The new Synergistic Research BLUE fuses ....

Oh geeze, threads like this, especially the OP, make me embarrassed for this hobby.

No wonder audiophiles have the reputation we do.

uberwaltz,

It should be one of those self explanatory comments...depending on the reader.

If I have to explain it to you, then I’m not talking TO you.

I’m talking ABOUT you ;-)

Frank,

Someone else with an ax to grind? And ... what is that reputation, exactly?

Are you seriously unaware of the nutty reputation audiophiles have for having wacky beliefs about tweaks etc?  I can't be bringing this up to you for the first time, can I?

Audiophile fuses, and especially the effusive subjective claims of the OP, are of a piece with markers on CDs, tinfoil pieces placed around a system, little "resonating" discs placed on components or around a room, and the countless other dubious beliefs held by many audiophiles.

When you rely on the really poor protocols that many audiophiles use to declare sonic differences, it's not surprising that virtually anything can be claimed to have made a sonic difference. 

But, go ahead and spend away on audiophile fuses if you want.  It's your dime, your game.

I'm an audiophile insofar as I love high end audio.  But it's also sometimes frustrating to be associated with a hobby that also comes in for so much well deserved ridicule. 

uberwaltz,

Your question is like "how do you know magnetic bracelets don't work in healing people don't work if you haven't tried it?"

Just as a magnetic bracelet is based on medical claims that have no main-stream medical backing and the "evidence" is of the unreliable personal anecdote variety, it's the same with audiophile fuses.

As far as I know...and I'm happy to be corrected...the claim that introducing an audiophile grade fues in place of (a competently implemented) existing fuse in a component will alter the sound doesn't have backing by electrical engineers.  Certainly I've seen electrical engineers - the ones who don't have an investment in selling audiophile fuses - saying it's nonsense.

Further, my skepticism is based both on my own experience, and in understanding the reasoning for why the scientific method exists.

I am well aware how fallible human perception is - there's a ton of science showing this.  And my own blind tests have given me personal acquaintance with just how easy it is to think I perceive a sonic difference that isn't really there.

If there are measurements showing the output of a competently designed component actually changes with the introduction of an audiophile fuse...I'm not aware of it.  But I'd appreciate a link if you have one.

But the talk of "200 hour break in" of a fuse is, I'm sorry, tin-foil-hat territory.  And the method the OP used to determine the amazing sonic effects of these fuses is indistinguishable from those used to determine coloring or demagtezing CDs, or little resonating discs, "change" the sound, which electrical engineers (who aren't trying to sell these products) will explain as nonsense.

@nonoise

I think your posts are pretty representative of what is so often termed the "subjectivist" side of not only audio, but any number of hobbies or pursuits. It’s an incredible confidence in your own subjective assessments, despite all the evidence we have for how bias works.

It IS understandable. I get it. Our own experience is the primary way we navigate the world. If we can’t rely on our experience...what can we rely on, right?

Problem is, life just isn’t that easy. Science was a long, hard won education for humanity, to get people willing to challenge their own perception and experiences, test them, put them up for scrutiny, and accept when they are wrong. It’s really hard to do, and most people just don’t want to, especially when a particular set of experiences is really pleasurable, or meaningful...like the buzz of a new piece of gear making an "improvement" to your system.

For anyone out of left field to come into my world and tell me I can’t possibly trust what I hear gives me the creeps. Plain and simple.

That’s only because you don’t seem to understand, or care about, the problems of human bias. What in the world is "creepy" about simply admitting you are fallible?

My son was in a trial for a new drug to treat peanut allergies. It gathered over 500 people who were severely allergic to peanuts to be part of the study. The study was run in the "gold standard" way, double blind, with a control group on a placebo, the others getting the "real drug." The drug consisted of ever increasing amounts of peanut protein to get the allergic person’s system more and more tolerant to peanut protein over time. The control/placebo group got mere flour that looked exactly the same. Again...neither the doctors nor the subjects ever knew if they were getting a placebo or the real peanut protein.

The study finished after 6 months and blood/skin tests were taken to measure all the immune markers for allergy, and compared to the tests taken before the subjects began the study. It was a huge success. Those like my son who were on the real peanut protein showed huge differences in peanut tolerance at the end of the study. Where once the teeniest bit of peanut put him in the hospital, now he was eating a peanut a day no problem.

