I really like Mahgister’s analogy to the athlete working out. Exactly!
In our instant-gratification society, we want to hear our money NOW! "I’m not waiting for this $600 cable to break in, it sounds like a can o’nails! Must be some kind of SO!"
Give cables and components and tweaks time to get their muscles into performance shape.
It’s also important to have our listening "muscles" ready to perform. Unfortunately, listening muscles (cilia) are incredibly fragile. So abuse can result in permanent loss. Imagine what it would be like to go to the gym and work out hard, only to find that you overdid on your left arm and it’s now partially paralyzed for life!
Dr. Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard Medical says medical placebos are 50% as effective as the real meds. Why would you or I criticize a buddy who has used tweaks we consider fake to improve his system? We all do it constantly but perhaps our sense of logic clashes with our sense of hearing to the point that we draw a mental and/or financial line in the sand: "Naw, that can’t possibly work!" "Snake-oil!" And if the tweak works well, others yell "placebo effect!" Experts cited in Kaptchuk’s article have concluded that reacting to a placebo is not proof that a certain treatment doesn’t work, but rather that another, non-pharmacological mechanism may be present.
Now that certainly opens up many possible Pandora’s boxes. Yes, hallucination may be one answer, but in view of our mostly uneducated perspective, how can we automatically dismiss putting anything into our systems? Hell, if I get improved imaging with cherries jubilee under my turntable--who’s calling me out? Isn’t one of the metrics we are talking about using to detect SO dependent on wether or not there is any positive effect?
Tweaking is fun and can be really inexpensive, we see. So let’s lighten up on the unknown and get down on the cherries jubilee.
In our instant-gratification society, we want to hear our money NOW! "I’m not waiting for this $600 cable to break in, it sounds like a can o’nails! Must be some kind of SO!"
Give cables and components and tweaks time to get their muscles into performance shape.
It’s also important to have our listening "muscles" ready to perform. Unfortunately, listening muscles (cilia) are incredibly fragile. So abuse can result in permanent loss. Imagine what it would be like to go to the gym and work out hard, only to find that you overdid on your left arm and it’s now partially paralyzed for life!
Dr. Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard Medical says medical placebos are 50% as effective as the real meds. Why would you or I criticize a buddy who has used tweaks we consider fake to improve his system? We all do it constantly but perhaps our sense of logic clashes with our sense of hearing to the point that we draw a mental and/or financial line in the sand: "Naw, that can’t possibly work!" "Snake-oil!" And if the tweak works well, others yell "placebo effect!" Experts cited in Kaptchuk’s article have concluded that reacting to a placebo is not proof that a certain treatment doesn’t work, but rather that another, non-pharmacological mechanism may be present.
Now that certainly opens up many possible Pandora’s boxes. Yes, hallucination may be one answer, but in view of our mostly uneducated perspective, how can we automatically dismiss putting anything into our systems? Hell, if I get improved imaging with cherries jubilee under my turntable--who’s calling me out? Isn’t one of the metrics we are talking about using to detect SO dependent on wether or not there is any positive effect?
Tweaking is fun and can be really inexpensive, we see. So let’s lighten up on the unknown and get down on the cherries jubilee.