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Conjecture vs. proof

Well, John Atkinson's essay goes into quite a number of things, so it's difficult to say just what his main point is.

Now, those who know about blind tests on the Stereophile forum have said that sometimes test tones result in more sensitive results and sometimes appropriate musical signals do. Stereophile itself did a DBT to determine with a tube and a solid state amp sounded different (though the measurements would have indicated that they did based on thresholds established by previous DBTs done by others).

On thing he proposes is that listening involves two levels of abstraction--I won't complain about this use of that term. First, we interpret the information coming in through the ears and nervous system to create 'auditory objects,' and second we 'interpolate' (I won't question that term, either) meaning into the auditory objects as to whether they are music or noise (and there are other possibilities).

It is not at all clear what this has to do with the validity of DBTs. DBTs for differences do not rest on some intuitive insight into people's minds but rely on what they say, "same" or "different" or perhaps A or B, indicate by pressing a button, which informtion is recorded whether on paper or digitally. The statistical results may show that they can hear the differences or do they may fail to do so.

Poor subjects for a DBT can be determined by seeing whether they report differences which are known to be audible to people with normal hearing (did you get that bjh, O lazy one?). One can do screening tests, such as testing their hearing. More informally, sometimes people who don't perceive differences during sighted auditions won't proceed on with the DBT. It pretty well depends on the purpose of the blind test what screening, if any, is required. I'm sure jj could provide more sophisticated information.

"I don't regard it as "voodoo" to conjecture that the condition of a test's being blind might itself be an interfering variable."

Yes, that's true, just conjecturing something does not amount to voodoo. However, one would like some real evidence before accepting the conjecture, and Mr. Atkinson doesn't provide any. He just moves from a conjectural 'might be' to an 'is actually.' I would like to see a reply to Mr. Atkinson's editorial by some like jj, who is eminently qualified to do so.

On the other hand, if his argument is meant to justify Stereophile's subjective reviews of things like interconnects, speaker cables, and power cables, he has failed from the start. Criticizing scientific methodology does not show that subjective audio reviewing is accurate and reliable, and I can't see he even attempts to provide a positive argument for that.

Now, I have never been one to issue blanket condemnations of Stereophile or other audio magazines. Some of them do a lot of good things. Mr. Atkinson does a pretty good set of measurements for a lot of equipment reviewed and I consider him to be a very good speaker reviewer, for example.
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---Heraclitus of Ephesus (trans. Wheelwright)

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