Quote Originally Posted by spasticteapot
About half of audio DIYers think that all CD players above the level of a high-end Sony player are sonically identical, and that there's no point in spending more than $200 or so on one. The other half think the first half are all mad.

Has anyone done a double-blind test on the double-blind audibility of high end CD players?
I can't recall any DBTs for CDPs but likely they've happened.

A few things I believe:
  • The ear can hear extremely subtle differences -- although in my case maybe not so much: I am deaf above 10 kHz and suffer from tinnitus which makes "a silent backgroud" pretty moot.
  • DBTs are usually flawed even when carrried out in a scientic way that produces reliable, statistically valid results. To put it simply, they don't do what is necessary to reveal subtle differences.
  • Regardless of rigor or method, DBTs can never prove that differences don't exist; at best they can prove that differences are detectable under the conditions of the test.
But I wonder how important differences really are if they can't be proven in a reasonably well-designed DBT?

I have compared two different, (e.g.), cables for hours on end to come to conclusion, (without the rigor of DBT), that, Yes!, maybe one was ever so slightly sweeter or less grainly, (lets say), than the other -- how important are the differences if it took me 3-4 hours of concentrated listening to begin to suspect they exist? Is the ever so slightly better-sounding component with 3x the price of the other?