As Tim said, everybody won. We had great attendance - 28 ppl showed up, including some old members that we hadn't seen for a very long time.
We started with two cuts to determine that the system is actually transparent and had not been dumbed down. The better the system IMHO the more of a difference we will all hear with two very similar LPs. So, I played two different pressings of Jazz At The Pawnshop that were very good - the all-white label German Teldec pressing Proprius did in 1992 and the Orange label first pressing done also at Teldec. Since the first reel was supposed to have been lost after the first pressing, we played Side 3 Track 1. I know that there is more difference between the two pressings on Sides 1 and 2.
I believe that everybody in the audience heard the difference, and the difference was remarkable with almost everybody preferring the Orange label.
The audience was handed out a sheet to mark their impressions. Three simple questions were asked:
- Did you hear a difference? Yes/No
- What difference did you hear? (including your preference)
- Did you think A was analog/digital or B was analog/digital
Actually, it wasn't that they were listening to an analog source vs a digital source. What the audience was listening to an analog source (the LP). However, the comparison was between direct from the phono stage to the preamp, and from the phono stage to the preamp through an analog-to-digital-to-analog loop.
We played 11 cuts of music, and at the end of the night, 20 members of the audience handed back their responses. Two of the responses were blank - one said that no difference was heard, the other was too distracted by the great music. Many in the audience gave up after about half-way and just sat back to enjoy the tunes being played.
Some preliminary results:
- The respondents explicitly said that they could hear a difference 51 times.
- 23 times, the respondents explicitly said that they could NOT hear a difference. (45 times if the two blank sheets were included)
- Of all the responses, 87 out of 171 (50.88%) got it correct
- The "trained" listeners did comparatively well - 9/11 (88.8%) and 8/11 (72.7%). Both were EXCO members and have heard the system and some of the music numerous times.
- When a preference was expressed, 12 respondents expressed a preference for straight-thru, 14 respondents expressed a preference for the A/D/A loop.
More details later.