Audiophile objections to blind testing - an attempt from a layman

[colonelkernel8]

The only ad hominem here is you deliberately wasting all of our time.

 

[BS5711]

The paper I posted investigated how inaudible frequencies stimulated brain activity while listening to music for 400 seconds.

Gregorio then did a False Equivalence with other research that performed short micro bursts and clicks, and tried to make inferences between the research to discount it.

Beyond that, claims of bit depth doesn’t matter, dither fixes everything, etc and Benny Hill videos, and a slew of ad Hominem. And now the companies statements, companies which developed CD technology, none the less, are simply discounted as “ marketing material”.

Good lord..



Oh look, more ad Hominem…

Occasionally watching from the sidelines this thread is getting ridiculous.

These guys understand this stuff, why don’t you entertain the idea that your own understanding might be flawed and listen to them.

You are simply the latest person in a long line of folks that come in here arguing different versions of the same thing.

You seem to have understood surface level information and incorrectly joined the dots in respect of the finer details. You are certainly not the first and certainly won’t be the last. Put aside your ego and listen to these guys and you will actually learn something.

 

[gregorio]

The paper I posted investigated how inaudible frequencies stimulated brain activity while listening to music for 400 seconds.

Exactly, which had nothing to do with your claim of 16 vs 24bit.

Gregorio then did a False Equivalence with other research …

And yet again, you demonstrate you don’t know what test signals are, and therefore your claim here is false. Just another to add to the list.

Beyond that, claims of bit depth doesn’t matter, dither fixes everything, etc

Just repeating your false claim while not responding to the questions put to you demonstrates what?

Good lord..

Good lord indeed, you can’t even tell the difference between science/fact and marketing. Which demonstrates that:

Oh look, more ad Hominem…

It was not an ad hominim, it is apparently an actual fact. Otherwise, why would you be trying so hard to demonstrate that it’s true, in a science discussion forum of all places?

G

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Basically, if our senses of hearing is so lost if we isolate it - how useful is it to ascertain that we can't differentiate between gear in a blind test? All it would tell us is essentially that humans sense of hearing sucks. It doesn't seem to say a whole lot about whether or not there actually is a difference in sound, but rather that we can't discern a difference in a blind test. But in the same way I would hesitatet to say that the difference in smell between lets say pickled herring and beetroot salad is just bias and voodoo because a person couldn't smell the difference in a blind test - and thus no difference in smell actually exists - , I wouldn't say that a lack of discernment between equipment in blind test means that there isn't any difference in sound.

Your example is literally a red herring. No one would be unable to tell the herring and the salad apart. You picked these items presumably because they sound so different, that if someone were not able to tell the two apart, the blame automatically goes to the test instead of the person's sense of smell. I would challenge you to perform said blind test on the pickled red herring vs the beetroot salad before proceeding any further.

 

[castleofargh]

It's the same reason why so many people have to wear glasses. They actually have perfect sight, but in a controlled test with the unusual pressure of someone watching them, only being able to use one eye at a time, and they have to read letters or sentences picked by the examiner instead of texts they know well. It's made to fail the subjects! They don't stand a chance.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

It's the same reason why so many people have to wear glasses. They actually have perfect sight, but in a controlled test with the unusual pressure of someone watching them, only being able to use one eye at a time, and they have to read letters or sentences picked by the examiner instead of texts they know well. It's made to fail the subjects! They don't stand a chance.

 

[Blackwoof]

Reddit /r/headphones & /r/audiophile proved themselves as a near-troll pit. Nothing but accounts pouring out how Vorbis/LAME at 176kbps VBR Is night & Day while refusing to post any data, Got worse when It shifted into how Spotify using 320kbps VBR Vorbis is even worse with "Please trust me bro" style arguments.

That another thing that beyond annoying they have no clue how VBR lossy works at all. There like almost 12+ face off & studies showing AAC/Vorbis are 4.8 ~ 4.95/5 at 160kbps VBR let alone 256kbps VBR.

 

[dstarr3]

Yo, we listening to salad in here?

 

[AudioThief]

Your example is literally a red herring. No one would be unable to tell the herring and the salad apart. You picked these items presumably because they sound so different, that if someone were not able to tell the two apart, the blame automatically goes to the test instead of the person's sense of smell. I would challenge you to perform said blind test on the pickled red herring vs the beetroot salad before proceeding any further.

