Plenty of discussion about the validity of double-blind listening tests, especially when applied to audio codecs. if you don't believe the differences exist or are not worth it, fine with me. You should be contributing to the "good enough" forums, not the hi-rez surround forums.
For something you claim not to care about (differences you're dead certain you hear) you sure do go on about it.
As for 'hi-rez', let me clue you in on a few things
1)this isn't a 'hi rez' forum. It's a surround sound forum. And besides,
2)'hi rez' itself is more a marketing slogan than an indicator of audio quality. And if you want damning *objective* proof of that, I'll be happy to point you to the relevant threads complete with 'brickwalled' waveforms from 'hi rez' releases that are both TROUNCED and TRUMPED by CDs released 20 years ago.
Robert Harley is a audiophool buffoon who also propounds, for example, the entirely unfounded idea that the direction' of the copper crystals in a cable makes an audible difference. He is also largely ignorant of psychoacoustics. Of the many things he doesn't know , another is that low-bit codec testing for radio broadcast -- which has ALWAYS been compromised, going back to the introduction of massive dynamic range compression in broadcasts of the 70s -- is just one of many arms of codec testing. If you want some more relevant low-bit codec data, see the several tests conducted by members of hydrogenaudio.org
If Locanthi was an expert in low-bit digital then he was OF COURSE well positioned to hear its artifacts. Developers of the LAME mp3 codec -- arguably the best there is today -- can sometimes hear artifacts at its *highest* bitrates, for the same reason -- they are specifically attuned to them, since such artifacts are sought out and used to continually upgrade to codec in the course of their work. And it is in the nature of hearing that *if* you point something out to someone specifically, effectively 'training' them to hear it, it improved their chances of hearing it afterwards (even if it's *not real*, btw). And as usual for his dishonest portrayal of anything to do with blind testss, Harley leaves out lots of details that would be relevant, like, the fact that these tests were done in 1991 -- 1991! -- in the very earliest days of lossy comporession, when few would be expected to have experience with lossy's peculiar artifacts; like, was Locanthi's call *verified* in any blind tests -- surely one had to be done to verify that he, and everyeone else heard it afterwards? Did the authors of the Swedish test report that NO ONE in 20,000 tested heard a difference with any statistical significance, or was the survey merely meant to define acceptable limits? And who among the many 'experts' was trained to hear mp3 artifacts? Was the track used for wide testing the same as the one they sent Locanthi? Could Locanthi tell the difference (blind of course) between the uncompressed and the mp3 when *broadcast*?
No one would claim today -- and I very much doubt anyone claimed in 1991 -- that low bitrate lossy codecs are guaranteed to be transparent. Yet Harley tries to make it seem like Redbook vs DSD circa 2008 -- both highly developed technologies -- is analogous to Redbook vs mp3 in 1991. He seems to think that the 'real' difference he hears just awaits a Locanthi to blow the whole picture wide open. He's welcome to try. It hasn't happened yet. But of course he gives himself an 'out' by claiming DBTs *don't work* anyway. Harley claims the 'patent absurdity' of DBT results as proof. This is called 'argumednt from personal incredulity', btw. Meanwhile, we can prove, EASILY, that sighted test is prone to error. Including Harley's. Blind testing does work, and in fact trained listeners can distinguish differences down to the physiological limits of human hearing, in blind tests. Harley
et al. are terrified of blind tests -- the tests that supposedly 'don't work' yet remain gold standard in scientific/academic study what we can hear, and what we cannot -- because they undermine the authority of Harley
et al and much of the foundation of 'high end audio' itself.
I'd love to see Harley try to tell a good high bitrate mp3 from source today, btw.
