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Have You Ever Put Your Golden Ears to the Test??

First let me say that I'm not one of the naysayers that Twl refers to in his thread about "Sonic Relativism", so please no attacks. I have no agenda.

I'm just curious if any of you have (or would be willing to) put your ears to the test in the way of a blind comparison. If so, what were the results? It can be quite rewarding to know that you can discern differences between things such as cables, DACs, etc.

I was at a good friend's house this weekend and we decided to do some blind comparisons of CD vs. SACD. We had three discs of various types of music (Friday Night in San Francisco, Keb' Mo and Harry Connick Jr.). I sat in the sweet spot and my friend switched discs playing one cut from each disc CD/SACD at random.

I could discern the CD from the SACD every time, but I have to say that the differences were more subtle than I expected. Of course, I'm no scientist so my methods may be open for scrutiny. I'm just curious how many of you try similar tests?

I always find it interesting when people say that they "heard" a cd player (or other component) and it was really great or really crappy or not very exciting. This almost always refers to having heard it at a dealer. How do they know they didn't "hear" the other components? What's the point of reference? The only way to really listen to components or accessories is within the confines of a "reference" system. For most of us that simply means our own system. And even then, the only way to confirm that we're hearing what we "think" we're hearing is to do some sort of blind test.

So...How many of you have put your ears to the test? If you haven't...Would you? If not...Why not?
danheather

Showing 1 response by gunbei

gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Hi Dan. I was at an A'GoN member's place last weekend doing a cable comparison, and while we didn't do the tests blind we did hear the same differences every time. However, I have a feeling if the comparison was conducted blindfolded it would have been much tougher to decern any differences. Knowing which cables were in at the time probably exerted certain influences that we have no way of measuring.

But back to your question, would I do it? Maybe out of curiosity. But I'd be very afraid of finding out that I do indeed have tin ears, and all this spending and research was a waste of time.
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