Why"double blind"tests don't work:brain?

Read the white papers Mike Vansever wrote on his website. www.vansevers.com -- Mike is a pro-audio electrical engineer, the kind of person who ususally claims there is no difference. Mike not only sais there is a difference, he explains why, including diagrams, and lots of explanations, and scientific stuff that is a little over my head. I think one white paper is titled something like: "Why do things that should not have a sound, actually do."

Sugarbie, there is nothing scientific about either one of these gentleman's papers. Dunlavy offers no proof and Vansever's proof is pure bunk. Please be very weary of people who profess their beliefs as gospel and start trusting your own ears. Your own auditory system system will shed light on what is truth to you and only you. Good luck

I do trust my ears. I was just thinking that Mike Vansevers by offering backup to his ideas is trying to use a proper scientific approach. By showing his data, he opens himself to examination by others. Mike was once a total unbeliever like many pro-audio engineers. He bought into that gospel that cables and power conditioning does not matter. A lot of unbelievers will refuse to sit down and listen and have their beliefs challenged. He did sit down and after hearing a difference was man enough to admit he was wrong. His research was done not to sell you and me, it was to prove to himself why there is a difference. By making a statement that Mike's work is bunk, do you offer proof?? It might be; but its over my head to tell. I've just tried some of his stuff and it all does exactly what he sais it will do, so I tend to believe him.

What has challenged my beliefs is this Stan Warren modified Pioneer DVD player I purchased. This things sounds great in my system for what I paid. Therefore, Stans mods are first rate. The challenge is that other than Stan's mods, the player itself is the biggest piece of Janpanese mass market junk on earth. It is all plastic, with a transport so slimsy it might break if I breath on it too hard. This thing should not sound good the non Stan parts are so cheap, but is does ??????

Sugarbrie, I hear a lot of tripe about transports (not your post) where a flimsy tray pops out and the assumption is the transport is flimsy. Or the solid looking tray of a Meridian comes out and there are sighs of satisfaction. This is just ignorance. The trays are not in contact with the disc as it spins except for a few like the Pioneer stable platter mechanisms. The most important issues are the quality of the motor's bearing, the speed of the servo mechanism and the overall mechanical/vibration qualities of the box.

The servo in the Pioneer is way better than CD players of a few years ago. In fact the servos in DVD players have to be fab because of the smaller pits that have to be read. The flimsiness of the Pioneer is not a bad thing. I look at these things as making sure you keep the ratio of mass to rigidity in reasonable bounds (throwing lots of mass into a transport that does improve rigidity is a mistake in my opinion). And you really want as little mass as possible so that the energy is quickly dissipated into the support under the player. Given its low mass then the Pioneer's rigidity may not be as bad as you think.

Having played around with my share of transports (including owning an unmodified Pioneer (for playing DVDs and DADs), I reckon the Pioneer's ability to read the pits of CDs is very good indeed, that its overal structural integrity is adequate if judicious damping (ie small amounts)is used, but certainly not ideal, but that its digital output section is way below what you would want, and you really need to start again as far as the analogue section is concerned. Therefore the bits that need modification are really fairly easy to do. I am sure Stan is very capable of dealing with these last two areas.