But here’s the thing. During the study, everyone had a symptom diary and reported into the clinic every two weeks for updosing. Numerous subjects on the placebo ALSO reported similar symptoms to those who were actually taking the peanut dose: scratchy throat, itching, stomach upset, nausea, etc. In fact, during the study the clinic doctors would try to guess who was on placebo and who was on peanut protein and the kept track of their guesses, inferring from the reports of symptoms among the study group. It turned out they were wrong 50 percent of the time! Almost always simply guessing!

In other words, the power of placebo and expectation etc is so strong that merely taking what people THOUGHT was something they were allergic to, or even COULD be taking, was enough to bring on subjective symptoms.

This is why studies are run the way they are, with the controls of the doctors not knowing who is on the drug (so they don’t influence the outcome) and the patients don’t know, with a placebo control group.
Then at the end if they are evaluating what type of symptoms to expect from this treatment (and results) they results of the real drug effects can rise above the "noise" of the effects shared between the placebo and non-placebo group. It helps them discern what are "real" effects from the drug from the merely subjective effects that come from simply taking a new pill, or thinking you are taking the drug. If they only gave the drug to everyone, they would not know to what degree symptoms from the treatment were likely psychological expectation brought on simply by being given a pill, vs physical symptoms actually caused by the drug. THAT’s why it’s so important to control for human bias when you really want to understand what is going on.

So my question to you is: do you think science has got all this stuff wrong? That all these strenuous attempts to control for variables is wasted time and they should just give a drug and ask someone if they feel better? Would you, if you were in the study say "I don’t need all those controls. We can trust my subjective reports for accuracy?"

I’d like to know your answer, though I’m first going with the presumption that you actually accept the validity of the scientific method.

The question left then is: why in the world do you think bias is going to be a big problem that requires controlling for in so many areas of human study...but somehow YOU and other audiophiles are immune to it, and can simply trust your subjective impressions as veridical and accurate?Why this strange exception for audio...as if bias effects wouldn’t operate in that domain of our perception?  (It does, it’s provable).

Hearing tests are a form of blind testing what range of tones you can hear.  Would you actually dispute the results of your hearing test and say "I don't care what you say, I believe I can hear above 20 Hz and so that's a fact!" ?

As I said, most people accept science...for other people. But if it comes to putting their own subjective experiences under the microscope, suddenly science doesn’t apply to them and "You can’t tell me I can’t trust my own perception!"

And should anyone point out that, sorry, you, me, all of us are fallible in our perception then it’s the person pointing this out who gets shouted down and often insulted. People are just so emotionally attached to their own subjectivity...that’s what you get.

@uberwaltz,

And before you ask, yes I AM a working EE but do NOT believe that science has the answer for everything or can explain all.

I’m glad to hear you are an EE, but you should know that is no protection from fooling yourself.

The whole insight of the scientific enterprise is how easy we are to fool, no matter how earnest. Remember the always relevant Richard Feynman quote: "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool."

This is why a good scientist employs the type of double-checking protocols like blind/double-blind testing, scrutiny by others trying to prove you wrong, replicatability /predictability of experiments, reduction of variables, etc. A scientist is just as easy to fool through bias and loose protocols as anyone else.

This is why simply being an EE is no firewall against your own susceptibility to bias effects.

@nonoise

Have you seen the video or read the posting of PS Audio’s Paul McGowan stating that fuses do make a difference though he can’t explain why?

Yes I have seen it. (Recently, in fact). And it is an example of exactly what I said to uberwaltz. McGowan’s experience making audio equipment in no way insulates him from the very same bias issues that affect any other human. Insofar as he "tests" for sonic differences with lax protocol, of the anecdotal kind he describe in "hearing" the sonic difference between fuses, he is a susceptible to flawed inferences like any other person. Thus his saying "I heard a difference" is no different than any other audiophile saying the same, given the same unreliable method was used to make this inference.

All tweaks can’t be conflated. If you’ve been following this thread, someone made an audio waveform copy of the same system with two different power conditioners and there was more info on one than the other. That slight trace of sound was distinguishable enough to recognize the music being played and it added to it, for the better.

Fascinating. I did not see that in this very long thread. Would you have a link?

Note that this type of evidence is conspicuously missing for the vast majority of audiophile tweaks I’m talking about, including most AC cable claims.

So I would like to see the evidence you mention. And of course, even if there is a variation, the question remains open as to whether it amounted to an audible difference, and if the test for this was sighted...well...that just keeps it in the realm of problematic that I’m talking about.

@nonnoise,

I’ve gone back several pages. Haven’t found the link yet but have noticed the test has already come in for some sensible sounding skepticism and critique by other members. I’ll find the link when I have more time.

