Do We Want All Speakers To Sound The Same ?

[YSC]

Yes I know about that part. You can see in many instances how speakers were rated sighted vs blind.

So you certainly do learn something about sighted listening conditions: That seeing the speakers (or having knowledge which they are listening to) can influence
the perception of the sound.

But from what I remember, there was no systematic attempt to predict which speakers listeners will prefer under sighted conditions. That was reserved for trying to determine what people will prefer under blind listening conditions. That's the difference I'm getting at. There's a perfectly good scientific rational, if you are trying to understand something, for controlling for such variables. The problem comes when you try to port the information from the tests where you've removed the variables, to predicting results when those variables are there.

As I was saying, the relevance of blind listening to sighted listening is a consequential question: the aim of the research, at least or especially when it comes to that of Harman Kardon, is not simply to come to the conclusion that "people will select differently under blind vs sighted conditions" and "this is the type of sound people prefer under blinded conditions." It's supposed to have more relevance than that: especially for a speaker company, one would presume they want to be able to predict what people will prefer under the SIGHTED conditions in which people will actually be selecting and listening to the speakers! Otherwise...the blind tests, while interesting, aren't much good at enlightening anyone on what speakers to buy or what type of speakers to make.

But, as I say, IF it turns out that the results of blind speaker tests port to what people will also prefer under the normal sighted listening which we all use, THEN that has to imply some significant (not "perfect/infallible" but significant) reliability in sighted listening. Otherwise "what people preferred under blind conditions" is useless for the purposes of telling us what people will perceive as "good/better" in real world listening conditions.

Don’t agree here, yes sighted listening preference more often than not will differ from blind test where it’s the sound itself being all important.

But that is purely personal and impossible to characterise. If you run it on a assume money no object basis you likely got results for the most exotic material used, shiny, classy and with crazy marketing of unobtanium speaker ranked top, if you run in sense of which one you will choose if you buy yourself it will be completely different story.

Blind test preference is all important as let you know likely what SOUND you would like, then when you short listing you options, you can choose between the sighted variables, like size, shape and colour.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

So, you start with speakers that sound the same from different manufacturers. How would one know what they would sound like if you add tone control or EQ? Would they respond the same way?

Well, if the speaker is responding with a flat frequency response on test it should also behave 1:1 in EQ.

 

[fineMen]

Where? I didn’t see those accusations towards you here. I did see you oddly misstate the OP’s name. He very kindly responded to you, on topic. What else are you looking for?

I did so because, as I assume, the o/p's name is lend from the movie, namely from the scientist (biology) who is violently forced to get into handsome practice for his life's sake. It wasn't for real.

Anyway, as I said it is not the speaker that could "sound the same"--it means the music sounds the same, when played over that speakers, but it is all the combination of many factors:
frequency response on axis
same off axis, how wide, how uniform, tracking or not the on axis response
distortion, which is positively not a non issue
dynamic capabilities
- so far the manufacturer is responsible

the room's shape and size
the room's inventory
the speakers' position in that room
the listeners' actual positions in that room, not only the distance
preferred listening volume
program to be played, e/g electro pop/ versus mechanical instruments versus infotainment with high speech content
- so far the consumer has to have a choice

An equalizer wouldn't help in all aspects. @tuga critically asked (kudos for that) for a comment on directivity alone. Presumably that directivity is not the point, despite it is talked about once and again. The new, and highly appreciated standard shall not narrow the perspective, me thinks.

@MattHooper already mentioned the visual appearance as a general quality factor. I agree. Size matters. The sensation of sound is, scientifically, proven tinted by the vision. Black speaker boxes sound different than white, and that is the reason why speakers are evaluated blind-folded. That's not true at home anymore.

Unrelated: I cannot understand why the Revel line shows so many quite--to my eye, pretentious if not to say pompous outfits. I don't even look into their objective performance, ruled out in an instant.

 

[YSC]

I would rather ask if the relative strength of direct versus indirect sound is a parameter to be considered. It depends on directivity, room damping (curtains, obstacles, furniture) and the listerners' (plural?) positions--not only plain distance.

