Although I now own them, I don't take fancy fuses very seriously. I bought them largely out of curiosity, after reading dozens of testimonials from audiophiles who reported hearing results. I too thought I heard results. I'm happy to be wrong about that. I don't mind being the victim of placebo, and I don't feel the impulse to defend my initial listening impressions. Listening impressions, and particularly the inferences derived from them, can be mistaken for all kinds of reasons.
Having said that, I tend to take audiophiles' listening impressions at face value, unless I have a good reason not to. Sometimes I have a good reason. But most of the time, I recognize that he was there in the room and I wasn't, so why not give him the benefit of the doubt that he heard what he heard. The benefit of the doubt can always be withdrawn, and very little is lost except some conversation. All of this is prologue to what I'd really like to say, which is an observation followed by a question. The observation is this...
It's widely (though not universally) acknowledged by people who are both audiophiles and experts in electronic design that, in addition to the Known Parameters that affect sound quality, it is likely that there are Unknown Parameters that affect sound quality. Those Unknown Parameters are either unmeasured or unmeasurable, though that could change with the progress of knowledge, either theoretical or applied.
And the question is this...
For those who acknowledge the likelihood of Unknown Parameters, what is the standard by which Possible Unknown Parameters are distinguished from Impossible Unknown Parameters? Since by definition it cannot be the standard of prevailing knowledge, it must be something else. But what? Intuition?
If the answer is intuition, I can accept that. I believe intuition is worth something. In fact, I believe it's worth quite a bit. But I will point out that intuition, even the intuition of experts, has been wrong innumerable times, with consequences ranging from trivial to amusing to catastrophic. In fact, there is reason to believe that intuition is wrong far more often than it is right, for the reason that there are VASTLY more ways of being wrong than being right.
So again, what is the standard by which Possible Unknown Parameters are distinguished from Impossible Unknown Parameters? I ask this because, IMHO, the idea that wires are directional or that fuses can affect sound quality, while they may be outside the scope of prevailing knowledge, fall within the scope of possible knowledge.
I could be wrong. People usually are.
Bryon
