[NimbleTurtle]

Quote:

 
There are limitations to blind on-the-spot AB testing, but that's an entirely another subject!
 
What I would like to do is blind long term testing. Put the DACs in a box and have my wife mess with the switch every other day. See if I can tell the difference. LOL, that would be funny, and probably a more meaningful test.

So purrin, just out of curiosity, what noticeable differences have you found between the ODAC and the DAC you thought was superior? Soundstage, mids, bass? Or perhaps aspects of sound that are not even describable in words? 

 

[Shike]

Quote:

Clinical trials do NOT use ABX or double blind testing methodologies in a way that can be compared to a binary yes/no audio test.

 
I'd argue the binary yes no test has a substantially lower set of requirements, but have yet to find someone capable of telling the difference between what many engineers would argue is audibly transparent pieces of equipment.  When we have someone that's able to do so in a controlled test with a peer reviewed methodology then there is a potential need for a more stringent test.  Since Purrin did a test himself and argued the differences were easy to find, I'd like to see him get in touch with a group capable of such tests as it would open a whole new set of criteria if true.
 
@Estreeter
 
The end-point is finding A difference, regardless of what it is.  This allows multiple opportunities of success for those that believe a difference, because there's multiple variables that could allow a flaw to show itself rather than hide it.
 
 
 
There's multiple arguments against DBT in an audio testing sense, but I don't think these are the ones I'd go with . . . we can never prove a null no matter how many people is thrown at it, only prove a positive which only needs one even if a statistical outlier.

 

[Chris J]

Quote:

 
You must have a MUCH more tolerant wife than I do...  
 
If I said "Honey would you help me with some audio testing?"  I would get a middle-finger salute and 20 minutes of haranguing about my stupid obsessions, and the general idiocy of all things geek...

I think I married her sister..............

 

[Chris J]

Quote:

 
Which particular "Social Science" is his/her domain ?
 
I would personally ask for a handful of citations from this body of scholarly opinion as DBT is extremely widely used in a large number of disciplines not least of which are medicine and pharmacology. If DBT is seriously flawed I'd like to know before I take any medication

 
Good question, maybe I'll see if he can give me some stuff.
It's certainly not my field of expertise...........
He has told me that there is one school of thought that says "when in doubt, I will just say I can't hear a difference!" because no one likes to embarrass themselves.
Like I said, I ain't no expert on AB and DBT and Sociology, etc.

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

 
@Estreeter
 
The end-point is finding A difference, regardless of what it is.  This allows multiple opportunities of success for those that believe a difference, because there's multiple variables that could allow a flaw to show itself rather than hide it.
 
 

 
I'm going to forward that gem to the New England Journal of Medicine - they strike me as a serious bunch in urgent need of a good laugh. 

 

[Chris J]

Quote:

Why would anyone buy a $1000 DAC when the $150 ODAC performs just as good in blind testing as a DAC1?
 
Sometimes i think most of you guys are just buying an expensive placebo effect.. just like $1000 Cables.
 
Edit: Please note- I'm not trolling. Explanation of my viewpoints on the second page.

I don't understand you objective guys.
 
So I guess that settles that!

 

[Shike]

Quote:

 
I'm going to forward that gem to the New Englang Journal of Medicine - they strike me as a serious bunch in urgent need of a good laugh. 

 
I can't tell if you're trolling, really that incapable of understanding the point, or blind to context.  The audio DBT in that case is to favor the ability to find a difference as much as possible, in other words it unfortunately increases the ability of getting a false positive for the sake of finding a positive result should it potentially exist.  We haven't even got that when it comes to DACs.
 
In medicine this is the exact opposite of what we want to happen.  A very specific possibility needs to be examined, and we need to be sure it happens with a high degree of confidence.
 
 
You're arguing that what applied to a medicine DBT applies to audio, and since we aren't examining a specific phenomenon it is invalidated.  You argue there is no end-point, but in reality there is however wide in scope.
 
In terms of DBT, the binary yes/no DBT for audio is less stringent - because it's merely examining whether more research is even potentially justified.

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

You're arguing that what applied to a medicine DBT applies to audio, and since we aren't examining a specific phenomenon it is invalidated.  You argue there is no end-point, but in reality there is however wide in scope.
 
In terms of DBT, the binary yes/no DBT for audio is less stringent - because it's merely examining whether more research is even potentially justified.

 
I wasnt the BM who raised the need for medical DBT in some vague attempt to justify the use of audio DBT as a means of objectively 'proving a point', 

 

[billybob_jcv]

All of my medical knowledge comes from watching House, but...  Isn't a clinical trial conducted by creating multiple groups of patients, some with placebo and some with the drug under test?  That seems different than switching a patient between two test items and looking for a difference.  Do they start a patient on a drug, then randomly switch them back to placebos?  Considering the time it takes some drugs to build to a therapeutic level, and then dissipate, it doesn't seem like that would work.

