Harry Lavo wrote:
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"Harry Lavo" wrote in message
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snip

The bottom line seems to be that about 97-98% of people are not likely to
hear any differences between the 2 formats.


In this test. That's all you can say for sure.

And in other tests, that percentage may even by higher, especially if
speakers were used instead of headphones. Seems pretty conclusive to me
that the difference between SACD and DVD-A is immaterial. Quite
different than what some audiophiles had thought previously, isn't it?

However it is not an
uncommon phenomenon in abx testing.

It is not uncommon that in any large number of trials, there will be
testees with high scores. If everyone simply guesses by tossing a coin,
there will be some scoring a high percentage of right answers. It would
have been interesting to retest those 4 testees, or let them try using
speakers instead of headphones.

Sean Olive reportedly has to screen out
the majority of potential testers because they cannot discriminate when he
starts training for his abx tests, even when testing for known differences
in sound.

Of course even when there are known differences, not everyone can detect
those differences. The known differences may be below the threshold of
detectible differences, or maybe some of us do not have as good a
listening acuity as we like.