Alas, I cannot report on my own findings, as I, in this thread again, was already accused to lie as the stupid I am. You have to find out without my guidance. You will survive, granted.

direct vs reflected sound of course will differ with different dispersion beam width pattern, but afterall, with a well controlled directivity, the refiected sound would have similar tonal balance as the on axis, which is why you can EQ them better as the tonal balance didn't change, now if a speaker with directivity error, off axis balance is rather different compared to on axis, this would make the EQ sound weird

 

[fineMen]

direct vs reflected sound of course will differ with different dispersion beam width pattern, but afterall, with a well controlled directivity, the refiected sound would have similar tonal balance as the on axis, which is why you can EQ them better as the tonal balance didn't change, now if a speaker with directivity error, off axis balance is rather different compared to on axis, this would make the EQ sound weird

As I see it, the reflected sound originates in the room, or better to say from its surfaces. Instead of asking a more abstract question, let's assume two possible, quite common situations. The listener sits close to the backwall behind her. The listern sits in the middle of the room, a desk before him. One might be temted to complicate things a bit further in assuming in both cases a different distance from the speakers, and so on. Could we think this through in a reasonable way? My conclusion was, that the spinorama and the subsequent estimation of a preference score is just and only for the manufacturer to use. Only he would need to sport the statistics. The consumer is ought to understand that the individual set-up at home will be unique, and an educated use of an equalizer is either out of reach or not at all feasible. But I acknowledge that with a spinorama the choice would easily boil down to a smaller numbers of contenders, as long as the consumer is informed.

 

[YSC]

As I see it, the reflected sound originates in the room, or better to say from its surfaces. Instead of asking a more abstract question, let's assume two possible, quite common situations. The listener sits close to the backwall behind her. The listern sits in the middle of the room, a desk before him. One might be temted to complicate things a bit further in assuming in both cases a different distance from the speakers, and so on. Could we think this through in a reasonable way? My conclusion was, that the spinorama and the subsequent estimation of a preference score is just and only for the manufacturer to use. Only he would need to sport the statistics. The consumer is ought to understand that the individual set-up at home will be unique, and an educated use of an equalizer is either out of reach or not at all feasible. But I acknowledge that with a spinorama the choice would easily boil down to a smaller numbers of contenders, as long as the consumer is informed.

I don't see where the complication of the room get to your conclusion...

in any complication, yes the speaker in room response won't be close to the spinorama prediction in reality, but the more neutral speaker with a smooth directivity will behave more consistently, in a relative sense, and, if EQ is possible, the results will be better. and althtough I am not really knowing throughoutly in toole's research, from memory it seems ppl prefer the controlled directivity offerings in blind test in less treated room, coz the sound shift is smaller than the ones with poor directivity. all surfaces changes the sound but then the one with on and off axis sound having similar tonality is usually if not always sounding more natural to human ears

 

[tuga]

I don't see where the complication of the room get to your conclusion...

in any complication, yes the speaker in room response won't be close to the spinorama prediction in reality, but the more neutral speaker with a smooth directivity will behave more consistently, in a relative sense, and, if EQ is possible, the results will be better. and althtough I am not really knowing throughoutly in toole's research, from memory it seems ppl prefer the controlled directivity offerings in blind test in less treated room, coz the sound shift is smaller than the ones with poor directivity. all surfaces changes the sound but then the one with on and off axis sound having similar tonality is usually if not always sounding more natural to human ears

The in-room response of constant-narrow- and narrowing-directivity speakers will be more accurately predicted than that of a wide-directivity ones.
But it's mostly guesswork really, because it depends on so many factors.

Toole's research is not really reflective of preference in normal/typical listening conditions and should be ignored.

 

[fineMen]

I don't see where the complication of the room get to your conclusion...

I hope I understand Your argument, but I won't agree. I've seen quite educated people state, regading a particular set-up, that the measured in-room response would resemble the predictions quite well, while the data in-your-face showed inacceptable deviations.

