JBall, I think you should sell your B&Ws and buy some M3s.

I guess magical fairy elves set up the speakers then, eh? At what point does the person setting up the speakers stop being the tester?

I'm pretty sure Axiom actually showed people which speakers were playing after they did the test.

He's got M80s, Adrian...

I don't own B&Ws. I'm a happy Axiom owner though a bit taken back by the arrogance displayed on this forum that no speaker can possibly be better, only "similarly good" to our Axioms based on Axiom run blind testing. Amazing!

JBall is correct. Controlled listening tests can never be considered double-blind if the individuals choosing and setting up the listening test or have participants in the listening panel that have vested interest in the outcome. The whole idea of double-blind protocol and the whole purpose of adhering to this VERY strict scientific method is to try to control even the tiniest of bias whether unintentional/intentional as well as consciously/subconsciously from both the experimenter and its participants taking part in the study.

We didn't know either of the speakers tested until well into the evening on Ian's dock, when he addressed the gathering before the band played. I would hazard a guess from talking to some of the group after the test, that we thought we were listening to two pairs of AXIOM speakers, not Axiom vs BrandX.

OK, so let's go with this: maybe Axiom's DBX was not a valid test (a supposition I'm not prepared at this time to accept, but let's just go with it.) And maybe Alan's being a tad enthusiastic in his statement.

In what way does that invalidate the base premise that we simply don't know about which speaker is better or whether speakers are, in Alan's phrasing, "similarly good," without a valid DBX test? Are we to assume, then that reviewers magically hide their preferences and can be completely unbiased (unlike the rest of us)? THAT was the original statement that we're all arguing about, as far as I can tell.

What makes the S&V reviewer the arbiter? What makes him neutral? One simple graph? A few lines of glowing review? A few snarky lines about this design school or that one?

It is a valid test in proper context. That being a single blind test for the listening panel. There is NOTHING wrong with single blind listening tests. No listening tests are without bias, its just trying to figure out and letting the reader know what the potential biases are.

There. Fixed that for ya.

Enjoy your speakers or don't. Masturbate to the Revels or don't. Your unwillingness to listen and to reason grew tiresome long ago.

Here's what Doug Shneider has to say about blind testing and also mentions the Robert Hartley blog. Doug was present at the Axiom gathering last fall, many of you might recall. He also links to Sean Olive's "The Dishonesty of Sighted Listening Tests" in his editorial....

I'm removing EVERYONE from this topic. Then I'm going straight to my dealer and buying a pair of Hansen's.

Will someone get that poor man a life, please?