John Atkinson wrote:

At HE2005 -- see http://www.stereophile.com/news/050905debate --
Arny Krueger made the point that sighted listening changes the
listener's state of mind. This, of course, is correct, but so does
blind
listening, though in a different manner. I offer some further thoughts
on
this at http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/406awsi .

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

John

Usually I support your opinions and actually don't disagree with all of
the points you and others use against A/B sightless comparisons.
However - I have done a small amount of A/B (mostly with the capability
for fast switching) and I found it very useful. While I understand that
equipment near the same price point or quality might be hard to tell
apart sighted or not one should expect an immediate A/B difference when
the price points jump especially when the piece you compare to costs
twice as much or more. If I couldn't A/B my Triangle Celius 202's with
speakers $5k or more in price difference and hear an immediate
difference (one I assume I should like) then it would make no sense to
me to spend that much more money. (Maybe the $5k difference example is
not disparate enough - however my point should still stand). Having
said this I agree that there comes a point where the cost trade off
becomes steeper. At some point one has to pay a lot more to get a
little difference - at this point I could see sighted tests not being
helpful.

Have you guys ever tried blind tests to see if you can pick out the
"better" units? Maybe a Vandersteen 3 and something that covers the
same freq range but costs much more? Maybe a Rotel amp and the Halcro?
Maybe a good Music Hall TT set up against a top of the line player?
Or an NAD Player against. . .well you get the point. Heck - you guys
should even try a whole system A/B to see if you can tell. (I'd imagine
the speakers would have to use the same technology and have the same
bandwidth and amps would have to have roughly the same power capability
- under normal loads)

Seems to me you guys should be able to differentiate things like this 10
out of 10 times - especially if the price differences are a factor or so
more.