you tune a room with blindtest? 😁😊

This tuning process is an addition of many hundred alternative changes, if not thousands on a period of many years for me...

Then saying that i can be afraid of blindtest is bordering on ridiculous...

I passed many "acidental" "haphazard " blind test by unforeseen circonstances sometimes with surprizing results in this journey, confirming the value of my tuning process...

Saying that we are afraid of blindtest is borderline ridiculous argument...

A singular change borderline audible can be doubted for sure and must be, like in a delicate buying option, but a streak of continuous change in one acoustic direction : for example a better timbre perception is always, in spite of errors in this direction which will be rectified, ineluctably programmed by listening non blind numerous experiments...

But i understand it can be useful if someone is in a showroom and must choose between 2 components....It occur with success many decades ago when i was in the same buying circonstance....

But anyway there is no comparison between the same piece of gear BEFORE acoustic treatment and control and AFTER...

Give me any relatively good piece of gear and i will use it with success if i can tune the room for it...The gear choice is LESS important than the rightful acoustic tuning process...Most people for sure think the exact opposite...It is like saying that sound come from the electronic design by itself alone not from his coupling with a room for the most part...

No speakers can beat the room where they are located...

Acoustic/psycho-acoustic method are the key, not blind test.... Which is a secondary tool at most ....

...As for the simple question why those who refuse to do a blind test/audition to me there could be a few reasons, and 2 come to mind, being afraid to chose the component that "is best", or being afraid to realize that your position on a subject, for example like you say you can(n’t) distinguish the difference in AC or Ethernet cables is wrong.

I dont reject blindtest either...

I reject the claim that it is ALWAYS a good thing to eliminate biases, i reject the claim that  all biases must be eliminated in audio experience for the sake of measuring numbers specs instead...

It is the correlation PROCESS between subjective and objective, the backbone of acoustic/ psycho-acoustic  science...

I accept blind test to be a necessity in the industry and sometimes a self inflicted tool and discipline...Thats all... Never a universal remedy replacing listenings experiments...

In learning listening acoustic/psycho-acoustic experiments, the biases accumulation and orientation is the WAY, blindtest is only used sparsely here as a tool....

Because components at a certain level, the very best ones aren’t really doing anything.

The perfect component does absolutely zero to make the sound good.

----

Therefore, if you find something really good and you go to listen it is only going to reveal all the other crap in the system.

This is why I never bothered to go listen to Moabs even though I could have. If they are as good as I expect then I will only hear whatever they are connected to.

Your post reveal a general misunderstanding in audio customers community...

There is a fact in audio: What we listen to is not the "component" sound first and last...

For sure the quality of dac,turntable,amplifier and speakers is an UNAVOIDABLE fact also with which we must compose when buying what we can afford ONLY.... Then never the best for most of us.....

BUT what we listen to FIRST is the acoustical cues collected and filtered by the recording engineer, and what we listened to is delivered to ours ears by the gear but LAST TRANSLATED by the acoustical controls or lack of it in our room.... The acoustical cues of the recorded event being conveyed by the gear are RECREATED by the acoustical dimensions of our room.... We never listen to speakers, we listen to speakers/room....No piece of gear at any cost can replace acoustic laws playing between speakers/room/ears....

Ignoring that you claimed that you dont need to listen to the speakers, being Moab or anything, because " I will only hear whatever they are connected to." You are not completely right here....The speakers are not only connected to an audio system but to a room....

Then i think myself that the fundamental fact of audiophile life is acoustic treatment and more than that acoustic controls....

And anyway there is no " perfect component", contrary to what you just said, and any component add something of his own, this something added or substracted from an alleged "perfection" or imperfection can be corrected in a relative way by upgrading the system or part of it .... I chose to use acoustic controls and treatment because it is powerful and cost me peanuts....I dont need to upgrade my 500 bucks system at all and no system at any cost, most better than mine, can induce now the urge to do so for me, so powerful is Helmholtz mechanical equalization of the speakers/room (acoustic controls) ...


Anyway all systems at any cost, unbeknownst to most, are acoustically limited by the room where they are and the lack of control....

I will not speak here about the 2 others embeddings controls (mechanical and electrical) because so powerful they are, they are less impactful than acoustic....Anyway they are all important....

This is a fact.....And my experience....


