Need Clarification on TOS8 Options

[kstuart]

8. All members that put forth a statement concerning subjective sound quality, must -- to the best of their ability -- provide objective support for their claims. Acceptable means of support are double blind listening tests (ABX or ABC/HR) demonstrating that the member can discern a difference perceptually, together with a test sample to allow others to reproduce their findings. Graphs, non-blind listening tests, waveform difference comparisons, and so on, are not acceptable means of providing support.

I've read some of the linked discussion on TOS8 as well.

All of it covers objective vs subjective.

What IMHO needs clarification is the first phrase:

" All members that put forth a statement concerning subjective sound quality... "

Can a mod or admin clarify - in an official way - "put forth a statement" ?

For example, if I were to post "Joe Blow, the editor of AudiophileGuys magazine, says that the new Megabuck 9000 amplifier sounds better than any other amplifier", technically that would violate TOS8 - even though that Joe said that, is a fact that is easily substantiated by a reference to AudiophileGuys magazine web site. The statement is what someone said, not actually making a claim about audio.

Clearly, that is not the intent of TOS8. Rather it seems to me that the intent is with regards statements like "flac files always sound better than 320k MP3s" which would then need the substantiation required by TOS8.

Okay, then here is where the clarification is needed.

If I were to state in a post " In my setup, using ASIO output seems to sound better than WASAPI output. " - is that a violation of TOS8 ?

The discussion that TOS8 links to, suggests that TOS8 is designed to prevent statements of sound quality "fact" - as opposed to statements of personal observations. In other words, "ASIO always sounds better than WASAPI" is a TOS8 violation, while " In my setup, using ASIO output seems to sound better than WASAPI output " is just reporting an observation - and NOT an assertion of audio fact.

Am I correct, and is that how you would differentiate ?

Thanks.

This post has been edited by kstuart: Sep 27 2012, 02:12

[pdq]

My unofficial response is that even a statement of "I think I can hear a difference" must be backed up by proper testing. Also, I have seen references to someone else's unsupported statements receive a warning, but usually of the form "a friend of mine says".