DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?

geoffkait,

What is it you don’t understand about things that can change the outcome of tests that are outside the control of person or persons performing the test?

Of course! That’s why there are test protocols to reduce the likely influence of confounding factors. Is any test foolproof? Of course not. But it’s silly not to recognize that some test protocols would be better than other test protocols.

Don’t you know someone who is all thumbs?

Ha. Ok geoff, I’ll give you this: you’ve produced a novel level of bad argument against blind testing, the "some people are all thumbs, so blind testing is useless" argument. Maybe we can come up with a catchy acronym?

Besides, there is absolutely no (rpt no) similarity between the medical or pharmaceutical industries and audio,

Except of course that both cases share the same problem that human subjects (and experimenters) introduce the variables of bias and perceptual errors. Which suggests the wisdom in both cases to control for such confounding variables.

But, sure, let’s just accept that the field of high end audio, and human perception in that field, is magically excepted from these concerns.We know this suits certain business models ;-)

Prof I just want to re-enforce your comments on the profit incentive in the bolstering of unsupportable claims. This IS why the FDA steps in in medical claims requiring challenging testing to be a "player". Much is still allowed especially in the non FDA aproved areas. You can bet if someone elses money (well, your money but aggregated) was paying for cables as in medical insurance, this would be a rather different conversation with different stakeholders..But I can certainly agree with those who say "it's MY money and this is friggin' audio!". 
But people should understand the financial incentive by the audio industry to get us to spend all kinds of money on dubious premises. Note I do not include visual and structural aesthetics, bling factors, long durability, company location  or business model etc etc etc as not perfectly valid contributors to buying choices.  But SELLING specifically on fraudulant claims deserves pushback. So this is mine, among many others, including the tireless prof. Thanks.

And yes djones51, welcome, all your thought are entirely resonable and many in this hobby agree but you will be amazed at the efforts and sometimes sadly, vitriol that may be directed at such "heresy". Keep your high water boots handy but enjoy your piece of the audio/music hobby.