By the way acousticians NEVER blindfold themselves and use their ears whatever their age after cleaning it for sure ....I imitate them... 😊


My best to you.....

Childish insult to a group of completely unknown people indiscriminately after 9 posts....

Are you a nuclear physicist?

😁😁

Just curious....

Mahgister, you protest way too much.

My position is: if you are going to insist that I am incompetent or worse for refusing to spend thousands of dollars on wire even though I discern almost no improvement in sound at all, never mind an improvement that justifies the spending, you will have to prove it to me that I am that incompetent.

In the world that I live in, which when last checked is at least tangentially associated with reality, I’m going to insist that the proof be ascertained via blind testing.

You are TOTALLY right...

But you misunderstood me COMPLETELY...

I dont advocate to buy costly cables at all for example.... I will never buy one...

BUT i am interested by this problem of "directed wire" for scientific reason and philosophical one....

"objectivist" obsessed by the cult of measuring tools think that all is measurable by the tools they own or know...

"subjectivist" vouch for their costly branded name cables...

These debate anyway between these 2 crowds is a debate between children in a schoolyard...

But some credible people have listened and give their testimonies for this wire direction difference.... I trusted them...I dont want to bash them with some pseudo science reducing all human perceptions to measuring numbers, nor do i want to justify the pseudo science of cables sellers....Blindtest will not resolve this.... James Randy is not a scientist....



I am interested by audio experience testimonies from expert including those who speak about this difference, true INQUIRING science, and my own experiments....Not by cables marketing....


I hope i have been more clear....

No audiophile reject blindtest...Accusing audiophile to refusing them is a "strawman" strategy...

Anyway it is not simple to organize...tHose accusing audiophiles know this...

It is not practical to organize one for each one of ALL alleged audible perception of change...

The value of a blindtest is very limited to a borderline debatable improvement...

The placebo accusation is ridicule because out of this borderline zone of small audible debatable improvements, anyone could verify immediately the reality of some changes...The "bias" accusation made no sense for most improvement in the control of vibrations, and the decreasing of the electrical noise floor and for any acoustic changes... The cables? the fuses? I dont use these "tweaks"... I focus more on essential improvements...

I implemented many hundreds of changes in the last 2 years, many being perhaps placebos, yes, but the majority being not for sure....The proof is the end result...

I could not erganized a blindtest for all modifications one after the other it would be ridiculous... And anyway placebo is not a problem at all nor in medecine neither in audio....Save for companies selling "snake oil" which are a minority....

It seems those who inhabit audio thread contesting ALL audiophile experiences and experiments in listening are "crusader" of the skeptic sunday children club or "trolls" blinded by their technological idolatry....Instead of attacking consumers of "tweaks" they would made a better aiming of the target if they attacked the supposed culprit companies publicly and if they challenged them ...Not their "alleged "victims"....But trolls or zealots are not Robin Hood vigilante....They work for another agenda...

In general any sane individual dont need blindtest except to play and amuse himself.... In general it is marketing or industry that use the statistical tool of blindtest...

The  perpetual proposal of blindtest then reveal more about those who propose it than about those supposedly refusing it...

It is a comical and pathetical situation that reflect  the "religious" aspect of technological idolatry....

I will repeat myself....

Objectivist and subjectivist, is a "stupid" distinction...

Whose decided to create  so stupid distinction in the first place ?

Asking the question is interesting....And revelatory about "sophisticated" stupidity....

But you can’t listen to everything

Where i live i cannot listen to anything new...

I choose my pieces of gear after studying many hundred reviews for some years...

It was a complete success...I like all my gear....

And that environment isn’t like your own either. So you need a filter to narrow down the selection. And that’s where Harman’s research comes in. And if you have a goofy room,

I cannot build a room after Harman and few people could.... It is NOT an affordable solution for most people and it is not even necessary...

And if you have a goofy room, you need to understand how acoustics works to consider things like directivity, diffusion and absorption. Otherwise, most speakers will likely not sound very good.

There is a more economical and very powerful better solution...

I used material passive homemade treatment in my 13 feet square not ideal room at all, with speakers on a desk and one speaker almost between the walls corner... A balance between absorbtion, reflection and diffusive surfaces is needed...

But it is never ENOUGH anyway in almost all cases, not only for my case...

