Have you "lied" to yourself?


It is time for the utmost honesty. How many of you have made a fairly costly upgrade/purchase and weren't able to hear any difference (even if you struggled, it wasn't very obvious), but convinced yourself the difference was there (to avoid feeling embarrassed/taken, or facing that you don't have "golden ears")?

There's no need to mention the brand/manufacturer, but do mention the type of component as it would be interesting to see whether this type of thing happens more often with preamps, amps, cables, or sources (I doubt it ever happens with speakers).

I'll start. I'm guilty of spending about $600 upgrading speaker my cables and couldn't hear much of a difference.
128x128felthove
Does this mean that over the course of time ,we are all lead to this .Believing everything the manufacturers tell us because we spent so much ,there's  no looking back .To each his own .
The only times I haven't heard a positive change, I've returned the item due to a money back guarantees or because the dealer loaned me them as a demo unit.  Things like my Oyaide wall outlets when I ran new 20A dedicated circuits I will never really know if they made a difference or not.  Oh, there were those PS Audio outlet things that plug into the wall and blink.  Those made no difference but I kept two of them anyway.
Always had big improvements when i upgrade because i know what I'm doing at all times.Never had this problem good luck though.
There's a scene in chapter 1 of Don Quixote where DQ finds that his helmet lacks a visor, so he fabricates one out of pasteboard.  One test with the sword destroys it.  So he makes a second one out of pasteboard with some thin strips of iron worked in, and decides not to put it to the test again.

There's a profound psychological truth in this humorous passage.
I am pretty honest with myself on purchases, but there have been many a time I was underwhelmed by the expense.  I buy second hand and let others decide for themself.  I have gone down the tube road, but SS may be another man’s bliss.