Cable "burning": Real or VooDoo ???

I would love to comment, but I am restricted by my own commitment to myself and others here to just say RHUBARB. But perhaps I am allowed to comment on the wine tasting analogy. I have participated in blind tasting tests of wine and they served to prove nothing I didn't already know from many years of tasting wines - they taste different from each other. The thing is, I have learnt a lot from experience of the world without the benefit of blind tests, such as stopping at red traffic lights to avoid collisions (would be interesting to do a blind test on that wouldn't it)? Next time a sexual conquest insists I wear a condom, perhaps I will insist on a blind test first. I will shut up now in quavering fear of the negative votes I will get for the use of sarcasm. But honestly, what a load of RHUBARB that still pervades these debates.

Absolutely Albert - if I boogie better by painting my cables red or my CDs green then I ought to be able to say so here. Good point Detlof, but what appears to happen with these debates is the repetitive tyranny by a few who insist on double blind tests, and then insist again, and then insist again, and then insist again............. whenever a certain set of topics arise. And then they have the gall to argue that their position is valid because electrons are electrons - like that closes the debate? I have said too much again and will return to my pledge to leave these pointless exchanges alone.

In an attempt to add to Albert's well made points. First, in this labour of love I have learnt that faithfulness to the music is not measured well by any of the measures used in electrical engineering. We will all agree that "no distortion of the original signal" is what we want to achieve. But what we find is that most real speakers in real rooms have levels of measured distortion that are an order of magnitude greater than the distortion of a competent amp. And yet, I find that the kind of distortion introduced by an amp does far more damage to my musical enjoyment than do the distortions of most speakers. This may lead on to the conclusion that there are some forms of distortion that are worse than others, or to be more specific, that say 1% of 2nd order harmonic distortion is more benign than 0.1% of 9th order harmonic distortion. And such a finding (albeit subjective) would be very valuable. But this conclusion can only be arrived at by a mixture of measurement and listening. Without the listening part 702, your numbers are just numbers with no meaningful reference point in reality. Without listening, how do you know what level of distortion is acceptable, and how do you know whether that level is more or less acceptable depending on what type of distortion is involved, and how do you know whether a halving of distortion is meaningful or whether it needs to be reduced by an order of magnitude, or just 10%, to be meaningful for a listener. Your numbers create the illusion of some linear relationship, and some ability to sum those numbers, that I believe does not exist for a listener trying to enjoy music in the home - and you cannot prove me wrong on this point - except perhaps by listening. Second, my experience of ABX tests is that people hear the obvious tonal balance differences only, when listening for the short periods involved with ABX testing. But the distortions that cause an audiophile to tear his or her hair out and go on wild binges on the current cable of the month, are those less obvious ones, that emerge from a deeper familiarity, and a growing unease with the music making (or destroying) qualities of a piece of equipment. I would never trust an ABX test to select a piece of equipment - the suggestion is laughable - and maybe Albert has it right, that you just don't have enough listening experience with high-end audio gear to realise how laughable it is.

Hi Sean. I am going to make one "picky point", that is meant to add to your post rather than negate it. And that is that I disagree that the techs have to "renounce" or "dismiss" anything except their assumptions. For a true scientist, all you have to do is accept that there might be more than you currently understand, or that maybe you haven't applied your existing knowledge to what is really going on.

I have two daughters aged 7 and 9, and keep reminding them of a "SECRET". That secret is that the biggest fool in the world is the person that believes he/she knows everything. Beliefs are very useful things to have, but just like the shoes they grow out of so regularly, that they need to always be ready to grow out of their beliefs too.

G'day Detlof, mate.