Anyway, I come back to this only to reiterate: not the speakers sound the same. I want the music sound pretty much similar to the sound in the studio everywhere. That's a good target point. But includes the room, and other parameters of the set-up, that logically could not be considered with the spinorama. In the end, sound similar, the music, but in-room etc, hence with still different speakers

Conversly one would assume that rooms don't differ that much, listeners' position not, inventory not, and so on, but additionally with even a small bandwith of possible situations the statistics is very good by itself. I've not seen that before. I leave it to the believers.

 

[goat76]

I would say definitely the better measuring speaker, unless both have reasonably flat anechoic response, and with good directivity, things changes from time to time, be it preference, your room, your space, your mood and the new music that you listen, a speaker responding better to EQ can adapt to all these changes, but for a worse measuring speaker that is out of the box better in my room today likely would be messed up bigger when things changes.

For me, it's an easy choice and I would go for the speakers that I find sounding the best to me "out of the box" any day of the week, instead of hoping I can manipulate the objectively better-measuring speakers to my liking.

There's more to the overall sound than just frequency response and dispersion, like micro and macro dynamic capability, distortion levels, transient response, and how fast the speaker start-and-stop in according to the incoming signal. Why someone prefers a particular speaker before another can be things you can't do anything about, so as I see it, it's much better to go with the speakers that are getting closer to your preferences out of the box. The smaller adjustments that are needed, the less risk it will be to override the speaker's capabilities.

There is no such thing as the perfect speaker, it's all about compromises and what best resonates with your preferences.

 

[YSC]

I hope I understand Your argument, but I won't agree. I've seen quite educated people state, regading a particular set-up, that the measured in-room response would resemble the predictions quite well, while the data in-your-face showed inacceptable deviations.

Anyway, I come back to this only to reiterate: not the speakers sound the same. I want the music sound pretty much similar to the sound in the studio everywhere. That's a good target point. But includes the room, and other parameters of the set-up, that logically could not be considered with the spinorama. In the end, sound similar, the music, but in-room etc, hence with still different speakers

Conversly one would assume that rooms don't differ that much, listeners' position not, inventory not, and so on, but additionally with even a small bandwith of possible situations the statistics is very good by itself. I've not seen that before. I leave it to the believers.

I think there is some misunderstanding here, I don’t say that with good directivity and flat frequency response would make two speakers sound the same in the any room, any spot, rather in same room, same spot the two speakers presuming with similar beam width would sound very close to the same, but say if you move it from my room to yours, it definitely be different.

But then that’s another story, and why EQ are brought up for personal taste. Knowing the speaker would respond to eq well, when I setup in room, did some measurements to fix bass modes, just dial in the curves you like to enjoy.

 

[MattHooper]

Don’t agree here, yes sighted listening preference more often than not will differ from blind test where it’s the sound itself being all important.

But the purported reason it will differ in sighted listening is that our perception of the sound literally changes in sighted listening. That's why we would rate the "sound" better from speaker A vs speaker B.

So...

Blind test preference is all important as let you know likely what SOUND you would like,

Under blind conditions yes. But if the perception of the sound will 'more often than not' differ under sighted conditions, then what you perceive under blind conditions doesn't tell you "how it will sound" under sighted conditions. And it's the sighted conditions that count, since that's how you will be listening.

Therefore:

then when you short listing you options, you can choose between the sighted variables, like size, shape and colour.

Those variables would be more important than the sound anyone heard under blind conditions. They should be your guide, not blind tests.

My argument above is akin to reductio ad absurdum. I assume that most here will reject the idea that blind testing speakers is irrelevant when it comes to choosing speakers.

