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Recently, I watched a video of John Atkinson's RMAF 2018 presentation "50 years being an audiphile" and he told one interesting story among other things. He said that he attended DBT of amplifiers in the 70s, if i remember correctly, where they basically concluded that all amps sound the same. But after a while, having a regular Quad amp, he found that he didn't enjoy listening to music anymore. So, he got himself a new system, reignited the passion for music listening again and deduced that DBT has some flaws.
That story got me thinking on what happens after blind testing. I am not really questioning DBT, because i know it is an essential scientific tool.
But, let's say you have a sighted test of two amps (could be preamps, dacs... doesn't matter) and you like the sound of A amp better then B amp. Now you do the DBT of those same two amps, and most likely you can't hear the difference. They sound the same. Now when you do the sighted test again, will you like the same A amp sound better or not? Will you now be illuminated (for the lack of more appropriate word) and never have bias again when sighted testing? Or you will have bias, but not for those two particular amps?
That story got me thinking on what happens after blind testing. I am not really questioning DBT, because i know it is an essential scientific tool.
But, let's say you have a sighted test of two amps (could be preamps, dacs... doesn't matter) and you like the sound of A amp better then B amp. Now you do the DBT of those same two amps, and most likely you can't hear the difference. They sound the same. Now when you do the sighted test again, will you like the same A amp sound better or not? Will you now be illuminated (for the lack of more appropriate word) and never have bias again when sighted testing? Or you will have bias, but not for those two particular amps?