toquemon said:
mtrycrafts: Could your explain me please what is "bias"?. English is not my mother language, and i'm very interested in this differences between speakers because i think that speakers ARE THE DIFFERENCE, not the amps (i don`t care if the amp is Krell or Onkyo or whatever). This is interesting to me, because, if Mirage is DEMONSTRATING that speakers are just like the amps (that there's no difference between any well constructed speaker or amp), what can i say, i'm getting a little bit confused. Sometimes i think that the ordinary people would preffer a very colored type of speaker (like Cerwin Vega) instead of a neutral type of speaker (like Yamaha NS-300 or Energy Connoisseur C-5). Do you know if this test (the Mirage test) was made with ordinary people of with "ear-trained" people? ( i know some people who don't give a damn if their listeting to a boombox or a mid-fi at least)
I will try
And before I get there, I didn't imply that speakers are not it either. THEY ARE THE DIFFERENCE, as you indicate..
Mirage didn't demonstrate that they are like amps. They demonstrate what people prefer in a speaker when they are not biased
, later on this, and they mostly, almost always tend to prefer the same sonics from a speaker.
Speakers are the most difficult component to achieve amp like qualities, flat frequency response, equal power output from it beyond straight out, 15deg to 90 deg each side, like an instrument would do, and flat impedance in the operating band. Very difficult but the ones that do get close to the ideal or to the point where you may not be able to differentiate well, you would prefer them equally if not biased.
Here is the link to the full story of the NRC Research, at Mirage:
http://miragespeakers.com/nrc_story.shtml
Dr. Floyd Toole was at NRS for 25 years conducting research probably with the people from Mirage. He has many JAES Journal article to his credit:
http://caa-aca.ca/PEIWEBpage/PEI_Toole.htm
bias from the dictionary that fits:
mental leaning or inclination; partiality; prejudice.
In audio, you convince yourself, that one component sounds different from another based on other information that the sound of that component. This is subconscious much of the time, you cannot turn it on or off. Most audiophiles do their sonic evaluations in a sighted listening condition, you know which component is playing, you see that component, you know its cost, and other cues from your sight and knowledge sense. These multiple senses interact and confuse, bias your brains interpretation of the multiple stream of data incoming.
Now, under blind conditions when you can only use your hearing senses, you are still biased but the statistical analysis will know and show if you hear differences or you are just following your biases and guessing. Such blind testing is the gold standard when the human person is the test instrument
Such testing shows this bias very easy when the same component is presented all the time, no changes occure unknown to the subject, the subject will still call differences in a large number of cases. That is cause by human nature and bias. We have this as we expect changes, look for changes.
I have been known to be wrong, from time to time
