I find that my mood changes from day to day and week to week. I may really enjoy listening one week and the next week I have no interest. I think, in at least my case, a direct A/B comparison is more meaningful. If I can't hear a difference in repeated A/B comparisons then I conclude there is no difference. But admittedly, I have tin ears.
Amplifiers all sound the same
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JoeESP9
ESL's & tubes since 83
IME direct AB comparisons are not long enough to hear subtle differences.
Extend the period to more than two weeks. The logic is still the same. IE: Many amplifier differences are just not overtly audible. It takes time for differences to sink in. The amount of time spent listening over a period of several weeks is IMO a far more accurate judge than constantly switching back and forth. The LTLT removes all pressure and anxiety involved in trying to decide which you like better when performing conventional AB testing.
A good example of this is the many listeners who have tried Class D amps and initially liked them. However after using them for several months many of those same enthusiastic owners are dumping those Class D amps and returning to Class AB or A.
If you own and like your Class D amplifier please don't take offense. Just continue to use whatever makes you happy.
Extend the period to more than two weeks. The logic is still the same. IE: Many amplifier differences are just not overtly audible. It takes time for differences to sink in. The amount of time spent listening over a period of several weeks is IMO a far more accurate judge than constantly switching back and forth. The LTLT removes all pressure and anxiety involved in trying to decide which you like better when performing conventional AB testing.
A good example of this is the many listeners who have tried Class D amps and initially liked them. However after using them for several months many of those same enthusiastic owners are dumping those Class D amps and returning to Class AB or A.
If you own and like your Class D amplifier please don't take offense. Just continue to use whatever makes you happy.
RGA
Super Member
The way it ties in is about DBT. Amps measure differently so they sound different - the issue is can anyone hear the differences. And the way people try to prove this "sameness" is via DBT. Unfortunately a DBT does not prove that two amplifiers or two cables or CD players sound the same. All it can illustrate is that person A could not differentiate A and B with statistically significant results under testing conditions.
The problem of course is that testing conditions is at the heart of the problems with using them to test if a person can tell A from B. Music listening uses the right hemisphere of the brain responsible for music/art/creativity - Any testing condition uses the left (logical/mathematical and test taking side of the brain for recall and fact finding). It is why we have a lot of otherwise very brilliant people who perform miserably on tests while many people get high marks on tests due to good memorization skills and who otherwise are not all that bright over the long haul but can get the grades. Others are poor at both while others are good at both.
But a DBT in audio forces a person to use the left hemisphere of the brain while listening to music and making comparisons something that is NOT done in normal listening sessions. So while DBTs get very high reliability scores statistically they do not score well in reliability (the test showing a direct correlation with normal listening sessions).
This is why in education teachers tend to dislike "teach to the test" models that dimwit governments who creat no child left behind schemes create to simplify things and people into a statistic. This is why we consider different modals in teaching methods and different methods of assessing people - a test is still one of them but with a keen eye on "test stress" where people freeze up on their ability to cross the domains from artistic hemisphere and logical. Creating the round test for the square peg.
In audio unfortunately someone in engineering (not science) - as Sheldon Cooper would say on the Big Bang Theory - "I like engineers they're the oompaloompas of science" - decided to piggy back DBTs from the medical profession which is valid into a subjective domain of audio. A drug works or it doesn't work and you can tell with 100% certainty it is so. In audio a person is taking a test - it's an entirely different scenario and piggy backing one tool to another field.
The above said - I used the Theta example to show that we also can't purely trust reviewers or biases based on name brand or price - Theta was held up as the Audio God of digital for a time and it turns out to be BS - conning a lot of people out of a lot of money for a $300 Laserdisk player - and they fooled reviewers at Stereophile and TAS and others. So DBTs have issues just like tests in school but they still are and should be used - just not all the eggs dumped into the basket.
I can't say a whole lot about Class D amps as I haven't owned one. I can say that brief exposure to an amp (or most other pieces of gear) doesn't tell me a whole lot about how it will play for me long-term. The number of amps that wandered through promising and ended up leaving, not because they were bad but just didn't stand up for me over the long term.
JoeESP9
ESL's & tubes since 83
"Over the long term", that's my point.
