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From: max@eros.uucp (Max Hauser)
Newsgroups: rec.audio,sci.physics,sci.electronics
Subject: Double-blind tests
Message-ID: <1858@ucbcad.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tue, 15-Sep-87 02:20:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.1858
Posted: Tue Sep 15 02:20:58 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Sep-87 06:36:49 EDT
References: <3827@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> <551@unisoft.UUCP> <3837@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Sender: news@ucbcad.berkeley.edu
Reply-To: max@eros.UUCP (Max Hauser)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 45
Summary: Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds
Xref: mnetor rec.audio:3235 sci.physics:2168 sci.electronics:1300

In article <3837@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> bmaraldo@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (Commander Brett Maraldo) writes:

>  I agree that double-blind testing is a method of discovering
>  differences, or lack there-of, in two or more different audio
>  systems.  This can also be said for any method of system evaluation,
>  the question is which method provides the most accurate results... But
>  is double-blind testing the definitive test method?  This is certainly
>  and arguable point, as it is as objective as the golden-ear phenomenon.
>  ...
>  I do not feel that a simple double-blind test can report more accurate
>  data than an extended listening test...

This beggars reason. As Paul Fussell wrote in a different context, it
would "seem to argue a total breakdown in public secondary education."
Double-blind simply means, of course, that you do not know what is
really going on, so you cannot cheat. That option can be added to any
kind of experiment, including "extended listening tests." It does not
require the presence of "a large number of people," let alone "at least
one member of a group of potentially biased individuals" (indeed the
whole point of DOUBLE-blind, as opposed to simply blind, tests is to
avoid influence from persons, if any, other than the subject).
It does not require any specific set of "listening environments."
All double-blind testing really requires is honesty and sincerity.

>  What I do take seriously are what my ears hear.  If I hear a 
>  difference between signal cable, you can not argue that I do 
>  not hear that difference.  

Of course. Far from contradicting, double-blind testing 
(generically defined) indeed facilitates your determining whether
you do hear a difference, stripped of beguiling influences like
the five thousand you spent on one set of cables, or the fact that
those speakers "aren't just speakers, they're Mistmeisters!"

On the other hand, if you are saying that you want to enjoy your
speaker (or cable), knowing that you paid $XXXX for them and that
they are Name Items, that is perfectly legitimate and I would
defend that right to the limit of my ability. Just don't claim that
you can hear a difference without being prepared to back it up.

Max W. Hauser, UC Berkeley

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