I have heard that in the US evil hippies sometimes contaminate drinking water with LSD. Now take into account that evil hippies, when they get older and come into money, often turn into subjectivistic audiophiles. I am pretty sure that some audiophile wannabe synesthesiac tried to recruit followers through the local waterworks on that day. Who knows, maybe it was even F. himself.

Don't both sides just come down to faith? Objectivists believe they know what to measure, that they can measure it and that they know the effect it has (if any). Subjectivists believe that's not true and there must be other things involved that haven't been identified or measured yet.

In other words, doesn't the presentation enhance the experience, for some, despite the facts? It seems to me that if the goal is the experience, then often the facts are deliberately diminished or suspended in order to elevate the experience.

• Change the decanter
• Use specialty glasses meant for the region
• Lighting
• Music
• The smells in the background
• The food accompanying the wine
• The company
• etc.

To extend the analogy even further, clearly, the rest of his favorite wines cost more, maybe much more. Indeed, who knows how expensive his most favored wine would be in terms of cost?

you are right about some HA members (including myself) not showing our best faces in this thread

"People say that blind ABX tests don't prove anything"

"That's what happens when someone who won't budge"
"Many people (again, including myself) get frustrated by this type of behavior as we have seen it over and over again"

"thickheaded and not willing to change their outlook despite common knowledge and detailed explanations."

"Audiophiles" are not evil, rather they are harmless. They are harmless because they are ignorant.

The problem is that when ignorance has enough money, it creates an industry that is apathetic to progressing, because that industry can get rich by simply exploiting ignorance.  Fortunately this situation isn't sustainable, not because the ignorant ever become learned, but because they die off.

Basically, I'm waiting for you and people like you to die  so I can get better, cheaper speakers.

I'm 100% convinced that any real difference should be reproducible in a DBT given a sufficient time scale. I'm convinced that when people report hearing the difference during a DBT, but the results are actually random, it proves placebo / self delusion.

However, to go from this basic science, to dismissing the audibility of things where an ABX has never been attempted, and concluding that an iPod with high bitrate mp3s is the peak of audio perfection, or at least more than good enough, when there's clear ABX data and objective data disproving this - this is worse than nonsense. Where is the scientific basis for these statements? What on earth are people doing on HA making statements that are completely disproven by ABX results?! The fact that people will happily trot this nonsense out in an argument discredits them and this site.

Cheers,
David.

There's endless praise for lossy audio in this thread, despite there being many successful ABX results of 320kbps mp3 documented right here on HA!

There's complete scorn at the idea that an "expensive" system is any better than in iPod, despite the obvious advantages of hearing music over good speakers driven by capable amplifiers.


You know the kind of subjectivist rant that we all go and have a good laugh at? Well, this thread is turning into an objectivist rant that is straying so far beyond the boundaries of reality that any subjectivist could drop in and have a justifiable laugh at it!

I think some people are getting carried away, and it's not pretty.

I think some indeed showed their true face/s.
& just how fragile this weird micro-cosmos you built around yourselves really is.

- I never said blind ABX tests don't prove anything, why are you bringing this up , yet again ?
why would I waste my time with them if I did not find them useful as a tool ?
you are jumping to conclusions without even bothering to READ.

Look, Don't bring your own frustration at other debates you have had with other people,
& attempt to lay it at my feet, or punish me for it, assuming youll get away with it,
just because I am the new guy &/Or your Lossy Brotherhood (youre like a small cult you know ?)
will be able to forcefully budge me, or anyone in their right mind, from Their Scientifically Proven Stance.

hmm.. you are clearly not as sharp as you'd like to think.
"Thickheaded" , is really something Id be very careful about saying again if I were you.
Just read your own post - all it amounts to is one frustrated rant, making final gasping efforts to justify your own stupidity ... youre blaming me for your bs bursts .. quite amazing you chose that word ..

With that said , All the best to you all.

PDF Warning - The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio]
Oldie but goodie.

Quote from: Tahnru on 2009-04-22 21:53:03

PDF Warning - The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio]
Oldie but goodie.

Thanks for posting, I didn't know it yet. It summarizes well the main audiophile myths and names them what they are: lies.

PDF Warning - http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf

Oldie but goodie.

Ask (the ABX skeptic) if he believes in any kind of A/B testing at all. He will probably say yes. Then ask him what special insights he gains by (1) not matching levels and (2) peeking at the nameplates.

Blind and double blind tests seem to be established practices in all field except for the audiophile world. I wonder why.

Quote from: Tahnru on 2009-04-22 21:53:03

PDF Warning - http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf

Oldie but goodie.

