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Bruce Abrams wrote:

"Michael Scarpitti" wrote in message

....snip to content .........

By the way, I asked a friend to listen along with me. His opinions
were exactly the same.

And he knew what he was listening to as well, correct?

Here's another take on the "we all heard it" consensus. In the group open
listening sessions I've witnessed the routine is interesting:

First the Owner/Host/Presenter (they are nearly universally comparative) does a
direct comparison or often a "comparison" with other products that aren't
present, and asks "What did you think?" or, more common "Which Did You Prefer?"
In direct comparisons there are often apparent level differences; but never is
there a controlled attempt to level match. Further the O/H/P often primes the
well with comments prior such as "we'll most people hear x,y and z).

Next one ot two listeners express a comment and IF it's not the answer the
O/H/P wants he says "Let's Try It Again with BETTER Program Material" and then
repeats the process. If the "group" hasn't delivered the expected results this
gets repeated UNTIL the 'right" or at least acceptable answers are obtained and
then the presentation is finished.

Listeners seldom say "they sounded the same to me" and there are often
negotiations about what the real sound was "Well maybe you didn't hear the
do-dah midrange but surely you heard the increased transparency...?"

And eventually those who 'are' willing to speak will come to 'agreement' on
what they heard; and then the experiment will go into anecdotal history that
"everybody heard this."

Let me give you an interesting anecdote about this process. Clarke Johnson, an
avid high-end audio retailer, and long time promoter of "absolute polarity"
gave a paper at an AES Convention where he said that he'd done Triple Blind
Experiments (3X-Blind, according to his interpretation meant that subjects
didn't "know" that they were in an experiment) where 22 of 22 subjects reliably
"heard" absolute polarity.

At a subsequent CES show I was in a exhibit room and I saw Clarke expressing
his beliefs about AP to a Conventioneer. I said that nothing he was saying had
ever been verified under bias controlled conditions.

So he then announced to the room; "hold on everybody we're going to do a test"
and he then played a 2-minute segment of an LP; walked behind the tower
speakers and made a 'do' about doing something back there.

Then he repeated the same music segment; and then asked "Did anybody hear a
difference?" The guy next to me looked quizzical, shrugging his shoulders and
then finally raised his hand when he saw a few others doing so.

Then Clarke counted the raised hands and loudly proclaimed "See 6 out of 6
heard a difference." I then pointed out that I hadn't raised my hand (they did
not sound different to me) and he conceded "OK 6 out of 7" totally ignoring
that there were at least a DOZEN listeners present.

Open social listening sessions often have the same interpretative error
mechanisms; no data is compiled; negotiation between subjects is allowed,
subjects who do not speak out vocally are ignored and only acceptable answers
are accepted or acknowledged.

Don't think this happens? Think about it. Try it yourself.