Non-scientific little poll. Vote with intuition.

[talynidm]

My left ear liked C the best.

[bmanic]

All yours bmanic. just remember you're dealing with controversial and subjective issues and need to be able to face valid critique. I won't be the last to question these things.

Oh don't worry. I'm not insulted at all and I have nothing at all against critique when it's valid. It's just that your impatient and "quick to categorize/voodonize" witch hunt bit, even though you have NO idea what I'm trying to do here. You don't have a slightest clue, as I've given nothing away, no real valid information that you can use so why critizise me when you have nothing else than the clips to go by?

The only thing I have given away is that there ARE differences in the files, that's all and they ARE perfectly hearable too (as many people with far lower budget monitoring than you, have confirmed). Yes, I admit, the differences are subtle indeed. Are they relevant? It's not the point at all with this test! So, just trust me and let it roll.

@everybody else:

Thanks for keeping the poll going! I'm affraid this poll will be left like this for a couple of weeks at least as I really do need quite a lot of votes. I will start another, similar or maybe even identical poll later next week with completely different kind of audio material. So for anybody very impatient about the results and the reasons please try to bear with me!

Cheers!
bManic

[Kingston]

The only thing I have given away is that there ARE differences in the files, that's all and they ARE perfectly hearable too (as many people with far lower budget monitoring than you, have confirmed). Yes, I admit, the differences are subtle indeed. Are they relevant? It's not the point at all with this test! So, just trust me and let it roll.

but I never even said there was no difference! I even took the time to find out what they are, which I now know well, and have a suspicion on even the specific plugin you used in one of them. I based my assumptions on that and hence questioned the relevancy. since you probably want no science here I'll only talk of the data in private.

just odd that you would go to such lengths on this to point it out and educate people, even more considering the high subjectivity (which I presume you're trying to eradicate with long standing polls). Anyway, I'll talk to you later.

[bmanic]

Umm.. no, I'm not trying to educate people with this. It's mainly for my own interest (like stated in the pushtec post).

As to what plugins I use, yes you definately know of one but do you think you know the other two?

Cheers!
bManic

EDIT: corrected the timeline

[Kingston]

not trying to educate? but you already mentioned your plans in doing seminars on this?

anyway, by jumping through some hoops I think I recognised a certain new EQ and it's fairly trademark sound. As for the other two, I've no clue. You could have volume matched these a bit better by the way, unless this set up has a bearing on what you aim for with this poll.

[Watto]

I didn't even listen to the files, but my intuition told me to vote for B.

[bmanic]

not trying to educate? but you already mentioned your plans in doing seminars on this?

Man.. I don't get it. Are you forcefully trying to shove your own "beliefs of what you THINK I am trying to achieve" down my throath?

Have you ever been to one of the seminars in Sibelius Academy? The majority of them are simply personal experiences and a discussion session. They are NOT always seminars for teaching theory or whatever. They can simply be "I did this last week. Tell me what you think! Give me feedback!" kind of things.

You could have volume matched these a bit better by the way, unless this set up has a bearing on what you aim for with this poll.

As for this.. all I can say is .

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

I didn't even listen to the files, but my intuition told me to vote for B.

that's fine as well.. though I did hope for people to give at least 1 listen trough each file.

Cheers!
bManic

[Kingston]

They can simply be "I did this last week. Tell me what you think! Give me feedback!" kind of things.

but I've been doing just that. leaving so much for the guessing has had me make all kinds of assumptions. I remember the preamp talk we had a bit too well.

You could have volume matched these a bit better by the way, unless this set up has a bearing on what you aim for with this poll.

As for this.. all I can say is .

Cheers!
bManic

..and I remember *that* talk we had very well indeed.

[Watto]

There's a lot of love in this thread

[herodotus]

There's a lot of love in this thread

Yeah its kind of like theology.

'How many angels can fit on the head of a pin?' and all that.

And of course the heretics get burned.



Now, where is that popcorn?

[bmanic]

Hmm.. I've been thinking about this a bit lately and the results so far have fueled my interest about this much further. I'll try to create a truly "scientific" poll later this year. I just need to get hold of more proper audio material and do a more thorough poll. I've added some variables to the test that are not necessarily smart (got some good critique from Kingston and jmh, very valid stuff).

Thanks for all that participated and voted. I will keep the poll running still for quite a while so feel free to continue voting.

Unfortunately I'm not ready to disclose what this poll was all about, yet, as it might interfer with the next, more thorough and truly scientific poll! Sorry guys!

Cheers!
bManic

[shamann]

Unfortunately I'm not ready to disclose what this poll was all about, yet, as it might interfer with the next, more thorough and truly scientific poll! Sorry guys!

To be honest, it already interferes with the next poll, as people will develop an intuition as to what you are up to, and that will colour their future responses, even if their sense of what is happening is incorrect. As will the prolonging of the mystery. It'll cast the whole thing in a certain light, speculation will influence the votes as much as actual knowledge.

Someone may hear subtle variations in the high frequencies but might not even bother to mention it if they focused on the bass while listening. People are really good at listening for one set of sounds while completely ignoring other sets of sounds that are equally prominent. Giving them a general sense of what to listen for is as influential as blindfolding (and a little less irritating for the participants).

[bmanic]

True. So basically no matter what I do, the next poll is funked?

Any ideas? This isn't rocket science, and the results are mainly only useful for me, personally but some might find this interesting as well.

I started out by having a good idea for a "study" but I funked it up with bad audio material (and maybe with a unnecessary variable). .. hmm what to do?

As will the prolonging of the mystery. It'll cast the whole thing in a certain light, speculation will influence the votes as much as actual knowledge.

All though this I do not agree with at all. Speculation isn't bad at all for the results. Giving exact information about how this was created is bad for the results, at least in this case. I think I'll let the cat out of the bag at some point and create the next poll a bit more thoroughly and on a different forum. Maybe even split it on to several different forums?. It might be interesting to see the results between prosoundweb.com, gearslutz.com and kvraudio.com. They all have quite different user bases.

Cheers!
bManic

[shamann]

I'd recommend not doing it behind a veil of secrets, but I'm like that. It is after all just meant to be done in good spirit. Consider the compressor thread you made all sorts of examples for. I think the learning experience and the discussion of it thereafter comes only in having the changes in the material outlined in advance.

Poll's here at KVR aren't ever scientific, since we couldn't be considered a random sample. We all share at least one thing in common (visiting KVR) and probably several other things that would make us a distinct demographic. So if you wanted to know if 35% of people surveyed preferred sound file A on first listen, the results here are already skewed anyway.

But I think you'll still get something valid and keep things lighthearted by presenting a listening test and outlining a series of changed variables, and then ask people what they like. Bias is inevitable, but this way we might learn something and still present you with the same data you'd get any other way. We here already know that we are listening for some kind of post-processing change in the music, we might as well know what kind of change. Blindfolded taste tests are merely parlour tricks.