Joe Bloggs
Sponsor: HiByMember of the Trade: EFO Technologies Co, YanYin TechnologyHis Porta Corda walked the Green Mile
I think it's quite possible that some differences cannot be detected in a DBT but are still audible in more relaxed circumstances...
Just because you can't detect the difference in a in a stressful DBT doesn't mean you can't detect the difference all the time. As you pointed out a lot of our cognition goes at the subliminal level. We may not be able to detect a difference when we consciously try to look for it in a short test--nevertheless it's entirely possible that our subconscious can pick out the difference...
And not being able to see what you're listening to or even having your eyes covered may already be disconcerting enough to lower your discriminatory powers a long way...
Having said that, in a non-blind test in a noisy environment, I haven't been able to convince myself that my discman sounded different from a Sony SCD-555ES SACD player. Now if I can take that as final proof that the two are performing on the same level, I can save myself a lot of money
And y'know, people perform very differently in DBT and ABX... do you go to r3mix.net or hydrogenaudio.org? Have you ever seen some published results of blind tests on different formats? There would be a few that can pick out all the different encoders and assign different scores for all of them (and sensible ones--like 5/5 for MPC and 1/5 for WMA and not the other way around...) while some can only pick out a few, and most gave 5/5 and never get listed in the results because this has no informational value.
To put it bluntly, if you can't tell the difference in a blind test, you may just have tin ears, or you may just be no good working in a blind test. (like me actually
)
Just because you can't detect the difference in a in a stressful DBT doesn't mean you can't detect the difference all the time. As you pointed out a lot of our cognition goes at the subliminal level. We may not be able to detect a difference when we consciously try to look for it in a short test--nevertheless it's entirely possible that our subconscious can pick out the difference...
And not being able to see what you're listening to or even having your eyes covered may already be disconcerting enough to lower your discriminatory powers a long way...
Having said that, in a non-blind test in a noisy environment, I haven't been able to convince myself that my discman sounded different from a Sony SCD-555ES SACD player. Now if I can take that as final proof that the two are performing on the same level, I can save myself a lot of money
And y'know, people perform very differently in DBT and ABX... do you go to r3mix.net or hydrogenaudio.org? Have you ever seen some published results of blind tests on different formats? There would be a few that can pick out all the different encoders and assign different scores for all of them (and sensible ones--like 5/5 for MPC and 1/5 for WMA and not the other way around...) while some can only pick out a few, and most gave 5/5 and never get listed in the results because this has no informational value.
To put it bluntly, if you can't tell the difference in a blind test, you may just have tin ears, or you may just be no good working in a blind test. (like me actually
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