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Actually, if you bothered to read the article you provided, you'll discover that physicians only endorsed cigarettes in the early 20th century BEFORE it was demonstrated by scientific studies that they were harmful. Even Big Tobacco, with all of it's money/power, wasn't able to prevent or influence the publication of multiple studies that link smoking with cancer, heart attacks, and COPD. But really now. Are you going to continue to argue that scientific studies should not be trusted because they are too easily influenced by money/power? Should we just throw away all of our medical journals and practice medicine based on our gut feeling? Hi, Mr. Jones. Scientific evidence demonstrates the 5 grams of tylenol a day might hurt your liver, but ahhh what the heck, those studies are all bunk anyway because the the people with money/power control the results.
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"Scientific studies show..." in the second paragraph. |
I think I made this point earlier, but an individual who meets a/b/c criteria and has extensive research experience should have absolutely NO problem differentiating between the quality of evidence in a "scientific studies show..." slogan found in a cigarette ad vs. a randomized placebo-controlled trial published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal (for example). Something tells me that you probably won't be getting this point.
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When multiple studies have been conducted to answer a specific question, there often will be results that do not agree. So what do we do? Shrug our shoulders and say "scientific studies are useless?" Alternatively, what researchers do is they evaluate the relative strength/validity/generalizability of each study. For instance, a blinded, level-matched listening test with 100 trained listeners and 1000 trials is obviously superior to a sighted A/B test with 1 listener and 10 trials, all else being equal. Well, what if the results are conflicting? Gee, which one is more convincing? This is all very obvious stuff to people who meet a/b/c criteria, and it's kind of why I was seeking their opinion - primarily so I wouldn't have to waste time typing an entire paragraph of something that is already obvious to them (i.e. what do to with results are conflicting).
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| I'm just saying that DBT as a methodology should be questioned as well especially in light of the results that it produces. Do you unquestionably believe in the results demonstrated by DBT? |
This is very superficial thinking. Yes, you should question any methodology that gives unexpected results. But you have to ask WHY the DBT did not produce the result you expected, and include the possibility that your expectation was wrong. This is engaging in the scientific method. If you obtain an unexpected result and you stop and just dismiss the test, you are engaging in well...how people think on this sound pseudo-science forum. If a blind listening test is well-documented, sufficiently powered (low beta) to demonstrate large differences in sound, has a sufficiently diverse and competent group of listeners, and is controlled, then YES, I tend to give that study a lot of weight. On the other hand, if an anonymous poster comes in an anonymous internet forum and claims cable A (that he spent $1000 on) makes the soundstage so real, I do NOT give that claim very much weight at all.
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| If you look back to what nick_charles posted, he posted some links to DBTs which did demonstrate an audible difference with amps. So if you can show using DBT that amps make a difference and amps don't make a difference, then there must be some flaw with the way the DBT was executed or perhaps a flaw with the methodology itself. |
Oh, I'm pretty sure blinded listeners were able to hear differences between those particular amps tested. The studied amplifiers were antiquated designs, one of them described as built "exactly to the five transistor per channel design in the RCA Transistor Manual. By the espoused standards of subjectivists, nothing sould sound worse than this amplifier." Now ask yourself. Are currently available (modern) amplifiers built in such a primitive fashion - are currently available (modern) amplifiers likely to behave and perform in a similar fashion to the extremely poor amplifiers tested? Absolutely not. So the study results are poorly GENERALIZABLE to the more relevant question - which is whether currently available power amplifiers are likely to have LARGE, EASILY-AUDIBLE differences. A reasonable conclusion is that extremely primitive and antiquated amplifiers probably sound different, but the referenced study is not helpful in determining whether modern-day amplifiers sound substantially different.
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| You can explain this by saying that the test which showed the differences was "sighted" but how do you know there aren't other factors which pushes the results of the DBT one way or another? |
The test was not sighted. You would have to read the original paper to see if everything else was well controlled to know if there weren't other factors - like failure to accurately level match, for instance.
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| And when I upgraded from one amp to another and I feel that there is a huge difference yet according to the links you provided, DBTs indicate that there are no difference. Surely this mechanism is of interest on it's own? Perhaps DBTs are not indicative of real-life experience? Perhaps it's placebo. I don't know but both possibilities are worth considering. |
These questions have all been discussed and addressed elsewhere in this forum, ad nauseum.
