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Blind test: we have a volunteer!!!

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pozz

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I am "guilty" of being one of these cross-members whose point of view seems to shift from time to time, so I feel I need to provide my view on this subject. For me, it is not about pleasing people because I actually tend to piss people off when my position shifts on any given subject. The reason for these changes in my views is simply evolution in my understanding of the situation and people involved. Sure, sometimes I am guilty of assuming too much about people (mainly Amir) based on my instinctive perception of a situation or their own actions, but I am fully willing to admit my mistakes when I acquire more information about the issue or a person.

There is nothing that prevents a person from changing their mind on a subject when presented with more evidence. You have to put people's comments in a historical context of what was known about a subject matter at a given point in time. I refuse to be in any inflexible camp (i.e. objectivist/subjectivist) which tends to put a set of blinders on and bulldozes over anyone who dares to oppose their worldview. Personally, as the time goes on, I tend to be more on the objectivist side, without ruling out a possibility of further advances in how we measure audio reproduction.
Do you tend to get your information and opinions from forums, Youtube, or other colloquial sources?
 

Dani_G

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It’s disappointing that ASR’s first and only objective test of whether amps and dacs that measure the same sound the same has descended into farce. I guess we’ll never know the answer.
In case you missed it, Golden is still going to do the test live on stream. The ad revenue from that stream will be donated to the charity fund of Golden's choice, Miracle-Ear Foundation.

If you find approval from Amir/ASR important before you can accept the outcome if the result is positive (Golden passes the test), then I suppose you'll never know. Amir bailed on the opportunity to have someone he trusts present at throughout the testing process to verify legitimacy of the test beyond what can be captured on video, allowing more room for interpretation and more opportunities to consider the provided evidence to be inconclusive. Given how this situation has evolved, I doubt Amir/ASR will accept the results of this test as valid in case Golden succeeds.

We'll see how this turns out, and how the audiophile community + media will respond to it. ASR choosing not to cooperate will likely raise some eyebrows though.
 

bboris77

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Do you tend to get your information and opinions from forums, Youtube, or other colloquial sources?
Ideally, from what the person himself says publicly. For example, even though the MQA thread was controversial, I did learn a lot about the subject matter and Amir himself, in a positive way.

Third-party stuff and comments are not always reliable and I take them with a grain of salt.

EDIT: I am talking about information about a specific person and their affiliations. As for the technical subject matter, I learn mostly from forums from a few extremely knowledgeable individuals whose opinion I trust. Obviously, @solderdude comes to mind, @tomchr, and a few others. Basically people who design amps. I have learned a lot from @amirm's measurements and technical writeups especially in the area he specializes in - working with lossy codecs.
 
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Andysu

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In case you missed it, Golden is still going to do the test live on stream. The ad revenue from that stream will be donated to the charity fund of Golden's choice, Miracle-Ear Foundation.

If you find approval from Amir/ASR important before you can accept the outcome if the result is positive (Golden passes the test), then I suppose you'll never know. Amir bailed on the opportunity to have someone he trusts present at throughout the testing process to verify legitimacy of the test beyond what can be captured on video, allowing more room for interpretation and more opportunities to consider the provided evidence to be inconclusive. Given how this situation has evolved, I doubt Amir/ASR will accept the results of this test as valid in case Golden succeeds.

We'll see how this turns out, and how the audiophile community + media will respond to it. ASR choosing not to cooperate will likely raise some eyebrows though.
1622822730251.png

I find golden, fascinating.
 

pozz

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Ideally, from what the person himself says publicly. For example, even though the MQA thread was controversial, I did learn a lot about the subject matter and Amir himself, in a positive way.

Third-party stuff and comments are not always reliable and I take them with a grain of salt.
Having to run on comments was hard for me too. I was operating mostly in the dark myself for a long time. Academic studies weren't as readily available years back, I had no access to the STEM university search engines and with no list of ready references mostly tried working things out on my own.

ASR put all those things together for me. I have a stack of books now, and some fair knowledge of researchers working in the field. Was taught to fish.
 

TK750

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That is why I made the suggestion about the two just doing a live debate and the dropping it at that. Let them hash out their differences, talk about what they believe and let them make counterpoints with science-based facts. Then, afterward, be done with it and walk away.

Just to offer a differing opinion, for me this would be the most disappointing possible outcome. I couldn't really care less what either has to say, I'm much more interested in seeing them do the testing. Not a personal thing against either person, I just think it's highly unlikely that either would say anything that hasn't been regurgitated 1000 times before.
 

hardisj

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Just to offer a differing opinion, for me this would be the most disappointing possible outcome. I couldn't really care less what either has to say, I'm much more interested in seeing them do the testing. Not a personal thing against either person, I just think it's highly unlikely that either would say anything that hasn't been regurgitated 1000 times before.

I get it. I was thinking more from the perspective of "quashing their beef".

There won't be a scientific study. That will never happen. At least, that's my prediction. But we still run the risk of seeing this stuff go round and round and thread after thread involve their animosity toward each other. That's why I propose them just saying their peace "in person" and then leaving it alone. Realistically, though, I don't expect that to happen, either.
 

TK750

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I get it. I was thinking more from the perspective of "quashing their beef".

There won't be a scientific study. That will never happen. At least, that's my prediction. But we still run the risk of seeing this stuff go round and round and thread after thread involve their animosity toward each other. That's why I propose them just saying their piece "in person" and then leaving it alone. Realistically, though, I don't expect that to happen, either.

