my take on blind tests

Hell, my whole system can sound bad to me one week and a few days later it sounds great. So much is due to my mood, my ears, my work week, my Amex bill, the weather. Who knows? I think one's ears are so much more subjective than one's eyes.

that said, I have not done double blind testing but I have heard differences in cables that were immediately apparent; this was in speaker cables mostly and IC cables to a lesser extent, not power cords. I think power cord differences are extremely subtle if they exist at all. But do I buy the aftermarket powercords? You bet. why not it's fun.

One last story, I put new Siltech speaker cables into my system a couple of years ago and put on the first CD to listen. My wife came into the listening room and said "Wow that sounds so much better." I was floored; in all previous upgrades she had never had a strong point of view or was somewhat cynical.

The old "my wife came into the room" anecdotal evidence bit. I'm floored myself. You know what, whatever I put in my system and even when listening to my second system, my wife tells me it all sounds great to her. A pleasant and joyful thing it is to be thankful.

Cables are the biggest rip off in HiFi audio. Been there-done-that, wasted LOTS of $$!

The only blind test I'd be comfortable with would in my own system with music I'm familiar with. Any other method would introduce too many variables.