highfihoney said:
I did read the links & what you think is irrelevant is not how a discussion of different veiws takes place between two grown men.
Ive had this discussion before in previous threads but since we have not discussed this i'll explain MY VEIWS.
DBT & level matched testing,i find it amazing that people
..including scientists and 'people' involved in developing audio gear, who use it
for research into *how things sound*.
accept this kind of memory related testing as the holy grail of audio,would you or anybody else for that matter rely on a dbt or all levels matched type of test before buying a new television ?
Apples and oranges. Video reproduction, for expample still does not approach the native resolution of the human eye/brain. Audio reproduction already does for its sensory system. And, too, consumers do not generally do blind comparisons. Consumers also generally leap to conclusions that aren't warranted, about what they buy. Do you see the connection?
im a firm believer that these types of testing are extremely misleading to those who have never tried different types of amplification in their own listening conditions.
I might ask, then, have YOU performed DBTs using different types of amps under your preferred listening conditions? Because what's interested is taht when people DO that, they are often shocked at how things go from being 'easy' to tell apart, to being rather difficult.
Here is what i find to be the most misleading out of the whole methodology that you & many others use as a basis to form your conclusion that all amps sound the same,in a level matched dbt i agree that all amps would sound close enough that our memory isnt sufficient to tell the differences but in the consumer world this isnt applicable,the only level that should be matched for a comparison between two different amps is wattage because that is the only level that the average consumer has the ability to change & then testing should be instantainous with A B switching between the two amps.
This is a philosophy that will surely endear you to the high-end retail industry --specially since manufacturer's 'wattage' specs are often misleading.
This is like saying, "randomized DBTs is all well and good for drug research but consumers should just go by what they see printed on labels, since that's all they have at hand to compare."
If you accept the reasoning behind level-matched DBT for research -- which is, our 'typcal' (let us call it 'consumer', but actually meaning 'ucontrolled for bias') perception is too prone to being misled, to be trusted --why one earth would you find that 'misleading' in a consumer context? What it really means is that the methods of consumer evaluation of *sound* are in need of an overhaul. Since it is indeed difficult for the average consumer to set up multi-amp comparison *sighted* much less double-blind, It could start with the reviewers in the high-end rags, who really *do* mislead the consumer under the current paradigm.
Yes i have done this type of testing many times over,ive matched exact wattages with two seperate amplifiers,recorded the different sonics of each amp on gear that has the ability to save & record a visual of what levels were reached with each amp & ive also done exact wattage comparisons between different amplifiers with instantainous A B switching between the two,my conclusions from my own experience's using gear the way most consumers will use gear is that there are clear & defined differences between amplifiers & preamplifiers.
What you call a properly run test to me is nothing more than misleading information because it does not reflect real world applications of the useage of the amplifiers.
How did you 'match exact wattages'? And how have you translated these results to predictions of audible difference?
