"Bob Marcus" wrote in
:

So we need some way to determine whether the difference you think you
hear is real or imaginary. We do this by designing a test in which you
do not know what you are listening to (i.e., blind). There are a
variety of ways to do this, including the ABX test and the A-B
difference test. In the former, you must tell us what X is. In the
latter, you must tell us whether B is the same as or different than A.
Either way, you've got a 50-50 chance of being right, so if you did it
just once and got the right answer, it could be just a lucky guess.
That's why we require multiple trials, and there are some general
statistical rules for how many trials and how many correct answers you
need. Stewart's 16-out-of-20 condition is perfectly reasonable.

If you want to claim that you can hear differences between cables,
this is what you have to do to prove it to us skeptics. It's not an
unreasonable standard; it's a standard based on general scientific
understanding of human hearing.

Thank you for your reasoning.

The thing is, Stewart's "blind test" already assumed that the subject
will guess at the beginning because of the $4000 pool. I know what you
saying, sometime we will bias on certain if we see the cable first, but
you know, do it yourself at home, in regardless of that "attractive"
$4000, honestly to yourself, I bet the difference between a cheap dirty
zip-cord and a 6N copper wire is obvious; same thing as a solid copper
interconnect and a silver/copper hybrid interconnect. I can say that,
because I have done it and experiencing the difference, many times. I
don't need to do any nonsense test to prove to me that is right.

The test has a major problem because of the extend of time it consume,
and as I pointed out above, it bias that the tester will lie even if
he/she cannot tell the difference.

I say, if I can tell the difference the first time, that is! Why didn't I
want to do it 20 times in a roll, because we are human, human will adapt
to an environment quite easily, after a few time of identical testing,
especially under loud volume, everything will just sounds the same,
cables, speakers, amp, preamp, source (of course you can tell between a
CD and LP). The set up of the test is nonsense. That is why as proclaim
by Stewart why so many years, nobody even wanted to do the test, because
people have better way to spend their time.

Lawrence Leung