David



Expand this idea a little further. In a test such as this what is the cause of chance? Is it the listeners recorded their results based on tossing a coin? Of course not. Did any of the listeners think to themselves ‘sod it, I can’t hear a difference but I’ll take a chance and guess which I think the aftermarket power cable is’. Possibly.

To account for this a control test was included in the session to ‘catch’ this behaviour and, as stated in the test results, the results are best considered against the control. So the method does give the reader some opportunity to differentiate the results from chance or positive bias on the part of the listener. That was the very purpose of its inclusion. Ideally a second and separate control group would have been used but this was outside of what could be practicably done.

The method does not in any way preclude statistical analysis to estimate the outcome based on pure chance. Not at all.



If you begin with the assumption the audible consequences of aftermarket power cables (if indeed such does exist outside of psychoacoustics) are rather subtle then you need to design a test with a high resolving ability. The results of this test and of the previous, more comprehensive, Secrets test show this.

As a mere starting point; a listening room that is treated to reduce comb-filtering effects, a system that is accurately calibrated to ensure a relatively flat frequency response, and most importantly stringent prior assessment of the hearing acuity of the judges. All this before you even get to method.

As it happens I don’t think any of this is necessary unless you wish to pass the results of as demonstrative of fact. And then there’s publication in an appropriate peer-reviewed journal.

Right, and it is called imagination. Fantasy is cool - its lets you come up with ideas, it allows you to travel in worlds which dont exist outside of yourself, it makes your food taste better, your music sound better, etc....... thats all nice and well and has its place....

BUT, if someone would say that there are elves and orks all around us, just because he saw them while reading a fantasy-book....... then thats not science - its a psychological disorder... or in common terms: loosing touch with reality :-)

I'm very sorry that i cannot hear the strange voices which you're talking about......

Now stop trolling and go to some other forum where your kind of "science" is allowed..... 'cause here its not.

All around us? Really? Fancy that.

People who hear differences between cables are 'special'. They have been give a special gift from a deity known as HOBBY.

You can read more about HOBBY here: http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=11783

Science can't explain why people hear cables because it is a miracle. These people have a miraculous gift.

Good for them. At least those of us without these special gifts can save a little (or a lot of) bread. But I bet we don't enjoy the music as much...

Umm, just to clarify it: i love to play roleplaying games, i love to spent 1 hour in the kitchen for some tasty italian food and then eat it while playing jazzy music with candles on the desk, etc.... i like to pay a few euros extra for speakers and equipment which fit nicely into the surroundings... and i sometimes like to self-reflect with spiritual travels in meditation while listening to ambient music and having tea afterwards........

BUT...... when analyzing, i am able to differentiate between the experience, and the components of which it consists..... and especially from which "world" those components originate. Ergo, my food does not taste better because there's music in it!


Thanks for that one! :-)

- Lyx

Too bad, I thought you were starting to learn about how audio worked based on your posts in the other thread. Looks like I was wrong.

Is this an Ayn Rand quote? If so, I think you're missing her point. If not, you might like her work judging from your post.

This is interesting. I searched through google, but came up with this:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.radio.d...d43dad8c590ca1a

which says that ASA rejected the complaint about AOL.

ff123

If you were going to treat existence as a noun, and exists as a predicate, then you might say something like "Existence = { x : exists(x) }," or "Existence is the set of all things that exist." But there's only a slight little problem. "Exists" is not a predicate, and "existence" is not a noun. This has been well understood for quite a long time now by logicians (go read some Frege or Russell, etc.), and is the reason that the ontological argument for the existence of God does not work. If it's not going to work there, trust me, it's not going to work for audiophilia either.

You can introduce "exists" as a predicate in certain logical systems that deal with notions of context though (quite unrelated to whatever you were trying to communicate), by saying something like E(c,x), where c is the context that x exists in. However, this doesn't make sense for an unbounded or ambiguous context. In that case, you simply say Exists xP(x) (where Exists is denoted with a backwards E, which I can't display because the page encoding is not unicode.. grr), or "there exists some x with property P". "Exists" is not a predicate, its a quantifier. If you try to translate "existence exists" into anything precise like this, you'll quickly find it's impossible, because quite frankly it's simply nonsense.

