big snip

In '89 a rather elaborate listening test for audibility of
distortion
was performed .(Masters and Clark, St. Review, Jan. '89).
Various types of distortion with different signals were tested.. There
were 15 TRAINED listeners -? Gender?. At 2 db. distortion level
(2db), playing "natural music" the "average" level of correct hits
was 61% (barely above the minimum statistically significant level of
60%). The individual scores varied from perfect 5/5 to 1/5
Similar discrepancies were observed in phase shift recognition.:
Authors' conclusion: "Distortion has to be very gross and the signal
very simple for it to be noticed" ... by the "average"
Will it do for the time being?


I think this is good "food for thoughts" because it gives an idea of how
large a margin there is to really detect a difference.

This is also why I asked about if anybody had any experience with the
"Golden Ear" CD set. However, either this issue has been debated to death
before I came here, or there is little interest in training the ear.

KE