[Audio Empire]

On Fri, 1 Apr 2011 07:29:10 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message


You asked for peer-reviewed evidence of the validity of
what you call "audiophile myths". The insinuation here is
that lack of same means that there aren't any because
there cannot BE any, when all it really shows is that
none have been done - that we are aware of.

Not at all. My point is that while the peer-reviewed support for a
scientific approach to audio may not satisfy every dedicated true believer
in anti-science, the peer reviewed evidence that supports their viewpoint is
non-existent.

Yes, I know that's your point. But my point is this evidence is not
non-existent because it cannot exist, it's non-existent probably because the
research has not been done, or at least hasn't been done in a manner that
would lead to the results being peer-reviewed. This is an entirely different
thing from what you want the answer to be.


They would like to ignore the fact that the original Clark
JAES article introducing ABX was peer-reviewed.

I'm not sure that anyone would like to do that. Just because a paper on the
methodology has been peer-reviewed, doesn't mean that the results have.

A friend of mine likes to say "People hear what they want to hear and read
what they want to read".

Very true. I'm not advocating that test methodologies which eliminate
expectational and sighted bias aren't necessary, I'm just wondering if the
tests we now employ satisfy the other side of the equation. IOW, we've got
the bias-neutral part right, but are the results of those DBTs either
accurate or reliable? One side of the equation doesn't necessarily guarantee
the efficacy of the other. In fact, they have little to do with each other.


It is very clear to me that people who have
invested $10,000's, perhaps $100,000's, and most of their adult lives on
anti-technology like tubes, vinyl, Mpingo discs and Bedini Clarifiers, and
believe that digital can't sound right because of the empty space beteween
the samples, aren't going to read a few peer-reviewed papers and suddenly
have a major change of heart.

Nor are they going to believe a bunch of DBTs that tell them that they are
wrong.

OTOH, I think that you are wrong (and incredibly biased), however, when you
group tubes and vinyl in with Mpingo discs, Bedini Clarifiers and other REAL
anti-technology. I can show you any number of tube amps, for example, that
you couldn't tell were tubed on the basis of their sound or for that matter
differentiate between the tubed amp and a modern SS amp in any DBT or ABX
test that you'd like to name. I will give you that since modern, quality tube
amps from the likes of Audio Research and VTL, etc., sound so much like a
modern SS amp, it's difficult to justify putting-up with the downside of
tubes just to have one. There was a time when tube amps sounded much better
than transistor amps, but those days are done and gone. There might be some
romance associated with a set of KT-88s glowing softly in the dark while
great music fills the room, but at that juncture we have reduced tubes to an
electronic fireplace, and I think I'd rather have a nice, reliable SS amp and
a REAL fireplace, thank you. The darkened room, filled with great music, of
course, is always welcome from any source, including vinyl.

The current round of posts blaming problems that afflict *any* listening
test on just DBTs shows that biases run deep, and that some critics simply
do not feel constrained by the actual facts or reason in their blind rush to
preserve the status quo.

Your opinions are not necessarily facts, and I've seen no DIRECT proof that
these null results from DBTs actually PROVE anything. Sure they satisfy those
who believe that DBT is the final arbiter of component differences, but that,
in itself, is a form of circular reasoning. A self-fulfilling prophecy as it
were.