We need to sort out the difference between:
REAL Snake Oil (chinese laborers building the railroad used real snake oil to relieve soreness)
HUCKSTER Snake Oil (you can sell urine as Snake Oil to some).
It turns out that there really is a “Barnum Effect” according to psychologists. “There’s a sucker born every minute” (which refers to gullibility and isn’t exactly his quote either), however, wasn’t what I had in mind when I went searching for another famous line often attributed to the circus magnate, P.T. Barnum. Lots of folks, me included, often confuse Barnum as the one who exclaimed, “you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time!” Historians are just as likely to attribute that statement to Abraham Lincoln. Apparently neither one wrote it in their memoirs.
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Then we need to sort out Placebo, Self-Delusion, Beneficial Delusion, Need to Trust ’Experts’ ....
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Measurements and/or Double Blind Tests, Pre-disposed Expectations or Lack of, Group Confirmation ...
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I try to be aware of these factors, i.e. Speaker Wire, small diameter, individually insulated strands: I admit, a big part of it is I CHOSE to believe .... I never said I could hear the difference between zip cord, I’m just happy I found something to believe in that didn’t cost too much.
i.e. My new cartridge, better specs re: channel balance and separation. OK, on paper, but who says I will hear a difference? I doubted it could best my Shure. I’ve been listening to the same variety of test tracks for many many years. It definitely beats the Shure, and the differences are the more rock solid Phantom Center from tighter channel balance and imaging, individual player's distinction, from the greater channel separation.
I KNOW this!!!
This is separate from Stylus shape, or shaft material, and I wonder, as the suspension ages, will these change?