At any rate, one could spend more time trying to figure out what you might have meant, and try to use that to salvage something more useful to debate (let alone point out your flawed interpretation of Descartes' -- in turn -- flawed argument in the cogito), but as it currently stands, your "argument" is basically empty and devoid of meaning.

no and such an answer

[MODERATION]

There shall be NO religious discussion on this board, except perhaps in the offtopic forum.

I would also ask all posters to be cautious about any sensitive statements in that direction.

Thank you!
[/MODERATION]

I think that it is this assumption that is triggering most of the skepticism about the experiment. Should you not begin with the null hypothesis that no difference exists, and then design your test to determine whether you can disprove that null hypothesis? In other words, before you can test to determine what the differences are, you first have to demonstrate that there is a difference. If the results of the initial test show that there is no audible difference, then there is no reason to do further testing to determine what those differences are.

Mike said

Nothing to do with her, she would have thought along them lines yes, but I would not use her work as her point is whats called ? Objectivism

which for the mods is not a religion nor is meditation

yes many religions do it, but its not a religion

might help if before cable tests took place if a ten minute sit, to focus the mind took place make sure people really are testing cables, and not doing a shopping list or thinking about getting home afterwards


Another point for Garf fo most people I know hi fi is a religion

The results of the first test are factual and reported as such. There’s no reason to be sceptical of this unless you consider the results were erroneously recorded (which wasn’t the case). Conclusions based on the results may of course differ (as they do).



If this is your conclusion then correct. If not, a test with a higher resolving ability is needed.

lyx tried to post but all he could manage was this tripe


Not trolling and why the **** should I go just because "you"say so ? do you own this forum ? doubt it now go away and play put the towel on the sun bed or go and?

no will leave that one its been tried twice

All of this has me bewildered. From a nation where the larger part of the population:

Believe in God,
Trust Bush,
Tote Guns and don't think they are dangerous,
Still think they have freedom of speech,
Are deluded enough to believe they have a free press..

On that basis I am flummoxed at all this scepticism for something so many people can actually hear, rather than something they just wish were true.

The world view of Americans is one of sickening arrogance.. given that you have no chance of hearing or seeing the truth through yuou press I always liked to give you all the benefit of the doubt. However, in a small way ridiculing this test rather than adding healthy comments marks many of you out as arrogant in the extreme..

nice post wigwam

The words no not allowed or I could say nope rude

mind you would they understand ? however we said anything ?

mosfet: the problem with your test is that if you hadn't changed any cables at all, its perfectly possible that you could still have obtained same results. In other words: you results fit with results obtained by chance. That's why it's not statistically reliable. So, at last, you really can't extract any valid conclusion from the test.

About a more resolving test with treated room, flat response, etc... not really. It's enough a test in the same listening conditions that people already had when they said they heard differences with cables. With the only difference of making it blind and doing enough trials to be able to rule out chance.

HiFiWigWam:
It's clear you haven't still realizad that this is not an american forum, it's an international forum... Me, Garf, Pio2001, 2Bdecided, Lyx, and many more, are not americans... Even if we were, your comments are offtopic and debatable. Even if they weren't, would they apply to every american? I could say brits have their own "issues", as I could say of every other nationality, but nobody here has said so.

Edited: self-moderation.

No it would not apply to ALL Americans... however it would apply to enough of a majority to ensure that the murdering scum bag Bush got back in though.. The post was tongue in cheek dude.

Peace to all.
Jim.

HiFiWigWam, I could say the same of english, since they elected Blair again, the same one who blindly has always supported Bush.

Anyway, this is not the issue at discussion, and by all purposes, means nothing about the people in this forum.

This is because Hydrogenaudio is not a high fidelity forum. This is not an audio forum either. This is an "objectivist" audio forum (or "empirical-subjectivist", or "scientific", or what suits you best for "controlled double blind tests"). This is stated in the rules of the forum, and "subjectivist" discussions, such as "this power cable sounds rather bright on my hifi" are simply not allowed by the forum rules.

Listening tests which shows results different from chance with a probability greater than 95 % is all that we care about. If the tests didn't show such a statistical result, then, according to the forum rules, it lead to no conclusion.
We understand that outside this forum, people discuss tests results, and come to various conclusions, but here, only conclusions backed up with "statistical evidence" are taken into consideration.

This is not because most people here like it this way, this is because this is a forum rule, that everyone must accept when he or she registers to hydrogenaudio.org

I'll post in your forum in order to offer my help in this matter.

