Speaker wire is it science or psychology

There is something I wanted to say for a long time (being a musician): there is no scientific evidence that for example a Stradivarius violin sounds better than a study violin. Even violins of exactly the same age, wood, building techniques et cetera can differ enormously in sound (and thus in price)... Nobody - even the builder - can explain this. We have to avoid the temptation of trying to explain everything technically. I am envolved in the organisation of one of the biggest music festivals in the world and it is my experience that it is hardly possible to find out why some instruments sound better in one concert hall than in another. I don't like the pseudo magical terminology often used to prove that cable x sounds better than y. But there is a difference, sure!

Eantala, thanks for pointing out Dunlavy's thoughts on this subject for us, though VERY thoughtprovoking, I find it a little biased and onesided, but then are we not all in one way or antother...and Koen thanks for your post, you should perhaps have added, that these days nobody knows anymore, inspite of CAD etc, how to make a violin, which would have a sound comparative to a Stradivari or Guarnieri for that matter. That knowledge has obviously been lost for good.

Requiescat in pace. This has become audio's version of The
Hundred Years War. There's been very little light but a whole lot of heat generated. (Time to look at some other topics, eh?)

Detlof: I'm not clear on what you're saying. Do you actually listen to two DUTs simultaneously? What was your "blind" testing setup?

Hi Stevemj; ears are connected to brain-- brain does all interpretation (perception) of sound (see your 3/24 post). We all know this-- don't we? I choose to trust my hearing, including perception of such, and my common sense. Respectfully, you seem to want to tie all this up into a tidy scientific package, when personally I think listening to music is much, much more complex and can't be relagated to a neat little "formula" or "procedure".

You (seem to) want to approach selecting wires based solely on science. I want to select wires based on the much more precise, and broader perspective of music appreciation, or "art". I continue to maintain that both are necessary parts of our lives, but I have enough confidence in my own senses that I can select wires without getting too bogged down in engineering. I have strong interests in both art and science. If you value art at all, I think we could get along. Cheers. Craig