And, you seem to forget that Paul McGowan had no idea what his friend was replacing as he put the new fuse in and took it out. All he heard was the sound getting better, then worse, then better, then worse. It was only afterwards, that his friend told him all he did was replace the fuse.

Nope, I didn’t forget that. You are, like many audiophiles, under a misapprehension about how bias works. Bias doesn’t operate only in one sense - only hearing a difference if you think there will be a difference. It happens even if you don’t expect to hear a difference. Why? Because even if you *think* you are comparing one thing to another even that can produce false results. This is why you can tell someone to judge between cable A and cable B, and even if you don’t even actually switch cables (only ever play cable A), people will often enough still report hearing a "difference" when you "switch."
(And this is one reason why in blind testing you randomize switching - and you can see this effect show up in the scoring of cable differences).

I experienced this myself several times, thinking I was hearing sonic differences that I didn’t expect to hear when I switched something in my system - e.g. an AC cable, a digital server, etc. But blind testing showed I couldn’t in fact actually note any difference once I didn’t know which was playing.

This is why the very common refrain "I wasn’t expecting a difference, but I experienced it anyway, so it COULDN’T have been placebo/bias effect" simply gets things wrong. But it’s a pervasive myth nonetheless.

@tommylion,

Is there anything more subjective than one’s personal perception of, response to, and enjoyment of music? Given that, it makes perfect sense to evaluate the equipment used to reproduce music for one’s own enjoyment in a subjective manner.

You are mixing up two subjects: the subjective evaluation of music with objective facts or claims about what is audible or not. What you can or can’t hear is an objective fact. That’s why we have things like "hearing tests." You can claim you swoon to the sound of a 19K tone, but if you can’t identify when a 19K tone is playing in a blind hearing test, you can’t hear it.

Also, subjective opinions, emotional reactions, preferences etc can also be studied: they are every day.

You can even in principle (and in practice) find out if you even have an accurate grasp of YOUR OWN preferences. For instance, if you think you tend to like the sound of X speaker design over Y speaker design, you can do a blind test to see if, in fact, listening only to the sound, you actually end up picking X speaker as more preferable. People have often enough been surprised in such tests (see the work of Floyd Toole and others...)

Cheers.

geoffkait,

You are an interesting character .

I still appreciate your input into my crazy turntable isolation thread.  And I thought I'd maybe figured you out, peeked beneath the curtain to see how you were having fun.  But now I'm not so sure ;-)

@nonoise

But when it comes to expectation bias, I don’t see how it applies here as I never know what to expect. I’m not looking for a big improvement. I wait, listen, evaluate, and proceed, keep it or return it.

Again...this way of thinking simply doesn’t take into account how bias actually works. Which I’d already explained.

Kind of sciencey, wouldn’t you say?

Not at all. You aren’t taking into the account important variables such as bias and the fallibility of your perception.
Perceptually, even if you don’t have any expectation either way, if you are even listening for differences, it can result in you perceiving "surprising" differences that don’t actually exist.

And you don’t even have to be necessarily looking for a difference. Our perception alters at different times for all sorts of different reasons, so we may suddenly "hear" a difference we didn’t expect, then wonder "what caused that difference?" and find something to attribute it to. "Hey, I replaced the caps in my amp a few days ago, I guess that’s the cause!"

It’s just how humans work - we look for cause and effect, but we are often wrong.

(I've mentioned before that I recently changed my music sever/streamer.  I had no expectations at all for any sonic change but...out of "nowhere" when I was listening I perceived a change in my system, it sounded distinctly more pinched and brighter than I ever remembered.  The only thing I'd changed recently was my server so, naturally, I wondered "could that be the cause of what I'm perceiving?" 

So I had a friend help me do a blind shoot out between my old and new server.  Results: I could not hear a bit of difference between them.  So...my natural inclination to assign causation to the new server, as understandable as it may be, was wrong.   And, funny thing, since doing that test I don't even perceive this difference any more.  My system sounds like it always did.

But if I only had the mindset of the subjectivist I would no doubt have taken on the new belief that my new music server altered the sound.  (And I may well have spent more money trying to "solve" a problem that wasn't there, adding more subjective-based tweaks or a new server).

I feel for your son and what you and your family went through but the medical analogy isn’t a good one. The times frames are so far off as to make them non comparative.

That doesn’t make sense. Human bias and errors of perception occur over any range of time you want to mention. And in the study, someone takes a pill and...usually...symptoms occur shortly after - placebo or otherwise. And they report this. How is that "time frame" off or not relevant? (Symptoms are also reported over longer periods of time - days, weeks, so the span between "immediate" and over time is covered in the type of placebo/bias effects I’ve referenced).

