[iridium7777]

I wonder how many "reviewers" from this forum and others would actually be willing to go on the record and blind test #s of DAPs and then correctly identify each one of them.

I was just reading something by someone on this forum comparing N8, SP1000 and WM1Z and describing difference between all 3 and wondered to myself how well they'd do in a blind test.

I tried this test myself once between my KANN and WM1A because I was convinced I was hearing all these differences when I'd try them separately. I've sound matched the same song and had my wife play it for 15-30 secs by randomly switching between the players, did this probably 20 times, had her do this probably 15 times (until she hated me and yelled at me to stop pestering her) and both of us may as well have been guessing, there were no discerning differences that could be picked up. I ended up selling the WM1A because the KANN is cheaper and sounded identical, yet read WM1A forums and there are many that will tell you that there are discernible differences, based on them auditioning one of the players and from memory.

At least the acclaimed sommeliers can point out wines per region/year/brand -- I wonder if the audio reviewers would be able to do the same for music players. {i have my own biased answer to this }

 

[Killcomic]

God, I'd love to see the bullsh*t artists at What Hi-Fi? do this with their claims of hearing musicality and rubbish like the DAC keeping pace with the music (?).

 

[bigshot]

The people who claim to hear differences are the same ones who refuse to do a controlled test themselves. That should tell you something. Lately a new wrinkle has surfaced. They've started claiming to have done tests and report their results when it's clear they never did a test at all.

 

[taffy2207]

I'm not interested in anything reviewers have to say, personally . I have them all on ignore. It took a while but has improved my experience here immeasurably (sorry to use the word immeasurably here)