[Andrew Haley]

Audio_Empire wrote:

That's true and to my mind it makes DBT null results more than a
little suspect. This kind of testing [the double-blind test] seems
to have been "borrowed" from the hard sciences (drug testing,
hypothesis testing, etc.) and I don't consider listening a hard
science.

What does this even mean? The question of audibility is a scientific
one, and can be verified scientifically. Are you denying this?

OTOH, if the premise of the test is simple enough, (like listening
to wires) I think they are useful when they return a (inevitable)
null result, but for more complex things such as D to A conversion,
amplifier or preamplifier sound, etc., the return of a null result
is far less reliable.

Why should it be? The same tests apply to a DAC (which should be
perfectly transparent in a bypass test) and a wire (which should also
be perfectly transparent).

It's not about "hard science", it's about honesty:
"As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its
credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the
kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example)
that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since
Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among
rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me..."
J. Gordon Holt, Stereophile Posted: Nov 10, 2007

Andrew.