Quote:
Originally Posted by Ilikevalvesme
In my day job I work in the R&D facility of one of the major motor manufacturers. One of my responsibilities is audio sound quality & we carry out subjective listening tests on prototype vehicles. All our listeners have an engineering background (as do I) & we generally get pretty consistent results despite us all liking different music genres (for the record, I like rock & 50s). None of us subscribe to the audiophoolery snake oil theories.
I was Googling some info & found a link to this website: http://wathifi.com/ a collection of pseudoscience from audiophile mags. Worth looking at for a chuckle, it amused me for a half hour or so.
I liked the comment stating that double blind tests may be OK for pharmaceutical companies, but had no relevance for hifi....
One link also said that A/B/X tests were meaningless, because when you do them, 'all amplifiers sound the same'
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Mark, it's always a joy to read a post from someone - with professional audio experience - whose feet are firmly on the ground, and to some extent whose tongue is firmly in their cheek. I too had to 'lol' when I read that last sentence! You just couldn't make it up could you?!!!
No, for sure, ABX testing puts the fear of death into most audiophools. It's akin to holding up a cross or garlic to a vampire.
I've been to many an audiophool's house and listened to their XX thousand pound systems. And you know what? I haven't heard a good one yet, or one that would approach what you could (intelligently and with good 'audio knowledgeable' ears) put together for less than a grand. And the reason in most cases is that they are using esoteric speakers that cost a fortune and are designed and made by some bloke out in the desert in California or Spain who eschews accepted speaker theory and practise. Such speakers are usually along the lines of multiple, unmatched drive units and highly polished, exotic wood, odd shaped cabinets. But the hifi mags rate them very highly. Yeah, so they
must be great.. You can always tell an audiophool on a forum by looking at their avatar where their hfi set up is listed. It's usually a collection of weird names (cottage industry one man bands normally) that are hard to pronounce, extremely expensive and very 'prestigious' to those in the know.