Why HiFi Gear Measurements Are Misleading (yes ASR talking to you…)

after all, remember, for 25 odd years scientific researchers assumed that reports of audible meteors were figments of the observer’s imagination!

So...because you can point to something science might have gotten wrong, the lesson is...anything goes? If someone makes a claim that is, on the basis of the current science, outrageous, does the fact science has been wrong at points mean there’s no basis to doubt anti-scientific claims?

See...this is the mushiness of such a position. Perpetual Motion Machines are impossible based on current understanding of physics. Yet someone claiming they know a guy building Perpetual Motion Machines in his basement can also say "Don't be so skeptical!  Remember...science has been wrong before! Remember the meteors!"

Does that for even a moment give more credence to the claim someone is really making Perpetual Motion machines? Of course not. You can’t use anomalies where science got something wrong...which by the way is always corrected by science!...as if science doesn’t really have an excellent grasp on many things.

People are ripped off every day of the year by people selling things with the tag line "It Works! And Maybe Some Day Science Will Catch Up To Our Discovery. They Called Galileo Crazy, Remember!"

The reasonable approach isn’t to believe something dubious "because maybe science got this wrong." It’s rather to wait for solid evidence, if necessary scientific evidence, showing THAT phenomenon is real vs the countless propositions that are false.

Science is always self-correcting. Just look at the things that have been accepted as true, only to be rejected later. It was only recently that we are questioning the general advice that a moderate amount of red wine is actually good for you, to name one example. The meteor analogy is one example of many. But the analogy also points out that we may not be measuring the right things to explain our perception of physical sound waves. I think this is actually the larger point, as science can only measure what we know. Based on my own subjective experiences in this hobby, which admittedly is flawed due to being subjective, I have experienced enough to personally believe that there is far more to learn about how we perceive sound waves, and about how we measure to accurately predict what we will perceive.

If I suddenly saw a ghostly apparition appear (for the record I’ve not seen one), and I wasn’t on any mind altering substances or expecting any sort of psychosis at the time, I’d probably form the belief that ghosts were possibly real, even if science had any proven it. In HiFi, I HAVE experienced the unexplained, albeit subjectively, but this is enough for me to form an opinion that maybe measurements are not sufficient to explain what we are experiencing.

Just to give one recent example to relate to my prior post: Last year I bought a second USB cable (Audioquest Diamond) while I had the original for a few years. The new one sounded inferior. To the degree that I wondered if there was a design change or changes to production. But after a few hundred hours, I could no longer tell them apart. Yet existence of burn-in is endlessly debated.

Another recent example is what I found with length of USB cables, where a Nordost Valhalla 2 2m cable sounded superior to the equivalent 1m cable. Intuitively I would have expected the 1m cable to sound better, as I had not at that time read the theories, to my knowledge unproven, that USB cables should be longer than 1.5m to accommodate “reflections”.

And I don’t know if this one is proven or if people just have theories grounded in science, but the whole anti-vibration/isolation tweaks that really do make a surprising difference. I introduced a friend who is newly into HiFi to Herbie’s Tenderfeet, and he promptly cut up some yoga mats to replicate the benefits himself. He tells me it worked! It’s easy to identify whether the feet were added or removed, at the transition points.

I wonder, would @amir_asr be able to measure the differences I’m hearing, in each of these example cases? Not a rhetorical question; I’m genuinely curious. If the answer is no however, I think the assumption might be that it’s all in my mind. Just like what the researchers said about those hearing meteors, 25 years ago, because they were not measuring the right things or applying the right science to explain our perceptions.

@amir_asr Regarding system assembled on blind test methodology...

You do not have to go so far, you can simply set up system, based on components that you recommend and publish it. It should not be difficult to replicate it and to hear first hand what (for you) represents the ’good’ sound.

I agree that lots of hi fi gear is overpriced and many simply does not sound good, but its the same thing with various different products, cars or ’wonder’ diet pills, or whatever else. But, that is common knowledge and everyone is trying to find the best value for its money, or his needs. Even among people from the same camp, aka the ’subjectivists’ it is often very hard to find consensus for many things. Building a great sounding system is a sort of an art form,put ’wrong’ cable on a ’wrong’ place and its ’arrivederci’ Roma (sound)

In the same time and please dont take this personally, I am surprised that there are people pretentious enough, who are trying to convince others that their choices are the ’right ones’. But, than, why stop only on hi fi? I am sure that there are more interesting challanges, or more noble ones?

As for your ’camp’, the prevalent atmosphere on Asr forum scares me. Or amese me, but not in a nice way. Owning tubes, vinyl, cables, or anything ’expensive’ is potential health hazard if one finds himself surrounded by that bunch. What I really do not undersatnd is why so many people refuse to trust their ears and why so many people need dogmatic ’guidance’ ?

But, silly me. Everything that is happening in our world, on much larger and ominous scale shows us how the mass psychology works. Pity that even a simple hobby, idiosyncratic as it might be, can not be spared of such folies

Just to give one recent example to relate to my prior post: Last year I bought a second USB cable (Audioquest Diamond) while I had the original for a few years. The new one sounded inferior. To the degree that I wondered if there was a design change or changes to production. But after a few hundred hours, I could no longer tell them apart. Yet existence of burn-in is endlessly debated.

Did the cable change or did you change?

Another recent example is what I found with length of USB cables, where a Nordost Valhalla 2 2m cable sounded superior to the equivalent 1m cable. Intuitively I would have expected the 1m cable to sound better, as I had not at that time read the theories, to my knowledge unproven, that USB cables should be longer than 1.5m to accommodate “reflections”.

>1.5 meters is for SPDIF, not USB.