fuses - the $39 ones or the 85 cent ones

08-20-08: Magfan
I suggest we drop this line. People have many ingrained
prejudi.

Why should we drop this line? It's been a
productive open discussion except for your smug, dogmatic interlopings
touting the junk science of DBT applied to listening
tests.

Am I supposed to be ashamed that I try to bring
a little logic and reason to this discussion?

That's an
arrogant assumption--that you're bringing logic and reason and the rest of
us are just stumbling in the dark without your
"enlightenment." You should be ashamed for being an interloping
troll.

Somebody tell me WHY
audiophiles are afraid of DBTing?

"Afraid"
isn't the word. "Dismissive" or "skeptical" is more like
it, and they're valid conclusions. Double blind testing was formulated for
testing efficacy of medical interventions (mostly medications) versus the
slight boost one might get from the placebo effect. In those cases either the
medication has an effect on the subject under test or it does not. Listening
tests are entirely different. In medication DBT tests, the subject is entirely
passive. No skills are required; results are tested and measured. Not so when
applied to audio. It depends on the subject under test (SUT) having the skill
to discern differences in a high pressure, time-sensitive test for an activity
(listening to music) normally associated with relaxation and non-critical
activity.

No one expects wine tasters to produce meaningful results without proper
orientation and training in the art and procedures of wine tasting. Why would
it be any different for discerning differences in audio.

DBTs applied to untrained, unoriented test subjects in audio is nothing but a
parlor trick to obscure meaningful differences that show up consistently in
other circumstances.

The reality is what you hear and enjoy. A test is simply a CONTRIVED way of
attempting to delineate and quantify those differences. Sometimes it works;
sometimes it doesn't. and if it doesn't. it doesn't prove a damn thing.

>>The only explanation is what you hear with your own ears!!<<

Not coincidentally, you hear what you want to hear.

This is true for all tweaks including rocks, clocks, and other forms of snake oil.

I just elevated one side of my couch and it produced : yes you guessed it Blacker-Blacks and Better-transients in my head.
BTW , you all can use Blacker-blacks expression, I am not planning to patent this audiofool's nugget.

Here's an up-to-the-minute fuse story that even I can't believe. I'd bought a number of HiFi Tuning fuses and heard real improvements, mostly in terms of openness and dynamics (yes, I did before-and-afters -- it's easy with fuses).

So I bought one for my Raysonic CD 128, put it in the unit on Tuesday, heard an immediate increase in clarity, along with a glare/brightness that was NOT an improvement. What the hell. So I let it burn in (a fuse? burn in?) until yesterday afternoon I couldn't stand it anymore and put the stock fuse back in.

Don't try to tell me these things don't make a difference. Unfortunately, not necessarily a positive one. Dave

I'm no scientist, and don't understand the DBT procdures too much. But, if you had two "identical" pieces of equipment, and you switched from one to the other with the listener not knowing which was unit playing (one with $39 fuses, and the other with $1 fuses) would you not expect correctly identfying whether unit A or unit B was playing (forget whether you can decide which is better -that's a different issue) more frequently than random guessing. And if listener after listener was consistently incapable of identifying which unit was playing, would you still argue that the $39 fuse was worth it? I can tell you that I (and I would suggest any listener)could easily pass this type of DBT "test" identifying whether I was listening to my Music Reference amp or Atma-sphere amp. I don't know how much further we can take the argument. There are those think they hear difference, and those that don't; and I don't think it is because those that don't have less acute hearing, or less revealing equipment. Maybe there is a difference, maybe not, but if there is, it is not obvious to my ears - and I do really want to believe that $39 can improve the sound of my system.