In rec.audio.tech Peter Wieck wrote:
On Sep 6, 10:59 am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:


OK.... you may as well have my *opinion* on Blind Testing vs. Sighted
Testing in all its permutations and combinations:

ANY testing under other-than-home-conditions is equally valid inasmuch
as it serves only to separate the wheat from the chaff such that a
given item makes it 'home'. A very crude screen as it were.

After which ultimate satisfaction (or not) depends on much longer term
testing with the intervals being from hours to weeks. Only then will
subtle influences become sufficiently manifest for a listener to form
a considered opinion. And said listener must have the constitutional
fortitude to admit to a possibly-wrong short-term decision... and then
act upon the admission.


Actually, said listener 'must' (is that a closely held belief?) also have the
the constitutional fortitude to admit the possibility of being wrong even
after the long term...especially when the evaluations remain wholly sighted.

And at the end of whatever process is chosen, the listener can state
with personal comfort that he/she likes what is heard... that is
entirely enough. Whatever claptrap surrounds, leads up to, colors or
influences that final decision is meaningless if the final comfort
exists.

Unless and until said listener declaims on a public forum that X sounds
better/worse/different than Y because of Z. Then that becomes a claim
of causes and effects.


___
-S
"As human beings, we understand the world through simile, analogy,
metaphor, narrative and, sometimes, claymation." - B. Mason