Fair enough but definitely not for me then haha. I won't give my opinion on the 'beef' for fear of being banned. Yeh I can understand the risk of the never ending battle, I suppose my approach would be to just expect them to leave it once this episode has concluded. I'm being pretty naïve there and I'm sure that won't stop others bringing it up, however I'm not sure a video would necessarily stop that either. Probably something you'd either just have to ban threads about or let it burn out naturally over a bit of time. Anyway I'll try and shut up in this thread now and leave it to those directly involved. I feel I'm just adding to the noise myself instead of contributing anything of real value
 

Andysu

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All I ever see in these videos is a pair of hands waving around. No face like Amir, when he does videos as I like to know who I am watching. Not the only video on youtube with people too scared to show there face in these audiophile videos.
 

Raindog123

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all it will be is an anonymous vlogger claiming he hears things.


….or alternatively, it will be a person who prefers to remain anonymous for a myriad of legitimate reasons…

Yet whose test integrity can be validated/assured/assisted by a prominent long-term ASR member who, eg, jumps on a 50min train ride from Oxfordshire… or a day [round-]trip from Taunton, or Hampshire! (Or, even from the US in July as I offered earlier, though I do not count myself for either long-term or prominent here.)
 
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hardisj

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In other forums, when a thread devolves as much as this one has, people begin posting cat memes/gifs until the thread is locked.

Anyone have any funny cat memes? :D :p
 

garbulky

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Say you were testing 2 devices in ABX. The test asks you to rank their qualities and your preference on a 1-10 scale instead of asking if what you hear is same/different.

If you are consistent in your rankings, you will be able to determine whether or not you can hear a difference, if there are assignable qualities, and if you're able to produce a preference.
YOU would be able to (for yourself) and you could demonstrate that you have a preference to others. But what that preference is or what it means is objectively meaningless to others other than that's what you think. Now if we can have a mass of people reporting the same thing then we could make more statements regarding perceived quality.
 

pozz

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YOU would be able to (for yourself) and you could demonstrate that you have a preference to others. But what that preference is or what it means is objectively meaningless to others other than that's what you think. Now if we can have a mass of people reporting the same thing then we could make more statements regarding perceived quality.
It's a clear procedure. If it or a variant isn't followed the results themselves are in question.
 

Andysu

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Did this fly under Amir's radar scope? They say they are the first. audiophile kiddies. :facepalm:
 

raistlin65

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I have nothing to offer in private. I created this thread so that we collectively figure out a solution. That is getting done. If it is not exciting or what you expected it is not my issue. There is $1000 on the line plus reputation of schiit and its Magnius amp. If you can't help the please don't post.

I think people have been pointing out that's not all you've done, though. You've also frequently used this thread to express your displeasure with Golden One, and you've encouraged the antagonism of others.

I would imagine many of us have been in meetings where the major stakeholders/directors of a project have spent a lot of time engaged in personal animosity towards each other. It gets in the way of the work, and sometimes causes the project to fail.

Staying focused on the task--instead of in-fighting between the decision makers involved where they drag up previous conversations to attack the other person, where they encourage other co-workers to take sides--is almost always the most productive strategy.

You've been unable to get a subjectivist to do a DBT like this of DACs or amps. That's because it's generally not in their favor to accept such a challenge. Now you potentially have that opportunity.

So what's your goal here? Get a subjectivist to complete a DBT of well-measuring electronics to show people that they don't sound different? That's great for objectivism if Golden One will do it and post a video of the results on his YouTube channel. Might change some people's minds.

But if you continue making this about you and him to get your pound of flesh out of Golden One, you may not achieve that other goal. He might still end up backing out, or the test might not have a valid design.

Hey, but it's your choice.
 

raistlin65

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I've had my wife speak with some colleagues that are PhD's in perceptual research. The skinny: If 30-45 people wanted to kick in a $1000 per we could fund a research study.

We would have to define what the ask is and understand that we, as well as others, need to set aside their biases. I'd be willing to kick in $2000.

You might want to talk with them some more and design the basics of the study. Create a GoFundMe campaign. I'd be willing to chip in $100 towards an academic study. Could be a lot of people might jump in to offer smaller donations to the project.
 

Mart68

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All I ever see in these videos is a pair of hands waving around. No face like Amir, when he does videos as I like to know who I am watching. Not the only video on youtube with people too scared to show there face in these audiophile videos.

If he was recognisable he'd get strangers stopping him in the street asking him about the difference in sonic signature between delta sigma and R-2R.

Nobody needs that, especially if you've only nipped out to get twenty Park Drive before the footy starts.
 

bboris77

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If he was recognisable he'd get strangers stopping him in the street asking him about the difference in sonic signature between delta sigma and R-2R.

Nobody needs that, especially if you've only nipped out to get twenty Park Drive before the footy starts.
I think that GO is fully within his rights to remain anonymous at this point in time considering the fact that his original MQA video may have had an adverse impact on Tidal, MQA and any manufacturers with MQA gear. Realistically, it may have not been a significant impact as any publicity is good publicity, but some companies may not see it this way.

For the purposes of this blind test, as long as it is corroborated by someone that Amir knows personally, I do not really think it is relevant for us to be able to know GO's real name and face. Let's just imagine that he looks like a young Graham Chapman. ;)

Graham_Chapman_Portrait.png
 

Andysu

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I can't stand faceless youtubers waving their hands around.
 
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