Re: setting up ABX tests at home

"bear" <bearlabs@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:fp9jvb01hp7@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Arny Krueger wrote:
>> "bear" <bearlabs@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> news:fp582c01a2c@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>> Put it another way, IF the distortions present are of a
>>> particular type or class then you can put anything you
>>> like into the signal chain of lower or nil distortion
>>> and most likely not be able to identify any change.
>>> Since you have no way to determine the significance or
>>> type/class of distortions in your system, you don't
>>> know anything about the results of an ABX test other
>>> than the results being SPECIFIC to the test you
>>> performed.
>>
>> This problem exists for any listening test. The only
>> reason why it is more apparent in DBTs is that DBTs
>> clearly detect listeners who can't reliably detect
>> differences for whatever reason. We've got yet another case where
someone 
>> is specifically
>> complaining about ABX tests when in fact the problem
>> exists for *any* listening test.  The reason why people
>> don't notice this problem with sighted evalautions is
>> the fact that sighted evaluations have no means for
>> addressing the problem of false positives.

> We can agree then that there are no tests that actually
> take into account this issue, therefore all tests thus
> far are suspect in terms of the significance of the test
> results?

Not at all. In fact there is an international standard, ITU  BS 1116, that

specifically addresses this situation.

http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BS.1116/en