Tin Foil Hat Audio

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.
..............................
Then we need to sort out Placebo, Self-Delusion, Beneficial Delusion, Need to Trust ’Experts’ ....
.............................
Measurements and/or Double Blind Tests, Pre-disposed Expectations or Lack of, Group Confirmation ...
............................
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?

Equality is a wonderful quality.  As far as I know it is strictly a math concept.  Therefore, there can be no equality outside of math, read that as "everything makes a difference". So, to be redundant, anything I change in my system makes a difference.  This has been readily apparent to me even as a teenager building crazy multi-speaker systems much to my parents chagrin (it was the 60's).

There is much snake-oil out there.  Your job is to figure out where your particular "sweet spot" is. Cables that are priced at $65K strikes me as well over-the-top.  But, I couldn't care less that someone has a system that shows its not insane to purchase them.  I don't have that system, not sure where I would end up if I had unlimited dollars at my disposal. 

As an aside, I feel some empathy for persons who are constantly evaluating their listening skills as it relates to their system.  Seemingly listening for the "weakness".  Been there, done that, past it.  Now its all about the music to me.  

What a great hobby.

Regards, Barts.  President, Department of Redundancy Department.

These discussions about placebos or snake oil has some limitations of their own in audio experience...To say the least....

First all my methods of controls for the 3 embeddings of my system (mechanical,electrical, and acoustical) are my creation with homemade low cost materials...

Where is the snake oil?

And the placebo or bias explanation dont go all along my road.... No one can explain with that 2 years of listening experiments with various device controls in the same increasing S.Q. direction for the last 2 years...Resulting in a TOTAL transformation of the S.Q. on another level....We dont speak about some new details in sound here, but at the end of my road a complete new S.Q.

It is no more placebos, it is total hallucination, OR by Occam Razor, the most simple explanation:

All audio system are created with a generic design that will be installed in some very particular dimensions pertaining to each different house and which then will need to be rightfully embed in this 3 dimensions...

Plain simple to understand, except by those who dont want to understand anything by reason of omniscience or lazyness....Very easy to verify if someone want to....

Then instead  of hanging on with always the same 2 concepts till the end of times(placebo and snake oil) and instead of being obsessed by others pretenses and experience, be creative and try yourself your own device creations.... If i can anybody can....

Audiophile experience to a very high level can cost peanuts, the rest is myth or marketing....

My best....

     When I booted a schizophrenic roommate, his tinfoil hat was about three inches thick on the sides, and four or more inches on top, which explained why I could never find any aluminum foil, no matter how much I bought.
     He also paid several hundred dollars to line the exteruior walls of his room with a special impregnated plastic looking whatever, at head level, to keep the CIA from controlling his thoughts.
     I suggest you use directional fuses on your hat, and ground it to a water pipe.