02-20-11: Schipo
Richard Clark normally has CD source, amplifiers, high quality home audio speakers, and listening environment set up in advance. But if the listener requests, they can substitute whatever source, source material, amplifiers, speakers (even headphones), and listening environment they prefer, within stipulated practical limits.
Does this mean that Richard Clark will set up the test in my own listening room, with my own equipment? I presume the answer is no.
And that is what is wrong with the test.
I believe that the ABX nature of the test is an illusion. To call it an ABX test is to say, among other things, that only one variable changes. That is of course true in one respect, namely that the amp is the only component that is switched during the test. Hence the test appears to involve a single variable change.
But there is another respect in which hundreds of variables have changed the moment you sit down to take the test, namely the TESTING SYSTEM ITSELF is different from your own. That is the reason, I suspect, why no one can pass the test.
By conducting the test with a system that a participant is not extensively familiar with, the participants auditory frame of reference is eliminated. Without it, detecting the manipulation of a single variable change is hopeless.
An analogy: If you put a dish Ive never eaten in front of me and ask me to tell you if it has ingredient X, I may not be able to do so with any reliability greater than chance. That may be true even if I know what ingredient X tastes like. But if the dish is one my wife has cooked once a week for three years, I can instantly tell you if it has a different ingredient. The reason: Familiarity with the dish.
Thats what missing from Richard Clarks test: familiarity with the testing system (including the listening room).
Bringing one or two familiar components to the test isnt enough to make the testing system truly familiar, since literally hundreds of variables are still new to the participant, so Richard Clark's accommodations to participants gives the appearance of scientific rigor without actually providing it.
Bryon