wrote in message
...

I think that non-comparitive or monadic testing is an interesting
alternative. If I get the time and find someone to help me, I would
like to do some testing in which I listen blind and rate the qualties
of the sound. Over three or four sessions, I will have listened to
every combination of DUT and musical selection. In any given session,
no musical selection will be used more than once.

What you're suggesting here is to connect some component whose identity is
unknown to you and then rate the sound you hear. You describe it as
carefully as you can using the english language. You then have someone else
connect a competing component, and you once again describe the sound you
hear. You repeat this process for each different component that you have
available. Do I understand correctly?

If so, the test will only be meaningful if you can draw some conclusion from
the descriptions, and that of course means comparison. There has to be
enough info to decide which component sounds the best, the worst and so on.
IOW the descriptions have to be useful enough to allow you to rank order
your preference on their basis. Frankly, I don't think you can do this.

It would be even tougher--and probably more embarrassing--if there was the
possibility of repetition, if the units under test were chosen completely at
random.

Norm Strong