Hirsch
Why is there a chaplain standing over his wallet?
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2001
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Quote:
Then you really should read this thread from the beginning. There are other threads also discussing the types of experimental design that would be required to provide the empirical data you are looking for. There are also elements of the perceptual experience that could affect results in ways that are not normally expected. The senses are not independent of each other. The reason that you normally hear music in a dentist's office is data that indicated that auditory stimulation raised pain thresholds. There is also data that vision and audition are linked in ways we do not completely understand (IMO at least some of the linkages are through attentional systems, but that's speculation), so we do not know exactly what effect a novel listening environment, particularly where we are subjecting someone to a forced-choice test, will have on auditory perception. If a person is not listening in the way he normally does, do we know if the results of any test have any bearing at all on what the person hears in his own system, listening for pleasure, as opposed to data?
A positive results using DBT is nice. You've got a nice real difference, and it's even interpretable. However, they are also rare. Negative results are another matter. They are common, but I've yet to see one where enough care was taken in the initial design to make a negative result interpretable. I'm not sure that such a design is even possible at this point. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as people understand the limitations of a test going into it. Issues arise when you try and overinterpret a result. Nobody really knows what a negative result on a DBT signifies. Extrapolating a negative result into the conclusion that "there are no differences" is every bit as big an error as someone concluding that a perceived difference is due to physical properties of the cable in the absence of proper blinding (for those who haven't figured this out, I'm actually a DBT proponent, as long as the limitations of any particular experiment are understood).
That said, I still go with my ears. The bottom line for me is that I want to enjoy what I'm listening to. Cables play a very major role to me, and I can define some characteristic sounds of cables I've tried. I can also cite instances where I was unable to produce those differences in DBT. However, if I don't like the sound of a cable in my rig, I'm not going to keep it there for very long due to a comparison that may or may not have any real life validity. Nor will I remove a cable that I like for one that I don't. I'd much rather enjoy what I'm listening to than worry about whether or not any particular test will show a difference. If I've demonstrated the difference to my own very subjective standards, that's enough. It's not science, nor do I pretend it is, but it works for me. I'd like to see the real science done at some point, but I don't need it.
Incidentally, the reason you don't see a lot of cable companies producing tests of auditory differences against other cables is cost, plain and simple. Generating real data is not cheap. A real experiment that met scientific standards for publication, as opposed to amateur science derived from reading internet groups, would costs tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars. A small cable company would be broken by this kind of expediture, and a large company doesn't need it. A company that was selling snake oil wouldn't want it. Don't expect any testing of this kind from the industry.
| Originally Posted by NotJeffBuckley /img/forum/go_quote.gif I still would like some empirical evidence before accepting fantastic truth claims, don't get me wrong 
|
Then you really should read this thread from the beginning. There are other threads also discussing the types of experimental design that would be required to provide the empirical data you are looking for. There are also elements of the perceptual experience that could affect results in ways that are not normally expected. The senses are not independent of each other. The reason that you normally hear music in a dentist's office is data that indicated that auditory stimulation raised pain thresholds. There is also data that vision and audition are linked in ways we do not completely understand (IMO at least some of the linkages are through attentional systems, but that's speculation), so we do not know exactly what effect a novel listening environment, particularly where we are subjecting someone to a forced-choice test, will have on auditory perception. If a person is not listening in the way he normally does, do we know if the results of any test have any bearing at all on what the person hears in his own system, listening for pleasure, as opposed to data?
A positive results using DBT is nice. You've got a nice real difference, and it's even interpretable. However, they are also rare. Negative results are another matter. They are common, but I've yet to see one where enough care was taken in the initial design to make a negative result interpretable. I'm not sure that such a design is even possible at this point. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as people understand the limitations of a test going into it. Issues arise when you try and overinterpret a result. Nobody really knows what a negative result on a DBT signifies. Extrapolating a negative result into the conclusion that "there are no differences" is every bit as big an error as someone concluding that a perceived difference is due to physical properties of the cable in the absence of proper blinding (for those who haven't figured this out, I'm actually a DBT proponent, as long as the limitations of any particular experiment are understood).
That said, I still go with my ears. The bottom line for me is that I want to enjoy what I'm listening to. Cables play a very major role to me, and I can define some characteristic sounds of cables I've tried. I can also cite instances where I was unable to produce those differences in DBT. However, if I don't like the sound of a cable in my rig, I'm not going to keep it there for very long due to a comparison that may or may not have any real life validity. Nor will I remove a cable that I like for one that I don't. I'd much rather enjoy what I'm listening to than worry about whether or not any particular test will show a difference. If I've demonstrated the difference to my own very subjective standards, that's enough. It's not science, nor do I pretend it is, but it works for me. I'd like to see the real science done at some point, but I don't need it.
Incidentally, the reason you don't see a lot of cable companies producing tests of auditory differences against other cables is cost, plain and simple. Generating real data is not cheap. A real experiment that met scientific standards for publication, as opposed to amateur science derived from reading internet groups, would costs tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars. A small cable company would be broken by this kind of expediture, and a large company doesn't need it. A company that was selling snake oil wouldn't want it. Don't expect any testing of this kind from the industry.
