the reality is we have spent about $40k and more on cabling for our rooms, do you honestly think we would spend the money
if we couldn’t hear the difference.
Yes.
Of course it’s possible for people to spend large amounts of money on imaginary benefits. How is it not obvious that the amount of money someone spends on something has nothing to do with the verity of the claims? All around the world, every day thousands, millions of people throw money at things driven by false beliefs.
Audiophiles are not excepted from this - in fact high end audio is rife with this kind of thing.
Most people don’t want to spend the money us included
Yes and that is why it matters all the more that the claims should be tested far more carefully! We all would rather not spend $6000 on a cable if a $40 cable will be just as accurate (or more) or audibly indistinguishable. But this can’t be determined with justified confidence using the usual audiophile methods of “put it in the system and do I think I hear a difference?”
That method ignores everything we know about human bias. And the strength of your conviction adds precisely nothing to the justification of your conclusions because...well....that’s how bias works. It can produce life-transforming experiences in people, even when there is nothing at work but the persons own imagination or altering perception.
And it’s also why it’s somewhat dispiriting to think many people will be led to spend thousands of dollars on cables, perhaps unnecessarily, because their high end dealers pronounce confidently on their worth based on poor testing methods.
Again, it’s not my claim that no high end cable can’t or doesn’t sound different or better than an average cable. I’m merely pointing out that most such beliefs have been derived from very poor methods.
But saying this in the typical high end audio forum is like being an atheist crashing a church revival. It’s never received well and it’s hard to bridge the two worlds.