Too Much Time On Their Hands

Many, many listening experiments fail to note subtle differences.  There are just too many variables involved that I think get disregarded.

My take is that most listening experiments are done with short audio samples for a relatively short duration, often on a system and room the listeners are not familiar with.  Add the element of pressure that a listener is supposed to hear a difference at that moment, and the whole experience ends up very different than long term (days and weeks) listening to a good system that you’re familiar with in the comfort of your own home.  .

Many, many listening experiments fail to note subtle differences.  There are just too many variables involved that I think get disregarded.

Agreed. There's a genuine impulse toward rigor in this hobby, but executing real experimental methodology is hard — practically and psychologically. You need controlled conditions, blind protocols, statistical thinking about effect sizes, and enough epistemological honesty to sit with uncertainty rather than reach for a verdict. Most people can't or won't do all of that, which is entirely understandable. 

What's less understandable is the confidence that fills the gap. The result is strongly worded claims resting on thin empirical foundations — more heat than light. And I'd add: the cumulative effect is a kind of epistemic degradation, where the *performance* of scientific reasoning gradually substitutes for the thing itself. Forums like this can be genuinely fun and generative, but they also model a debased conception of what evidence and inference actually require.

A cable can't make things sound better. It can make things sound worse if it's faulty or defective.
 

I was fascinated by the test that Roger Russel did at McIntosh with blind compassion with cables. He found no difference in cable material. He even offered the one could use coat hangers. Between 1933-1973 we sold hundreds of thousands of boxes of coat hangers. I would like to try it but would have to silver dodger the ends together. Can’t get silver out of the equation. 😉

check out scientists e.g., physicists' audio gear, they will have the cheapest, most basic cables. Wonder why...

@parkergetdean Nope wrong.......on so many levels. Please post your system....