If it isn't clear by now: the point I'm pushing at this not to de-legitimize blind testing for speakers; just the opposite. It is my belief (or at least hunch) that the results gleaned via blind testing speakers research is or can be valuable in helping someone choose speakers. But this would only be the case if we can, to some useful degree, even if not perfectly, correctly perceive in sighted conditions sonic characteristics we liked in blinded conditions. In other words: for the blind tests to be relevant, our sighted listening has to also be somewhat accurate (if not as accurate as under blind conditions). The argument isn't against blind testing: it's against a hyper-skepticism toward sighted listening (for gear that is in fact sonically distinguishable, like speakers). Some skepticism aimed at sighted listening for speakers is certainly warranted. A hyper-skepticism which considers any sighted listening totally useless or completely unreliable, is untenable. I would bet we largely agree here.

But...that's a diversion from the main theme of this thread. As I said, this thread isn't about me arguing speakers should or should not "all sound the same." It's a question I have for other people.

 

[fineMen]

Under blind conditions yes. But if the perception of the sound will 'more often than not' differ under sighted conditions, then what you perceive under blind conditions doesn't tell you "how it will sound" under sighted conditions. And it's the sighted conditions that count, since that's how you will be listening.

Finally one should say, that the percepton of sound ist situation dependend. There are two distinct tasks connected to a loudspeaker: engineer its sonic performance, and design its visual appearance. A third comes second, namely to sell it.

If the speaker is different, then it might appear as being either superior or inferior if the difference is just big enough. The difference becomes a selling point. The marketing would attach the common gibberish to it, people buy it, done. This might prevent from having speakers all equal, hence equally good in some sense. One might easily end up with equally bad speakers in return.

The importance of the looks is associated to the mental focus. When buying, in the showroom maybe, the speaker as an object is more present to the customer than later at home. It is that very machine, asking for a lot of money, and it wants it now. What a gamble! At home the attention to its physical presence will decline, hopefully. But the objective auditory qualities will remain.

 

[Mart68]

But the purported reason it will differ in sighted listening is that our perception of the sound literally changes in sighted listening. That's why we would rate the "sound" better from speaker A vs speaker B.

So...




Under blind conditions yes. But if the perception of the sound will 'more often than not' differ under sighted conditions, then what you perceive under blind conditions doesn't tell you "how it will sound" under sighted conditions. And it's the sighted conditions that count, since that's how you will be listening.

Therefore:



Those variables would be more important than the sound anyone heard under blind conditions. They should be your guide, not blind tests.

but since the variations introduced by sighted listening are a construct of the mind they are not permanent. One day you may really like the speaker, the next day, not so much.

At least if you selected the speaker blind then you know you have a speaker that you genuinely like, even if in normal use your perception of its sound varies due to sighted bias, your mood, etc. That still seems to me like a better baseline to work from.

 

[goat76]

but since the variations introduced by sighted listening are a construct of the mind they are not permanent. One day you may really like the speaker, the next day, not so much.

At least if you selected the speaker blind then you know you have a speaker that you genuinely like, even if in normal use your perception of its sound varies due to sighted bias, your mood, etc. That still seems to me like a better baseline to work from.

But then comes the next question, how many occasions are needed for the blind listening test to be considered accurate? As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, we as listeners also have good and bad days, the same system can sound fantastic one evening and the next day the magic is gone. So how reliable is it to do a blind test on just one occasion alone?

When I get something new in my system I never ever completely trust my first impressions. At first, the "new sound" is highly interesting and it's easy to jump to the conclusion that it sounds better. That's why I prefer "long-time testing" stretched over weeks or even months before I'm really sure, the "new sound" has sunken in and if the new speakers have some flaws they have most likely reviled themselves over time. And the "listening mood" has most likely also gone through all the stages from the average normal mode, to fantastic, and to not-so-good days.

I think short listening tests, both blind or sighted, run the risk of favoring the most impressive-sounding speaker, not necessarily the one that is preferred over time.

 

[MattHooper]

Thanks Mart68. These questions are not easy to answer, which is one reason I find them so intriguing.

