Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
"In my system and in my admittedly biased testing, the cables seemed to have made a difference. As I said before, I don't know if cables actually do make a differences. The difference I perceived may have been due to bias."

Then your advice makes no sense at all. How can your reach any conclusion when there is admitted bias. Furthermore, if you use the rationale that cheap cables might provide some improvement, how can you preclude the possibility that more expensive cables wouldn't provide even greater improvement.

If you take the arguement that only "high resolution" sound systems provide the possibility that an audible improvement would result from improved cables, how do you define high resolution. One audiophiles dream component or dream system is another audiophile's "mid fi." And even among the "select" components chosen by rags like Stereophile Magazine, the number of permutations is virtually limitless.
"Then your advice makes no sense at all. How can your reach any conclusion when there is admitted bias."

It's not clear to me what "advice" he gave. Perhaps you mean he is suggesting it's ok to "try" a few cables. As you point out below, that can't be done at home under proper blind conditions.

However, it seems to me that you and many others miss a critical point. You say he can't reach any "conclusion when there is admitted bias." You apparently mean a "conclusion" that has academic, scientific validity, and in that context I would agree with you.

However, for most audiophiles, the only "conclusion" that matters is the impact a new component or cable has on their own personal experience and enjoyment of their system. You and others seem hell-bent to discourage people from trying these things for themselves even though the results for them might be quite positive simply because there is no "proof" that such enjoyment is the product of anything other than bias.

You seem to me to place scientific rigidity above personal enjoyment. Most audiophiles approach the hobby differently.

You and others love to talk about the 20-plus years of lack of "proof" from the cable companies. However, you fail to mention the 20-plus years of countless audiophiles who have bought and used cables with a high level of satisfaction. One almost never hears any complaint from these consumers, nor do we ever hear of dissatisfaction rising to the level of complaints filed with governmental agencies. I dare say there are not too many product areas about which the same could be said.

It would be interesting, for example, to know how many, if any, complaints have ever been filed with any Better Business Bureau office concerning dissatisfaction with an audio cable purchase. I'm willing to bet there are very, very few.

This of course proves nothing from a scientific standpoint. However, it does prove in my opinion that from a pure human enjoyment standpoint, money spent on cables may be some of the best money spent. The people who spent the money on the whole seem very satisfied with their purchases. They often are prepared to "upgrade" because their prior "upgrades" were so satifying to them.

Rather than complaining about their purchases, they are enjoying them. And people like you would love nothing better than to possess the power of depriving generations of satisfied customers from having had those enjoyable experiences.