How to Skew a Blind Listening Test

[zane9]

Very interesting article, especially on how to minimize bias. Personally, the most interesting (and contentious) blind tests in our hobby are those which focus on electronics, notably amplifiers. Hobbyists turn several shades of angry red when these tests typically demonstrate a no-better-than-chance result in distinguishing among amps played at matched levels and without going into clipping. The "trust your ears" cliche goes out the window.

 

[fredk]

Hobbyists turn several shades of angry red when these tests typically demonstrate a no-better-than-chance result in distinguishing among amps played at matched levels and without going into clipping. The "trust your ears" cliche goes out the window.

Hmm. Doesn't that in fact validate the "trust your ears" statement?

IF you can eliminate or minimize bias, you can indeed trust your ears.

 

[zane9]

Hmm. Doesn't that in fact validate the "trust your ears" statement?

IF you can eliminate or minimize bias, you can indeed trust your ears.

I would say that from one perspective...yes, I agree. My bigger point is that all too often the "trust your ears" phrase is trotted out by people who both reject the importance of the underlying science and engineering of components, and who ascribe qualities to signal transfer equipment that can't possibly exist (such as the "musical" amplifier). Claims of hearing subtle differences can be easily be tested.

 

[NicolasKL]

Hmm. Doesn't that in fact validate the "trust your ears" statement?

IF you can eliminate or minimize bias, you can indeed trust your ears.

Depends who's saying you should trust your ears. The people I see saying it more frequently are the people that use adjectives like "liquid" and "romantic" to describe the sound different power cords make.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Hmm. Doesn't that in fact validate the "trust your ears" statement?

IF you can eliminate or minimize bias, you can indeed trust your ears.

Well, that is the only conditions you can trust your ears. Unfortunately when the 'golden ears' say that, they also want to use their eyes to hear with and that is what they really trust, not their ears by itself.

 

[cwall99]

Since I can never afford the speakers I really want, I like to audition by starting listening to something way above my price range (and whose sound I hope I'll like). I'll listen to some speakers that really get my heart beating. Something that really cranks me up, and, despite having only three seconds of auditory memory (per the article), I'll listen then to speakers I can afford, using the same music, and listening for the sonic characteristics that got me cranked up on the original speakers I listened to.

It's kind of like finding a movie critic you can trust. Once you find a critic whose tastes seem to align pretty well with yours, you can generally rely on that critic's reviews. By the same token, if there's something about a $16,000 pair of speakers that gets me really geeked up, if I can replicate certain elements of that sound in a $1600 pair of speakers, then I'll feel pretty good about those speakers.

In that sense, I get past the 3-second memory limitation by translating the memory into a feeling that I got by listening to something.

It's decidedly non-scientific and time intensive, but I think you really need to listen to speakers for a while before making a purchase.