Originally Posted By: JohnK
At this late date doubts about the necessity of closely controlled blind listening tests for judging audio equipment can't be taken seriously. It's been too well established that human beings can't "Just trust their ears" when their brains keep getting in the way and, for example, imagining that a component which costs ten times as much just has to be better. Correlations between price and sound quality even in items where there actually are audible differences, i.e. speakers, are quite low, although they're not zero.

Dr. Toole has discussed this at length in his book "Sound Reproduction", but a convenient on-line summary of some of the findings is provided by Dr. Olive in "The Dishonesty of Sighted Listening Tests" . Major differences in sound judgments were greatly narrowed and in one case reversed when the blind comparisons began. The significance of changes in speaker positions was also clearly demonstrated.


I see the merits in a blind test to remove visual bias provided the actual blind test doesn't add its own bias - having the listeners/operators of the test participate knowing the sound character of one of the speakers in the test is a huge bias. I don't think people here are realizing.

I seem to be offending people here to simply discuss this. I will drop the subject and be content like the rest of you that our M80v3s will at worst case tie the very best speakers in the world in a blind test. It's kinda cool to say I have the best speakers money can buy and have the scientific proof of it smile

Last edited by JBall; 02/12/11 04:37 AM.