Can we please just put this discussion to bed? Obviously there is some benefit to blind testing, which takes some effort to set up properly, but it is not the be all and end all, especially for the situations where a test is not possible.
Why Do So Many Audiophiles Reject Blind Testing Of Audio Components?
Because it was scientifically proven to be useless more than 60 years ago.
A speech scientist by the name of Irwin Pollack have conducted an experiment in the early 1950s. In a blind ABX listening test, he asked people to distinguish minimal pairs of consonants (like “r” and “l”, or “t” and “p”).
He found out that listeners had no problem telling these consonants apart when they were played back immediately one after the other. But as he increased the pause between the playbacks, the listener’s ability to distinguish between them diminished. Once the time separating the sounds exceeded 10-15 milliseconds (approximately 1/100th of a second), people had a really hard time telling obviously different sounds apart. Their answers became statistically no better than a random guess.
If you are interested in the science of these things, here’s a nice summary:
Categorical and noncategorical modes of speech perception along the voicing continuum
Since then, the experiment was repeated many times (last major update in 2000, Reliability of a dichotic consonant-vowel pairs task using an ABX procedure.)
So reliably recognizing the difference between similar sounds in an ABX environment is impossible. 15ms playback gap, and the listener’s guess becomes no better than random. This happens because humans don't have any meaningful waveform memory. We cannot exactly recall the sound itself, and rely on various mental models for comparison. It takes time and effort to develop these models, thus making us really bad at playing "spot the sonic difference right now and here" game.
Also, please note that the experimenters were using the sounds of speech. Human ears have significantly better resolution and discrimination in the speech spectrum. If a comparison method is not working well with speech, it would not work at all with music.
So the “double blind testing” crowd is worshiping an ABX protocol that was scientifically proven more than 60 years ago to be completely unsuitable for telling similar sounds apart. And they insist all the other methods are “unscientific.”
The irony seems to be lost on them.
Why do so many audiophiles reject blind testing of audio components? - Quora- ...
- 317 posts total
Last night I switched my speaker wires from 16 AWG copper to 14 AWG copper. I hear a subtle widening and deepening of the soundstage together with slightly improved rhythm and pacing. I KNOW WHAT I HEAR. And this is what I hear. Or at least I think I do. I'm pretty sure I do. There's no doubt about it. It's night and day. Or maybe it's night and dusk. Or night and twilight. Or ............. |
Why Do So Many Audiophiles Reject Blind Testing Of Audio Components? Set in their ways? I'd bet that's it! |
The reason "so many audiophiles reject blind testing" is because blind testing is not for audiophiles. Blind testing is for designers, developers, and researchers. The only reason for an audiophile to be interested in blind testing is to prove something to some other audiophile. But there is nothing to prove! It would be like trying to "prove" that flour makes better gravy than corn starch. Do you need a double-blind test to "prove" that red wine is better after it has time to breathe? Why? If you disagree, simply swill it down. Right out of the bottle. Be my guest. Here is a little secret I will let you double-blind people in on: we all know you can't hear- and we don't care! |
- 317 posts total