[Arny Krueger[_5_]]

"Scott" wrote in message
...
On Friday, September 27, 2013 7:04:32 AM UTC-7, Andrew Haley wrote:
Audio_Empire wrote:

That's true and to my mind it makes DBT null results more than a
little suspect.

As compared to sighted evaluations where all results are totally 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.

Tell that to the Acoustical Society of America! Their motto is "Acoustics is
the science of sound.", which of course includes audibility.

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

So it would seem but I suspect this is more based in a lack of familiarity
with science.

I'm sure he isn't. But weekend warrior science isn't real science.

Except it is. Here are 5 amateur scientists and their discoveries:

Michael Faraday - discovered diamagnetism, electrolysis, and electromagnetic
induction.
Gregor Mendel - discovered genetics while his day job was in organized
religion
Robert Evans - various significant astronomical discoveries while his day
job was also in organized religion
Albert Einstein - discovered relativity when his day job was being a low
level clerk in a government office.
Thomas Edison - various inventions related to the telegraph while his day
job was selling newspapers on a train in Michigan.

So if one wants to wave the science flag they need to have some
legitimate science. that means peer reviewed published tests.

Excluded middle argument. Its like saying that in order to call yourself an
automobile racer you have to win the Indy 500.

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.

Actually, with modern DACs null results are all you get. That's very
reliable, no?

"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

High end audio community doesn't have a say so in submitting to real
scientific scrutiny. If real scientists want to test claims in a
scientific manner and publish the results in a peer reviewed scientific
journal there ain't nothin the high end audio community can do about it.

This has of course happened on many occasions, with embarassing results for
the high-enders.


Likewise it is not on the high end audio community to try to be what they
are not, legitimate scientific researchers.

Does this give them a pass to the results of testing procedures known to be
highly inaccurate as justification for making purchase decisions?