Trained Audiophiles Fooled by a Blind Listening Test?

[gene]

Is a "Golden Ear" absolute? The Hollywood Saphire Group (HSG) is an organization of professional audio engineers in the Los Angeles area. What happens when some of the most highly trained audiophiles in the industry are asked to do a blind “A-B” comparison test of two audio circuits that would be auditioned,compared and critiqued?

Were they able to hear a difference or were they fooled?

Read: Audio Listening Test That Fooled the Hollywood Sapphire Group

 

[Bobby Bass]

Thanks for the article. Reinforces the concept of hearing and listening vs. sound. Machines used to test equipment measure sound. People listening to the sound “hear” it. Involves the brain processing the sound which takes in all of the information available including the other senses and conscious and unconscious thoughts including beliefs and expectations. Unfortunately our hearing also changes over time as we get older and our equipment may need fine tuning. Hello hearing aids.

 

[3db]

After having read Dr Toole 's book, the outcome does not surprise me at all. I thank you very much for publishing this story.

 

[highfigh]

They should have been blindfolded, too. Knowing that something has changed, even if it's only the LED color, results in bias.

The bottom of the page has a link to one of Gene's articles- "Audio Cables - Science or Faith?"- I watched a video last night where the presenter said that Faith is the absence of doubt and Science is the search for doubt.

 

[highfigh]

Thanks for the article. Reinforces the concept of hearing and listening vs. sound. Machines used to test equipment measure sound. People listening to the sound “hear” it. Involves the brain processing the sound which takes in all of the information available including the other senses and conscious and unconscious thoughts including beliefs and expectations. Unfortunately our hearing also changes over time as we get older and our equipment may need fine tuning. Hello hearing aids.

People can hear the sound without listening- hearing is just the physical reaction to the sound and listening means that the person is trying to find details and differences in the sound. Most people hear music and sounds, fewer can identify what they're hearing.

Let's use musical instruments as an example- some can identify the maker, era of manufacture and other details, whereas others can identify none of these details. A Stradivarius violin was stolen from a musician who was using it on loan and after it was recovered from the thief, the musician played it for the news crew who was reporting on it- the sound was incredible even using a news camera's mic, being recorded and broadcast but others may have just said "That's a violin". Acoustic guitar is another example where the differences aren't necessarily subtle- listen to Gibson, Martin and Taylor Dreadnaught guitars and if no difference is noticed, the person hearing them didn't listen. YouTube has a video of a pianist playing instruments ranging in price from $1 to $3 million, asking if differences can be heard.

The second video compares cheap vs expensive classical guitars-

 

[Eppie]

I was surprised that he used colour LEDs in the test as that would induce bias as soon as a listener perceives any improvement in one over the other. Perhaps that was intentional to show how easy it is to introduce bias into a listening experiment even when the listener expects there to be none. I'd like to see the same experiment double blind-folded to learn whether the number of participants that perceive no difference would increase.

 

[TLS Guy]

Is a "Golden Ear" absolute? The Hollywood Saphire Group (HSG) is an organization of professional audio engineers in the Los Angeles area. What happens when some of the most highly trained audiophiles in the industry are asked to do a blind “A-B” comparison test of two audio circuits that would be auditioned,compared and critiqued?

Were they able to hear a difference or were they fooled?

View attachment 64194

Read: Audio Listening Test That Fooled the Hollywood Sapphire Group

This is similar to Peter Walker's double blind trial to test whether the Audiophools could detect the difference between a solid state and tube amp. They claimed solid state amps were markedly inferior. Not only could they not distinguish between the tube and solid state amps, but Peter had nautily included an amp to which he had added 2% THD. They could not achieve statistical significance between any of the sources. The "conbecenti" never forgave him!

 

[ryanosaur]

Is a "Golden Ear" absolute? The Hollywood Saphire Group (HSG) is an organization of professional audio engineers in the Los Angeles area. What happens when some of the most highly trained audiophiles in the industry are asked to do a blind “A-B” comparison test of two audio circuits that would be auditioned,compared and critiqued?

Were they able to hear a difference or were they fooled?

View attachment 64194

Read: Audio Listening Test That Fooled the Hollywood Sapphire Group

Nice.

 

[mtrycrafts]

... I'd like to see the same experiment double blind-folded to learn whether the number of participants that perceive no difference would increase.

