Honestly at-least the way I go about this hobby, I do not ask anybody. I rely on my listening. That is what matters to me. Not a DBT or some other scientific fact, what does the equipment sound like? - not to some brilliant designer/golden ear audiophile, but to me, the end customer who will underwrite his designs. And I usually vote with my wallet.
Cheers,
Sid
I think this is all that matters!
Any kind of multi-person testing, DBT or otherwise, may or may not be relevant to a manufacturer in the design phase, but when it comes to a finished product in the market, I think what matters is what the final buyer prefers.
Another aspect is that, typically manufacturers and designers design an audio component to have a very specific sound. Not everybody designs them to sound ruler-flat, unless they are manufacturing monitors (intended to sound as neutral and flat as possible). When such a "house sound" is being engineered, I think it is as 50-50 thing that it will be considered to "sound better" than component B by everyone, or even the majority of a DBT sample. The results of a DBT between two products designed to "house sounds" would only reflect the overall taste for a certain type of sound within a sample.
Any test on finished products would be with the intention of making some product appear to be inferior or superior to another. This intention, IMHO, causes inherent bias in the test, but of course, the bias may not be the same in all the respondents.
I have a genuine question about DBT. This is not intended to be a snarky question or response.
Will a DBT give exactly the same results if repeated under the same conditions? Will all the respondents give exactly the same responses as before for the repeated test? If such an identical result is not obtained, are the results of a DBT scientifically valid?
In my mind (I'm open to being corrected) it is impossible to replicate test conditions, because any DBT conditions can never be replicated. Especially because the test is inherently such that an ideally controlled test condition cannot exist.