I created then a "mechanical equalizer" with a grid of 32 tubes and pipes with various volume/ neck lenght ratios orientable and adjustable at will, by cutting different type of straws in section of different diameters...

I distributed all that around reflection points in my room beginning with one speaker and ending with the other speaker... Asymmetrical volumes for each tubes and pipes near the direct wavefront of each speaker is very important...I use for the "head" speaker tubes near the tweeter only and for the other near the bass driver only...All other tubes and pipes of different volumes located at my right and left on reflection point and behind me....

Contrary to an electronic equalizer that modify the frequency response of the speakers to the room, mechanical equalizer modify the room in relation to the speakers and act by their continuous action, buoying and marking out for each ear the reflections of each speaker differently, making the brain able to create a better localization of the sound...I dont use precise frequency response of the speaker with a mic. but my ears listening to different instrumental timbre for the tuning...

Contrary to an electronic equalizer that work ONLY for a precise unique location in millimeter out of which all fine tuning run amok, the mechanical equalizer work with a relatively large bandwith (voice timbre) then for ALL the room....i listen at the end in near-listening and regular position without being able to choose which one is better...Contrary to an erroneous affirmation in audio thread near listening is greatly affected by room controls in a small room...

Now with my experience here, give me any relatively good speakers and any small room, and i can make them a wedding in heaven...It will cost only time a month of listening experiments and no money...

The secret is simple, controlling the timing of the early and late reflections and the back reflections to create a 3-d holography ....

Also using the Helmholtz tubes and pipes to fine tune the instrumental timbre experience in a more natural one because we modufy the pressure zones of the room when we place the H.R. tubes all along the room......

For sure it is not possible to create such a grid in a living room...

For me the most important luxury in audio are not the gear at all...Any relatively good gear can do what i wanted to...

It is a dedicated room which is the only necessary luxury....

Acoustic physical law are not enough and material passive treatment tell only HALF of the story.... Psychoacoustical law are necessary for the most important half , with the Helmholtz mechanical equalization ....I can control, imaging, timbre, soundstage, listener envelopment and source width at will...No electronic preocessing is needed at all contrary to what most people think even specialist...

By the way all that was made with discarded materials from my basement and cost me nothing at all....

Acoustic give audiophile experience more efficiently than costly gear only.... My audio system cost used under 500 bucks but it is a well choosen one ....I will never feel the urge to upgrade anymore.... Too busy immersed in music...I never read reviews of gear anymore....So powerful is acoustic control in ANY room even in a non Harman one...

Understand me right here: i am not like those who boast to have the better gear in the world.... My system is NOT the best by far, but the ratio S.Q. /price is over the roof....

Then i smile when people boast about gear without knowing acoustic....The audio market condition our mind  to BUY it is simple....The audio market dont educate people about acoustic and some other basic control like vibrations and electrical  noise floor...

Fine tuning a room is exactly like fine tuning a piano: it is the SAME THING....

No piano tuner need to be blind tested....And no piano tuner ask for it because they doubt what they listen to...

Then blindtest disccusion are a comedy.....

There is no debate, measures and standards are technological fundamental knowledge....

But all this means different things for each specific consciousness...

Is it not simple? And we cannot reduce one to the other....

Predicting Loudspeaker Sound Quality From Objective Measurements

The accuracy of the predictions range from 86% (based on 70 different loudspeakers) to 99% with bookshelf loudspeakers with restricted low frequency output.

It is comnmon sense that measures will say something right about speakers for example...

But the use of this speaker and their choice cannot be predicted by measurements.... We can only eliminated less well designed speakers...

Room/gear/ears synergy is another factors...it is possible to measure this factor in theory also but not practical...The technology behind the smyth realizer headphone is precisely that....

This is the reason why we choose gear by listening it for practical reason ....

You have to admit, in audio blind testing is way more effective than deaf testing...just sayin’...

You are not completely right here.... 😊

Conforming their hearing to their tools and conditioning their own ears by designing habits to obey the measuring gear tools is worst than being deaf, because "deaf testing" could be right by the law of chance more often then listening systematically only the end results of pure design numbers with no real supervision by "non professional ears"...

