Mark DeBellis wrote:
....
The background to this is that I said I thought SACD sounded better
than CD, and Chung suggested that I try a simple blind test, to see if
I could reliably identify which was SACD and which was CD (after
matching levels; SACD and CD layers of same disc). Indeed I could
not, at least on one set of trials. Should the conclusion be that
SACD sounds the same as CD? Or is it possible that the test I applied
is inadequate in some way? How *could* it be possible that the test
is inadequate? My question is basically an attempt to explain how
that might be. ...

Another possibility is suggested by an informal experiment on smells
that I did on myself. I took a selection of spices that were all
in the same type of bottle, closed my eyes, shuffled the bottles
around, and opened and sniffed them one by one, trying to identify
the spice by name. I was sure I could do it but was quite amazed to
discover that I couldn't do it at all. With my eyes closed, I could
tell the differences perfectly well, but I just couldn't connect the
names with the smells.

So I think it's *possible* that in unsighted comparisons, the part
of the brain that does symbolic analysis and associated judgment
is not in perfect communication with other parts.
--
Greg Lee