🚀 go-pugleaf

I have only compared two amps for a relatively short time together with two
other people. After a few minutes, we all decided that clearly amp A had
a little more bass then amp B. just a bit.

Well, I went and did A/B random testing, reseting the volume each time.
the "differneces" could no longer be detected!

So, listen to what jj tells you -- you can't trust not to cheat yourself!
It is far to easy to TRY to find a difference, then "correlate" it with
your "knowledge". That how our brains work. sorry. (jj - references?)
if it ain't A/B, just because you heard a difference, doesn't mean it 
really exists.

And please, stop with the funny descriptions of "huge differences". I am
not saying there are no differences between amps, but "huge" should be
reserved to diffs, e.g., between 1/4 and 3/4 settings of the treble control.
I'm sure we all agree the differences between amps (above a minimal 
threshold) are far less than that? (or, a $100 and a $1000 speakers, another
true "huge" difference)

You can "teach" yourself how easy it is to "detect" a "known source" compared
with an A/B test. Try a CD vs. a quality cassette recorded in dolby-C
on music with *little* dynamic range. Then compare them with your
tape-monitor button. You hear a clear difference, don't you?
Close your eyes and hit the button many (random) times. guess and open
your eyes. If you don't guess right TEN TIMES out of TEN, you can not
reliably tell the difference. (even if you did, it wasn't a true A/B test.)
BTW, I can tell the difference in some cases and some music, not all. Certainly
with any symphony playing in a big dynamic range, it is easy to tell the
cassette when the music play quitely (and in many other places).

Post your own "testing" results!

-- Michael Golan
   mg@cs.princeton.edu