I doubt it as that is not in anyone's nature. You look for differences and you will find it regardless of the blindfold or a real DBT without any visual distractions.
May get one or two.

Lots of DBT out there over the decades with very similar results. Lots published, not at AES. This wasn't either.

 

[lejack]

The real "goldenears" were those who could not hear a difference. This sort of references the famous coathanger speaker wire test.

Also, in the 90s, a couple of Audio Magazine reviewers, would consitantly rave about the superiority of esoteric, single ended tube designs. After a few months, they were subjected to double blind tests, and failed miserably. Rather than admit they were wrong, they continued their testing, with the same biased results.

 

[utopianemo]

If the best ears in the world can be so easily fooled by such a test, then what are we doing wasting our money on high performing sound equipment? Or spending time reading reviews of gear?
If perception is all we have to tell us how good something sounds to us, and we can be so easily convinced that something is there when it isn’t, then what difference does it make to waste money on fancy equipment….whether it measures well or whether a reviewer praises it lavishly or whether some huckster attributes it mythical properties, all of these are just placebos we use to convince ourselves it sounds good.

 

[Kvn_Walker]

If the best ears in the world can be so easily fooled by such a test, then what are we doing wasting our money on high performing sound equipment? Or spending time reading reviews of gear?
If perception is all we have to tell us how good something sounds to us, and we can be so easily convinced that something is there when it isn’t, then what difference does it make to waste money on fancy equipment….whether it measures well or whether a reviewer praises it lavishly or whether some huckster attributes it mythical properties, all of these are just placebos we use to convince ourselves it sounds good.

Moreso than any other component, speakers are where you'll hear differences from one to the next. They are more than just frequency response. Placement, dispersion, phase, room interaction, and many other variables play a role in how a speaker acts. That's where a plurality, if not a majority, of your spending should go.

 

[highfigh]

This is similar to Peter Walker's double blind trial to test whether the Audiophools could detect the difference between a solid state and tube amp. They claimed solid state amps were markedly inferior. Not only could they not distinguish between the tube and solid state amps, but Peter had nautily included an amp to which he had added 2% THD. They could not achieve statistical significance between any of the sources. The "conbecenti" never forgave him!

Ever hear about Bob Carver modifying his amplifiers to sound "more like a tube amp" by soldering a 1 Ohm resistor in series with the output of each channel?

 

[highfigh]

Moreso than any other component, speakers are where you'll hear differences from one to the next. They are more than just frequency response. Placement, dispersion, phase, room interaction, and many other variables play a role in how a speaker acts. That's where a plurality, if not a majority, of your spending should go.

That's been the common knowledge for decades. Then, Munster Cables and others skewed that whole thing by gobbling up more than their rightful share of the budget.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Cool, but none of the stuff in the article is anything newsworthy. It's been known for ages.

p.s: Also see: Betteridge's law of headlines

 

[davidscott]

No big surprise.

 

[wibble]

Bah, I would have known. I get all my speaker cables made by a guy in Lichtenstein that carves each coathanger out of a single girder. He's the best. He tests each one for openness, airiness, presence, depth, warmth, coolth, subsonic flagellation and supersonic boom then rates their je ne sais quoi on a scale of 1 to 10.

I only buy the 10s.

 

[Verdinut]

They should have been blindfolded, too. Knowing that something has changed, even if it's only the LED color, results in bias.

The bottom of the page has a link to one of Gene's articles- "Audio Cables - Science or Faith?"- I watched a video last night where the presenter said that Faith is the absence of doubt and Science is the search for doubt.

Well, something had to be setup to show some different "signal or LED" had been triggered. IMO, they didn't have to be blindfolded in the situation reported.

 

[TLS Guy]

Ever hear about Bob Carver modifying his amplifiers to sound "more like a tube amp" by soldering a 1 Ohm resistor in series with the output of each channel?

Yes, that is part of the issue. Tube amps have a high source resistance which is a big downside of tube amps. Tube amps are in the jewelry rather then the audio realm. Peter Walker's tests were done with ESL 63s, so that largely eliminated the source resistance issue.

 

[Golfx]

Very nice to have our fear of being left behind brought back into vision. While reading these forums, particularly AVS, you see many instances of near evangelical fans who buy and then follow that brand—amplifying among themselves their preferences, which must be audibly true, because so many others like them agree.