I Just Know It's BS ... But I Have't Tried It Yet

Czarivey,

I have maid the point in an earlier thread -- speculating that cable makers would not be able to identify their own cables in a blind A/B test.

But I am concerned with changes in the sound that are significant enough to change the quality of sound. I can hear very subtle changes to my system. I cannot speak for others.

Our ears hear and deliver the info but its our minds that do comparisons.

So trusting ears alone for comparisons will not work.

This is a fact and should not be hard to accept.

Not only will it not work, but its not even possible to compare two things with ears only.

We each have no choice but to trust our ears (using the tools we are given) but there is no categorical reason why anyone should trust the "ears" of others necessarily. Ears cannot talk. People do. :^)

OF course trust can be earned over time, but it is not owed.

There are at least a couple of issues here -- trusting your own ears and trusting the ears of others. The only ears you can trust are your own because they are yours. No one's ears can decide better than your own. But if you cannot trust them for one reason or another then this is a moot point.

Our ears - to my mind - are the worst of "test instruments" to judge a given system, but it is the only one we have. It takes a long learning curve to come to trust what you hear.
To get there, you must have developed at least some sense for your inner preferences, your emotional state in a given moment as well of course, just to mention two outer factors, the weather condition and the state your electrical grid is in. Apart from that, to listen as objectively as possible, I feel one should strive for the same state of mind, as FREUD told us as desirable, when listening to his patients: A free floating attention, a state of inner calm, wanting nothing, expecting nothing.
Good listening is as difficult as ZEN. (: