On 18 Aug 2005 23:31:08 GMT, Gene Poon wrote:

wrote:

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?...

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.)


No, I would say he CONSISTENTLY HEARD a difference and that he just
guessed wrong as to which amp was which. His ear is just as golden as
Iverson's because he was able to tell one from the other just as reliably.

You miss the point, which is that if the same number of people in the
same room flipped a coin seven times, you'd get the same spread of
results. Basically, that's why casinos make money................
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering