Speaker Cables? why all the hype for expensive speaker wire?

@cleeds Thanks for posting that paper!

I myself have heard differences. But for those who tell me it’s snake oil, I had a thought. If I believe them and listen again and then -- voila! -- hear no differences, isn’t it in my self-interest to cut my losses and sell my cables? That seems like the most rational thing to do. So, when I listen again and hear differences, it must be that I’m hearing the differences *despite* my self-interest. That is, it’s objectively there.

Oh, and here’s one more argument from self-interest: if I prefer to think they make a difference, how irrational is this compared to literally any other purchase that gives me pleasure? Anyone who has paid a 3000% markup on a soda at a fast food place has used exactly this reasoning. It’s not irrational. It’s preference-satisfaction.

The experience of hearing a difference between cables is exactly the kind of event which requires scientific experimentation. Saying that an observation, or repeated observations, are "not scientific" does not erase the experience.

Indeed, using "scientific" as a *refutation* of experience actually does harm to science; not only does it disregard experience, it abuses the term "scientific" by making it a conversation-stopper.

The invention of modern science was made possible by taking experience seriously. Read about it. Before then, people looked to Aristotle and Ptolemy for their science. The world was fixed and scientific facts could be deduced. (Aristotle, probably history’s greatest biologists overall, deduced that women had fewer teeth because they were, by definition, inferior to men. He could have counted, but that would have been relying too much on experience.)

Umami was a well defined taste experience for a long time in various cultures. They recognized it, desired it, and even developed recipes to express it.

https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2044-7248-4-13

See the analogy?
Experience first.
Explanation second.

If experience contradicts existing metrics and explanations, then the greatest possible effort must be taken to show why or how the experience is erroneous. Science is conservative -- it seeks to preserve theories which work. But once experience proves obstinate to existing theories, theory must find a way to adapt. If you don’t believe that, tell me why the sun is now at the center of our solar system rather than the earth.

@jjss49 Can the ABX comparator be used to compare girlfriends/boyfriends for longtime placement in the rig that is our life? Because $$'s saved on divorces can buy some pretty nice gear. (Seriously: how good a rig could one buy for the cost, overall, of a divorce? I think we're talking some pretty nice gear.)