Not “all believers fail miserably under blind tests”. See reported results of blind test of speaker cables below (not directly on topic of this thread, I know).
Many issues come down to a lack of understanding of statistical significance and an insufficient number of trials.Not “all believers fail miserably under blind tests”. See reported results of blind test of speaker cables below (not directly on topic of this thread, I know).
Audiogon Discussion Forum
PORTALS By LEE GOMES http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120044692027492991.html If You're Not Insane About Sound, Maybe You Can Just Go CrazyJanuary 16, ...forum.audiogon.com
“Using two identical CD players, I tested a $2,000, eight-foot pair of Sigma Retro Gold cables from Monster Cable, which are as thick as your thumb, against 14-gauge, hardware-store speaker cable. Many audiophiles say they are equally good. I couldn't hear a difference and was a wee bit suspicious that anyone else could. But of the 39 people who took this test, 61% said they preferred the expensive cable.
That may not be much of a margin for two products with such drastically different prices, but I was struck by how the best-informed people at the show -- like John Atkinson and Michael Fremer of Stereophile Magazine -- easily picked the expensive cable.
Its sound was described as "richer," "crisper" and "more coherent." Like some wines, come to think of it.
In absolute terms, though, the differences weren't great. Mr. Atkinson guesstimated the expensive cables sounded roughly 5% better.”
And see the video link in this thread posted by @MattHooper on June 16, 2025 where a skeptic carried out the best blind test of isolation devices they could with a subject sample size of one.
Using absolute terms like “all believers” is a statement of belief in and of itself.
kn
Not really. Believers is clearly referring to things that have never been proven to do anything like exoteric power cords, etc.Not “all believers fail miserably under blind tests”. See reported results of blind test of speaker cables below (not directly on topic of this thread, I know).
Audiogon Discussion Forum
PORTALS By LEE GOMES http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120044692027492991.html If You're Not Insane About Sound, Maybe You Can Just Go CrazyJanuary 16, ...
“Using two identical CD players, I tested a $2,000, eight-foot pair of Sigma Retro Gold cables from Monster Cable, which are as thick as your thumb, against 14-gauge, hardware-store speaker cable. Many audiophiles say they are equally good. I couldn't hear a difference and was a wee bit suspicious that anyone else could. But of the 39 people who took this test, 61% said they preferred the expensive cable.
That may not be much of a margin for two products with such drastically different prices, but I was struck by how the best-informed people at the show -- like John Atkinson and Michael Fremer of Stereophile Magazine -- easily picked the expensive cable.
Its sound was described as "richer," "crisper" and "more coherent." Like some wines, come to think of it.
In absolute terms, though, the differences weren't great. Mr. Atkinson guesstimated the expensive cables sounded roughly 5% better.”
And see the video link in this thread posted by @MattHooper on June 16, 2025 where a skeptic carried out the best blind test of isolation devices they could with a subject sample size of one.
Using absolute terms like “all believers” is a statement of belief in and of itself.
kn
Not enough information is given about the test to be sure proper controls were in place. Even then, 61% getting it "right" among 39 participants could easily result from blind guessing, as in you might see a similar result if you were faking the switching and the participants were actually listening to the same thing the whole time. So yeah, "all believers fail miserably under blind tests" is still true.Not “all believers fail miserably under blind tests”. See reported results of blind test of speaker cables below (not directly on topic of this thread, I know).
Audiogon Discussion Forum
PORTALS By LEE GOMES http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120044692027492991.html If You're Not Insane About Sound, Maybe You Can Just Go CrazyJanuary 16, ...
Yeah, not really.Not “all believers fail miserably under blind tests”. See reported results of blind test of speaker cables below (not directly on topic of this thread, I know).
Audiogon Discussion Forum
PORTALS By LEE GOMES http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120044692027492991.html If You're Not Insane About Sound, Maybe You Can Just Go CrazyJanuary 16, ...
“Using two identical CD players, I tested a $2,000, eight-foot pair of Sigma Retro Gold cables from Monster Cable, which are as thick as your thumb, against 14-gauge, hardware-store speaker cable. Many audiophiles say they are equally good. I couldn't hear a difference and was a wee bit suspicious that anyone else could. But of the 39 people who took this test, 61% said they preferred the expensive cable.
That may not be much of a margin for two products with such drastically different prices, but I was struck by how the best-informed people at the show -- like John Atkinson and Michael Fremer of Stereophile Magazine -- easily picked the expensive cable.
Its sound was described as "richer," "crisper" and "more coherent." Like some wines, come to think of it.
In absolute terms, though, the differences weren't great. Mr. Atkinson guesstimated the expensive cables sounded roughly 5% better.”
And see the video link in this thread posted by @MattHooper on June 16, 2025 where a skeptic carried out the best blind test of isolation devices they could with a subject sample size of one.
Using absolute terms like “all believers” is a statement of belief in and of itself.
kn
Per the description in the link, the test involved two identical pairs of speakers, one pair wired with one type of cable and the other pair wired with the other type of cable, both pairs in the same room at the same time. So the pairs of speakers being compared were in different locations in the room. That alone is going to create audible differences.
-Your floor needs to be resonating due to the speaker cabinet's vibrations and re-radiating that audibly into the room.
This is also in response to @GabrielPhoto, @kyuu, @MAB, @masterhw, and @MarkS. The article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal and was written by Lee Gomes, a staff writer.
Very few on Audiogon understand even the basics of sample statistics.
Yeah, but not really at all.
You clearly chose to believe no matter what so it's pointless to continue with this. Come back when you have actual proof or visit Audiogon and Headfi if you expect others to fall for that.
Perhaps. But I do, and with human subjects it is very difficult to get the combination of controls and sample size needed to run an ABX test of subjective preference or demonstrate with any statistical power that a difference was detected. This is why they are not routinely done. One human with a machine can analyze multiple devices in less time and expense than is required to run one effective comparison of two different items with subjects.
Did you actually read the Wall Street Journal article? What axe does that writer have to grind? Did you watch the video on Steve Guttenbergs YouTube channel that was posted in this thread by @MattHooper in June? Can you explain the methodology for an ABX subject test that you would accept the results from? Do you even have the expertise to know what that would look like? Do you believe engineers and designers tune their audio creations by ear or do you believe they look at a graph and say “bang, it’s good, design the packaging and price out the manufacturing”?
Eponysterical
Enjoyment is subjective, sonic differences between cables and components is not.
How would he acquire these skills? Just from listening to a lot of music? You can't acquire skills from a totally passive process. I doubt he's done any formal listening training so he's actually no better or worse at perceiving differences than the rest of us.
Well, apparently Fremer was better than 39% of the people who took the test described in the WSJ article who were unable to distinguish between the sound of one cable set up or the other. If he has been doing that as his job for decades, and there was in fact a difference, whether it was due to speaker position, air currents from the HVAC system in the room, or detectable sonic differences between cables, I would hope that a professional reviewer would be better at perceiving those differences than the average hifi show attendees.
Prove to all of us that listening to music is a purely passive experience. Especially for a critic. Citations? Academic articles? Graphs and measurements? What do you have to persuade us the claim by @Mart68 is valid?