 

[Xaborus]

Why can't we just take ears out of the equation?

Why couldn't we connect the dacs to identical amps, level to identical total harmonic distortion percentages, and then connect the amps to seperate side-by-side Oscilloscopes while playing MUSIC (not sine waves). We can then video record the waveforms on the oscilloscopes in slow motion and VISUALLY analyze the waveforms.

That way any and ALL differences will show up through a medium (visual) which all people can experience and verify accurately and precisely

This solution is stupid simple.
Music --> DAC(s) --> AMP(s) --> Oscilloscope(s) recorded by a slow motion camera.

Ofcourse you could take the amps out of the question, and probably should. It's worth noting that a pure sinewave source of electricity would be ideal. Nothing that a true online triple conversion ac -> dc -> ac Uninterruptible power supply can't do.

 

[MomijiTMO]

All of my medical knowledge comes from watching House, but...  Isn't a clinical trial conducted by creating multiple groups of patients, some with placebo and some with the drug under test?  That seems different than switching a patient between two test items and looking for a difference.  Do they start a patient on a drug, then randomly switch them back to placebos?  Considering the time it takes some drugs to build to a therapeutic level, and then dissipate, it doesn't seem like that would work.

You have your control group and your trial group. The control group will only have the placebo. The medical staff administering the drugs have no idea which patient is in which group.

There is no switching.

 

[catscratch]

I'll just come right out and say it: I strongly suspect people who post these kinds of threads, especially those who parrot others and have no deep understanding of the objective measurements they cite, are internally poor (and probably also materialistically poor) souls who are simply envious of others who have better toys than them.

I think people gravitate to these extremist opinions because they (over)simplify what is at heart a very complicated and confusing problem. Life would be so much easier if a handful of simple, easily understandable measurements could completely sum up a component's sound, and the position becomes even more attractive when it makes the gear you have look good - and doubly so when there are others, lots of them, who can validate your opinion. It makes you feel as if you completely understand everything. I think that by tapping into this, You-Know-Who has made one of the most intelligent and insidious (intentionally or otherwise) sales pitches in recent history.

Unfortunately, reality is far more complicated, and trying to actually understand said science behind it all leaves you feeling like you don't understand anything, and nobody wants that.

You could gravitate to the other extreme - "Look! Science hasn't produced a consistently excellent, lifelike sound, therefore science is meaningless!" - and again, it's attractive because it validates your views (or ears) and simplifies something painfully difficult to get into. Plenty of high-profile reviewers fall into that trap.

In the end, telling people "learn the actual science behind it all" is not an answer anybody wants to hear, because it involves far more work than is reasonable for most people, and in the end doesn't show you who's right but only teaches you why the whole objectivist vs subjectivist debate is meaningless.

 

[billybob_jcv]

Quote:

Why can't we just take ears out of the equation?
Why couldn't we connect the dacs to identical amps, level to identical total harmonic distortion percentages, and then connect the amps to seperate side-by-side Oscilloscopes while playing MUSIC (not sine waves). We can then video record the waveforms on the oscilloscopes in slow motion and VISUALLY analyze the waveforms.
That way any and ALL differences will show up through a medium (visual) which all people can experience and verify accurately and precisely
This solution is stupid simple.
Music --> DAC(s) --> AMP(s) --> Oscilloscope(s) recorded by a slow motion camera.
Ofcourse you could take the amps out of the question, and probably should. It's worth noting that a pure sinewave source of electricity would be ideal. Nothing that a true online triple conversion ac -> dc -> ac Uninterruptible power supply can't do.

 
But, but, but, part of the subjective shtick is that you can't measure everything you hear.  Therefore, taking the ears out of the equation would never work.

 

[Xaborus]

Quote:

 
But, but, but, part of the subjective shtick is that you can't measure everything you hear.  Therefore, taking the ears out of the equation would never work.

I cant tell if you're being sarcastic or serious.
 
If sarcastic: Lol that was funny! Great joke.
 
If serious: music is nothing but a conglomerate of waves. An oscilloscope will show these waves precisely and accurately. There is no "magic" that happens after the amp or any other component that creates some magical musicality. The musical signal are waves, and this is absolute.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Why would anyone buy a $1000 DAC when the $150 ODAC performs just as good in blind testing as a DAC1?
 

 
Because subjectivists make their buying decisions based on their subjective experiences.
 
To turn it around, why would anyone buy a $150 ODAC if subjectively they didn't like it?
 
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