Pabelson,
I think we may be closer than you think on this issue but you seem to want it both ways, a difficulty I see repeatedly in "objectivist" arguments. You say:
" For badly implemented tests, they've yielded remarkably consistent results, both positive and negative." --
all the while insisting on scientific assessment.
Methodologically unsound experiments yeild no meaningful results. The pattern of meaningless results does not matter. Your argument in this regard is emotionally appealing, but it is incorrect.
Moreover, the notion that "DBTs address a prior question: Are two components audibly distinguishable at all?" is also suspect absent appropriate methodology. I notice in your posts that you address reliability and repeatibility, important factors without any doubt. Yet you have never spoken to the issue I have validity, and this is the crux of our difference. Flawed methodology can yield repeatable results reliably, but it is still not valid.
And, of course, as you have noted, many DBT's have shown that some components are distinguishable.
The issue beyond methodology, I suspect, is that there are some people who can often reliably distinguish between components. They are outliers, well outside the norm, several standard deviations beyond the mean, even among the self-designated "golden eared." When any testing is done on a group basis, these folks vanish in the group statistics. You can assail this argument on many grounds. It is indefensible except for the virtual certainty that there is a standard distribution in the populatiuon in acuity of hearing.
So, my position remeains that there is surely a place for DBT testing, but even after all the methodological and sampling issues were addressed, I'm still unsure how it fits into the types of reviews most audiophoiles want.
In your hypothetical magazine, after DBT establishes that the Mega Whopper is distinguishable from El Thumper Grande, how would either be described? Would there be a DBT for each characteristic?
Freud had a book on religion entitled "Future of an Illusion" and you may well feel that this is where all of this ultimately is. I'm not sure that I have an answer to that, but this may well be why Ausio Asylum has devclared itself a DBT free zone.
I think we may be closer than you think on this issue but you seem to want it both ways, a difficulty I see repeatedly in "objectivist" arguments. You say:
" For badly implemented tests, they've yielded remarkably consistent results, both positive and negative." --
all the while insisting on scientific assessment.
Methodologically unsound experiments yeild no meaningful results. The pattern of meaningless results does not matter. Your argument in this regard is emotionally appealing, but it is incorrect.
Moreover, the notion that "DBTs address a prior question: Are two components audibly distinguishable at all?" is also suspect absent appropriate methodology. I notice in your posts that you address reliability and repeatibility, important factors without any doubt. Yet you have never spoken to the issue I have validity, and this is the crux of our difference. Flawed methodology can yield repeatable results reliably, but it is still not valid.
And, of course, as you have noted, many DBT's have shown that some components are distinguishable.
The issue beyond methodology, I suspect, is that there are some people who can often reliably distinguish between components. They are outliers, well outside the norm, several standard deviations beyond the mean, even among the self-designated "golden eared." When any testing is done on a group basis, these folks vanish in the group statistics. You can assail this argument on many grounds. It is indefensible except for the virtual certainty that there is a standard distribution in the populatiuon in acuity of hearing.
So, my position remeains that there is surely a place for DBT testing, but even after all the methodological and sampling issues were addressed, I'm still unsure how it fits into the types of reviews most audiophoiles want.
In your hypothetical magazine, after DBT establishes that the Mega Whopper is distinguishable from El Thumper Grande, how would either be described? Would there be a DBT for each characteristic?
Freud had a book on religion entitled "Future of an Illusion" and you may well feel that this is where all of this ultimately is. I'm not sure that I have an answer to that, but this may well be why Ausio Asylum has devclared itself a DBT free zone.