Arny Krueger wrote:
http://www.stereophile.com/historical/1283cable/ .
(1) Must be a slow day in the Stereophile offices when so much
attention is paid to a 24 year old article.
(2) The analysis must be taken on faith because no relevant raw data
is provided, it only alluded to.
It's your lucky day.
The article in question summarized itself into 4 points:
(1) "The first interesting result is that the listening panel's
preconceptions of cable performance had a large effect on perceived
differences between cables when they knew which cables were in use."
In fact, just another indictment of sighted evaluations.
No, that's not a fact. The above analysis regards specific observation
attributed to the listening test.
(2) "Second, differences were still perceived in double-blind
testing, but to a much lesser degree. "
Debunking the idea that nobody hears differences in DBTs. No eyes
were poked out in the execution of these tests.
The (my) contention has always been its methodology and preventing
guesses as the test progress.
(3) "Third, panel members were surprised that the differences between
cables were so subtle and difficult to distinguish."
Welcome to the real world.
Yes, welcome to the real world of panel members, audio testing, and DBTs.
As the going gets tough, the guessing comes easy.
(4) "Fourth, the performance of different panel members varied
widely: there was one truly amazing "ear" amongst them, and four very
good ones. "
In fact the individual panel members were not tested properly if the
goal was to determine whether the observed differences were due to
actual differences in listener acuity, or whether it was due to the
lack of enough data for individual listeners to produce reliable
evidence related to this secondary issue.
Well here's a fact for YOU: the test will prove for those with truly amazing
ear. For the rest, it will NOT proved the absence of subtle differences.