what value listening tests
Reply #92 –
However, at the same time you conveniently sweep under the carpet the obvious psychological impact that knowing they are in a test will have on the mood of the listeners, and which must also affect their judgement and affect the results of the test. It is surely impossible that a listener will be unaffected by the difference between a normal listening situation, where they are listening for pleasure, and one where they are focussing their attention of the music in order to render an objective judgement on it.
If rendering a decision about X being A or B is so utterly difficult under the immense pressure (sarcasm) of what is really a trivial test, you might consider the obvious: you really cannot tell the difference. Again, this sounds like a cop-out predicated on the fear that you may not pass.
The interesting thing here is that you still don't seem to understand how to interpret the results of an ABX test. ABX is only designed to show that a particular individual can discern a difference between a particular pair of samples at the given time of the test. If you tried the test with a cold or immediately after attending a very loud concert, you might not do so well if you took the test under more favorable circumstances.
Anyway, what's wrong with setting up an ABX test that lasts all day long? You can surely manage to decompress at some point in time, can't you; or are you going to give pathetic excuses about how hard it is throughout each and every day?
To be frank with you, there are a few people here who can regularly ABX 320kbit mp3 from lossless with what might seem to be ordinary, non-killer samples to most people. None of them have ever whined about how difficult it was knowing that they were testing themselves. I could be wrong, but your excuses give me the impression that you are not one of these people.