The Placebo Effect

Seems to me that we are confusing two separate things. As described above by mahler123, as concerns audio, if the perceived change is real it is obviously not due to Placebo Effect. Whether the change is an improvement or not is a subjective call and is a separate issue.

On a more mundane level, it seems to me that some listeners are simply reluctant to accept the simple fact that some are simply blessed with hearing that is more acute than that of others; or, have developed their hearing acuity by way of training or experience more so than others.

I believe that you eventually get to a place where there is no significant improvement unless you spend 10’s of thousands of dollars. You need to be real with yourself and ask is a 1% improvement really worth another several thousand dollar outlay, or is what you already have sufficient. I have removed myself from the merry go round and now just focus on attaining more lp’s, cd’s, and cassettes. I've spent at least 20k on my system, as much as a new vehicle. Some would say I am nuts, but some here have spent a lot more. 

mahler has it correct:
 "I have definitely had expectation bias, wanting to hear something that is a revelation, and then over time realizing that while the change made made things sound different, but not necessarily better."

-That is exactly what tweeks, cables, etc. do. Then, as in evaluating any component in your system, YOU decide, over time, if it suits your needs and to your liking. I don't think the placebo effect is a correct description because we do the same type of evaluations with all the audio gear, amps, preamps, (tubes - solid state), sources and speakers.

First, I have to get MC’s last sentence out of my system because I can’t stop laughing long enough to type:

“The important thing when pretending to be a serious audiophile is to overthink everything, preferably to the point your thinking becomes indistinguishable from mindlessness.”

Bahahaha! Love that guy.

Ok, phew… One of the biggest challenges in all human thought is that we understand there is some kind of objective reality and that we can, in most cases, consistently measure it; and there’s also the subjective experience of that objective reality that our physical bodies construct, our consciousness experiences, and is very similar but not exactly the same from person to person.

Much of the history of philosophy and science is about trying to determine “where is the line” between the objective and the subjective. In fact, it’s safe to argue wars have been fought over this divide. Consider this thread! Thus the philosophical and scientific fields of Philosophy of Mind, Neuroscience and Behaviorism, and all that flows from them.

What does this mean? It means scientific methods do a good job, in most cases, of quantifying objective reality, but often aren’t able to quantify or describe subjective experience.

What does this mean practically? It means we live in a world where we’re forced to either live in tension between the objective and subjective, and do our best to reconcile that tension, or back ourselves into the limited, lopsided corner of one side or the other and enforce the idea that our side is somehow more “real” or offers a more “truthful” picture of reality.

So: Yes, some reported improvements from cables, fuses, vibration dampeners and such are likely placebo effects. And yes, some reported improvements are likely truly heard and experienced as real, permanent change by the listener.

This isn’t exactly news, if you know what I mean. But I certainly respect the OPs point about the placebo effect.

Finally, we’re not even close to the limits of scientific discovery, and arguing that today’s science has solved everything is like a caveman arguing the world is flat because it’s so obviously the case to him. Who knows what we will discover that becomes a measurable, objective basis for what people say they hear with fuses and BDR cones, etc?

Muon spin, anybody? Quantum entanglement? Oh, so it’s “proven” there’s no free energy available outside the four forces because we haven’t detected anything else yet? Start looking at the list of things the scientific method HASN’T solved and you’ll be amazed; it’s enormous. There’s so much ahead of us to discover!

This is the world we live in. What to choose? Back into some corner and fight, or live in the tension and strive to understand.

Bahahahahaha!! MC!

So: Yes, some reported improvements from cables, fuses, vibration dampeners and such are likely placebo effects

Which can be verified.

And yes, some reported improvements are likely truly heard and experienced as real, permanent change by the listener.

Which could also be verified using the same procedure used to verify the former.

To argue we haven't reached the limits of scientific discovery is far fetched in the context of the placebo effect. We aren't measuring the device but the perceived human response.