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There have been three articles on the web pages recently about the place,
or not, of blind testing. We had a double rehash of the editor's epiphany
that if you make yourself subject to all the standard conditions known to
produce subjective effects based on false perceptions existing only in the
brain, you will have those false perceptions. This was the basis of his
"debate" offering reported before in print and again in the web pieces.

This week we have another's jousting at blind testing. Nothing new
really, a redo of old tired arguments that boil down to saying even if the
gear really really has a different enough sound, the testing gets in the
way of a blind test discovering it, all in answer to why the mag doesn't
do blind testing to the benefit of it's readers and with a tactical
"disgruntled" thrown in here and there to make sure the point is not
missed.. Sneak preview, the real motivation of the testing folk is
revealed, saying more about the writer then his targets.

"The Blind Leading the Blind?"

http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/805awsi


Let's imagine this hypothetical situation:

You have a room full of audiophiles taking a blind test of amplifiers, a
respected solid state amp selling for $700, and a high end tube amp selling
for $4900. There are 30 people taking this test, and there is a 50% chance
of being right by guesswork alone. There are 7 chances, and when the test
is over the average of the entire group is 3.5--exactly what you would
expect from flipping coins.

But wait! Here is some guy by the name of Iverson who got it right 6 out of
7 tries, only a 6% chance of doing that well by guesswork. We must have a
golden ear here--right?

While we're thinking about this, we notice that there's a guy that was WRONG
6 out of 7 times. What will we say about him? Cloth ear? Hardly. How do
you "earn" a score less than chance? And there's the overall score of 50%
to contend with. Since we have a golden ear in the group, how do we arrange
for the balance of the testees to do worse than chance, a necessity if the
final score is to be average?

I'm sure that any of you, faced with those results would say that the guy
that was right only once out of seven tries was just plain unlucky (unless
you want to insinuate that he was purposely trying to do poorly.) If that's
the case, why not say that Iverson was just plain lucky?

Norm Strong