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Re: Read the following sentence very carefully!

"As a last point I'd like to mention those tests where a cable was compared with itself (à la John Dunlavy) and the participants heard a difference. Food for thought."

To give you some more food for thought, it is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to hear the same thing twice. No human is able to listen to a piece of music one day and hear a perfect copy the next day. Everytime you listen to the music, it will sound differently. That is because "listening" is not the same as "registering audio data flowing into the ear".

What reaches the ear is a continuously shifting flow of complex tones and transients. What the brain has to make of all this is a sound stage with well-known, recognized, sound emanating objects that are plausible in the current context.

The first task is to combine the vast array of frequencies that enter the ear all the time into bundles of pitches plus their overtones, forming complex "tones". Then those "tones" must be combined into groups which could be related to well-known objects that are known by the brain to produce such groups of tones/sounds at certain times in certain circumstances. So continuously the constructed tones are compared to the tone database in the brain and to the database containing well-known sound objects.

At the same time transients are VERY important. Transients contain an enormous lot of information, not only according to information theory, but fortunately also according to our brain. Transients, especially the starting milliseconds of a tone of a musical instrument, are allimportant for the recognition of that instrument.
So it's not only complex tone of some duration that the brain must recognize from its database, but also the list of well-known transients.

So the brain has to do a lot of construction, interpreting, deleting of irrelevant material, filling in missing stuff. It goes far beyond a Fourier analysis, because the brain has to SYNTHESIZE what's going on in the outside world. Now even conscious decisions by you the listener influence what you will hear. You can concentrate on this aspect of the sound image or that aspect, as we all know from listening to someone at a coctail party. So you can partly influence the sound image that you will hear in the next few seconds.
For the "objectivists" among us it is even worse, because the ear not only SENDS signals to the brain, but also RECEIVES signals through the efferent fibers. These fibers influence the outer hair cells, which influence the sensitivity of the inner hair cells, which influence the "objective" audio data (the vibrations of the ear drum and later on the basilar membrane) that are received by the ear.

So subjectivity in hearing is NOT confined to the processing of the data in the brain, but even to the collection of the data themselves.

From all this information and recollection from the inner database, COMBINED with all other information the brain can collect about the current context, and can process, in the end, FINALLY, a sound image with sound objects is constructed.

That's what we hear.

If you listen to, say, a late Beethoven string quartet (e.g. op 131) for the first time, second time, third time, fourth time, you will hear NEW THINGS every time. It is impossible NOT to hear new things the second time, third time, etc. Listening is LEARNING to listen.

So if you do the Dunlavy listening test with op 131, first part, the faous fugue, I am convinced that it will sound differently the second time and the third time, EVEN WITH THE SAME CABLE. Only a person with severe hearing trouble will hear it the same all the time.

If you don't like Beethoven, you can do the test with a track from a cd with a language course in a foreign language. The first few times you hear the track, you can make head nor tail of it. But GRADUALLY you will LEARN to recognize the sounds, the words, the spaces between the words, and, finally, the meaning of the sentences.

Aha.

The 20th time you hear the track it will sound COMPLETE DIFFERENT compared to the 1st time, ALTHOUGH NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN YOUR EQUIPMENT.

It shows Dunlavy's lack of understanding that he couldn't figure this out.

---------

If only those naive DBT engineers had SOME knowledge of hearing processes and SOME grasp of the scientific method, they wouldn't be talking endlessly about measurements without knowing WHAT actually they are measuring.

All the complaints about DBTs have nothing to do with sighted tests versus unsighted tests, nor with listeners being gullible or being easily influenced by "good looks" or "impressive brand names". It all boils down to the deep lack of understanding of hearing processes by most of the DBT community. In short, they are quacks, most of them.

Of course, all this is not to say that one should buy hilariously expensive cables.
Ernesto.

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