I was wondering if anyone has conducted a `False Bias Listening Test`.
In that, the two tracks being compared are mislabeled randomly as FLAC / Opus, for instance.
For instance, in 15 trials, 9 times it is labelled correctly and incorrectly in the other 6.
The fact that whether it is labelled right / wrong is kept from the listener and he/she is to presume that all of them are labeled correctly.
Why?
Well, this is a fringe possibility, but just to go the extra mile anyways (and to satiate curiosity), as there might be an as yet unknown mechanism in the human brain that enables us to find differences when we know for sure there'd be some.
Uncertainty might result in the subconscious non-serious treatment of the track being tested as that could be false as well.
Perhaps within a resource constraint, the brain deems it futile to look for details when there might not be any.
In any case, I understand that bias and placebo explain it just well, but I still wanted to see results.
That would silence even the most hardcore of high-res shippers.
Interesting proposal
That would silence even the most hardcore of high-res shippers.
Doubt that. I've seen people claiming that the cold, hard methodology of double-blind testing leads to cold, hard listening, which makes one unable to hear the difference, or something in that vein. Some people will always stay in denial.
Doubt that. I've seen people claiming that the cold, hard methodology of double-blind testing leads to cold, hard listening, which makes one unable to hear the difference, or something in that vein. Some people will always stay in denial.
Of course, yeah, there'd always be the ones who'd find it difficult to justify their pursuit should they accept this conclusion.
But still, I think this perspective might shed new light.