Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
Naysayers argue there is no scientific basis for claims of audible differences in cables, and that listeners who make such claims are experiencing a placebo effect rather than hearing real differences. However, there may be no scientific basis for naysayer's claims about the placebo effect. Can anyone offer proof?
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Proof of the placebo effect? If they aren't hearing real differences, then what are they hearing? People haven't proven that they can hear differences between brands of cables, so one might assume that these percieved audible effects are the result of psychological factors. To some people this is very difficult to assume, and try to attribute this lack of proof to any number of other factors like testing methodolgy, hardware inadequecy, hearing, etc. Most scientific types, however, must assume that people can't hear differences between most cables until its demonstrated. That is the proof you should be focusing on.

Lets say that you devise a listenning test where you tell participants that fancy cable A will play first, and low-grade cable B will play next, and note what they are hearing. But, instead of switching you just leave the same cable in place. You will certainly get positive results from this test with few of the participants stating that the cables are the same. If this isn't "proof," I don't know what you would be willing to accept.


Why is it so difficult to accept the placebo effect? If you look a the overally accuracy of human perception, you will find that it is very easy to fool the senses and for people to fool themselves. Video and audio compression schemes are based heaviliy on fooling your ears and eyes. In some cases 90% of the information is removed, but you can hardly notice. Placebo in medicine can actually produce physical changes in people. Eyewitnesses notoriously inacurrate. People can actually convince themselves that something happened, when it really didn't(false memory syndrome). Your eyes have blindspots, but you don't see them because you brain fills in that missing information without you even knowing it. So, it's not that far fetched to me that people can hear all these different attributes in cables where none exist.