Don't you love reading the same argument again and again.
People asuming that their senses always work at full power and are not to be questioned by some kind of objectivity.
Elmoe, are you aware that the majority of people claiming "night and day" audible differences when testing this way, can't tell things apart anymore in a blind test?
How many times will we have to state that human hearing is the easiest thing to fool, especially when you're expecting to hear something in the first place?
Non blind testing is meaningless.
Non carefully matching volumes implies nothing can be concluded from any listening test.
What you don't seem to understand is that I couldn't care less whether you think I'm being objective or truthful. I'm not trying to argue anything. I was curious about people in here claiming a cheap (but decent enough) receiver would sound exactly the same as my monoblocks, so I tested it out for myself. If I hadn't switched back n worth 10 times and wasn't sure about what my ears were hearing, I still wouldn't even have bothered doing a blind test and matching levels perfectly - I would've instead instantly agreed with those claims and left it at that. After close to 20 years as a musician, and close to half of that as an audiophile, I don't really feel the need to prove anything to anyone other than myself. I could set everything up and do a blind test and match levels perfectly using a dB meter, but honestly the difference is so blatantly obvious that it wouldn't change a thing - that's how much of an audible difference there is.
You're right about expectancy, I was expecting to hear the Onkyo receiver sounding exactly the same as my Quads (in fact I had an ebay ad all written out for the Quads!). It didn't, just like it didn't with the InterM amp. Now you and others will certainly not believe a word of that and think it's placebo, but I believe myself to be experienced enough as a musician and a listener to not have to get into blind testing/exact level matching when the difference is just that obvious to my ears (especially since this was done to satisfy my curiosity, not to prove a point on the internet). Maybe the Onkyo was defective (although it seems to work just fine with my father's 5.1 system), maybe the wattage being different was a bigger influence, maybe there is something else in my audio chain that has some kind of effect on this, who knows. The result I got still stands either way and is well enough to satisfy my curiosity, regardless of what your opinion may be.
If ever you're near Grenoble, France, you're very welcome to come to my home for a beer and a listen. If my dad (an engineer by trade, a little hard of hearing in his old age, who was the first to tell me all this was total bullsh!t, pardon my french
) noticed a big difference right away, there's no doubt in my mind you will too.
