Comment by joccam

The psychological component is a red herring. Even though I already have a system (bias), I don't care about the other systems. I went to the show for enjoyment, education, and appreciation. Some of the systems were unknown to me (no bias), and some were known and surprised me in some ways (again, some bias overridden). So bias can be important, but it's not relevant in this case. So bias doesn't invalidate my experience.

As for the double-blind and high frequencies, I believe I've already done the test. I have had my hearing tested several times. One of them, I recall the tester actually asked me to repeat some tests... it was funny. The testing was at very high frequencies. I believe she thought I was guessing the higher/lower frequencies... and getting lucky. So (I strongly suspect) she wanted to "prove" to herself what you want to prove --- that noone can hear above 20KHz. I disappointed her. I think she even threw in some placebo tests (no frequencies at all). It was funny. She never explained herself. I suspect she just thought I got lucky again.

How to really test this stuff? Get one of the audio designers to test... but they will laugh in the testers' faces. They do this stuff for a living... to build real products... for real live customers who can hear the differences. Dave Wilson was at the A/V show. Try listening to a pair of Wilson Audio speakers. I bet he can hear better than just about anyone... His speakers (when sourced and driven properly) are that good. But he wouldn't waste his time on such tests. He has customers to serve and a business to run.

I doubt lab experiments look to disprove their theories once and for all. That's a social prejudice built into the lab experiments. Fix that, and you'll end up with a better hypothesis.