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One thing I have to agree with...

Y'all say:
from reading many of the pro-DBT posts here which definitely fail to approach the standard
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Yeah, there is a lot of crap out there, I do agree with that. I think it was Toole, Grusec, JJ and Bech I saw ranting about the lack of controls, or at least published ones, in a lot of the "popular" tests, for instance, and that's just one of the problems. (Yes, I do get around.) I also heard some comments about how editors keep taking that stuff out of articles in popular magazines, so it appears not to be the fault of the experiment in some cases, too.

And, how many times have I said, as well, that DBT's are not for deciding what somebody likes for themselves, unless they want to do it that way. I think I've even said I don't want to do it that way, I do care how something looks, feels, its reputation for working for a long time, etc.

What I see here on the part of most of the rabid anti-scientists is an unwillingness to admit that a DBT, or something like one, is the only way to be sure one isn't engaging in self-deception.

I've seen repeated arguments that DBT's don't work on music. I mean, hell, Fletcher and Snow used them years ago in studies on stereo imaging. On live sound in some cases, no less. Yes, they had to go to a lot of work to make it work that way.

I know I've seen, somewhere, citations that show the level of noise in the atmosphere, and how DBT's show that people with undamaged hearing can hear very close to that level. I also heard Jont Allen talk once about how discrimination levels for masking, measured in DBT's, is right down to what mathematics suggests. Somewhere, the guys who did PEAQ (or one of those measures of sound quality that I have some serious reservations about for other reasons) talked about the probabilistic nature of hearing, and how DBT's were a good way to work around that, in the process showing rather nicely both type 1 and type 2 error investigations, both from theory and from phenominological results that gave confirmation to the theory. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

So, it is quite documented in the literature that DBT's work for musical stimulii. It is documented that they work to levels near or at the level physics permits. There is nothing notable about most high-end audio systems that can concievably exclude them. They are no more accurate than the systems that the likes of Soloudre, Toole, etc, use in their research.

For sighted tests, there is a nearly endless stream of evidence that despite the best intentions, management, training, and whatever else comes to mind, the human mind is determined to use all the information it has to make decisions. Always. It's not a question of intent, honesty, ability, training, or the like, it's how people work.

There is, in short, not a single, solitary whit of evidence for the extraordinary claim that DBT's don't work for music for any application that they are appropriate for, and, yes, that claim is completely extraordinary in that it would force us to conclusions that would, I personally think, contradict observed phenominon.

You can take that any way you like. Since my own observations here are those of an anonymous watcher-of-experts, you decide.

As to references, lots of people have published references here, there, netnews, etc, in response to Mkuller, who appears to want to be the chief anti-DBT fanatic here. Nothing has ever done any good, there is no evidence that anything has been read or considered, except as to attempt to shift the bar, evade an issue, or simply refuse to consider.

I won't participate in his charade any more.

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