Happily, like i said most engineers are also artists hearing really for the music and not only to the "corrected" sound, wearing very precise clothing in imperial habits and measures....Pass labs designer for example, or the crowds of Sansui Engineers and many others one look for a sound quality very audible and not explainable by the numbers only...They had discovered the right measuring numbers to fit them, they dont conform their creativity and ears to numbers...



«Numbers contains reality they are not reality»-Anonymus Smith

«Numbers obey something else and we must called it love»-Anonymus Smith

«Like love encompassing everything, prime numbers distribution contains everything and no one knows why and even how it is possible»-Anonymus Smith

«Prime numbers are the deepest mystery completely wrapped in the more simplest way and plain for all to see»-Anonymus Smith

«Prime numbers distribution is so powerful that it give sleepness night to all mathematicians from the beginning of time.»-Anonymus Smith

«You think too much, f... yourself less and f... some others more»-Groucho Marx 🤓

So...it sounds like you’re anti-engineering

Nowadays people ask for simplistic divisions...

Black or white.... No colors in between....

War between objectivist or subjectivist, war between analog or digital , etc...

That make no sense at all save for those who like dividing themselves instead of thinking...

How do you pick that i am anti-engineering?

Is it because the only engineer you ever know is deaf and never correlated accuracy by the numbers with accuracy for his ears, in an increasing improvement process , where the ears is the last judge?

Most engineers are audiophiles and music lovers...

The exception is few pseudo scientists or fanatics who inhabit here....

I apologize to you anyway i dont want to sound rude....

regards and best wishes for you....

Do you look for accuracy in a recording, or what pleases you, regardless of what the artist/producer/engineer is trying convey?

I listened mostly non commercial music...

Acoustic instrument mostly...



A piano is a piano.... A voice is a voice.... A timbre is accurate or not "for the ears"....Well recorded or less well recorded... This is accuracy for the ears....Different of "accuracy" by the numbers....

I listen the piano playing, not the way the recording engineer decide what is the best way to do it.... I hear well all these choices in different recordings but cannot change them....I listen the Chopin piano nevermind the recording if the pianist is great....

Everybody listen what it please them, but many like electronical,commercial, and non acoustical, bass explosive or loud instrument and voices etc....

Nobody listen a piece of gear for his accuracy by the numbers save deaf engineer who do not test their own design with their own ears.... They are not numerous i guess....
😁

In a word what please me must be the most accurate for my ears but sometimes it is not.... A bad recorded piano playing of Scriabin by Sofronitsky is pure music.... Nevermind the sound....

Is an audio system more analog to a voltmeter or to a violin?

Asking the question is answering it....

No violonist reject string instrument makers and their test save when playing it themselves...

I love blindtest sorry...Show me one i will study the results...I am curious....

But i cannot blindtest an INCREMENTAL day to day strings of change dealing with my listening experiments...

I dont trust those who trust ONLY blindtest.....

Is it not simple to understand?

you recognize a zealot easily, it is one for which exist only black and white choices...

I am not one.... sorry.....

i will trust a great number of satisfied customers over any blindtest....I will trust a blindtest if the product is not well known or not well appreciated....If there is a debate i will listen to a blindtest....but day to day in audiolife no one need systematic blindtest to establish audible fact....In psychoacoustic research blindtest is a useful tool, but daily audiolife is not psychacoustic research nor marketing circus....

Then who is not reasonable?

Why calling audiophile more unreasonnable than "scientism" zealot ?

Because it is black or white?


«All fact dont wait for a blindtest to be born»-Anonymus Smith

Blindtest has no significance save in blackbox situation for a researcher or statistically like in medical research...

In audio blindtesting is a circus most of the times save well organised for marketing reason....

One single audiophile dont need it.... I lived through hundred of single changes positives or negative or neutral in the last 2 years.... In this step by step listenings experiments i never needed an external authority over my ears...

Blindtest out of serious science is a circus.... If someone dont trust his ears in audio he is the one gullible to external tools negating the verdict of his own perception...

Any tool is a useful  slave but a useless master....



Pseudo scientists ideologue are like religious fanatics...Their alleged skepticism is a blind faith in fact.... True skepticism is a tool not a master....And beliefs are only roots you cannot all cut....Choose well....

Musical timbre perception is never a placebo, it is a learned bias....I dont doubt timbre....I doubt only speck of sound or ghost of music....

And anyway you dont doubt what you create yourself.... I never bought tweaks and i dont buy new cables....