scientific double blinded cable test

“This was essentially the test I ran at AES in the 80’s. It is difficult to get exactly the same LCR parameters for different construction. We used 12ga THNN 19 strand and a Monster Pro, also 12ga. Some who took repeated tests could tell better than 80%. Many who took the test only once got results far above guessing and some did worse than guessing. When results were tabulated, it was pretty well evenly split. Many of those who did poorly were firmly in the ’canbenodifference’ camp. Unfortunately, we did not collect information as to whether the participants could felt they could reliably determine differences or not. Just as some are color blind or tone deaf, some are not able to hear subtle differences in phase and level.”

>>>>>Huh? I doubt anyone could hear a significant difference between those two particular cables. I assume you were trying to portray Monster as a sort of high end cable. But perhaps not. I had some Monster Cable circa 1983 and frankly, it sucked. I did not say that to the head of Monster with whom I dined at CES some years later. In any case, as I’ve opined on more than a few occasions, a single test - even when carefully planned, thorough and performed by AES or any other illustrious group or person, means nothing when the results are inconclusive or negative. In other words you cannot draw any generalizations or conclusions. Of course, there are many reasons why a test can fail to achieve positive results, hence my rather dogmatic statement. The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. And things have changed a little bit since the 80s, you betcha. So that’s another reason not to use the example from AES for any cable debate.

Furthermore, I suggest more interesting tests would be (1) stranded vs solid core, (2) copper vs silver, (3) cryo’d vs non-cryo’d, and (4) one direction vs the other. Then, I predict, your results will not (rpt not) be inconclusive.

I will say I'm highly skeptical too. 

However, I can offer an anecdotal story inspired by nugat, who stated, "  It can’t be that difficult. Pharmaceuticals are tested that way. Either something works comparing to placebo or not. And the variables are really complicated there."

I knew a girl whose brother sadly had traumatic brain damage, and would get seizures without medication.  Well, somebody high up figured they could save money, generic is just as good.  It has to be.  It turned out if they gave him the generic medication, he would have seizures, if they gave him the name brand medication, he would not have seizures.  This was not an imagined difference, yet the generic was stated to be tested to be EXACTLY the same as the name brand.

So I am remaining open-minded on this, and I think it is fine if the debate continues.  At least from me, if I say, "I can't believe it," I'm only saying it sounds different from what I would expect, not attacking whoever is saying it and calling them a liar.

gdhal
 

In my view, it really shouldn’t be all that unreasonable to expect that this same someone who professes superiority could detect whatever it is he/she feels is superior in a blind test.

It seems to me that those who are clamoring for blind tests should be the ones conducting the blind tests.

One also has to remember that a placebo'e efficacy in medicine is determined over the long run, and not with a minute of this and a minute of that, making an analogy to a blind test with cables a poor one at that.

That’s exactly right! Skeptics always demand that True Believers do the blind test. As if that will prove skeptics were right, after all. The skeptics never do the blind tests themselves. What are they afraid of? Like I keep saying, the only real utility blind tests have for audio is as a weapon wielded by skeptics in the war on “irrational tweaks” and “preposterous ideas."