The Truth About Power Cords and there "Real" Price to Performance

mahgister

When i buy a piece of gear, or evaluate my room, or judge the impact of some modification in my audio system, i dont claim for a universal validity, but i claim and vouch from my own experience and personal history of listening, in my particular room with my particular gear... Reducing that to an A/B/X test is pointless ...

Exactly.

Reducing that complex and very individual and personal history with ABX tests ... is perhaps good for marketting, or engineering technology ...

Exactly. And ABX may have particular value in the engineering and development of a component, where the test is most likely to be conducted in accordance with accepted protocols. But properly organizing and conducting such tests is a tricky business. It's also a tedious and time consuming pursuit that usually doesn't yield much benefit to the audiophile.

I am sure it is not just me that questions the agenda of someone that actively tries to suppress people learning.

Probably the #1 lesson that an audiophile can learn is that they are susceptible to bias. If and audiophile claims they are not, they are likely lying not only to you, but to themselves.

One doesn’t need to do "tedious" testing processes in ones own home. One just needs a friend that switches cables (or lies and tells you that he did), so you don’t know what you are listening to. No huge study design, no exhaustive testing procedures, and the perfect testing system and environment .. your system, your room. Anyone who tells you there is no value in doing a test this way is lying to you.

cleeds2,585 posts11-25-2019 12:11pm Exactly. And ABX may have particular value in the engineering and development of a component, where the test is most likely to be conducted in accordance with accepted protocols. But properly organizing and conducting such tests is a tricky business. It’s also a tedious and time consuming pursuit that usually doesn’t yield much benefit to the audiophile.

Probably the #1 lesson that an audiophile can learn is that they are susceptible to bias.

There is a difference between entertaining illusion, and selling snake oil, and being in a conscious audiophile history of articulate evolutive bias toward this goal: being more happy with our own listening experience ...Most audiophiles exist precisely with this" label name" because they are in a search history, and not in a so-called mission to eliminate all bias, but only the disruptive one for their own history, not the creative one, and this occur in their own personal history of cumulative articulated bias ...We always listen with our bias, but they are the good one and the bad one...

"Listening without bias" is not only impossible, this is the most difficult illusion to erase, a bad one indeed...And this illusion is not only the disease of "audiophile", but of " scientist" also...


By the way you speak like if being an audiophile was a tare or a disease of the mind, most audiophile are conscious that they are susceptible of bias, being audiophile is precisely that, cultivating some bias, eliminating some bias...It is an history or a life...Not a piece of engineering...


Most audiophile want to learn, but no audiophile will erase his own personal history of listening, and exchange that for an "illumination" by some " scientist" ...We must be respectful of facts and persons...

By the way all people vote for the virtue, and all are in favor of tests , blind one also, to eliminating blatent snake oil products, and that goes without saying...This is one thing, but it is another one to attack audiophile personal bias history, and calling that an" illusion".... All illusions are not the same, a rainbow is not a cable in the night perceived to be a serpent...In the kingdom of illusions there is the creative one and the disruptive one...

atdavid

I am sure it is not just me that questions the agenda of someone that actively tries to suppress people learning.

I don’t see any indication that anyone here "tries to suppress" learning. That’s just a silly claim. In fact, there are many users who visit here regularly and share their experiences along with asking questions and responding to the questions of others. So there seems to be quite an appetite for learning here, notwithstanding the noisy minority that thinks it has all the answers.

One doesn’t need to do "tedious" testing processes in ones own home.

Exactly. One can simply listen for pleasure, and make observations accordingly.

One just needs a friend that switches cables (or lies and tells you that he did), so you don’t know what you are listening to. No huge study design, no exhaustive testing procedures, and the perfect testing system and environment .. your system, your room.

What you describe isn’t double-blind and has no control for the tester’s bias. So the results would be essentially useless, and certainly not scientific.

Anyone who tells you there is no value in doing a test this way is lying to you.

There’s no more value to the test you described than there is to the sort of fully sighted tests that you repeatedly assail so passionately.

I’ve participated in a few scientifically controlled listening tests. The trials were conducted by real researchers, not self-appointed audio forum experts. They were tedious - something the organizers cautioned about at the start of the undertaking - and it explains why not all of the subjects who started the test were willing to complete them. Proper, scientifically-controlled listening tests are a time-consuming, laborious undertaking for pretty much everyone involved. Those who claim such tests are simple, fun and easy to conduct have obviously never been responsible for any such test.

Cleeds

I’ve participated in a few scientifically controlled listening tests. The trials were conducted by real researchers, not self-appointed audio forum experts. They were tedious - something the organizers cautioned about at the start of the undertaking - and it explains why not all of the subjects who started the test were willing to complete them. Proper, scientifically-controlled listening tests are a time-consuming, laborious undertaking for pretty much everyone involved. Those who claim such tests are simple, fun and easy to conduct have obviously never been responsible for any such test.

Care to share the results of the test?