As for hearing above what my hearing test says is impossible, don’t forget harmonic overtones (ask any pipe organ fitter).

If you fail to detect a tone above 20Hz in a hearing test...you’ve failed to provide evidence you can hear above 20Hz.

If you want to say "but I can hear overtones above 20Hz when added to tones below that" then, again, that could be tested for. And if you fail to reliably detect these added above 20Hz overtornes, you’d have no basis for claiming you can hear them.

Add in a super tweeter and all those harmonics that can’t be heard suddenly change the event for the better.

How was this determined? The same way audiophile fuses and AC cables are evaluated, by sighted listening? If so, your claim begs the question. But if it is determined that you can hear overtones above 20K by careful evaluation of measurements and testing human perception, then that just makes my point about the relevance of controlled tests.

Add in a sub and suddenly you have presence that you can’t hear but feel and even sense, before you can feel.

Sure, but it’s well known and tested that human hearing extends to subwoofer territory. If you can, in fact, hear when a subwoofer is on or off...that would be easily testable in blind testing (and human low frequency perception has been tested this way).

So where are similarly controlled tests that would suggest the audibility of audiophile fuses, much less expensive power cables etc? (The link you mentioned earlier was an interesting start, but again, doesn’t seem to easily survive some of the scrutiny I’ve seen).

So, no, I don’t think science has it all wrong and I honestly don’t see how you could come to that conclusion simply because I can hear the difference a fuse makes,

My point isn’t really that you think science has it all wrong. As I said, people think science is great for other things...but just not for showing their own beloved perception to be in error.

You seem to be making this type of exception for your own senses, and the confidence you place in your own subjective assessment....when there is so much science showing why you should be more skeptical.

Thanks, and cheers!

@clearthink,

Another assertion of the same claim without an argument.

How could I have predicted that? ;-)

@clearthink,

"It’s not LIKE religion it IS actually an actual religion ..."

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. It’s one thing to lazily toss around the term "religion" as a slag, it’s another to actually produce an argument that what folks like me propose is akin to religion.

I am espousing simple empirical principles of inquiry. How exactly does a stance that asks us to recognize our own fallibility, asks us to be willing to scrutinize cherished beliefs or assumptions for error, and seek ways to weed out error for greater reliability of results....and to always be ready to have our beliefs modified or changed by good evidence...amount to anything like the dogma of religions?

It doesn’t. It’s the opposite, in fact.  It's an anti-dogmatic stance.  I'd happily change my mind about AC cables or whatever if there was good evidence they alter the sound of a system.  Pure subjectivist-type audiophiles on the other hand, seem unwilling to admit their own fallibility - "you can't tell ME what I heard or didn't hear!."  All the evidence of how they could be fooling themselves is waved off as not relevant to their own inviolable perceptual tools.  It's a dogma about the their own subjectivity.

You can throw around words all you like in an emotional reaction, but actually producing an argument to take your claims seriously is another thing.

nonoise,

That’s pretty much a typical reaction from folks who just don’t want to admit their own perceptions could be in error.

And, no, the typical tossing of the word "religious" doesn’t stick. It’s an anti-dogmatic stance where we simply acknowledge the truth of our own fallibility, and are willing to challenge our own beliefs and perceptions.
It is dogmatic and hubristic to think one’s own perception is the Ultimate Arbiter of reality, operating above all the errors to which we know human perception and judgement is susceptible.

Do you think it "too rigid" that I, for instance, wanted to actually try to discover whether my new music server was the source of my perception? And to do so in a way I knew would reduce the type of variables I wanted to rule out? What do you have against seeking such knowledge?

That is a really weird stance to take.

Just. Try. A. Fuse.

Why?

Why would I do that unless the claim that a fuse changes the sound first seems plausible and has some sound technical basis and evidence behind it? And if the jury seems to be out on that, and I’ve seen EEs comment that it’s an implausible claim. And if the claim is being demonstrated by the same way every other implausible audiophile tweak is demonstrated - audiophiles simply claiming "I heard a difference!" - why would I think THIS tweak is different?

I’m not declaring fuses can’t make an audible difference. Only that the type of evidence for this claim is far too wanting to compel me to spend time or money on it.

nonoise,

sure it does---a flat out denial without true benefit of debunking amounts to just another load of hooey

Strawman.

