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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
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peguinpower
59 posts
 
the biggest irony with these testing nerds is that they are usually the ones with the least exposure to a wide and varied spectrum of equipment. 
Its not even a question of affordability, but in most cases, its a dogmatic view of the hobby and refusal to listen. 
that being the case, they fail the number criteria in scientific methodology. they fail to observe. 
If you listen to a lot of music, and over the years have experience a good assortment of equipment, trust me, trust your ears. audio reproduction is no different from food or wine. Its is consumption that stimulates the senses. Its basis is science, but satisfaction and fulfillment comes down to giving the listener an experience.

if you want plain sustenance, Mcdonalds is right there for you. Its got everything you need and it measures well :)



peguinpower
59 posts
 
Ive been at this long enough to see all sorts. 
The most common zealot is the one motivated by the desire to compensate for his own insufficiencies. Whatever the circumstance, he is unable to experience variety.

That said, Ive found one right here. The guy is on a cable forum screeching about cables. The engagement is his reward. “I stuck it to them”

its pretty sad. 
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cleeds
5,699 posts
 
peguinpower
the biggest irony with these testing nerds is that they are usually the ones with the least exposure to a wide and varied spectrum of equipment ...
I don't know if that's true or not, but I've long suspected it.
Its not even a question of affordability, but in most cases, its a dogmatic view of the hobby and refusal to listen.
Yes, exactly. And what we see recently on A'gon are proselytizing  fundamentalist measurementalists - a noisy few - trying to reduce every discussion to blind testing. It's absurd. (And this thread has shown that science recognizes blind testing is not infallible even when conducted by experts - and the measurementalists here are obviously not experts.)
... that being the case ... they fail to observe.
Incredible, isn't it?
 
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