Clever Little Clock - high-end audio insanity?

These two articles are always fun.

The first link is John Atkinson's article in Stereophile (circa 1991) in which he ruminates about the Tice Clock:

http://stereophile.com/miscellaneous/784/index5.html

The second link a letter to the editor (also Stereophile) in which George Tice defends his clock:

http://stereophile.com/miscellaneous/784/index7.html

~ GK

Instruction set at a molecular level, eh? yes, very entertaining indeed. Unfortunately it's complete unspecific childish rubbish.

PM: Not sure if you're playing devil's advocate when you take exception to my statement about the limitations of "quick" A/B's, but maybe I need to clarify: By "quick" I didn't mean the rapidity of the switching itself -- I'll often focus on rather short musical passages when I compare this way. What I was refering to is the total time invested, and by implication number of musical examples, trials, and sessions employed. I think there's a bit of a perception out there that when we talk about A/B-ing, we're talking about a short-cut, whereas when we talk about long-term auditioning, we're talking about taking our time. My point was that time needs to be invested no matter what if you want to get a worthwhile result. Quality A/B-ing is really harder work than long-term auditioning, but it yields solid results in particular respects. And I don't know about scientific studies, but I do know that oftentimes when I start out A/B-ing something where at first any differences might seem vanishingly subtle at best, perservering almost always shows otherwise. The ear/brain needs time to fully suss things out, and repetition (including on different days) for confirmation. It's nothing but gaining familiarity and weeding out false impressions, and you can't do it in 20 minutes at the hi-fi shop.

Guidocorona - I take it you must mean as opposed to specific mature rubbish?

Zaikesman, Given your clarification, I believe we are now on the same page, or at least close to it. My posts above refer to quick A/Bs that involve rapid switching as is the case in some double blind tests. Repeated short-term A/B tests in which you have at least a few minutes with each option are extremely important to delineate the differences. I have performed hundreds of such tests while refining my audio system. During these short-term tests, my powers of discrimination and analysis usually play a primary role and my affective nature a secondary one (unless the difference that emerges involves feeling). However, after this analysis is somewhat definitive, I do long-term testing (leave a component in a few days and then remove) in which the roles are usually switched: enjoyment level and feeling become primary while analysis takes a back seat.