Null Hypothesis

[okiemax]

"...What a great idea for a new an imaginative use of the word "biased." Next time I fib to please someone, and get caught, my explanation will be "I was just biasing you..."

How can you equate "bias" with lying? Or "fibbing" if that's more to your liking...Have YOU never responded to a question with the answer you THINK the other person wants to hear...You are not necessarily trying to mislead, but we all seem to have this inborn trait of wanting to give the "right" answer...even if there is no such thing.

"...Or if stumped for an answer on a multiple choice test, I'll just resort to my bias..."

Well, perhaps in a way, yes...you'll take your best guess. What might that be based on? Education? Practical experience? Anything that prompts you do do something can be said to be the result of a "bias".

"...And what about the guy who rigged that phony cable switch -- was he guilty of deception? Nope, he was just doing a little biasing..."

Double HUH!!! This "phony switch" was, in essence, one of the items under test. If you are testing "x" and "y" really doesn't exist(except through inference induced by said switch), you are still testing "x"...If people say they hear a "y" how should those results be viewed?

"...So the tester introduces the bias, and then attributes the bias to the test subjects. Hilarious! Lewis Carroll would have loved it!...

A tester CAN introduce bias...Have you ever seen a magician do tricks...card tricks specifically...Magicians consciously use a technique called, in the art, "forcing"...a quite sucessful tactic..."mentalists" use a similar device, when questioning subjects..."Gee! Howdy do dat?"...Testers may do the same "type" of thing on a subconscious level, hence the need for DBTs where neither the subject, nor the tester, are privy to the information...

jimHJJ(...then of course we have the "treble-blind test' wherein no one knows anything...)

In the phony cable switch experiment, if I say the fancy cable sounds better than the plain cable to please you the tester, rather than because I really heard a difference, I am telling a fib. If you attribute my choice to my being biased by the looks of the fancy cable, you are wrong. In choosing this cable to please you, however, I may suspect you are biased by its looks.

[Pat D]

I have no more time for responding to the blatant intellectual dishonesty you are foisting on me and others who read this thread. I did not come close to claiming Leventhal thought DBTs were not scientific. You claimed I didn't have standards of reliability. I cited his discussion of Type II errors as one of the issues a DBT would have to satisfy in order for me to consider it reliable.

You are playing games. I have no interest in joining your sand box.

Bye Bye

My wife's mother had cancer and subsequently died, so I have been too busy with family matters to address your unthinking outburst.

To say "the DBTs" is to refer to some DBTs, not every one. In fact, you have often stated that the DBTs in question are not scientific, and you support your contention by mentioning Leventhal's letters in Stereophile. How on earth you come up with an interpretation so silly as supposing that Leventhal thought that all DBTs were unscientific, I do not know. I can only conclude you have no interest in an honest discussion.

In fact, you sometimes distinguish between the data from a DBT and the statistical analysis. The data can be valid even though the statistical reliability does not satisfy you. Sometimes you recognize this, but most of the time you seem to confuse the issues.

I still say you have no standards of reliability. You mention Leventhal but don't tell us what your standards are, or even what his are. As mtry says, the example of 70% reliability is simply silly. Leventhal's main concern seems to have been what some readers might incorrectly conclude.

Of course, for you, both sighted, uncontrolled listening and the DBTs you don't like seem to be equivalent as you term them both "anecdotal," as you say of DBTs reported in Stereo Review and other magazines, not to mention some of the audio clubs. In fact, there is simply no comparison, and they are not equivalent in value. Calling them "anecdotal" doesn't make them equivalent.

Worse, you accuse us of not admitting the possibility of Type II errors, which is false. We never deny the possibility that the difference between different speaker cables (this has been proven under some circumstances, BTW) or even interconnects could be audible. This is equivalent to saying that the null could be false, and yet you consistently accuse us of denying this. Indeed, we constantly PLEAD for anyone to show us some evidence that is so, that the differences are audible. Indeed, we have pointed this out to you so often that I wonder why you keep making this false allegation.

For some reason, you seem to think we deny that larger scale studies would be better. This would increase the reliability of the results, and I have no idea why you pretend we deny this. It boggles the mind.

And, you refuse to heed Carl Sagan's advice to quantify the results, which requires measurements, which can be used to define what proves to be audible. You simply stick to the type of material object (i.e., cables) rather than what happens to the signals, an issue which is transferrable, BTW. That would be a more scientific approach and you refuse to go there.
An illustration is that you totally neglect to discuss MM's reference to the comparison of what cables do to signals with what can be heard. Indeed, Florentine, Clark, and others have come up with graphs for this, but you totally ignore this issue.

[Beckman]

If I understand the topic correctly it has something to do with cable differences. I CAN hear cable differences. Some cables do attenuate the signal for a given frequency range. You could do the same thing with an equalizer or inductors/capacitors.

It is not difficult for a cheap copper wire to transmit a 20 to 20 kHz signal. 20 kHz is not that fast. Look at the antenna on your automobile, that is picking up signals at 100 MHz. Your TV antenna, 10 Mhz. Even cat 5 cable that is .10/ft. can handle extremely high frequencies and must maintain the signal's quality (I think).

The FACT still remains, I and many others have listened to high end cables. We have also listened to 12 AWG lamp cord. The sound quality can ONLY get worse from that of lamp cord. All we are doing is providing a path for electrons.

The human mind is very powerful. If someone spends a large sum of money on speaker cables they will hear a difference. I honestly believe people think when they get a new cable it sounds better. Just like when doctors prescribe placebo's people sometimes feel better.