stereophile

A comment on things psychological and "Stereophile" from the website of James Randi:

You may be interested in my own personal experience with a phenomenon similar to the ideomotor effect. As a youngster, I was a Hi-Fi nut ââ'¬â€ building all my own equipment. On one occasion I had built what I considered to be the ultimate preamp and decided to give it an A/B test. [Alternating between the two modes being examined.] It was absolutely amazing ââ'¬â€ as I switched back and forth between my old and new preamps I was astounded at the beauty and clarity of the new unit's sound. Imagine my chagrin and embarrassment when I discovered that I had incorrectly wired the A/B switch. It was doing absolutely nothing!
Similar to the ideomotor effect, I was hearing what I wanted to hear. I can laugh about it today, but it taught me more about human psychology than I ever learned in college. This, I believe, is the root cause of the utter tripe and nonsense one can read in Stereophile magazine today (come to think of it, wine rating probably falls into this category as well).

Hi-fi magazines should only be read when (a) it is desired to see what's out there, and (b) in need of a really good laugh.
 
tones said:
Of course, you could be seeing (sort of) what you want to see, Dom. If you can delude yourself aurally, why not visually? Having said that, I've never tried different video cables, but I've tried plenty of audio ones and they don't work.
Click to expand...
might be worth appending "for you" or "IME" on the end?
 
Tones: What about cross-sectional area? Are you saying that makes no difference either? Just out of interest.
Surely if one cable sounds exactly the same as the next, the fact that using a larger cable diameter and lowering the overall resistance path from one component to the next (for example pre and power) and thus being able to deliver more current would make absolutely no difference to the overall presentation, dynamics and such?
Are you using stuff similar to what you get free with technics midi systems then? Black cable, white and red phonos?
As Greg said, maybe it should be in your experience/opinion.
 
greg said:
might be worth appending "for you" or "IME" on the end?
Click to expand...

Not really. It goes without saying; certainly Dom knows me well enough to know that. Note also I was careful to say "could", which of course implies "could not".
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Anex said:
Tones: What about cross-sectional area? Are you saying that makes no difference either? Just out of interest.
Surely if one cable sounds exactly the same as the next, the fact that using a larger cable diameter and lowering the overall resistance path from one component to the next (for example pre and power) and thus being able to deliver more current would make absolutely no difference to the overall presentation, dynamics and such?
Are you using stuff similar to what you get free with technics midi systems then? Black cable, white and red phonos?
As Greg said, maybe it should be in your experience/opinion.
Click to expand...

(a) I don't think cross-sectional area has any effect, provided it's not ridiculously tiny, i.e. actual bell wire. The sorts of currents in your average hi-fi can easily be handled by any reasonable gauge wire.

(b) Yes, I use freebies. I once tested one against a top quality, solid silver IC with gold WBT plugs and they sounded just the same. I once thought that good ICs sounded better, but then I found that they sounded better because I wanted them to sound better. Since then, life has been cheaper, but no less musical. I am a complete sceptic, both by scientific training and experience. I put down some of it in a thread in HFC:

http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=15486

(c) This stuff is always in our opinion/experience, so no real need to say it. The business is completely subjective. I respect people who say they hear a difference in these things. I have always said that, if they heard a difference, they heard a difference, no matter whether that effect was actually physically present or it was pride of ownership, or something like that. It's like an old friend who insisted his drink tasted better from a thin crystal class. To a boring chemist such as myself, it would taste the same from a jam jar, but to him the physical pleasure of a fine glass added to the pleasure and carried over into the taste itself. I think that's the basis of many of these hi-fi tweaks. And if folk like that, good luck to them.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top