Welwynnick
Distinguished Member
I started out in HiFi at university when everything was vinyl and stereo. Compact disc was the bogeyman, and there were no mobile phones or internet. I joined an audio society, and we read magazines, listened to each other’s systems, and occasionally organised visits to dealers and manufacturers. I even did a final year project on loudspeakers. But we really loved listening to music, and played records at every opportunity. A good record would transport me out of the room, and I became quite addicted.
Before my first proper job, I worked at a good hifi shop. Obviously I had a great time and learned all sorts of interesting things, but eventually grew up, bought a house, a DVD player, and an expensive AVR. Listening to music slowly and sadly faded into the background. I didn’t realise how much the AVR had poisoned my music listening until I replaced it. What went wrong? It had universally great specs, great reviews and great measurements, but it was rubbish. How do you find that out?
The internet provides all the information you could possibly want. If you want to find a particular opinion about something, you can usually find someone who has written what you want to hear. So if you want to read that amplifier A sounds totally better / totally indistinguishable / tragically worse than amplifier B, then you can find it. It’s one of many obsessive hobbies out there, and you’ll find some convincing arguments.
However, if you want to find independent ABX DBT results for HiFi, good luck. It’s too time-consuming and expensive, and nobody wants the information badly enough, so nobody does it. So how do you find out what sounds best? For a while I did it the hard way, and begged, bought and borrowed all the equipment I could lay my hands on. I did countless auditions and comparisons (and some AVF shoot-outs), and found out what I wanted to know, and told everybody about it. I subsequently became the AVF retained amplifier reviewer for a while.
September and October - Blu-ray player shootout
Procesor Shootout: Arcam AV9, Lexicon MC12, Proceed AVP2, Upgrade Company Onkyo SC885
Power Amp Comparison
Many years of blind-testing with many friends had shown that comparisons become strangely difficult when you can’t see what you’re listening to. Sceptics everywhere insisted that sighted tests counted for nothing and only ABX DBTs were reliable. What I did was level-matched, but it was all sighted, so how could I be sure that I wasn’t deceiving myself without ABX testing (HiFi doesn’t pay the mortgage)?
I think I found the answer by accident, and I’ve had the proof all along.
Ten days ago this week I borrowed an Onkyo SC886 from Mad Mr H, and was able to hear the difference between player and receiver decoding of DTS MA soundtracks. It was at a time when I was getting to grips with the causes and effects of jitter, and how it was affected by the digital audio replay architecture. Because that was changed by the decoding, I reasoned that it must change the sound quality, notwithstanding the contemptible “bits-are-bits” flat-earthers. Many people said outputting compressed audio from the player sounded, whereas others insisted they must be imagining it, because bits were bits. I was dying to hear the difference for myself, so I could prove myself right and feed my intellectual and golden eared ego.
However, that all came crashing down when I could barely hear any difference, and anything I could hear was probably unreliable, impossible to repeat, and really didn’t matter at all. Perhaps it was everyone else that had the golden ears, and not me. It was very embarrassing, but I nonetheless owned up straight away and wrote:
Price list for new Onkyo PR-SC886
Which doesn't matter in this context.
Here’s the point. In spite of considerable expectation bias, I couldn’t reliably distinguish between two things that I thought were different, but were in fact the same. I can’t speak for other people, but in the context of recent discussions about whether electronics sound audibly different, I think this provides proof that I’m not susceptible to expectation bias in sighted tests. I’ve done that on a few other occasions as well. If two things sound the same, then I say they’re the same.
Logically then, I don’t need ABX DBT’s to confidently distinguish between amplifiers.
How other people can achieve the same thing is another matter entirely
Regards,
Nick
Before my first proper job, I worked at a good hifi shop. Obviously I had a great time and learned all sorts of interesting things, but eventually grew up, bought a house, a DVD player, and an expensive AVR. Listening to music slowly and sadly faded into the background. I didn’t realise how much the AVR had poisoned my music listening until I replaced it. What went wrong? It had universally great specs, great reviews and great measurements, but it was rubbish. How do you find that out?
