Many people claim certain abilities which often evaporate under scientific scrutiny.
The NRC testing clearly showed people can reliably identify speakers in carefully controlled double blind tests. There is no doubt about that.
However similar tests for amplifiers show people CANNOT reliably identify them. This has been tested many times.
At the Los Angeles AES (Audio Engineering Society) show in the late 80's over a 3 day period over 200 professional audio engineers participated in a double blind amplifier test. Everyone was confident they could easily pass it (reliably identify one amp vs another). The final results were 49/51, the same as random chance.
They also tested exotic Monster wire against solid 12ga THHN house wiring. Results were 49/50 as well.
Richard Clark, a columnist for Carsound.com will pay $10,000 if someone can reliably identify one amp vs another in a double blind test. It started as a car audio test, but has since been extended to home audio.
So far thousands of people have taken Clark's test and NOT ONE has passed it.
You can see the contest rules by searching Google on "AMPLIFIER CHALLENGE RULES". They are posted many places.
