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Re: Guess we better stick to wine...

Posted by Enophile on January 23, 2006 at 14:09:38:
Aloha, amigos!
I think I'm in both camps.
I like blind tasting and listening.
Blind tasting and blind listening don't analogize well, though.
The differences between wines are/can be so vast, that we no longer need to debate whether or not their differences CAN be discerned, it's that blind tasting is designed to take away pre-conceived notions about the qualities we do discern.
I can't think of any wine afficionado worth a hill of beans who claims wines can't be told apart in blind tastings! Well, maybe Consumer Reports...:)
With blind listening, however, this issue has not been fully sussed out.
In wine tasting, we have many many instances of positive controls, but we lack this in blind audio testing. I have yet to see a DBT afficionado demonstrate a test outcome that actually shows differences. Whenever it does, the afficionado blames differences in levels or some other testing artifact. I'd love it if you guys knew of some.
We we really need are blind listening tests that demonstrate peoples' abilities at discerning known/pre-programmed differences before we can rely on any null results in blind listening tests.
Seriously, I've never seen a blind test result that could tell the difference between a coat hanger wrapped in electric tape vs. any high end cable. Blind testing afficonados don't make the claim that those things can't sound different, but they never demonstrate it. They only seem interested in tests with null outcomes. We really need to get this blind testing stuff into the realm of showing what people CAN hear instead of starting at what we claim they can't.
At some point, the discrepancies between two components must become great enough for blind testing to delineate between the two, but that boundary is totally unexplored. We should be going there.
Once that's done, I'd like to see near-field white-noise blind testing to see if people can pick up on any differences. Blind testing may be tough in the musical setting where the signal is changing too quickly for differences to be as easily identified, especially with tests that include instantaneous switching while music is playing. That's a set-up for failed tests.
Then...we also need to validate blind testing "with training" or with "sensitization."
I've had many a wine in blind tastings that a beginner couldn't tell from another, but with some descriptive assistance, the light bulb went off and suddenly he/she could tell the difference easily!
Same with hi fi. When I've taken novices out shopping, two speakers (usually, it's speakers) that were "identical" sounding one minute, became obviously different with a little help at telling them what to listen for. So, if we find a listener in our positive control phase who can hear smaller differences in blind tests than the rest, we would become better listeners if we were to allow him/her to describe those differences. See, back I go to positive controls.
I think there's much fun to be had with blind listening tests, but we need to get off the horse that only allows negative results to ride.
Don't you ever wonder just how much difference it would take to demonstrate positive results? Answering that could make you famous!
Sorry to ramble, cheers, mon amis!