Do equipment stands have an impact on electronics?

agear, I’m not willing to read 11 pages of Stereophile blather. Can you quote the one or two key paragraphs here?

Below is one test that proved people are unable to identify a 44/16 "CD quality" bottleneck inserted into a "high resolution" playback chain. They tested 60 people having an interest in audio and music over a period of one year in 554 separate trials. So it was a serious study indeed with little room for error. This is a for-pay article, but the summary tells the story, and I have the article and can answer any questions about it:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14195

Here’s another, this time with an analog playback chain, from 1984 when even expensive digital convertors weren’t as good as the today’s budget stuff:

http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/bas_speaker/abx_testing2.htm

Its not a hard read Ethan. Anyway, it was a study conducted by Psychologists in Germany looking at blinded listening preferences (both audiophiles and non) comparing an all tubed system fronted by vinyl and an all SS system fronted by digital. People preferred the tube/vinyl rig to a statistically significant degree.

no participant said that the analog system had impaired their sense of well-being, but 16 participants said so of the digital system! This must be one of the most astonishing, and irritating, results of Ackermann's experiment. How can it be that we spend a lot of money on something that makes us feel worse?!
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/god-nuances-page-4#76KVPhAqoldXrRYq.99

Borrowed from bluewolf on another thread:

"Ethan: Master, I would like you to teach me Zen.
Zen Master: I cannot do that.
Ethan: Why not? I will give you gold.
Zen Master: Tea?
Ethan: Sure.

The Zen Master placed a tea cup in front of the Ethan and began pouring until the cup was full, and continued pouring with the tea pouring onto the table.

Ethan: What are you doing? Stop! Are you mad?
Zen Master: This is why I cannot teach you. Your head is full.

Have you ever done tests like this? I have, many times. I wish more people would! Here’s one that plays a very nasty harsh noise under gentle classical music, and then under a synthesizer based pop tune:

http://ethanwiner.com/audibility.html

I first looked at that link 2-3 years ago.

IMO/IME, this is a good example of testing for the wrong thing!!

Done as this test is, it does not reveal the problem. I agree (obviously) that you don't hear the artifacts (**as I stated in my post above**); what you **do** hear is that the sound is brighter and harder than the source, because the ear/brain system converts the "inaudible" artifacts into tonality.

Because the tonality is caused by the ear's perception and not an actual FR error, it does not show up on the bench. Hence the objectivist/subjectivist debate and the need to understand how the ear works.

I'm not sure if you understand this, but its the tonality and the accompanying hardness to which audiophiles object.