Any conclusion for "what it is reasonable to believe of our sense perception" will have to account for two seemingly diverging facts:

1. Our perception can be unreliable. (See: optical illusions, and any number of bias effects)

and

2. Our perception can be reliable. (See: our ability to successfully navigate the world through sight and sound, drive cars, identify people objects reliably etc)

It doesn't matter what domain we are in - one that deals with visual perception, or one that deals with sound perception, we are not going to arrive at a coherent
picture by over-emphasizing one or the other of those two facts. If you over-emphasize the reliability of our perception, miss all the ways it is unreliable, you end up with an untenable confidence in your subjective experience. You end up believing all the audio snake oil. If you over-emphasize our perception being unreliable, basing your view on a hyper-skepticism, you will likewise end up in an untenable position because you haven't accounted for the countless instances in which our perception proves reliable. You end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater by disavowing useful information based on sighted perception.

So any account for the worth...or worthlessness...of sighted listening to speakers will have to ultimately be some synthesis of the above two facts, not an emphasis of one at the expense of another. It seems to force at least the general conclusion that our perception isn't fully reliable, but neither is it fully unreliable. Working out the details for justifying belief in any conclusion from our perception - even synthesizing the results of blind testing - is the tough part.
I've given my own pragmatic "solution" before (the heuristic "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence").

But I think we are on the same page in wanting to synthesize the above two facts, to make the case for the use of blind testing. A synthesis of #1 and #2 would generally entail: blind testing results are more reliable for determining the sound people prefer, though that does not leave sighted listening as wholly unreliable for the same purposes.

but since the variations introduced by sighted listening are a construct of the mind they are not permanent. One day you may really like the speaker, the next day, not so much.

At least if you selected the speaker blind then you know you have a speaker that you genuinely like, even if in normal use your perception of its sound varies due to sighted bias, your mood, etc. That still seems to me like a better baseline to work from.

Yes that does sound, at least at first glance, like a reasonable conclusion, when trying to work out the usefulness of blind testing for speaker preferences.
I've thought through that before. And one reason I've found it somewhat compelling is based on my own experience blind testing. For instance I've mentioned before on the forum that when I switched music servers it *seemed* at first like the new one was a touch brighter sounding. That didn't make technical sense to me so I blind tested them, heard no difference, and from then on didn't worry about it and didn't perceive this "slight brightness" to the new server. So on first glance, that type of experience seems to justify your line of reasoning: That the "errors" in our perception are unstable, but the actual SOUND is more stable, so the actual sound (as can be determined in the blind testing) is ultimately of greater relevance and influence.

But..note what that necessarily implies for our listening pleasure: The Sound comes to us only through our perception. To say that there is something about The Actual Sound that will ultimately prove more stable is to necessarily say that we will find some stability in OUR PERCEPTION of the sound. And, presumably, this is because over time our perception will be accurate enough to perceive How It Really Sounds - that would be the explanation for why the blind tests could result in ultimate listener satisfaction. So that STILL ultimately results in verifying our sighted perception!

So back to my music server issue. The blind testing did help me quickly resolve my perception of added brightness (I did this within a couple of days of "hearing" the issue). But I think it most likely that this would have faded pretty quickly to my baseline, since the sound was in fact not different, I'm sure I would have ceased thinking it was "bright" pretty soon. In other words: even in sighted conditions, my perception of the real sound would tend to win out over time.

Ok, so should we then conclude "INITIAL impressions of sound under sighted conditions are unreliable?" (E.g. auditions at an audio showroom). Wish it was that easy. Except that too becomes problematic if pushed too far, because there are so many examples of initial impressions of sound being correct/reliable.

Also: what do we do with the countless examples of persistent preferences and perception? Over the years tons of audiophiles have found great satisfaction using speakers that would not pass the ASR/blind testing criteria - avid Klipsch, Maggie, Horn, Zu owners and on and on. Blind testing suggests they shouldn't really be so enthusiastic about those brands (and many audiophiles have heard other more neutral speakers in their time, yet still found happiness with those speakers). And yet, there's plenty of evidence their perception of the sound persists year after year. If we go with the conclusion that blind testing is useful because The Real Sound will ultimately be more stably perceived over time than our fleeting biased distortions, it suggests these speaker owners are reacting to the actual sound of their speakers and truly do love the sound. That it's not all pure, unreliable delusion.

