Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat A/B vs long term listening

[Akimo: This post originally appeared in a thread on MQA-first impressions. To keep that thread clean, I've moved my posts to this thread.]

Based on tests done in the 1980's, many folks (myself included) feel that A/B testing of music sources is not effective. The primary theory (first posited by Nelson Pass of Pass Labs) is that A/B testing forces the brain's analytical processes foremost, while music appreciation involves very different brain processes.

While this is not by any means 100% accepted in the audiophile world, I am strongly convinced it is true for me, based on over 35 years of evaluative listening:
- When I try to analyse the sound characteristics of a system, I lose all enjoyment
- When I listen for pleasure, I tend to internally generate descriptors that apply to the music, not the equipment

In the late 1970's or early 1980's, a group of senior writers for Stereophile tested the A/B process, and found that almost none of them could reliably tell the difference between substantially different kinds of equipment when using A/B processes. This kind of test was repeated elsewhere (AudioXpress) with similarly discouraging results.

Still controversial, but I'm a believer.

For those of us who are "believers" that A/B testing is not the way to go, the normal practice is to listen to a piece of equipment or format or whatever you are evaluating for an extended time, and then switching later.

For my purposes, I find that emotional involvement has been the best question I ask myself when doing evaluative listening.

Your mileage may vary.

Agreed that extended listening periods to evaluate equipment is preferable.

While I believe you can hear differences between different types of equipment by A/B testing, whether or not you like the difference in the longer term requires more than a couple hours of evaluation. It's tough to know if you really like what a particular piece of equipment (cabling, tweaks, etc.) does to the sound without sufficient time to listen to it with a bunch of your music.

Hence the need for in-home evaluation for at least a weekend if not longer. Good dealers will give you this opportunity.

A/B testing, with the pre-requisite level match (very important to better than 0.5dB!), makes you focus mostly on different frequency response (i.e. 'more bass' or whatever) unless something is very wrong also (distortion).

Today's equipment (sources and amps specially) is mostly freq-response very right, so when people do matched-level A/B they tend to not find differences, specially when done blind (they focus then on the differences and the brain makes all sound more similar!). This made birth to a thining current we all know (?)... but unfortunately (?) not 'all sounds the same'...

Sometimes A/B may help if you know what you are looking for, otherwise you need more time to find all clues ths system(s) may give.

AB level matched testing will highlight immediate differences, long term listening will highlight preferences as to whether those differences are good or not for your taste etc.

There is a kicker to all this, even if there are NO differences and you actually believe there are, you WILL hear that difference i.e. it will be a truism to you.

Which completes the circle and A/B is not as valid as people believe. Chris

It is true to say that some people like the sound of one piece of equipment over another so extended listening would be a good way to decide if a claimed upgrade to a system is worthwhile to you.

However, for a manufacturer this seems an impractical way of proceeding . If they have one engineer leave and their replacement's opinion is different then the characteristic house sound will eventually be changed. Somehow this seems a little less than scientific.

I still find it difficult to think that Meridian might do a modification to their development equipment, listen to it for an extended period and then work on the basis of "do I like it or not?" rather than compare the incremental change before and after.

Hate to quote myself but...

Well someone has to decide if a different sound is better or worse.

...or just different...

When I have done A/B blind testing I find I can tell the difference immediately the first couple of times, tell which one I prefer out of the two.
However, after a few swaps I struggle, and they start to sound more alike.

Many argue if that is the case then what you buy doesn't matter, however, I argue you should always go with your first impressions as generally we tend to get that right far more often than not.

I do think your brain tries to make everything sound the same when playing the same thing over and over, this becomes fatiguing, doing A/B tests starts to give me a headache, in the same way listening to bright systems gives me a headache, I don't think it is the fact it is lively that gives me this headache more the fact my brain is trying to convert the sound into something smoother that I prefer that does it.

A friend has Cyrus gear with some M&K speakers, and my god that is forward and bright sounding. I find that system too sharp to listen to, and asked him if he found it tiring after a while. I was amazed when he said he didn't find it all that bright.
What amazed me more was when listening at mine I asked what he thought of the 5200s compared to his set up, and he replied "Sounds very similar."
[censored]!!!!?

They are about as far removed as you can get with two systems, the Meridian is really smooth, they have always rolled the top end off their kit to give it that liquidy sound.
I thought about this for a while and then decided it must be us, our hearing, for him to feel they sounded the same.
I asked him to play an online frequency hearing test and although I could hear up to 22kHz no problem, not only did he not hear anything above 17kHz but he also struggle with lower frequencies on the test too, he was a OK with 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 and could just hear 16kHz but strangely he could hardly hear 12khz.

So, maybe some people genuinely can't hear big differences when doing A/B testing, and because they can't hear differences they can't understand why others can?
However, it is more that that, the differences a good bit of kit and one that connects with you can often be the most subtle of all, sometimes you put a bit of kit in and everything you play on it sounds right. There was nothing wrong with the other bit of kit, but this one just nails it every time. And I think those are the bits that can get missed when doing A/B testing.

Well personal taste is inviolate...so albeit the differences might be technically "better" , it might not be to your taste.
Even Meridian realise that , hence their tone controls etc..

22k is pretty high , Im 56 and can hear plainly to 15k , 16k gets attenuated and above that , nothing..I thought I was good for my age

AB tests can only work with stuff you CAN AB , and they are used to pinpoint differences only .. you already know another speaker will be different to what you got , so you can go to long term and skip AB as it is now solely a preference based audition.

It's also not really possible to AB stuff like amps , speakers etc..only things that can be level matched exactly and switched seamlessly and instantly. Most home equipment owners cannot do so unless a specific ABX comparator or the like is built..and that is not practical or cost effective.