Nowhere have I voiced any flat out denial. In fact I wrote:

"I’m not declaring fuses can’t make an audible difference. Only that the type of evidence for this claim is far too wanting to compel me to spend time or money on it. "

As for your music server, how long did you listen to it before deciding it sounded the same as your previous one?

I think about a week.

Listening over the long haul is the only way to correctly ascertain it.

That’s a very common claim. But it doesn’t actually hold up to scrutiny. Especially to the degree it is used to dismiss blind testing.

I work in post production sound. I am recording and altering sound all day long (Pro Tools). Often minute changes in EQ, loudness, pitch, etc.Especially if we are talking subtle differences in a sound, being able to direct ly compare them, switch back and forth, is MUCH more efficacious in aiding the perception of these difference than extending the time between the changes.

Let me ask you: If I took a sound - a voice or whatever - made two versions, and increased the second version’s volume by 2db, or increased via EQ some part of the frequency by 2dB, in which scenario do you think it more likely you’d be able to detect the difference:

1. Being able to switch back and forth between both sounds as you require, right now.

or:

2. Listening to one sound, and coming back a week later to hear the other one?

In other words...just how good to you actually think your acoustic memory is?

In blind testing you set it up so you can switch as quickly as you like between two sources to spot a difference. The idea that extending the time frame of reference is necessary, and that weeks or a month later you can be listening to your new tweak or source or whatever and say "Ah, I can hear the difference between this and when I had the other unit in a month ago!" is....well...it’s not very reasonable, especially in terms of what we know about acoustic memory. (It’s not that you *couldn’t possibly* hear a sonic difference over such time - if it’s big enough that’s possible. But to think that it is MORE conducive to detecting subtle sonic differences is another matter entirely).

Again, I manipulate sound all day long. If hearing subtle sonic differences when a sound file is altered actually required weeks of "getting acquainted" with the sound of that file, we sound designers couldn’t even do our job! But audiophiles like to make up whatever principles they need to cling on to not testing their beliefs.

another purposely misleading statement that requires one to accept that all other implausible tweaks are done by the same people for the same reason

Nope. I said all the other implausible audiophile tweaks, by which I refer to those for which dubious and highly disputed (by people in the relevant fields) claims are made. So there is an initial reason for skepticism...and then the rest of the support for the tweak comes from sighted tests.
I don’t care about the reasons any of these are done; so long as a tweak has those characteristics, my skepticism is warranted.

Have you read/seen this article: Scientific Proof Is A Myth?

Yes. I’ve been interested in the philosophy of science for a long time and
any scientist can tell you science doesn’t deal in "proofs" strictly speaking. Which is why you never saw any such claim from me.

Cheers.

nonoise,

There are a huge number of audiophile tweaks out there, why would I be compelled to single out this one to take my time testing?  And I'm not an EE, and also don't have easy access to testing equipment.  So, like anything else, whether it's tests of car performance/mileage or whatever, I look to relevant experts with the test equipment to do these things, and from my layman's vantage point, note who makes claims and why, and who disputes them and why, and their relevant expertise.   And also understanding the basics of the scientific method helps me identify when someone is appealing to an unreliable methodology.

To the extent it's useful or I care to, I will use blind testing in my own decisions. 

But it's not accurate to think I'm some absolutist about all this, as if I'm saying we all have to blind test everything we do.  Hardly.  That's utterly impractical!  I have been into high end audio for most of my life and I have had many things in my system I don't bother blind testing.  Even some tweaky stuff.  For instance, I wrote a long thread detailing my attempts to build an isolated platform for my new turntable.  That definitely took me deep in to tweaky areas.   I did my best to satisfy the side of me that likes to see some objective evidence, so I used some basic seismometer apps and other methods to ascertain any drops in resonance.  

And I use tube amps....hardly the stuff of Hard Core Engineer Objectivists who want strict accuracy. 

The issue arises when it comes to making claims, or the general level of confidence that is warranted in a belief.  What if any of the steps I took actually had an audible impact on my new turntable?  The honest answer is: I don't know.  I could measure differences in the vibration transfer with and without the new platform.  But did this change the output of my system?  It's too cumbersome to possibly blind test, but hey....no big deal. I'm not trying to please anyone else but myself.  And doing all that work scratched a theoretical "itch" and was also fun and satisfying.

But I'm not going to go declaring that I COMPLETELY CHANGED THE SOUND OF MY SYSTEM AND ANYONE WHO CAN'T HEAR THIS HAS EARS MADE OF CLOTH!  