Uncle Paul
Super Member
Not sure why - the frequency of a switching power supply is usually well above the highest frequency a human can hear.
hifijohn
Active Member
not surprised ,i've spent years dealing with these low lifes, i dont know whats worst ,the guys sell this stuff ,the guys who review it or the guy who buy it.reviewers dont care they just give good reviews to companies that will guarantee a lot of ad money.
RGA
Super Member
A DBT can never prove that A=B. It can only statistically conclud that a person under test could not differentiate A and B within (and ONLY within) the confines of that particular test. The problem isn't with the DBT as a tool - it is the conclusion that some guy named Billy Bob did a 16 trial test of cable a and cable B in 1983 between cable Zima and Cable Alpha and he was able to identify cable A correctly 8 times and therefore he didn't statistically meet significance to the .05 level so no one can tell the difference between cables.
The problem just in the statistics is that the more subtle something is (harder to differentiate) the more reliability and validity is needed. So if I have a test set up where I want someone to differentiate the colour Red versus Green (assuming the person isn't colour blind and the room is lit) then I only need one trial - hold up the colour card - the subject says Green correct.
If however the test is between say 3 cards and all three are variations of red and I am asking which variation of Red it is - I will need to show the cards more than once to get reliable findings.
In audio statistical significance to the .05 level would be 9 correct out of 10. So if the subject correctly identifies the Krell amp over the Crown amp then he will be deemed to get the result better than chance. (This meets the statistical requirement and some would then say "he can hear audible differences therefore the Krell sounds different that the Crown). These some people would be wrong. The Krell has not been proven to sound different - the SUBJECT has been proven to be able to differentiate better than chance is all.
With subtle differences it would stand to reason that "more trials" would be required because of the level of difficulty to differentiate sound.
For instance - if you had a subject who got 6/10 he would be deemed a failure statistically. The problem with this notion is that if the subject scored 6/10 ten times with one miss for 59/100 he would meet statistical significance to the exact same 0.5 level (equal to 9/10). In both cases the subject would be deemed to be able to differentiate A from B and thus PASS the DBT. More trials increases reliability of the test. Like I say the issue here is most of thes trials are small - John got 6/10 he can't hear the difference - if he scored that or better 10 times - in fact he would be deemed to be able to tell the difference. It's quite a glaring issue.
As to your first point about critical listening you make a valid point. It would engage the left hemisphere because you are still determining which is better - which is a decision. The main difference though is there is no "test stress factor" or any sort of time limit or over the shoulder factor to be concerned with. We make decisions all the time that can be largely passive ones. Once the exercise becomes an artificial recreation then it's removed from the normal valid way of doing things.
I want to be clear - I am not dumping on blind tests. I mean I can;t argue with anyone who wants to back them over the usual subjective biased non level matched practices that go on. Blind takes out a lot of the bias associated with price, looks, name brand prestige, weight, salesperson influences, advertising influences etc. The blind test may introduce a stress test issue but it's probably less damaging than the alternative. However it is there and it should be something to pause over.
When people argue of amps sounding the same - usually it's Solid State amplifiers with negative feedback. The numbers typically all look excellent and below the threshold of audibility. If they are integrated amps people need to account for the gain. I think it's easy to choose the louder product (see Munson) and people can be tricked into think the $5k amp is better than the $500 amp because they may see the volume knobs at 8'oclock but the $5k amp may be playing 3dB louder. You have to watch those dealers like a hawk. Wow the $5k amp sounded so much more alive and crisp etc - yes because it was louder.
Hi-Fi Choice magazine does a reasonable job - they often review products blind and level matched. They have a panel of listeners - manufacturers/reviewers who sit and choose the best product. They get comment cards and tallies and overall winner is chosen. It's not as strict a methodology but nor does it have a test stress aspect. Manufacturers have had products in the tests and have actually chosen competing products as sounding better. They take out the important biases at least - price, name brand, appearance etc.
cscottrun4it
Active Member
This thread is very interesting, and I have some thoughts. Way back on the first page, someone wrote that many people cannot hear the difference between two CD players and other components. Having recently gotten into vintage audio (the past year or so), I have been lucky enough to buy some great equipment and some real dogs. This has taught me a good lesson: the better the equipment, the more likely it is I will hear a difference in individual components.