As KikeG said, the purpose of such a test should be to demonstrate that the results obtained were not a simple coincidence.
Well, yes, it does, because between every trial, you're changing either the cable, the listener, or both. If you assume that the listeners are close enough to be equivalent, then for comparing each of the aftermarket cables versus the standard, cheap cable, you've only got three trials. If all three of them were randomly guessing, then there's a one in eight probability that they'd all claim the aftermarket cable sounded better. If you're willing to accept one in eight as being low enough odds to convince you that it's not a coincidence and that the aftermarket cable sounded better, well, then I guess you could go with that evidence, but most people here wouldn't accept one in eight and I don't think most statisticians would either. It would have been better to run several A-B trials with the same aftermarket cable, making sure to keep the order in which the two cables are presented at least pseudo-random so people can't just always guess the second one is aftermarket or something, and record how often the listeners were able to guess correctly. That way, if someone were able to pick out the aftermarket cable, say, fifteen out of sixteen times, you'd have some solid evidence of an audible difference.

While you can always argue that the listening environment was not good enough for the true differences in the cable to be audible, with a properly-designed test, you could still conclude that under the given conditions, an audible difference between the different power cables is unlikely.

Once more:

• Scientific cable research is practically finnished.
• Science does not predict the effects claimed by expensive cable retailers or audiophiles.
• As such the burdon of proof is on you. We do not expect you to explain the cause. Only to verify the effects. If new, unexplained effects are proven, research is indicated and the current state of knowledge has to be adjusted.
• In this topic it has been explained why the quoted test methology is flawed and does not allow to draw any meaningful conclusion. Thus you have not proven or disproved anything.
• Setting up a proper test from which you can draw reasonable conclusions does not require anything, which you can not do. Pointers have allready been given and I'm absolutely sure people here will offer further advice.
• Other properly executed tests have not been able to prove the existance of the claimed effects. However the participants thought they heard all kinds of neat stuff, during the blind phase.
• Your mind can easily deceive you. That is why (double) blind testing is absolutely neccessary to avoid false claims (aka "lies").
• For the last time: this is an international forum.

I wouldn't mind if you were to extend that, to also include politics and America bashing. This is an international board, and it's getting a little tired.

Agreed. Sorry if you feel my responses contributed to this, it wasn't my intention.

The irony of this tired old argument never ceases to amaze me. The people here, generally speaking, do believe that different people have different hearing ability (I need look no further than the people here who have conclusively demonstrated that they can hear encoding artifacts in high-bitrate compressed files that I admittedly cannot hear). We also believe that there is such a thing as expectation bias. The point that folks like yourself consistently miss is that the entire purpose of the double-blind test method that is advocated here is to establish that there is a perceptible difference between two sounds. I, for one, would welcome a test that establishes to a reasonable degree of certainty that a perceptible difference exists between two cables, because it would end these otherwise unending debates, and it would also inform me as to how my money would be best spent because I plan to make substantial investments in audio in the future. The point, though, is that if you are going to conduct a rigorous test to see whether there is a difference, then you should do it in a way that will give you statistically significant results.

As for the xenophobic comments, joking or not, they're not welcome here. Whether or not I voted for Bush (which is none of your business) is irrelevant to this discussion.

So if there are 26000 users here lets say 25500 agree with you, thats still not very many compared to the 100 of thousands happy to put there money where there mouth is and but these cables and then many are happy to spend even more on an even better cable


just because 99.9999999999% of a forum says or thinks something it does not make it correct if its down to numbers then the numbers show the belivers have it as they are out there on mass buying cables building cables lots and lots of them

now some of the people buying cables might be just doing it because its the fashion and they would not know the differance between one that came with a technics entery level cd player and a Kimber top of the range

some might not be too sure some of the time just what differances they are hearing

some will have paid out, and thought it a waste of money

but as cable companies ae still selling lots of cables year after year

most people are very happy with the upgrade and what they hear


so while the 99.9% of forum users might have one view

sales of cables show there is a very good chance they are wrong and in the bigger picture the views here count for not a lot

that said looking back at all the tests here on this forum most have been carried out to a decent standard and there is no reason to doubt the results but they all need to be looked at in context and from a distance

even if we came up with a way for testing cables we all agreed was the only way in the world tests would be carried out you have the ear problem


If I test a cable today and come to a view on it based on the "new way we all agree on" the next time I listen if I have a head cold or even iif the atmospheric pressure is different on my ears it will sound different

Possible yes. The same is true for any non-sighted test where the judges are subject to positive bias.