I'm not saying its actually like this - I'm just trying to understand if there is any logic in the argument.

My core idea is essentially that we have developed to use our senses in combination. When we consider if something is safe to eat, we might use sight, smell and touch to decide. If we lose one sense, our judgement becomes less precise. If we isolate one sense, we are easily fooled. I'm sure you've seen videos of people putting their hand down in a covered box, and there are a bunch of different objects down there - and the person is freaking out thinking a fuzzy ball and a couple of matches are a giant tarantula. Clearly, if we can't see something our sense of touch doesn't tell us too much.

Obviously our senses are used to perceive music. Thats the entire idea behind much of psychoacoustics, right? Now, these senses and our perception doesn't say a whole lot about the objective reality of the sound coming from the headphones etc. But my point is that while our judgement is clouded a whole lot due to psychoacoustics in sighted testing, is it that far fetched to think that our judgement might be clouded in blind testing, too - just in another way?

 

[gregorio]

My core idea is essentially that we have developed to use our senses in combination. When we consider if something is safe to eat, we might use sight, smell and touch to decide. If we lose one sense, our judgement becomes less precise. If we isolate one sense, we are easily fooled.

There’s two huge holes in your logic here:
1. Can we smell or taste sound/music? We can see abstract representations of music (a music score for example) and we can see musicians performing music but we can’t actually see sound or music. That leaves two senses to sense sound, our sense of hearing and our sense of touch (which can be triggered by loud low freq components and contribute to our sensing of sound). So, these two senses are what we isolate because our other senses cannot sense sound but might bias our perception from those senses that can.
2. Audiophiles constantly claim they trust their ears and know what they’re hearing, that differences are clearly audible, that others must be deaf if they can’t hear them, they constantly discuss sound quality, etc. So, they themselves are talking in terms of “isolate one sense”, the sense of hearing (and touch to a limited extent)!

Obviously our senses are used to perceive music. Thats the entire idea behind much of psychoacoustics, right?

No, NOT right! Firstly, “our senses” are not used to perceive music, only our ONE sense of hearing is used to perceive music. As mentioned, our sense of touch can contribute but we can’t sense the music with our sense of touch, only the relatively loud low freq components of it, if/when they exist.
Secondly, the entire idea behind psychoacoustics is NOT “our senses used to perceive music”, it is very clearly defined: “Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of the perception of sound by the human auditory system.” (Wikipedia) - Your eyes, nose and taste buds are not part of the human auditory system.

But my point is that while our judgement is clouded a whole lot due to psychoacoustics in sighted testing, is it that far fetched to think that our judgement might be clouded in blind testing, too - just in another way?

What is “far fetched to think”, in fact way, way beyond “far fetched to think” is that you (probably derived from some audiophile marketer) have thought of a question that not one of the million or so highly educated scientists/researchers in the 165 year history of psychoacoustics has ever thought of. In fact, a more extreme example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is hard to imagine! Do you even know what blind testing is, why it exists, what the protocols of the various (double) blind tests are and why they exist? Double blind tests and their required protocols exist precisely because scientists/researchers asked themselves; “What other ways might our judgment/perception be “clouded” and what can be done to mitigate them?”!

Sorry if this response comes off as exceptionally harsh, but really? If you’re going to make assertions about psychoacoustics in a science discussion forum shouldn’t you at the very least go and find out what the definition of psychoacoustics actually is?

G

 

[BGSS]

The majority of the taste sensation is smell, just ask anyone who has lost their sense of smell. In fact, blind tests for things like wine tasting (or indeed audio) do not remove our senses from the test, they just remove identification of the product, e.g. different amps, 16/44 v 24/96 and so on.

Yes, smell plays a major role in taste, and blind tests remove identification but not sensory perception.

 

[dstarr3]

Casual reminder that synaesthetes exist. Some people do quite literally smell and/or taste sound

 

[boodi]

If we factor in a most total extreme clean undistorted audio signal from source , then , anyhow , there is not an ideal reference sound , we can meet and appreciate or not approximations toward different perfected sound signatures , like flavours.