The internet provides all the information you could possibly want. If you want to find a particular opinion about something, you can usually find someone who has written what you want to hear. So if you want to read that amplifier A sounds totally better / totally indistinguishable / tragically worse than amplifier B, then you can find it. It’s one of many obsessive hobbies out there, and you’ll find some convincing arguments.
However, if you want to find independent ABX DBT results for HiFi, good luck. It’s too time-consuming and expensive, and nobody wants the information badly enough, so nobody does it. So how do you find out what sounds best? For a while I did it the hard way, and begged, bought and borrowed all the equipment I could lay my hands on. I did countless auditions and comparisons (and some AVF shoot-outs), and found out what I wanted to know, and told everybody about it. I subsequently became the AVF retained amplifier reviewer for a while.
September and October - Blu-ray player shootout
Procesor Shootout: Arcam AV9, Lexicon MC12, Proceed AVP2, Upgrade Company Onkyo SC885
Power Amp Comparison
Many years of blind-testing with many friends had shown that comparisons become strangely difficult when you can’t see what you’re listening to. Sceptics everywhere insisted that sighted tests counted for nothing and only ABX DBTs were reliable. What I did was level-matched, but it was all sighted, so how could I be sure that I wasn’t deceiving myself without ABX testing (HiFi doesn’t pay the mortgage)?
I think I found the answer by accident, and I’ve had the proof all along.
Ten days ago this week I borrowed an Onkyo SC886 from Mad Mr H, and was able to hear the difference between player and receiver decoding of DTS MA soundtracks. It was at a time when I was getting to grips with the causes and effects of jitter, and how it was affected by the digital audio replay architecture. Because that was changed by the decoding, I reasoned that it must change the sound quality, notwithstanding the contemptible “bits-are-bits” flat-earthers. Many people said outputting compressed audio from the player sounded, whereas others insisted they must be imagining it, because bits were bits. I was dying to hear the difference for myself, so I could prove myself right and feed my intellectual and golden eared ego.
However, that all came crashing down when I could barely hear any difference, and anything I could hear was probably unreliable, impossible to repeat, and really didn’t matter at all. Perhaps it was everyone else that had the golden ears, and not me. It was very embarrassing, but I nonetheless owned up straight away and wrote:
Price list for new Onkyo PR-SC886
I unwittingly used a musical scene from the Happy Feet blu-ray, which actually had an LPCM soundtrack, so there was no decoding to be done anywhere. Therefore when I thought I switched between native and LPCM output, it was LPCM both ways. That was a very disappointing day. It was a sighted test, and the expectation bias could hardly have been greater, but I still declared no reliable audible difference. The next day I realised my mistake and repeated the test with a Dolby-HD soundtrack. What a difference, amplifier decoding was far better, as I hoped it would be, and I set the record straight. It was a dumb mistake, but I got the result I wanted.I think what I found with amplifier decoding is easiest to summarise first. This is what I was really keen to hear for myself, never having had the opportunity before. Every time I made the comparison, I fancy that LPCM sounded better, but the difference was so small that I doubt I could tell the difference reliably. LPCM seemed to have a bit more sparkle and transparency, which is the opposite of what I was expecting of course. There were much bigger differences elsewhere, and if my player or amp constrained me to using one or the other, it really wouldn't be a factor.
Which doesn't matter in this context.
Here’s the point. In spite of considerable expectation bias, I couldn’t reliably distinguish between two things that I thought were different, but were in fact the same. I can’t speak for other people, but in the context of recent discussions about whether electronics sound audibly different, I think this provides proof that I’m not susceptible to expectation bias in sighted tests. I’ve done that on a few other occasions as well. If two things sound the same, then I say they’re the same.
Logically then, I don’t need ABX DBT’s to confidently distinguish between amplifiers.
How other people can achieve the same thing is another matter entirely
Regards,
Nick