The purpose of the test was as stated below. Re. my previous post.

A few points.

The method used was not designed to deliver definitive conclusion of any sort; to do so was beyond practical means. Indeed the means to deliver such results are beyond the scope of any non-funded group, such as hi-fi fora, irrespective of how well informed some individuals may think themselves.

The method was chosen primarily as one that could be easily identified, recognised and understood by the reader; paired-comparison of standard and aftermarket power cables. This was the guiding tenet.

The purpose of the test hypothesis was to name the salient argument between respective power cable ‘camps’. The second stated objective of the test “to do something the hi-fi press are presently failing to do” was achieved in as much the method was directly comparable (but not the same as) that used frequently in the UK hi-fi press.

Criticism based on statistical argument, while in the most part correctly given, is misplaced. Many have been quick to jump on this bandwagon without understanding the motivation of the test was the wider appreciation of the ‘average’ hi-fi enthusiast; thus a familiar model of comparative testing was employed irrespective of the known (to the author) limitations.

However I do acknowledge the value of statistical analysis and the reason the test results have attached to them a report that gives such analysis, authored by a forum member who has both university qualification and working experience within the field of statistics.

Results are results. The results presented are the opinions of three hi-fi enthusiasts under the explained conditions. Consider them as such and nothing more (for f**ks sake!).

At least one person on this thread has got it; the rest may safely put away their calculators for the time being. But thanks anyway.

“I guess it depends on what kind of result you're trying to look for. If you're looking for obvious and clear differences, then any sort of test will work, including this one.”

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/hificabletest

You keep saying this, but as other members of this forum stress (so does the statistical report you keep trotting out), with a simple unfunded modification (i.e., repeated measures), your test could have explored your hypothesis much more effectively.

BTW, your null hypothesis was rather ill-formed, also as the report points out:

“The reason hi-fi power cables work to improve some aspect of subjective hi-fi performance is because of pre-formed opinion or expectancy on the part of the listener that they will, rather than the design of the hi-fi power cable itself”

For a statistician, your report author makes a mistake at the end, when he declares:

"So, how to end. I think that the judgement on the null hypotheses is 'not proven', to use a judgement in Scots Law."

The conclusion should read that the null hypothesis is not rejected; i.e., the default going-in position still holds, that power cables seem to improve performance because of expectation bias.

ff123

Not only that, but if such elaborate, clinical conditions are necessary to hear a difference, well such conditions are unavailable to everybody anyway in the real world, as the test organizer himself pointed out (it was "unfunded"). And if the audiophile community with all the money they've spent on audio can't afford the necessary environment to hear the difference, what does that say about anyone else's chances of hearing that difference?

Also the problem with tests that don't have statistical validity is exactly that the test organizer can say "here's the results, we make no conclusions, people are free to conclude what they want". If a test is statistically valid, there is not much room for interpretation or drawing your own conclusion. That is the whole point of doing a test. There is no point in a test that allows people to draw their own conclusions; you are not adding to knowledge you are adding to opinion (or personal feeling). Which may be a fine thing, but when the test is presented as "rigorous", it's at least disingenuous to imply that any conclusions at all can be made.

Ad populum at its finest.

Boy, we sure seem to be getting that a lot these days, whether its PC fanboys or cable fanatics...

I'm not sure if this was in reference to my post or not, but if so, it was misplaced. If not, feel free to ignore the rest.

The ontological argument I spoke of is a well known and famous argument that has been around for hundreds of years. It is a logical curiosity, and has no actual relevancy to religion except for the very superficial reference to a deity which it uses as a springboard to misapply existence as a predicate.

My post had absolutely nothing to do with religion.

And as I have pointed out several times, I know. I can understand why some see arrogance with these continuing patronising remarks. The testing session was limited to an hour or so at the hi-fi dealership that hosted the event, consequently repetitive testing was not possible much as I would have liked it to be.

The problem with many of the comments made of this forum, it appears to me, is that they are big on theory and little on action.

Perhaps those who have been commenting on this thread can organise a test of power cables with a large sample group of judges, circa twenty or more, with prior testing of hearing acuity and a suitably calibrated test system, with testing sessions spread out over the course of several sessions during one day?

