Post removed due to agressive Forum responses below, obviously members happier to criticise and ridicule rather that dicuss and help educate people.

Regarding ABX comparisons it is not the utopia as defined in the forum guidelines or prescibed by members of the forum for the following reasons.

I would like to think we can all agree on the 2 points below;

1) there is a difference in sound quality between different equipment. Higher quailty equipment does allow details of music be heard that poorer equipment does not. This means that changes being accessed in ABX testing may not be able to be heard on the test system but may be able to be heard on a higher quality system.

2) Some people cannot tell the difference in quality between 2 different sounds. They may be able to tell there is a difference but weather one sound is an improvement is not possible for that person. Thats their opinion.

Thus even with ABX you are still left with a subjective test that is applicable to you and may not be reproducable by someone else or on a different set of components.

So when someone states that without ABX testing there is an improvement, for them that is true and only applicable to their system limitations.

So it is ignorent to dicredit someones opinion who may not need a ABX test to access the change.

I do support the drive to use ABX comparison testing, it does help, but it is not the final word.

Just as a note, i DIY most of equipment mods, cables, stands etc. and do ABX on subtle comparisions where possible, but after years and years of listening i can can usually tell clear changes with AB comparisions. Change/difference vs improvement is a even more difficult assessment and depends on you.

Is this a joke?

Interesting mix of WindowsXP items (I think) and TOS8 effluvia.

I don't mean to cause offence either, but you really are a total idiot!

Cheers, Slipstreem.

If you had spent even a little time reading at HA before posting you should have expected the kind of response that you are getting.

I think he stumbled into the wrong forum.

Ok OK apologies, was having a bad day at work, and just trashed my CD database last night.

What i unpolitely said was , i am concerned that some testing may be completed where the sound card is not the limiting factor, and assessments are incorrectly made.

I genually have read a lot of this forum and found it very usefull and informative.

I beg forgiveness

I genuinely have been impressed with the sound quality from the Xplosion, and would like to help ensure we all get the best from our systems.

unfortunately sigs are now limited in length, otherwise i would make this one my new one:
"Music had a vail lifted with greater depth and space, with nuances rendered with increased accuracy."

So you must have come across the three magic letters A-B-X at some point. What's your opinion on them?

Original post removed due to aggressive Forum responses, obviously members happier to criticise and ridicule rather that dicuss and help educate people.

Regarding ABX comparisons it is not the utopia as defined in the forum guidelines or prescibed by members of the forum for the following reasons.

I would like to think we can all agree on the 2 points below;

1) there is a difference in sound quality between different equipment. Higher quailty equipment does allow details of music be heard that poorer equipment does not. This means that changes being accessed in ABX testing may not be able to be heard on the test system but may be able to be heard on a higher quality system.

2) Some people cannot tell the difference in quality between 2 different sounds. They may be able to tell there is a difference but weather one sound is an improvement is not possible for that person. Thats their opinion.

Thus even with ABX you are still left with a subjective test that is applicable to you and may not be reproducable by someone else or on a different set of components.

So when someone states that without ABX testing there is an improvement, for them that is true and only applicable to their system limitations.

So it is ignorent to dicredit someones opinion who may not need a ABX test to access the change.

I do support the drive to use ABX comparison testing, it does help, but it is not the final word.

Just as a note, i DIY most of equipment mods, cables, stands etc. and do ABX on subtle comparisions where possible, but after years and years of listening i can can usually tell clear changes with AB comparisions. Change/difference vs improvement is a even more difficult assessment and depends on you.

this isn't clear, but in terms of testing the lossy codecs is probably just the opposite (since low-end systems are not 'flat' in terms of frequency response). Also it is hard to define (sometimes) what would be the reference listening system & conditions.
you are close, just add the missing X.
The way you started was looking like a lost case really, but you seem to be improving.

@ andrew & david: You've missed the whole point of ABX testing. It's used to determine whether YOU can hear the difference between two different sources on the same equipment with YOUR ears. Whether or not somebody else can ABX the same two sources on whatever equipment they happen to be using is a total irrelevance to YOU if YOU can't on the equipment that you're using.

As you may have guessed, it's all about YOU, and if YOU can't ABX something under what are normal listening conditions for YOU, then nothing else matters a flying monkey's.

It's the "X" in ABX that counts. It eliminates placebo effect from the equation.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

I think we are talking about the same point, you cannot transfer your testing to someone else. I tend to revert to ABX vs AB if the difference is subtle, the placebo effect can be strong if you done lots of work on some kit and you really want it to sound better and it doesn't make a rat arse. Its the whole different vs better issue that gets me. So much kit sounds different but i couldn't say better, depends on YOU i suppose.

But agree in a ideal world ABX is the way.

We're talking about the same point but from two different angles I think.

I've never seen the kind of ABX testing recommended by HA as proof of a sound systems transparency. That's not what it's intended to do. It's merely a method of comparing differently sourced or generated versions of the same input signal, ie, CD versus MP3. If I can't personally hear the difference between a CD original and an MP3 encoding at a quality level of "X" on my particular setup, then that can surely be taken as undeniable evidence that the level of quality matches or exceeds that of my signal-chain up to and including my ears.

The only sure-fire way of not falling into the trap of storing recordings in a format that won't have its deficiencies revealed by a newer and better replacement sound system is to archive losslessly.

Apologies if my reply bears very little relevance to your original post, but as it's 'disappeared' and I have a terrible memory, I've lost my reference point for further intelligent discussion.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

@ andrew & david: You are still completely missing the point of abx testing. It can never be used to prove that a difference is NOT audible. It can only be used to prove that a difference IS audible, and then only with statistical significance. We are not trying to prove that you or anyone else can NOT hear a difference, only asking you for proof that you CAN! Until you can provide such proof all of you statements are meaningless and will be disregarded.

It is well documented that the placebo effect is sufficiently strong for people (even ones who are being totally honest) to report major audible differences between two identical signals, when led to believe they are different. ABX stops you from fooling yourself - because your perceptions are open to all sorts of bias which cannot be ignored.

This might or might not be the case ... since higher quality is often being confused with spending lots of $$$, this is just an assumption.



You absolutely don't get what ABX is for, do you?

A hint ... ABX testing will give you a scientific means to determine differences with a statistical significance without your own psyche interfering in the actual listening process. ABX testing will tell you whether - based on your listening environment in conjunction with your hearing - you can hear a difference between two amps/codecs/cables/cd players/whatever or not.

Whether you like the actual difference or not is a whole different story.

ABX has never been designed to assess quality of listening chains.



Exactly ... your psyche will play mindgames with you whenever you listenen to e.g. a new shiny chrome-plated multi-thousand-dollar amplifier ... you want this expensive piece of standard technology to sound extraordinarily good so you will perceive it as such.

People always hear what they want to hear ... ABX'ing simply creates a repeatable test environment that puts a stop to that.