There's been a lot of techno/psychological babble in this forum over years. As somebody who actually DID ABX testing at some point in my life I can tell that this "there's no difference" thing is completely false. Sonic character is sometimes so obvious you don't need no ABX to tell two components appart.

To make things worse, the premise on which the ABX brigade on this forum is starting their argument is the wrong, dare I say unscientific way of approaching the subject of Double Blind Testing. For instance medical DBT is usually set up to highlight the existence of postulated differences and any kind of similar testing should be set up the very same way in order to be meaningful. Whoever states otherwise probably had no experience in any kind of testing whatsoever.

Besides there IS one magazine out there that relies on a blind listening panel (not DBT though, but all levels are carefully matched) and measurements for its testing and reporting. They seem to corelate good bench performance with equally good sonic performance on most cases. Imagine that! What a concept!

Regardless, there is enough info out there that, while not 100% pure scientific, is credible enough to suggest there is actually a difference in sonic character between components. Further there is also empirical evidence that suggests that differences tend to dissappear as the level of real world engineering (or shall I say the actual amount of thought put into designing and manufacturing) in competing products gets higher.

In my not so humble oppinion ignoring all this without further investigation and simply dismissing it just because it was not the result of an 100% scientific experiment shows pure and crass ignorance. It is also contrary to most of the scientific or engineering principles I'm aware of. In the world we're all living on, empirical data is essential to R&D, thus essential in advancing technology (regardless of the field).

Finally this forum was a total waste of time 5 years ago. 3 years back was still a waste. Coming back this week feels no better.

While I totally disagree with the unprovoked attack that started this thread I can certainly feel some of the original poster's somewhat justified frustration.

Sorry.

Peace!