Do you think that I am SUCH an idiot to spend a months wage for this cable if I wasn't first 100% sure after repeated and exhausting listening and under the shade of the cable snake oil myth spread everywhere in the anti-audiophile cult that it definitely improves the sound quality? You rationalists are living in a world of numbers, tested by flawed equipment and you don't trust your OWN ears..
How would I know if you're an idiot or not? I don't know you from Job.
The fact of the matter is that "audiophiles" spend unbelievable amounts of money on unproven, unscientific and sometimes downright
strange devices that usually cost a small fortune. Surely, you are aware of such oddities in the past like the 'green pen' on CDs tweak. I used to follow Stereophile and Rec.audio.high-end once upon a time when the WWW was still new and shiny and it was a total hoot watching people argue and argue about how effective green pens, Shatki stones (imagine paying money for stones to set under your gear...just do a search on Google; they're still sold today
), burn-in time for cables (got to align those electron patterns so they're more musical
), etc.
Here's a quote regarding CD pens I dug up:
Sam Tellig, writer for Stereophile, a high-end audio magazine: ``I get a great deal of
satisfaction in showing that these tweaks take the `perfect-sound-forever medium' and make
it a little more perfect.''
Stereophile runs a number of home remedies through a battery of tests in its April issue.
The results: No consistently measurable differences in data retrieval between treated and
untreated discs. But the tester heard a difference.
Yes, they heard a difference. There's no theory, rationale or measurable proof that marking the edge of a CD with a green marker does a darn thing, but they HEARD a difference, so it MUST be real.
Sorry, you can call me closed-minded, old-fashioned or even an idiot, but spending thousands on cable is like throwing your money down the toilet and flushing it, IMO.
Don't get angry. You sound much maligned and defensive about spending thousands on a $5 piece of insulated copper. It's OK. The Magic is still there. You just have to really believe it (so the placebo effect will kick in; it
is a real effect, BTW).
I've got some markers I can sell you. Only $499 each. They WILL improve your listening experience. Pay no attention to the scratches on the side. That isn't the word Crayola scratched off. Those are are (patent-pending) Bologned groove marks and if you place them under your listening chair, they bring all the positive spiritual energy trapped in the recorded music to your ears instead of letting them flow out the nearest window.
I am not even touching the most stupid thing you could ever suggest: the double blind tests.
Yes, scientific testing is 'stupid'. It's much better to use black magic.
When the difference is 1% on the sound quality and you get a bunch of untrained ears to listen and search for the difference under a controlled
Untrained ears? I was suggesting that YOU do the test! Are your ears untrained? I've seen the most distinguished (if you can call them that) people from Stereophile who regularly listen to the most expensive gear known to man utterly FAIL to tell a single difference between a cheap Carver amplifier (hand modified "TFM" by Bob Carver) and a $12k Conrad-Johnson Premier Five (one of the most highly regarded amps of the day). (Wikipedia has an article on this you can read, if you'd like. I'm sure there's plenty of other sources out there. it was a big deal at the time).
Of course, when the Carver TFM series came out (I own one BTW; it's still running fine 16 years later as is my 26 year old Yamaha sliding-class A/AB I picked up used 14 years ago when I went to bi-amp with an active crossover), Stereophile panned the series, panned Bob's speakers and generally refused to review his equipment (and would often make snide remarks in various articles). The truth is their advertisers were royally upset that their gear was ever even suggested to be overpriced and over-hyped. Bob's Sunfire remains one of the premier best bang-for-the-buck load-independent (it couldn't care less about highly reactive loads) amplifiers ever made (especially for its time).
environment, do I need to point that the failure rate of these tests lean more on the side of NOT hearing the difference rather than hearing it? Double
A double blind test cannot prove a negative. It can only prove a positive. I don't see that as a failure. It's simply science. I cannot prove God exists or doesn't exist through science, for example.
Double blind tests can, however, disprove individual claims that they can hear differences. Obviously, if you can do no better than 50/50 on average, you're not hearing a darn thing. And you can add 'brain effects' or whatever you want onto them because if you HEAR or FEEL a difference with the 'better' system, it WILL show up on the test. It's not hard, after all. Double-blind simply means the test giver and the person being tested have NO IDEA during the test which equipment is which (to avoid sending clues). You can take as little or as much time as you want to 'prove' a claim. You could listen for a month before giving your first result (I've seen it claimed that time ruins the test; but time isn't in the test).
In other words, all I'm seeing from you is excuses why you spent a small fortune on an audio system when you could have had a nice car or something instead. I mean who are you trying to convince? I'm perfectly happy with my audio system. It was closer to $5k than 30k; the same for the home theater (including the projector).
blind tests are not panacea for sound testing. Read this lengthy article and see why:
http://www.stereophile.com/features/141/index.html
Quoting Stereophile as proof for the non-validity of double-blind tests is like quoting the Oil companies about the safety of eating shrimp soaked with their oil off the Gulf Coast....
It is Stereophile's business to sell magazine advertising to high-end audio gear companies. Unlike Time or some other rag, their advertisers are directly related to the equipment they are reviewing and thus there is a huge conflict of interest there. As to whether they actually believe some of the things they've said before, I couldn't rightly say. I know they have zero credibility with me at this point.
I leave you keep on with your journalistic factual posts and the cold rationalism. They will not change my poetic view of life and the enjoyment I get from my OWN choices even if you don't have the capacity to appreciate them.
Unfortunately, poetry is not scientific and doesn't prove anything. Enjoy your stereo. I tell Bose owners the same thing. I believe they paid way too much for what they got, but if they enjoy it, so what? As another example in another area, I wouldn't buy Jose Cuervo tequila either. It's way overpriced for the quality (their regular gold charges for food coloring and costs about the same price as a Sauza anejo that is the real deal) and thus you're paying for a brand name, not good quality. But if someone loves Cuervo, more power to them. There's no accounting to taste, after all. It's largely subjective anyway. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all.
I'm hardly immune to such effects, myself. It's especially difficult if don't have the engineering background (I was just starting college when I got into high-end audio; my degrees are in electronic engineering so I'd like to think I've learned a few things since then). There are huge differences out there and not everyone has the time to go out and listen to everything and judge for themselves. People read Stereophile and assume these guys must know what's best. Certainly, most of the gear they recommend sound great. It's just a question of whether "A+" is actually better than "A-" or even "B+" in some cases or whether that's to keep the advertisers happy. I mean my new WRX is rated for 265HP at the crank, but that's BS as well. It's closer to 300HP, but advertising that would put a dent in the STI sales (despite its superior transmission, suspension, etc.) so they underrate it.
