AV_Nut, arent you SteveH over at AVS, the guy who with someone else introduced the Gemstone amp? If so, are you still carrying it? I seem to recall that you indeed had an ABX comparator.
Hi Chu,
I remember you too. Good to see that you are alive and well.
As you remember, ten years ago, I was the guy who
knew it was going to be a piece of cake to pass with an ABX box and ramped it up the Richard Clark's $10,000 challenge. I was offended that someone would make a strong statement that someone could not pass in the blind between a tube amp and a $10,000 Krell. Those who have heard them both EASILY know that the tube amp is warm and soft on the bottom end while the Krell has a lot of control and sounds dramatically different. Well Richard and Tom
certainly knew something that I didn't!
More cliff notes. That was when I bought my ABX box, tested, my jaw dropped when I failed the above test. In complete shock, I had to figure out if I was a fraud or completely inept so I was on my quest to understand why. If you haven't read my posts in this thread do so. It was why I knew no reviewer like Gene who
had experience testing in the blind would never take the challenge. If I knew before hand 10 years ago, I would of had a much more balanced approach. So while there are differences (and as God as my witness I pass), there are other days and events that make me unable to pass at all using the same gear and the same comparison technique. I'm specifically talking about my ABX box here....
If you remember, I also bought an EQ's and adjusted the FR response a little in between the amp and the preamp (around 10KHZ) on the same brand of amps (hearing the shift real time as I adjusted the EQ slider) and I still failed. That's a whole topic in itself. So to be clear, when I intentionally put in a couple of db of non-linearity in one of the two comparisons, I still failed when ABX testing even though I could hear the shift real time. Now I knew it was my approach of testing in the blind.
As I said, anyone who has tested in the blind before, positively understands the difficulty. My thoughts on the topic is whatever you hear outside of the blind is the real magnitude of the differences (assuming you can still pass in the blind). But when you listen for the nuances, and focus, the differences collapse right in front of your eyes. As I stated, some days it will be impossible for anybody to pass in the blind (tube amp and Krell). I've correlated to when I was under stress. As Gene has also experienced, that can happen simply by focusing. I will say Tom N was open minded with my conversation as to what I said in this thread. He said "he doubted it" but was not tossing it completely out. Including myself, nearly everyone is a newbie trying to understand what is really going on.
I certainly don't have all of the answers. But I really have tried to put some time and effort into the topic. That said, to me at least, it should go without saying that you cannot wash away thousands of people who hear differences in various amps, preamps, etc. Because if the overwhelming majority of the people involved in this hobby (most are highly technical) all agree that a tube amp is "soft" and "warm" (anyone disagree here?) and you cannot pass in the blind, something bigger is going on. To put that challenge to work, I would be happy to demonstrate it to anyone who assumes they can easily pass. Quickly, they too will understand what I am talking about. But as Richard has learned, he can offer $10K
http://tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/ and no one passed.
My broader point when trying to explain this on AVS was that those who
assumedI was wrong never bothered to do any work themselves. If your memory serves you well, I offered to pay for 3 or 4 different rabid disbelievers to fly out to hear and see what I was talking about. No one wanted on the forum wanted to (but Tom N would). I felt the people with the strongest opinion had the least about of experience. They would rather argue about the exact same topic for 10 years p_issing their life away (pardon my French) on forums arguing. They didn't feel they were competent to test my super powers. Actually, I was going to simply show them some seemingly
obvious differences and then let them test in the blind. But they didn't need or care to learn. Instead, they wanted to fill-up a few thousand posts on a topic so they never tried themselves. I will say Chu, you were much more open minded. I suspect you read something in my words knowing I was actually out to understand what was what.
Finally, I got the feeling that if someone made a statement that this or that sounded better in any thread, PM's were flying to other reinforcements to pile on. I think they were doing it in good spirits: trying to save the world from snake oil but they also enjoyed the entertainment.