Lets just take speakers as an example. I have a pair of Sansui 3500s. I could pair these guys with a lawnmower and a turntable and they would sound the same as with my Marantz and the same turntable. (Sorry Sansui speaker fans.) However, with my low-end B&W DM220s, I can readily tell the difference between my Marantz 2222, Sony STR-7055, and Toshiba SB-420. With my favorite of these (the Toshiba, believe it or not), I can hear a great difference between my lower-end Sony CD player and my HHb read/write CD player. The HHb kills the Sony.
This same phenomenon trickles down though my system. I can hear the difference between turntable cartridges, styli on these cartridges, my two different reel to reel decks, etc.
Now, my question is this: I know that different amps pair better with certain speakers, all things being equal. I completely believe speakers are the most important component of any system. So, in being able to hear the difference between amps, how important is that pairing variable?
Lets just take speakers as an example. I have a pair of Sansui 3500s. I could pair these guys with a lawnmower and a turntable and they would sound the same as with my Marantz and the same turntable. (Sorry Sansui speaker fans.) However, with my low-end B&W DM220s, I can readily tell the difference between my Marantz 2222, Sony STR-7055, and Toshiba SB-420. With my favorite of these (the Toshiba, believe it or not), I can hear a great difference between my lower-end Sony CD player and my HHb read/write CD player. The HHb kills the Sony.
This same phenomenon trickles down though my system. I can hear the difference between turntable cartridges, styli on these cartridges, my two different reel to reel decks, etc.
Now, my question is this: I know that different amps pair better with certain speakers, all things being equal. I completely believe speakers are the most important component of any system. So, in being able to hear the difference between amps, how important is that pairing variable?
JoeESP9
ESL's & tubes since 83
What you two said!:yes:
jblnut
Don't Overthink It
Speakers are the lens which we view our electronics - and ultimately the music - with. You cannot expect to see clearly through a dirty or distorted lens. Conversely you can expect very revealing speakers to show you where problems exist in your system. It's not that unusual in this hobby for someone to end up replacing a large portion of their system after a speaker change, as things that were previously masked step out onto the stage.
I grew up reading Stereo Review and bought into the whole myth that amps and many other components sound the same. All it took was a hand me down Fisher 400 to shatter that myth. I continue to explore system synergy to this day, but with less energy and zeal than before. Yes you can keep making changes to cables and components and listen for changes and there is fun to be had there. But the bottom line comes when you try to determine what change is actually 'better'. I find that judgement to be very mood and music dependent. So much so that I only change one or two things per year, so as not to lose my point of reference.
Jblnut
I grew up reading Stereo Review and bought into the whole myth that amps and many other components sound the same. All it took was a hand me down Fisher 400 to shatter that myth. I continue to explore system synergy to this day, but with less energy and zeal than before. Yes you can keep making changes to cables and components and listen for changes and there is fun to be had there. But the bottom line comes when you try to determine what change is actually 'better'. I find that judgement to be very mood and music dependent. So much so that I only change one or two things per year, so as not to lose my point of reference.
Jblnut
I'm of the opinion that match is the most important one in a system.
Given the significant differences in sonic character, I start with the speaker and then select an amplifier that works well with that choice. Some speakers have special requirements (like my electrostats) while others are less sensitive.
Over the years have previewed most all the amps locally available and a lot that are not.Presently own 5 power amps one tube the rest solid state. I do hear a difference when the tube amp is wired in especially with the right albums or cd's.
For the most part the way we listen to music our over the top system is biamped with 250wpc bass,125wpc mids and highs both solid state. Nothing could make us happier,the way everyone should feel about their gear.
For the most part the way we listen to music our over the top system is biamped with 250wpc bass,125wpc mids and highs both solid state. Nothing could make us happier,the way everyone should feel about their gear.
SuperLead100
"These go to 11"
All I know is when I inserted my ca 800 in place of my ka 7100 I heard a difference. I'm not sure why but I wanted them to sound the same; maybe one to back up the other during possible down time; even more interesting to me is that I heard a difference in the class a mode of the ca 800. I didn't think I would. I'm not sure I can articulate the difference very well but the yammie class a was sweet!
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