So...life's messy. We can take one pragmatic position or another to get us through the messiness, but we shouldn't pretend it's all be tied up in a nice bow when it hasn't been.

So I acknowledge your view for justifying the usefulness of blind speaker testing. I don't see it as unreasonable.

As I've said before, my approach to synthesizing the two facts (perception can be fallible/can be reliable) is pragmatic: scale my confidence levels to the available evidence and plausibility, employing heuristic tools like "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." If my pal came back from auditioning two different speakers and described the sound, and why he preferred A to B - e.g. "speaker A was too bright/too lean in the bass etc" it is entirely plausible he really heard those differences, as speakers can differ in those audible parameters. In that sense it is an "ordinary claim" that does not contradict known science or engineering.

If I wanted HIGHER confidence levels in his perception of the sound, I'd want to employ controls for possible sighted bias. But on a pragmatic level, it's fine to provisionally accept his claims, while acknowledging the lower confidence levels and room for the influence of bias. If he was making technically implausible claims about the sound of different USB cables, I'd demand more rigorous evidence before accepting what is an extraordinary claim.

If this type of epistemic pragmatism wasn't reasonable, I don't see how we couldn't justify our daily inferences from our perception (which aren't done under scientific controls), let alone communicate with other human beings.

Cheers!

 

[Robin L]

I don't think people's taste in speaker sound would be identical. I'm old enough to recall in the 1970's, east coast vs. west coast speakers---KLH/Advent/AR vs Infinity/JBL, with the east coast favoring linear frequency response at the expense of efficiency and the west coast favoring efficiency and dynamics. The playing field now has expanded, there are many more designs for many differences in taste. I don't expect this to change.

 

[Mart68]

But then comes the next question, how many occasions are needed for the blind listening test to be considered accurate? As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, we as listeners also have good and bad days, the same system can sound fantastic one evening and the next day the magic is gone. So how reliable is it to do a blind test on just one occasion alone?

When I get something new in my system I never ever completely trust my first impressions. At first, the "new sound" is highly interesting and it's easy to jump to the conclusion that it sounds better. That's why I prefer "long-time testing" stretched over weeks or even months before I'm really sure, the "new sound" has sunken in and if the new speakers have some flaws they have most likely reviled themselves over time. And the "listening mood" has most likely also gone through all the stages from the average normal mode, to fantastic, and to not-so-good days.

I think short listening tests, both blind or sighted, run the risk of favoring the most impressive-sounding speaker, not necessarily the one that is preferred over time.

I agree that blind selection will only eliminate one possible element of bias, but it is a big one. I have mentioned before how Wharfedale tested how the colour of the loudspeaker affected listeners' perceptions, and they found that the red speaker was perceived as 'warm' sounding etc. It's not a trivial effect.

Comparing blind over a long period would be best. Obviously since this is an academic issue anyway (who really has the opportunity to do blind comparisons of speakers?) then we can say that you have as long as you need to compare them

As an aside and referencing back to the topic, do people really know what they want and does this not affect choices? I.e are the 20 percent or so of people who do not prefer what is considered a 'good' speaker in terms of measurement actually unreliable narrators?

I attended a meet where there were two sets of speakers, some floorstanding 3 way Focals and some Urei dual concentric stand mounters. Both speakers were demmed and then a vote was taken as to which speaker people wanted to be used for the further demos (phono stages). The vote was 9 for Focal, 9 for Urei. Nobody expressed 'no preference'. That intrigued me.

(The room was enormous btw and the speakers were set up tens of feet from the boundaries)

Later after formal tests were done people were having fun swapping between the two speakers, and a couple of amplifiers. I closed my eyes during this and tried to guess which speaker they were swapping to. That was the point where I realised that they sounded very similar, despite them having completely different configurations. I suspect, bass extension aside, most good speakers already sound pretty much the same.

