Audio Blind Testing

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I have nothing to add to the topic of audio blind testing -- except to say that it won't work unless there are very large differences in sound. Not to any degree of acceptable mathematical rigor, anyway. This is due to the ear-brain issues that are difficult to control for.

 

I just wanted to post that whenever I see "audio blind testing" I want to read it as "audio bling testing", which would be a much more entertaining thread.

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1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

which  ear-brain issues are difficult to control for?

 

Phenomena like stress-induced loss of listening discernment and audio memory.

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6 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I'd be interested in any citations to the literature finding either of the above.

 

These are areas I don’t think which have undergone any clinical research. They’re very well-known phenomena. @gmgraves admits to have faced it himself, but he chooses to believe the differences he heard were in his head after being influenced by the stress of blind testing. I’ve experienced these phenomena myself in ABX testing and just regular A/B-ing where I do it enough times.

 

Fremer of Analog Planet did a public shoot-out of a bunch of cartridges ranging from $100 or so up to around $1k (as I recall) on a fairly modest turntable and tonearm. He digitized the output of each cartridge, kept secret which file was from which cartridge, and put out a public poll asking which one people liked best. The results showed that, as expected, the tendency was to prefer the more expensive cartridge, with the most expensive (Ortofon Quintet Black?) being the most popular. But what was super interesting was that opinion was not unanimous. I can’t imagine anyone can’t tell the difference between the bundled StudioTracker that came with my Studio Deck and the AT-OC9ML/II that I upgraded to, let alone prefer the former, yet, Fremer’s poll showed just that and worse; some people actually preferred the cheap budget junk the best. What happened very likely was that people listening to all these files one after the other started to mix them together in thier heads. The difference between some cheap elliptical MM and a highly regarded high performance line contact MC isn’t a minor one. You can’t blame setup because it was set up by one of the leading authorities in turntable setup.

 

Another example of audio memory at work. Have you ever listened to some familiar music through some good headphones and you picked up a detail you hadn’t noticed before? From then on you will be able to hear the detail; you’re brain has decided it should be there, so it’s there. The sound IS there, but just much less obvious due to a speaker’s poor low level sound production.

 

In the Music Server forum I recently complained that a tweak (low noise regulator on SSD) I went through a lot of trouble and time to implement resulted in a huge downgrade. I immediately noticed a big increase in glare / sibilance and collapse of soundstage, issues that were fixed after removing the regulator. Shouldn’t I have convinced myself by then that I was opening the gates to audio nirvana? Why did I instead perceive a big reduction in quality? I’m sure I could ABX the difference with certainty — but could I do it after 20 plays? 30? 50? I’m not sure! I say this because I’ve experienced first hand how ABX testing quickly mixes everything together.

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4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I attempted to take the concept of ABX seriously, some years ago, and determined that the tools available were so poor, or were unavailable - so, lost interest fast ... . Specifically, Foobar's extension has so many issues that it was a waste of time - a badly made hammer is useless, as a tool.

 

In other areas where hardware is involved the difficulties are horrendous, especially in the areas where I operate - altering part of the system where, say, hard wiring is an essential means that the exercise is an impossibility.

 

The point, yet again, is to completely forget about whether something is different - this is useless as a means of advancing the status, performance of an audio system; a complete waste of time. The only criterion should be whether one can detect whether the playback is audibly faulty or not - and then resolve any failings ... if a luxury car has a rattle in it, then the only concern is to get rid of the rattle - not, "do you prefer this quality, or that quality, of annoying noise?"; or, "if you increase the thickness of the carpet it makes it harder to hear the rattle!" .. I shake my head a lot of the time when I read comments about audio ...

 

A very valid approach. You can look at your system as a constant journey to fix problems. In my case, the big problem to be addressed is lack of dynamic force. Other problems are that my soundstage isn’t fully unfurling and little bass response (which is admittedly done on purpose to avoid destructive room modes).

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2 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

First, that is not blind test. the reason being you are comparing high res vs CD quality. Second, you do not know if the MQA and CD files are from the same master, so this is a HUGE problem with this test. Before you do any test likse this please read on how to actually perform a blind test. You have done at least 4 blunders that basically negates your conclusion.

 

Go buy a $400 Pro-Ject or even a $200 DragonFly Red, and listen to several good MQA recordings vs the non-MQA version. The difference is NOT slight. I find it 100% believable someone could ace a blind test.

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2 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

As I said , IT DEPENDS on the master. Unless you know the recordings are from the EXACT same master, it is utter non-sense to say one is better than the other. The problem is even though MQA purports to be curate with time delays, etc, it is not SONICALLY ACCURATE. The filtering adds noise about the Nyquist frequency used for the PCM files. This noise, when added to files above the 48KHz resolution can actually add sympathetic noise at the midrange or higher frequencies. This has been shown in numerous tests of MWA files, therefore, it doesn't matter if the files are time accurate when they are not sonically accurate. The amount the regular files are off can barely be determined by human hearing. So, why push, a file system, like this, is utterly flummoxing to me.

 

Let's inject some reality for a second.

 

Everyone knows that SACDs sound better than CDs. It's widely postulated that the reason for this isn't because SACD as a format is that much better than CD, but because SACDs tend to be mastered better. If we accept the premise that mastering makes the difference and SACDs generally have better mastering -- then we can't escape the conclusion that SACDs are still generally better.

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I feel like mailing @gmgraves a set of my Audio Sensibility Statement XLRs (7N OCC, Teflon, cotton, Furutech) to challenge this belief system.

 

I had installed a new audio stand against a sidewall to reduce distortion caused by putting equipment between my speakers. In order for the pre to reach the amps I used a set of cheap 5 meter interconnects I had laying around. I ended up moving the rack back to the front of the room because I couldn’t stand how badly the sound was impacted. I then tried comparing the cheap interconnects with my Statements to find that yes, the cheap cables caused the soundstage to narrow and lead to a sense of congestion and muddied sound — a big downgrade. 

 

Here’s the twist — the cheap cables weren’t cheap at all. Looking more closely, I noticed they were Belden with Neutrik connectors.