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Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

RE: That clears up a lot!

Thank you for again providing the link to Kunchur's work. I will comment on that after I've read stuff there.

Your assertion that null results "prove nothing" puts you in the audiophile camp, I think. Another, more accurate description of this camp is that its adherents do not believe they are subject to the placebo effect, or that they can exert conscious control over it.

It's fascinating that only in audio, of all the perceptual fields, is this notion given any credence at all. It is, of course, untrue.

The ABX box is a very powerful comparative tool because it allows you to overcome the time delay and the complication of switching cables around and playing the music again. It allows even very tiny differences to be revealed and positively identified, and what is more, it provides objective proof that the subject is really hearing a difference. The fact that you can use it without assistance makes it even more powerful and convenient.

But it also reveals something else that is at first maddening, though perfectly valid: Sometimes you can be sure you hear a difference, yet the randomness of your answers shows that you really can't. Here is where the two camps part company. The audiophile (accepting for the moment your definition) immediately begins a search for external reasons why his answers no longer correlate with reality. Since he cannot be fooled, something must be wrong with the test. But all that has changed is that the source is no longer known -- nothing else. I have had someone at an audio convention tell me that the assignment of X was actually changing despite the way the box is wired. X kept sounding different, therefore my assertion that within a given trial is was unchanged was a mistake, or an outright lie.

Until you play with one of these boxes they can seem to have magical powers, including, as they used to say on radio, the power to cloud men's minds. But they don't, really. In the end you can learn which kinds of audible effects are real and which are likely to be illusory, and you wind up being a more acute listener, though there will be times when everyone around you is talking volubly about an alleged difference while you remain silent. Your reputation for acuity may suffer but your reliability has increased.

Statistically, it is indeed much more difficult to prove inaudibility with a high degree of confidence. It requires so many trials as to exhaust the patience of almost any subject. That does not erase the difference between phenomena that meet the accepted 95% positive criterion and those that do not. And when you do hundred of trials with many different listeners, most of them trained and skillful (as we did) and don't come up with a single person who can tell you that he's hearing something and then prove it, you've proven at least that any difference, if it exists, is extremely hard to hear.

Other readers here should know that I have more than once offered Mr. Lauck the chance to take our high-bit test for himself. He has ignored me every time. To him and anyone else in this camp I would say that until you have tried one of these boxes and heard for yourself how easy it is to make positive identifications, you're really doing battle with an imaginary beast. -- E. Brad Meyer


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