I can't remember exactly what gear or headphones I was using when I first did it. The reason I mention it is because I tried to replicate the results this morning with my phone headphone out into a THX and had a more difficult time. Particularly with the three tracks from Mozart, Vega and Coldplay. With IEMs direct into the phone my results dropped again. I plugged my phone into the RME by USB and my results went up, An odd thing is that if I don't choose instinctively, by listening to the first second or so only, then my success rate plummets; ie the more I compare the tracks the more unsure I become. Three tracks are easiest to spot - Neil Young, Jay-Z and Katy Perry. I'm trying to remember exactly what equipment I was using back then, but it really shouldn't make much difference. Except the headphones, so I'm going to go through them.
If the tracks are indeed properly level matched - and I've no reason to think they're not - I can't explain what happened. I don't have special hearing, or even good hearing, I'm 40 with tinnitus and I max out about 14khz. There was clearly a reason for it, and for why I'm now failing to get it every time, but I'm drawing a blank. It could be that I saw an imaginary correlation and happened to luck out ten times in a row, but that seems statistically improbable and I'm still getting higher than you'd expect, using the same method.
Unless I can replicate my results I'm going to have to chalk it up to a blip, I wish I'd have screenshot it back then because now I'm half beginning to think it was a cheese dream
. I'm going to keep going because as the Internet wisely says "pics or it didn't happen". Until I can produce ten results and screenshots in a row of 6/6 I can't be sure I wasn't just on the end of some phenomenal luck, despite what my senses seemed to tell me.