I've been reading a real interesting thread on TAS forum about blind testing. It's a conversation between Robert Harley and some other reviewers and some skeptics as well. It's an intelligent debate instead of the usual venom and insults that Micheal Fremer is known for. I tend to side with the skeptics, but Harley makes some interesting arguments.
His main idea is; when blind tests arrive at absurd conclusions, there must be something wrong with the tests. He doesn't offer any reasoned argument as to why the conclusions are absurd,other than that he says they are.
I try to read this stuff with an open mind. But the idea that a ten thousand dollar amp must sound a little better than a nine thousand dollar amp is what seems absurd to me, not the conclusion of DBX testing that they sound the same.
Now ,considering that Harley and other high-end component reviewers have a vested interest in convincing readers that they actually are hearing the differences they claim to hear, it's easy to see how they would be inclined to convince themselves that these differences they hear are real.
but Harleys statement that "double blind testing is flawed and worthless" seems just as dumb,to me,as he asserts the objectivists are.
He states that the objectivists are people with an axe to grind against subjective reviewers, while ignoring his own agenda and biases in the opposite direction.
If anyone want's me to, I'll post the web address of the thread.
I can't discredit subjectivism completely because after listening to a new pair of speakers for the last three weeks, I now believe I hear all kinds of improvements compared to the speakers they replaced. These differences seem real to me, but I'm not sure how much psychology and expectation bias is at work here. Thing is, it's difficult to actually carry out DB tests at home.
The assertion that conclusions are absurd does not constitute proof that those conclusions are absurd,as Harley seems to believe.
I've been reading a real interesting thread on TAS forum about blind testing. It's a conversation between Robert Harley and some other reviewers and some skeptics as well. It's an intelligent debate instead of the usual venom and insults that Micheal Fremer is known for. I tend to side with the skeptics, but Harley makes some interesting arguments.
His main idea is; when blind tests arrive at absurd conclusions, there must be something wrong with the tests. He doesn't offer any reasoned argument as to why the conclusions are absurd,other than that he says they are.
I try to read this stuff with an open mind. But the idea that a ten thousand dollar amp must sound a little better than a nine thousand dollar amp is what seems absurd to me, not the conclusion of DBX testing that they sound the same.
Now ,considering that Harley and other high-end component reviewers have a vested interest in convincing readers that they actually are hearing the differences they claim to hear, it's easy to see how they would be inclined to convince themselves that these differences they hear are real.
but Harleys statement that "double blind testing is flawed and worthless" seems just as dumb,to me,as he asserts the objectivists are.
He states that the objectivists are people with an axe to grind against subjective reviewers, while ignoring his own agenda and biases in the opposite direction.
If anyone want's me to, I'll post the web address of the thread.
I can't discredit subjectivism completely because after listening to a new pair of speakers for the last three weeks, I now believe I hear all kinds of improvements compared to the speakers they replaced. These differences seem real to me, but I'm not sure how much psychology and expectation bias is at work here. Thing is, it's difficult to actually carry out DB tests at home.
The assertion that conclusions are absurd does not constitute proof that those conclusions are absurd,as Harley seems to believe.