(I suspect it will suddenly go silent or more comments made along the lines ‘well we could blah blah blah’)



This sort of comment deserves no response. It’s indicative of the immature “I’m cleverer than you” nose-flicking that seems so prevalent on this forum; it’s far from productive. Thankfully this sort of thing doesn’t happen within real scientific circles.

Not proven, rejected, not falsified. Delete as applicable. Please do.

That's what some call a McDonald's argument.

It's not a question of which camp is bigger. It's a question of which camp is better informed. Go ask the scientific community about the importance of cables in audio. I know what they will say. Now go tell me that people that think that lossless compression changes the sound knows better about cables than scientific community.

Indeed, and it makes me just as angry.

Any way, you are right, this isn't tha place for that conversation. I was trying to get a laugh whilst making my point.

I shall leave this thread to those that really care. I don't BTW, the whole argument had been blown out of proportion on our forum so we tried to answer the question for ourselves. Then I googled my own forum name to see where we were ranked. Your forum popped up, in this thread.. And I thought GREAT.. then I read the rather uncharitable comments and thought..hey that's not fair.

If you hear a difference, pay the money.

If you don't hear a difference, have a beer and buy some CD's.

Peace.

James.

Some members of these forums already did something. Pio2001 pointed out the tests he organized with interconnects, the outcome was that nobody could identify reliabily the different cables. Power cables are even less likely to produce differences.


You are wrong. That is precisely how scientific knowledge is built.

Hello

An observation or two. First off the Wigwam cable test was designed for the likes of me - a wigwam member, music lover & hifi enthusiast whose interest in engineering stops the moment I've levered myself out of bed in the morning. And as far as I'm concerned it succeeded in those aims. The people who designed & participated in the test deserve to be congratulated for having the cojones to try something new & not flayed alive here.

This forum prides itself on being scientifically rigorous, whatever that really means, but the attitude displayed by some HA members - Kikey & Alive take a bow - probably means that people over here will be less likely to experiment in the future. After all why should they pay in time & money for the pleasure of being pilloried by a bunch of self appointed experts. None of whom have had the balls to come over and contribute in our style of forum.

To be frank the attitude displayed by some HA members in this thread would have been boorish in a sixth former. I recognise that some of this has been due to cultural differences, but high handed rudeness is out of order.

By the way Kikey you may be a scientific genius but your spelling & grammar would embarass my 10 year old godson. Being condescended to isn't nice now, is it?

Regards, GofA

Oh... and what to say about the attitude of you boys in your forum, about us the "amercians"? (Did you finally noticed many of us are not americans because this is an international forum?)

BTW... the day you reply in a forum in a language that is not your native one, that day we will talk about spelling and grammar errors. BTW, I've seen plenty of those in your forums, I'm afraid.

I apologize if anyone feels hurt by my harsh comments, but I felt they were in place for this discussion. I'd also like to note, that I - and anyone else - as a person, do not represent HydrogenAudio, and what it is meant to be.

I believe that everything related to the topic of audio, that someone should doubt being true or not, should be rigorously tested and either proved or disproved.
My own disbelief in voodoo science, and the backup I've got from the (Admittedly insufficient) ABX tests I've come across on the transparency of cables, make me believe that any type of expensive or cheap cable, while assembled properly, does not make any difference in the end sound.

But stating that LOSSLESS audio compression is LOSSY... well, that just convinces me that I should not continue any civil debate with said person.

While i would agree that there is a bit of truth in that sentence, it doesn't apply in this case. You are the ones who think that cables are important, not us. Most here simply think that the worldwide tests and research done on this matter until today leads to a very little probability that there may indeed be a significant difference.... therefore leading to the logical conclusion that we prefer to put our effort into other topics.

Since it is impossible to prove non-existance, only existence (a perceivable difference) can be proven. You are the ones who still think that there is an obvious difference, while having no statistical significant evidence for this...... in conclusion, you are claiming something, and are then complaining that others dont deliver the proofs for you.... so, dont blame others for your missed homework, pal! You are the ones who think that something which runs contrary to common knowledge does exist, so its your task to support your claims, not ours. Yes you ran a test.... it was suboptimal, but you did something for which i do have respect..... but without significant results, you cannot expect that someone here will take the matter more serious than before, simply because nothing really changed!

