Blind tests and the "golden ears" myth

Lysander

Lysander

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Ryan from Plague Scythe Studios recently uploaded a video asking viewers to guess his new amp setup...



...with an unsuprisingly surprising reveal:



There's a really good food for thought discussion over the end (~34:30) about gear holding people back from making music, and how we tend to listen with our eyes.
 
My guess watching that first video was that it's a modeler, but a cheaper unit I don't know well. That's because it didn't sound that great to me, while doing multiple different tones. Which modeler? I'd never be able to guess.

I'm sure the comments would come out with "Well, but that YT compression! That's why my golden ears couldn't figure it out!" or a lot of other goalpost moving, if this was made with a larger sample of people. At the same time I've read "it sounded like this to me through my iPad/iPhone speakers" way too many times on TOP. :facepalm

I've never been concerned if a song is recorded with a Rockman, POD or some fine wine tube amp. If it works, it works. I've never been to a gig where I thought "man if only the guitarist used a tube amp". I've been to some gigs where I wish the mix was better, and some where I didn't like how the guitarist had dialed their tone, but it was never a "they're using the wrong tech" type thing.

It's of course easier to tell when you are the one playing. Then we can obsess over the details.
 
Unfortunately I didn't catch the first video because saying things about blind test videos after the reveal is quite lame, especially in case it's along the "just what I thought" lines.
Hence, please forgive me that I'm doing just that, but: I happen to think that the sounds are all pretty mediocre. Pretty much all of them have a tendency to sound somewhat harsh and not very defined.

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Ah, during posting this came in:

laxu said:
That's because it didn't sound that great to me, while doing multiple different tones.
Click to expand...

Yeah, absolutely that.

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However, I'm not saying so to defend analog equipment or to dismiss modelers. Everybody knowing me just a tiny bit will as well know that I pretty much entirely committed myself to modeling/digital equipment.
I'm just actually wondering how people could even start to think it was any up to date digital or "tried and trusted" analog stuff. Because the sound examples really aren't great all throughout.

Bottomline: Yes, it's too late to really comment on this anymore, but I still think that this is not in favour of the winning "amp". Fortunately, most of the guessing folks don't seem to praise the sound, so there's some hope for sanity left...
 
Cool video's !

There are a stack of Pod Beans with their Cabs Off and running into IR's all over Y/T.

Two things always come to mind when I listen to them.

Firstly ... just how far ahead of its time L6 were with the depth and quality of the POD - and secondly - it always makes me realize just how far we have not come since then.

Live playing and feel notwithstanding ..... you could grab a POD with an IR loader and record tracks for any album of any genre these days and no-one in the universe would ever know it was ~30 year old digital technology hooked up to a "fake" speaker - other than the people in the studio at the time of the recording.
 
BenIfin said:
Firstly ... just how far ahead of its time L6 were with the depth and quality of the POD - and secondly - it always makes me realize just how far we have not come since then.
Click to expand...

I would only partially agree. I owned a POD 1, POD 2 and a POD XT. As far as the "final sounds" are considered, yes, they were ahead of pretty much anything else. But as far as the playing feel went, IMO they were horrible. There's a good reason I prefered my GT-5 and GT-10 and even a VAmp 2 over them, especially in a real live band context (for musical theatre shows the POD XT was fine, but I went through plenty of programming), simply because of a severe lack of dynamics. Amps simply won't clean up well and even the completely clean patches started to sound lifeless quickly in case you didn't really slam them.
 
Sascha Franck said:
I owned a POD 1, POD 2 and a POD XT. As far as the "final sounds" are considered, yes, they were ahead of pretty much anything else. But as far as the playing feel went, IMO they were horrible.
Click to expand...
I played an early POD in someone's studio years ago, I think it sounded better than the vid clips. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Sascha Franck said:
Unfortunately I didn't catch the first video because saying things about blind test videos after the reveal is quite lame, especially in case it's along the "just what I thought" lines.
Hence, please forgive me that I'm doing just that, but: I happen to think that the sounds are all pretty mediocre. Pretty much all of them have a tendency to sound somewhat harsh and not very defined.

---

Ah, during posting this came in:



Yeah, absolutely that.

---

However, I'm not saying so to defend analog equipment or to dismiss modelers. Everybody knowing me just a tiny bit will as well know that I pretty much entirely committed myself to modeling/digital equipment.
I'm just actually wondering how people could even start to think it was any up to date digital or "tried and trusted" analog stuff. Because the sound examples really aren't great all throughout.

Bottomline: Yes, it's too late to really comment on this anymore, but I still think that this is not in favour of the winning "amp". Fortunately, most of the guessing folks don't seem to praise the sound, so there's some hope for sanity left...
Click to expand...

I really think a lot of the time people listen with their Iphone / Android speakers. Not even earphones. No. The speaker.
 
My main gripe with vids like this -- the guy seems cool, but there is excessive talking and hyping up of things. But then when the meat of the vid happens the tones are lacking whether digital or amp mic'd up. I don't claim to be a recording engineer expert or anything, I know enough to get by ok, but if you're going down this comparison or guessing what amp format at least make the tones pleasing. :grin
 
Sascha Franck said:
In defense of the guy (even if he likely doesn't need any defense): Maybe he came up with those less than pleasing tones deliberately...
Click to expand...
Haha, maybe. Thank goodness I have no desire to compete in the Youtube/guitar/influencer world. I can't imagine having to come up with vids constantly trying to get clicks.
 
Fwiw, I just scrolled through some random videos of the guy, and, to put it somewhat carefully, that channel doesn't exactly seem to be a goldmine of great guitar tone...
 
Sascha Franck said:
Fwiw, I just scrolled through some random videos of the guy, and, to put it somewhat carefully, that channel doesn't exactly seem to be a goldmine of great guitar tone...
Click to expand...
I think I've watched one other vid of his someone posted here, so I shouldn't really judge too deeply. But he does have a good way of speaking and explaining himself and that is probably what draws a certain type of viewer to him. But I can only take so much talking about tones without equal or more demonstration of said tones.
 
His presentation is fine. His tones are not (IMO at least). For a not so great start, watch this from maybe 1:08:00 (should be playing from there):

You can basically jump to any position where there's something playing...
 
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