Are audiophiles still out of their minds?

I figured it wouldn’t be too long before blind testing raised its ugly head. 

"ugly head?"
Geeze Geoff, you can be more creative than pulling that page from your well-worn playbook.

What I don't understand is how you and others can support the miraculous effects of cables, fuses, wire direction and other minutia, by saying the differences can obviously be heard, but then discount a method that provides listeners the opportunity to judge what sounds best based on the differences they hear, in the absence of other sensory and social influences.  When challenged, many say the DBT method is not perfect but then neither is dropping some expensive item, or the "latest and greatest" version of something, into your system and heralding the positive effects without considering cognitive bias, golden halo effects, social reality and other psychological phenomena that could have a larger effect on influencing listeners than the potential drawbacks to DBT.

fortunately we each get to listen to cables and other products and buy the ones we want to buy...

mitch2
1,257 posts
06-12-2016 12:42pm
Geoffkait: "I figured it wouldn’t be too long before blind testing raised its ugly head.
"ugly head?"

to which mitch2 replied,

"Geeze Geoff, you can be more creative than pulling that page from your well-worn playbook.

What I don’t understand is how you and others can support the miraculous effects of cables, fuses, wire direction and other minutia, by saying the differences can obviously be heard, but then discount a method that provides listeners the opportunity to judge what sounds best based on the differences they hear, in the absence of other sensory and social influences. When challenged, many say the DBT method is not perfect but then neither is dropping some expensive item, or the "latest and greatest" version of something, into your system and heralding the positive effects without considering cognitive bias, golden halo effects, social reality and other psychological phenomena that could have a larger effect on influencing listeners than the potential drawbacks to DBT."

Please Re-read what I wrote and try not to put words in my mouth. I didn’t discount blind tests. I actually have no problem with blind tests or any other type of tests. But what I’m saying is that naysayers don’t actually DO any blind tests themselves nor do they have any evidence that anyone else has actually done ANY blind tests for cables. Furthermore a blind test or any test is not conclusive of anythung. It’s just a data point. There are so many examples of bad tests, really bad and unscientific tests, that it’s a bit difficult to take seriously anyone who claims that (someone else’s) test proves this or that. And one step further, if the results of a particular test are negative, if differences between cables or whatever are not observed, the results are practically meaningless without context to other tests and can be throw out depending on results of (any) other tests. You know, just like naysayers will claim that the placebo effect or expectation bias MUST be the cause of positive results. ;-)

GK

and there is the bias of wanting the cheaper products to sound better so that we will not have to buy or be tempted to buy the more expensive product...when a friend brings over an expensive cable or tweak I always hope I don't like it...

there seems to be a lot of concern that wealthy audiophiles not be duped...