Why is the snake oil topic closed?

Well for one thing as a serious audio fan that honors science and engineering, it can be kind of embarrassing to be associated with some of the more ridiculous tweaks that some support here. And occasionally it can feel like someone is trying to rip one off.  (I do acknowledge that most tweakers don't push tweaks on others and stick to the "different strokes for different folks" mentality).  

I think it is just a matter of degree:  I'm sure many tweaks have some effect.  Some clearly cannot. Then some are so extreme so as to represent a caricature.  

What is impossible is that a tweak is not measurable but still effective. It's possible instruments are not sensitive enough yet.  But the concept that a tweak would be impossible to ever measure, but still effective, makes no sense.  

It’s nice that you honor science and engineering but surely you must be aware that if nothing else science is full of surprises.BIG SURPRISES! You know, black holes, gravity waves, which by the day, could not (repeat not) be measured for decades and decades.

You don’t know what you don’t know. You may not be familiar the famous expression, anyone who claims to know how quantum physics works probably doesn’t.

jji666

... as a serious audio fan that honors science and engineering, it can be kind of embarrassing to be associated with some of the more ridiculous tweaks that some support here ...

You post here anonymously, and yet are embarrassed by the anonymous posts of others? That really doesn't make any sense, especially from someone who says they honor "science."

Well for one thing as a serious audio fan that honors science and engineering, it can be kind of embarrassing to be associated with some of the more ridiculous tweaks that some support here.

  
Why would you feel embarrassed if you don't believe it? You are not associated with it at that point. I find many of the tweaks don't have efficacy, but personally feel no connection to them what so ever. I enjoy high end home audio, period. You can only be embarrassed or offended if you allow yourself to be. Don't worry about some anonymous person on the internet. There are many more important things in life to be worried about. 

Do You Suffer From the Dunning-Kruger Effect?

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled people make poor decisions and reach erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to recognize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.

You don’t even know enough to realize just how little you know.

"Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."

https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/do-you-suffer-from-the-dunning-kruger-effect--net-22227

Manipulating societies is driven by elevating and empowering the former outside of their cognition that it is being done, and denigrating and degrading the latter ...via similar manipulations... and most importantly...having the former (the enabled illiterate) chase after and defeat the latter. Pure Machiavellian tactics. Practically page one chapter one of the Machiavellian guide to controlling populations.

The scenarios encountered on forums like this show the door is always wide open to use this lever, even if the people be aware of it. Cognitive dissonance driven by desires, fears, and so on. The harder a body is driven the stronger the ego's grip. After all, that's it's job..which is to preserve the body above all else. Thought and cognition that is unedited can happen in the calm times. So control is about disallowing rest and calm times. Which some of you, if you noticed, in the past decade or so... there have been probably dozens of books now that try to get that point through to the people. But..cognitive dissonance intercedes...