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Re: Stereophile tells readers and manufacturers what they want to hear

Regmac and John,

Great points! Great questions! This is what Critcs Corner can be.

Regmac, it seems to me that in order to get past the flaw, why not just make sure that the listener has no idea what amps are being used in the evaluation......which at the least would remove approval or animus completely from the equation.

If I ran a test like this, I would want three amps switched at the listeners discretion in an attempt to have the listener state, if possible which one they think sounds the best to them. They could provide their own music on whatever media they wish. Perhaps Amp 1 could be a 100 WPC Tube amp, the next a 100 WPC Class A/B Solid State amp and the next a 100 WPC Digital Amp.

Further, I would ask the listener to identify the amp they like and SEE if the listener is able to reliably ID the preferred amp. Out of 10 passes, 7 correct ID's would prove to me that the listener can differentiate which one they like.

Of course, the surprise in all this would be the avowed Tube Enthusiast finding out he or she prefers the Digital amp. But that aside, that's a test that would work for me.

I'm not a fan of the condescension I see typically displayed by the DBT crowd, nor the belligerence of those who are against it. But it CAN seem that those Audio Critcs who are against DBT's use theory to avoid the test. Avoidance would be acceptable if the Critic didn't go to such lengths to describe how a particular amplifier (for instance) sounds so incredible as to surpass the performance of all previous amplifiers experienced by that particular critic.

In other words, if you make the effort (or living) to praise or condemn an amplifier, shouldn't you be able to pick it out in a crowd?



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