[zigzag]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
No, what I was saying is that if you don't perceive a difference then why spend time testing for it. Subtle but important difference.

That goes without saying. The issue only arises when other people make claims and I want to verify those claims before spending my money/time. This could be true of anything from your claim to the $10,000 speaker cables advertised in the audio magazines.

If you feel the requirement to do a blind test, go and do one. Get iT 3 and iT 4 on two computers and get someone to A/B them for you. There's no point in me doing one 'coz you need to hear it for yourself to believe it.

I agree - I already said that it isn't your obligation to do such a test. Experience has just taught some of us to be skeptical about all of the claims that we read and hear about.

A final observation from a logical viewpoint... Why would I be saying that iT 3 was better than iT 4 if I was letting expectations and suggestions get in the way? I eagerly await those lovely little check boxes in Software Update like the rest of you, with the anticipation, expectation and (possible) auto-suggestion that the new softs will be somehow better than the current ones.
Surely the powers of auto-suggestion would favour iT 4 (bigger, better, newer)?

That's a good point - you're going against expectations. But, again, experience has taught me to be skeptical, mostly for three reasons: (a) you're the first person to mention it; (b) I'm not aware of any technical explanation for the phenomenon, and (c) people perceive qualitative differences for all kinds of reasons, e.g. slight differences in gain. Blind testing is one way of addressing this. You can say that it's redundant/unnecessary, but the fact is that human perception is a fickle thing and over the years blind testing has disproved a number of things that people were "sure of."

Again, I haven't said that you're wrong. Maybe MP3 encoding is, in fact, "way better" in iT3 than iT4. This didn't start with me challenging your claim - it was you who challenged the validity of blind testing and suggested that people who would rely on it must have crap for ears.

[qnxde]

Also make sure you're using the latest version of iTunes 4, itunes 4.0 had this weird bug where it messed with the volume levels partway through a song and it sounded TERRIBLE.