Blind Power Cord Test & results


Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity teamed up with the Bay Area Audiophile Society (BAAS) to conduct a blind AC power cord test. Here is the url:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_11_4/feature-article-blind-test-power-cords-12-2004.html

I suppose you can interpret these results to your follow your own point of view, but to me they reinforce my thoughts that aftermarket AC cords are "audiophile snakeoil"
maximum_analog
QUOTEDon't argue that it exists...tell me how it works.QUOTE

Exactly...it doesn't count unless you can explain it! Kind of like why we're all here. We aren't, really, unless you can explain it. Again, that's why scientists get the big bucks. Until they explain it, I won't believe I'm really here...plain and simple. :^
You know, scientists say that bumblebees can't fly, and that from a technical perspective it is impossible. Yet, bumblebees fly all the time. Perhaps we need to do some A/B/X testing to see if we actually are seeing bumblebees fly, or if they are actually not flying, and we are imagining it.

For a hundred years, thousands of scientists and mathematicians have tried to explain how bumblebees fly, and still can't explain it, even to this very day, and this very moment.

I suppose that some here think that we are imagining these black and yellow furry insects flitting about our yards, blissfully ignorant of the "proven fact" that they cannot actually be there.

I'm sure that there must be some psychological explanation for all of us seeing these phantom apparitions that could not possibly be doing what we think they are doing.

You know, it's amazing how widespread these sightings of bumblebees in flight are. One would never think that it could possibly be so pervasive in a society of thinking people who should know better.

Bumblebees have been measured, tested, observed, computer modeled, mathematically analyzed, real-life modeled, and it has been determined that they cannot fly. Boy, I feel alot better, now that I know that.
It is annoying to me how little audiophiles/public understand science - not in specific examples like bees and PCs per se, but in the way scientists are supposedly rigid, archaic formulists reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. In my experience, scientists go to the fringe of knowledge and theory with a lot of grace, unlike the people who try playing the role.

I personally believe cables do make a difference and knowledge of the make-and-model has an influence of perception through expectation. I hope most phile’s, in the silent majority, are in the same boat. And like I stated ABX and blind between-subject testing are perfectly viable in eliminating expectation. An experiment’s procedure may be flawed and the conclusions may not fit the data, but I have yet to read or hear any logical reason why these tests are inherently flawed. One may not like the results, but ya' need more than that to discount the test.

Bumblebee physics myth:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item223.htm
Despite my reaction to his posts, I agree with Twl more than I disagree. The parameters such as system and room need to be addressed and while ABX is good tool, it is not worth much on many levels in audio, especially in private circumstances. Also, in future threads, subjective discussions should not be interrupted by contrarian physical explanations and vice-versa. There is no point to it.
I find many of the posts in this thread disturbing. I hope the inability to follow a logical line of reasoning is an anomaly unrepresentative of our population generally. One poster even tosses around statistical significance as though it had meaning outside of sampling, distribution, variance, and inference. But that's just misuse of jargon. I'm really concerned about the apparent inability to reason logically from premises to conclusion. Is this thread about auditory perception or religion? I get the impression it's about religion: You are either a believer (that there are audible differences that can be heard by the discerning few) or not.

Although I was director of a high-tech research center, my original training was in psycoacoustics, particularly binaural auditory processing. I've been addicted to HiFi since before stereo. I admit my speakers are bi-wired, and I have no idea if it makes a bit of audible difference, but I like them that way.

db