- Lyx

edit: oh, and by the way..... if you are able to differentiate just a little bit with what was said in the topic, then you will notice, that you guys did get most of the debunking NOT for the cable-test, but for your claims and flawed arguments.

Mr Morrison your very proud of your forum and seem to think your test results are better or more valid than others but your wrong

no better no worse

Kike,

I'm sorry if I riled you, but you really did ask for it By the way, I really hope English isn't your first language Sorry cheap shot

The point I was trying to put across was that as a 'real world' experiment with 'real world' applications I think Mosfet's test was a success. It certainly helped me. Now a second cable test is being planned so why don't you contribute your insights to that thread & help make it even better.

Regards, Glens.

P.S.: i vote for the trashcan and a round of bans. This thread appears to lead nowhere and has now reached a point where the guests mostly rely not on founded arguments, but on name-calling, polemic attacks and similiar white noise. There actually is no discussion anymore and its just about who is better.

As OP I strongly agree.

Lyx

Please remember that one of your members started this thread by claiming that the HiFi Wigwam test wouldn't meet the high standards of this forum. That comment set the tone of this debate. Bar us by all means but you can't expect the people who worked hard setting up our test to take that kind of smug remark lying down.

BTW democracy means - to me anyway - accepting that the minority's views are valid no matter how much they piss one off. Is that the case here?

Regards GofA

If you were referring to me, then I think a lot of people took it waaaay too personal. The fact that people were discussing the results vigorously on WigWam and ZeroGain shows that the test did have considerable demonstrative power, and as others have pointed out, if a test has a negative result, then all of its power is demonstrative, and in the eye of the beholder. The fact that this test was ever done in the first place is a very good thing.

This isn't some cushy forum where people are especially kind to each other. If somebody tells me I'm wrong, he will mince no words saying it here. (And I've been wrong a lot.) But it's far, far more polite than many forums, and it has a stupidly high SNR too - compared to RAO/RAHE and Audio Asylum especially, but also WigWam, judging by the 6-page-long thread on this single topic that mostly consists of insults.

I’m still waiting for the gauntlet to be picked up.

“Perhaps those who have been commenting on this thread can organise a test of power cables with a large sample group of judges, circa twenty or more, with prior testing of hearing acuity and a suitably calibrated test system, with testing sessions spread out over the course of several sessions during one day?

(I suspect it will suddenly go silent or more comments made along the lines ‘well we could blah blah blah’)”

Which is true. The original post did say that you did a test which compared to the standards of this forum was suboptimal, yet still interesting, because it was done at least a bit in a scientific way. Here is the first post for reference:



Or in other words, you just can't handle it when others say that something you did was promising, yet suboptimal and "not enough".

However, this is still missing the point that the flamewar did not start through the discussion of the test itself, but through some.... umm..... weird unfounded claims which had nothing to do with the test itself. If you would have focussed on the test itself and asked for help and ideas on how to improve it, then there would have been no problem. But since some(not all) of you started to violate forum-rules in a machine-gun-like rate..... with claims which had nothing to do with the test.... you opened the gate for massive backlash.


Yes and no. The short answer is "no, there is no democracy on ha.org". The long answer is that to a large degree there is democracy on ha.org, but only in a predefined "space".

Or to put it more simply: the forum has a clear target and approach.... and is only meant for people who abide to that approach..... as long as this is the case, the members have quite alot of freedom.... but outside of it, there is a low tolerance for "other approaches". One could also say "ha.org is a forum which specializes on a certain approach".

What kind of approach? Well, the core is quite easy: no claim without evidence or founded reasoning. The evidence in turn has to be reliable. And others need to be able to validate the evidence. One could also say that this forum prioritizes "reliability/quality" over "quantity"... Thus, we intentionally allow to filter out some possible(but unprobable) data to keep a high level of reliability.

- Lyx

edit: thinking about it, i'd say ha.org is an elitist mix of anarchy, democracy and dictatorship ;-)

[quote=Axon,Oct 8 2005, 07:04 PM]
If you were referring to me, then I think a lot of people took it waaaay too personal.

Yes I was. And there's a difference between vigorous debate & plain rudeness & Axon it was rude to have a (smug imho) go at an experiment on a forum of which you're not a member. BTW if this forum is so robust, why do you want to ban us? British robustness too much

GofA