Re: setting up ABX tests at home

Greg Wormald <greg.wormald@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Steve wrote:
> > I want to set up an ABX test at home on different sources to see if I
> > can hear a difference. I am doing this for my own education and fun -
> > I don't want to start investing in SPL meters, switches gain
> > equalizers of other boxes.

> Steve,

> As long as you are doing it for fun, the set-ups you have specified 
> should work. Education is a different matter.

> While ABX tests have their proponents, they also have detractors, and 
> such tests may not educate you about equipment at all. What both 
> proponents and detractors agree upon is that for short term tests 
> absolute sound level matching is a must. Many tests have shown that the 
> louder source is usually preferred.

> The very set-up of much ABX testing (which is most often short segments 
> of music quickly switched), cannot test for what most music lovers are 
> seeking--long term enjoyment of music listening. A goodly number of 
> years ago I ABX blind tested some interconnects, and then chose the ones

> I preferred. Three months later I realised I was not listening as much 
> or enjoying it at the level I was previously. I found myself turning the

> music down or off. When I went back to my old interconnects my listening

> increased to it's previous levels of enjoyment.

...at which point , if you did an ABX, you would be able to tell 
the two apart , right?  

This is what alwyas perplexes me about the 'you need to do 
long term listening' brigade.  If you believe long term'listening is
required to get the true 'sound' of the gear into your brains,
fine, go for it.  And *then* demonstrate you're hearing a real difference,
using a ABX comparison.  Shoudl be simple to 'pass' at that point,
shouldn't it?

___
-S 
"Hey pip squeak, who's L Ron, some new rapper?" -- Nic