A same way, two equally good but different concert halls projects sound equally good but slightly different ( ps both them concert halls produce a slightly different good and clean 'undistrorted'sound propagation , but with slightly different frqs bounce/reverbs and harmonics of course depending on dimensions materials and woods used etc , or in other words they offer different equally valid sound signatures )

A same way I like my live piano listen front row a day , and slightly right-back sit another day

A same way when I am slightly happier a day I will appreciate a more X or Y sound prat , then when I am slightly set back I would prefer a more Z bloom

A same way a day I prefer cello over piano

A same way I like pizza A or pizza B or pasta ( totl level , A B and pasta ) without a clear preference ..no pun or offense intended different consistences and taste results in the mixes , and a day I would prefer one over the other

Then I might have my totl 'absolute' reference for a thing or a cleanest undistorted possible factor ( changing over time eventually ) approaching that very best in what they express , as well another person cleanest possible totl absolutes are and/or would be possibly his own equally valid references

Until proved wrong

edit : ps sorry for writing the obvious

 

[castleofargh]

I'm not saying its actually like this - I'm just trying to understand if there is any logic in the argument.

My core idea is essentially that we have developed to use our senses in combination. When we consider if something is safe to eat, we might use sight, smell and touch to decide. If we lose one sense, our judgement becomes less precise. If we isolate one sense, we are easily fooled. I'm sure you've seen videos of people putting their hand down in a covered box, and there are a bunch of different objects down there - and the person is freaking out thinking a fuzzy ball and a couple of matches are a giant tarantula. Clearly, if we can't see something our sense of touch doesn't tell us too much.

Obviously our senses are used to perceive music. Thats the entire idea behind much of psychoacoustics, right? Now, these senses and our perception doesn't say a whole lot about the objective reality of the sound coming from the headphones etc. But my point is that while our judgement is clouded a whole lot due to psychoacoustics in sighted testing, is it that far fetched to think that our judgement might be clouded in blind testing, too - just in another way?

It's also kind of what we're saying. People will easily assume their impression only comes from sound when it doesn't. If I try to put myself in your shoes and consider the issues of blind listening (which can be numerous depending on the method and the cues we're trying to test, nobody is saying it's absolute and perfect), I still see no reason why a casual subjective impression would be more trustworthy. Casual impressions, because they involve more variables that are not controlled and typically not even considered, we can't ever be sure that the resulting experience was caused by sound alone(if sound even had anything to do with it). And yet the experience being a direct result of sound is what 99% of people arguing with us are claiming. That's the core issue, people think that feeling sure of our feelings is proof the sound change is real. And yet there can be many ways to trick someone into feeling a sound difference with no sound difference, just by altering non audio variables the listener will experience along with sound(or by changing the volume level a little). We agree that the experience is a bigger, wider thing than just sound through our ears, but most people don't seem to see the obvious issue is creates for casual impressions that feel like sound differences. They have no way to test when they're wrong, and the more casual the experience, the smaller the actual sound difference, the more likely they/we are to be wrong.

Even if we admit that both options have issues, one has hope of demonstrating something, while the other one never offers more than "trust me dude". I know which one I'll put my confidence in.
If you have a convenient way to test for sound changes under casual conditions that can tell when the listener is wrong about sound, we're all interested.

Casual reminder that synaesthetes exist. Some people do quite literally smell and/or taste sound

Those people don't smell sounds, they feel like they do. Nothing literal here, they just happen to have a brain that misinterprets even more than normal. Random average people already have colors impacting taste, sight affecting everything else, be it balance, taste, or sound. And sound sometimes affecting what they/we see. Multisensory interactions happen to all of us, they're part of why we argue that to test audibility, we need to strictly control non audio variables(removing them or making sure they remain the same).

 

[gregorio]

Casual reminder that synaesthetes exist. Some people do quite literally smell and/or taste sound

That’s impossible. Sound is a varying pressure wave traveling through a medium (air in our case). Sound waves do not magically change the chemical composition of the air they travel through, so there is literally no difference to smell or taste. Synaesthetes therefore (completely literally!) cannot not sense sound with their nose or tongue (smell or taste sound), they just have the perception/experience of smelling sound when their auditory system is stimulated, without actually/literally smelling it.
“synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.” (Wikipedia) - Synaesthesia is a perceptual error, specifically NOT literally smelling, tasting or seeing sound.

However, maybe there’s some synaesthete audiophiles out there who can be suckered with a nice $1,000 INM (In Nose Monitor), $2,000 for stereo INMs (one for each nostril, immersive smell!) or $2,500 for the fully balanced, factory burnt-in version? lol

G