James Randi vs. Anjou Pear - once and for all

I like it, Leica man.

Come on one of you - step up and claim the money from randi and silence all objection

I can hardly take you up on your offer Mr T as I am the other side of the world.

The blind test negates the difference not the switching box. There are many switches in every hifi after all and also in the recording chain....

i would challenge randi, provided i could design the experiment and select the components as well as the sources. otherwise, anyone can design an experiment to increase the probability of a desired result.

Brizonbiovizier, why don't you take the Randi challenge? What if you heard a difference? Of course, you could just randomly say different or not different and assure you fulfilled your prior conception. This is the fallacy of DBTs. The real question is whether most people can hear a difference in a test where people could not lie to fulfill the hypothesis. Were a random sample of 1500 to have enough who heard a difference to achieve statistical significance, we would reject the null hypothesis that people don't hear a difference. This would be good research not Randi's game.

Shadorne
Wire geometry will most affect highs.

You can't have it both ways. Either you believe all cables sound the same or not. Take your pick.

If they sound different, then arguing about how big the differences are is just silly. A subtle difference to you may be a bigger difference to someone else. Also, unless you have listened to and compared many different cables to each other, you have no basis of knowledge on the subject.

Which leads us right back to the fallacy of the double blind test where the listener's ability to hear is hindered by the unnatural requirements of the test itself. The only thing those tests prove is how bad the testing methodology is at actually discovering the truth.

I have always felt that a long term double blind test that allowed a listener to enjoy music through his own system comfortably over time, would have a much better chance of actually meaning something. The problem is that it is just not practical to set up.