Hmm, while I agree with the sentiments here, it's not really any better than the nonsense published in other hi-fi magazines. All he's saying is "I'm better than the other lot because I have science on my side." I'd like to see him presenting something to support what he says, even if what he says seems sensible.

I also question the motives behind this. He was an uber-subjective reviewer who got discredited by the audiophile magazines - and that takes some doing - for writing a glowing review of a loudspeaker and neglecting to mention that he part-owned the company. He then resurfaced some years later as an objectivist, but one who seemed to take particular pleasure in picking off those 'Black Hats' who called for his removal from the audio business. Perhaps his about-face was through a desire to do right for his former indiscretions (but he never mentions the Fourier speaker brand he was connected to) or maybe his reasons for returning are less altruistic.

I'm a big fan of blinded tests, and it's what I turn to when I want to do a comparison between different audio devices.

But let's not deceive ourselves. There is a difference between testing audio, and testing, for example, a new drug. When you test a drug, you can measure results in a specific fashion. If you're testing a new form of insulin, you can do many blinded trials on many people and you can definitively measure what happens to blood sugar. You can be rigorous because, in the end, you're doing things with numbers, not feelings.
 
Blinded tests with audio simply don't have any equivalent,

This isn't to say we shouldn't ABX. It's the fairest thing we have. But my sympathies are with those who have become so fed up with attempting to be rigorous in audio tests, that they throw up their hands and start relying on gut instinct.

I'm still curious to read what 2bdecided and Axon actually make of the style and content of BORK's posts.

I'm still curious to read what 2bdecided and Axon actually make of the style and content of BORK's posts.

But let's not deceive ourselves. There is a difference between testing audio, and testing, for example, a new drug. When you test a drug, you can measure results in a specific fashion. If you're testing a new form of insulin, you can do many blinded trials on many people and you can definitively measure what happens to blood sugar.

You can be rigorous because, in the end, you're doing things with numbers, not feelings.

Blinded tests with audio simply don't have any equivalent, because in the end you are asking a person to evaluate what they perceive.

It's not quantifiable, unless you stick electrodes in their brain, and probably not even then.

And not only are you asking a person for an opinion on something their senses tell them, but you're doing it with, of all things, music, which is known to have a really big emotional component.

Emotional reactions color perceptions.

We know that tiny variations in loudness and frequency response have a disproportionate effect on how we perceive music.

We know that the mind gets tired and inattentive when presented with the same stimuli over and over, so I get especially twitchy when any sort of listening test is repeated - but you need repetition to establish statistical significance.

We know that minor changes in the orientation between listener and speakers can cause changes in perceived frequency.

There are too many variables in any listening experiment to make it really rigorous, and most of those variables vary between the ears of the listeners, not outside them.

Then in the other corner we have Arny who has run and participated in countless ABX tests - and most of these, some with the "best ears" available, proved negative.

Much of the tweaks that can ABXed actually make the sound worse.

He assumes that anyone who claims otherwise is part of the audiophile con.

It seems obvious to the unbiased observer that there will be at least some things which Arny hasn't seen a positive ABX result for which can be ABXed by someone.

It seems equally obvious to the unbiased observer that there will be at least
some things which BORK believes sound different / better, which he's never going to pass an ABX test for.

And it seems really obvious to me that, while it's essential to rely on double blind testing, and important to figure out which changes really cause audible improvements, it's actually far more important that we move away from a pre-WWII recording paradigm with the wrong number of channels and the wrong number of speakers!

Quote

It seems obvious to the unbiased observer that there will be at least some things which Arny hasn't seen a positive ABX result for which can be ABXed by someone.

No examples come to mind. Got any?

Oh come on, give me the benefit of the doubt. It is very obvious that ther is a monumental gap between what your average newbig-to-the-world-ff-science thinks matters, and what actually does. I was that guy about 30 years ago. I still remember actually thinking that the guys at TAS had something on the ball.

What's wrong with modern recordings starts at the microphone(s).  The whole paradigm is wrong from violin body to pinnae.

Obviously BORK is very interested in audio, has just discovered blind testing, and has been willing to do some ABX tests of an audio codec. He's been surprised by the difficulty of passing these tests, but has managed to do so in some cases.

He hasn't yet probed their applicability to the rest of audio, and assumes everything he knows about audio still holds good. He finds the idea that most of the tweaks in the big wide audiophile world are either tiny or inaudible quite baffling - he assumes everyone who thinks this is deaf, or jealous that they can't afford expensive equipment.
.
.
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Finally, note what BORK is: an audiophile who has tried and accepted ABX. Look how well we've welcome that(!). No wonder there are so few "converts"

Of course BORK hasn't applied it to hardware yet. Given the friendly attitude here, do you think he ever will?