Does raising speaker cables off the floor really make a big difference?

@nonoise I'm too naive

Robert Frost proved that both fire and ice will end up with you dead.  That means both snake oil and believers will end up dead.  I guess my choice would be the less painful one or does it even matter - either way you're dead.

Hm ... is there a pill?  Oh ... I just realize ... maybe there's a DSP option.  You take it and you just get a perfect death lols.  

@nonoise

I think there is an awful lot of projection from naysayers as of late. They cling to certain bias diagnosis (from afar) and neglect the ones they fall victim to.

Do you think I am a "naysayer" who fits your description?


If so, could you explain which bias you think I have fallen victim to?

Fear of change can be a large predictor of one’s perception to any manner of topic. The lengths one will go to to remain in their bubbles is astounding.

Human psychology is fascinating, isn’t it?


So lets compare bubbles. :-)


I’ve enjoyed subjective evaluations of audio equipment, and sharing subjective notes between my fellow audiophiles, for over 30 years.I’ve "heard" differences between amps, cables of different types, tweaks (footers under equipment and various others), between CDPs, DACs (and in video, between video cables).


I love the sound of my CJ tube amplification and always go back to it after trying solid state. Never done a "blind test." Even when some "objectivists" think tube amps are silly. I swoon over the sound of my "crazy expensive" (to the average joe), cartridge etc. No talk of blind testing, all subjective.


If you look through my own thread on auditioning speakers:


https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/contemplating-devore-speakers-and-others-long-audition-report...


IIRC, you won’t find any talk of measurements (let alone blind testing). It’s all happily "subjectivist" which is how I engage with my system for 99.9 percent of the time.


On some of the "more objectivist" forums I sometime draw the ire of some in those community for defending many aspects of a subjective approach.


So....I know what the audio subjectivist experience is. I’ve lived it, and still live it.


BUT...


I ALSO am aware of the general features of, and rational for, the scientific empirical method. And I can’t just pretend that audio is magically excepted from the complexities that bedevil any other careful empirical inquiry - especially the unreliability built in to human subjectivity.(And this is something the "blind test naysayers" seem to routinely misunderstand: accepting that human subjectivity is unreliable doesn’t mean "a subjective impression is wrong and due to bias" or "what you think you heard wasn’t real." It only means that in many cases it *could* be error, so it can be hard to unravel the objective facts from the subjective impressions).



When I was hearing differences between various gear and some engineers and science-types were suggesting how I could be imagining the differences, I couldn’t be intellectually dishonest and pretend I’m excepted from any such biases.


So I took myself out of my comfort zone, and REALLY put my powers of perception, and subjective beliefs, to more controlled tests. I followed the prescriptions of the engineers/objectivists to the letter, and tested my own assumptions. And I did this numerous times with various types of gear.


It was sometimes validating, sometimes quite humbling, always eye-opening and a learning exercise.


So now I don’t stay only within my "subjectivist bubble" believing that my own perception is the Ultimate Arbiter Of Truth. I have been face-to-face with challenging my perceptions, and I have owned up to my fallibility. I can see the very good arguments for an objective approach, while I also maintain arguments for the worth of intersubjectivity in audio matters.


And I do not move from my own experience, even blind testing, to claims that therefore YOUR subjective experience is telling you something false.That would be just as unjustified an inference as clinging to the belief that my subjective impressions are never wrong.


So, nonoise,


Have YOU ventured outside your bubble? To what degree have you challenged your beliefs? Have you put your own subjective impressions under any more scrutiny than the usual "If I think I hear it, it’s true?" paradigm? Are you willing to seriously consider the "other side" of the debate when it comes to your own deeply held convictions about audio, for instance that some of your firm subjectively-derived impressions about cables or whatever may be wrong?

I’d throw that question out to anyone else who feels the "naysayers" or those who ever ask for measurements or blind testing are the ones stuck in a bubble.

Cheers.

Nothing beats prof post :-)

^^^^
Much obliged.  :)