"Sander deWaal" wrote in message
...
Steven Sullivan said:

How closely have you level matched them? And are you doing the
comparisons blind? Your amps *could* sound intrinsically different,
or they might really sound the same. How do you determine
which is actually the case?


sigh
Let me try to explain this just one more time.

The way hobbyists and music lovers listen at home, is *sighted* .
The way they determine differences in amps, DACs etc. is done sighted.

You see, it *doesn't matter* one whit if two amps sound the same in a
DBT; when there's a difference in listening sighted, that's all that
matters.
Listening sighted is the reality of everyday's life, the ideal
circumstances in a laboratory are *not*.

I'm an EE, I know amplifier topology, I know that most likely 99% of
all amps sound alike in a DBT, but *it simply doesn't matter* for the
consumer at home, since other biases can't be ignored when returning
to listening for pleasure.
One can't avoid looking at his amp, enjoying the thick faceplate, the
brand name, the gold-plated connectors or the huge heatsinks or tubes
sticking out.
Such things *have* to alter the perception.

Ignoring for this moment those amp topologies, where differences are
built into it *on purpose*.
It should be clear that those designs sound even more different :-)

Thanks Sander. Good, solid sensible Dutch logic. Now if you could
only convince the others:-)

Iain