 

[MattHooper]

I don't think people's taste in speaker sound would be identical. I'm old enough to recall in the 1970's, east coast vs. west coast speakers---KLH/Advent/AR vs Infinity/JBL, with the east coast favoring linear frequency response at the expense of efficiency and the west coast favoring efficiency and dynamics. The playing field now has expanded, there are many more designs for many differences in taste. I don't expect this to change.

It's at the very least intuitive that people will have different taste in the sound they like or seek, which plays out in real life. Even take how bass players select their particular instrument. You have some who prefer Fenders, Rickenbackers, hollow body, fretless - all sorts of varieties of tone and timbre.

The majority of people buying speakers are not approaching them in terms of an engineering ideal, but rather "do I like the sound of THESE speakers or THOSE speakers?" Even audiophiles to whom manufacturers pay some lip service of "our product will provide the purer reproduction of the recording" still approach things as "speakers sound different from one another, so which speakers do I prefer when listening?"

At the same time we can't presume there can be no trends in what people prefer and so trends found in blind testing are interesting!

The applicability to the ultimate question of what one chooses in a speaker can be the stickier part.

So for instance it could be interesting if there was a large amount of research on preferences for bass guitars. Under blind conditions, would we find any significant trend in what "more people" prefer in the sound of a bass guitar? That would be interesting. What if a Fender bass came out on top? Should that flatten the field as to which basses are produced or recommended? Would the advice to bass players then become "Choose Fender bass, because it's the one most people prefer in blind testing!" One can assume many bass players will still say "No thanks, I'll go with the bass that happens to achieve the sound I want."

(And if someone reading that is thinking "but those are two different things! The differences between bass guitars are artistic choices - sound systems are about reproducing those choices accurately!" That misses the point. The blind testing research was about learning about listener *preferences* for sound, not about "accuracy" per se. If we can find certain trends in what sound people prefer in speakers, it's plausible that blind testing can find trends in what sound people prefer among bass guitars, or any other instrument. In which case...the same type of questions follow from the results as I've posed above - how to apply such results).

 

[MattHooper]

Later after formal tests were done people were having fun swapping between the two speakers, and a couple of amplifiers. I closed my eyes during this and tried to guess which speaker they were swapping to. That was the point where I realised that they sounded very similar, despite them having completely different configurations. I suspect, bass extension aside, most good speakers already sound pretty much the same.

I've had similar experiences.

My first sort of blind test experience involved speakers.

In the 90's my friend got in to "high end audio" first, purchasing some used Quad ESL 63s. I loved coming over to listen to his set up. He'd read that the Spendor BC1 had recieved early plaudits as being something closer to the sound of Quad from a box speaker. He bought a second hand pair of BC1s too.

I didn't know he'd purchased the BC1s (or anything about them) and one day he said he wanted to do a blind test, literally put a blindfold on me, led me to the listening chair, and he had the BC1s set up beside the 63s. He switched between them a number of times and asked if I could tell the difference (or identify the Quads). It was actually more challenging than I would have guessed! In the end, I could reliably detect a bit more "boxiness" to the BC1s and could identify the Quads. But still, that experience really stuck with me. It reminds me of how we audiophiles often make mountains out of molehills. (Though....it is the nature of an enthusiast in any hobby to do just that. The subtle differences become significant to us).

 

[YSC]

Man I think you still missed the point, if we conduct sighted listening tests the results will just be as different and random as a useless mess, coz everyone’s sighted bias is different, and even your own sighted opinion will vary very often when you are sighted and looking for differences.

Now why blind test is important is that when choosing the sound you like, which is the thing you go for hifi in the first place, this is not to choose the best speaker and buy it regardless you like the look, brand etc. but to come up with a good sounding short list.

Now for example in data you got the Neumann, genelec in one side, and perlisten, revel, kef, then D&D, burchardt, devilate on the other side as your short list, then you go for the look or feel you think is the best as in “this is the look of a speaker I prefer” or “this looked more punchy and should fulfill my dynamics need” or even “this looked more pro”

If you still not convinced yourself, try out the short final top 3 and here you go, a speaker you would really want sighted, plus it sound good