If anyone cast a skeptical eye on my methods I'd simply say "Yup, I can see the warrant for the skepticism.  I agree I don't have a solid basis for presuming any sonic changes occured." 

I find it no problem to admit my fallibility, and when I really don't have a high level of evidence and confidence in something.  But should it be suggested to other people "hey, maybe you could be wrong...not ARE wrong...but could be wrong, like I've been before, and like science tells us to look out for..." then their reaction is to get upset, cast aspersions at anyone daring to challenge their experience as the Final Arbiter Of Truth!

uberwaltz,

Have I insisted at any point that it is impossible that anyone can hear the difference between fuses?

No.  Of course not.

And yet my posts have come under invective, emotional replies, strawmen claims of absolutism and religiosity, etc.

So, no, I don't have it the wrong way around.  Simply suggesting that the pro-fuse crowd's perception *could* be in error (based on well known science about human bias) is enough for many in that crowd to double down and cast aspersions at the temerity in questioning their experience.  

fleschler,

Directionality change in fusing is obvious to me (and to my friends). There is no "subtlety" in the difference. I don’t give a rat’s ass why.

Well if you remain so incurious and don’t give a rat’s ass about understanding the phenomenon...which would include the variable of human perception....I guess there isn’t much to discuss.

So...uh...thanks for the contribution?

@jay23,

Do you blind test the changes?

First, please see my recent reply to nonoise where I expand on my view of blind testing.

We can not blind test everything, that’s entirely impractical. So a reasonable heuristic is that when you *really* want to be careful about understanding a phenomenon, or when it comes to claims that are in any way extraordinary, to the degree they are not backed by a consensus of people in the relevant field of expertise for instance - if these are areas in question - then waiting for more evidence based on appropriate controls is reasonable.

So why aren’t we having this discussion about the possible audibility between speakers?

Because virtually no relevant experts in the field of audio engineering, human perception etc, dispute that speakers sound different. Different designs produce easily measurable changes in the signals that reach our ears, and they fall within the scope of difference well known (and studied) to be audible.

That’s not the case with, say, boutique audiophile AC cables, or audiophile fuses, etc. What you have there is for the most part anecdote.

The type of sonic changes I make to my sounds fall well within known parameters of audibility. Usually for instance I’m boosting a sound a minimum of 3dB.

Back to my view of the audiophile fuse issue: I’m not saying an audiophile fuses can make no sonic difference. (People throw up strawmen like that when they are too emotional to give a more reasoned response to what I actually write).

I don’t know if a fuse can make a difference or not.

What I do know:

1. It’s an area of dispute among people more knowledgeable about electronics than I am. So that’s a red flag.

2. Therefore I’m left only with the usual anecdotal claims by audiophiles that the tweak "clearly made a difference in my system!" But the problem is that exact claim is made, using the same method of "just put it in your system and try!" that lead people to claim "everything makes a difference" from markers on CDs, to ringing discs to all manner of tweaks that have little basis in sound science. In fact just this appeal to simply "trusting my experience" is used in support of every single far out claim you can name, from faith healing, to psychic powers, to every single dubious nostrum anyone has ever peddled.  That's a problem.

So....I have reasons to be cautious about accepting the claims about audiophile fuses. And little about the audiophile fuse phenomenon rises above the rest of the audiophile tweakerverse....so I don’t see any reason to spend time on this tweak vs any other.

But...simply point out the scientific facts about human fallibility, note that I am fallible and have been shown wrong, and that we are all fallible and can make mistakes in our perception, and this seems to send some people into fits. It’s pretty odd.

No prob uberwaltz, perfectly understood.

Admittedly being a bit of a philosophy junkie I'm used to extensively defending a position - not a claim of any competence on my part! - so best you don't get dragged in to that :-)

I've had both the Oppo UHD player and the Panasonic UHD player in their box for the last year, still trying to decide which one to use! (For my home theater, which will require effort to re-wire for UHD signals...hence my laziness).

R.I.P Oppo....

Thanks nonoise, same to you.  I'm not trying to tell you or anyone what to buy or why.  I wouldn't care for someone else telling me what to buy.  To each his own.  I'm simply explaining my own position and rational for adjudicating what gear will get my interest or not.

jay23,

Ouch! Keepin' it classy, huh?

I have some skepticism about audiophile fuses.

So any production that works with me must be suffering.

A trajectory of reasoning only an audiophile truly passionate about fuses could muster.  Thanks for that.  ;-)

ivan,

That was indeed a passionate paean to faith over seeking knowledge.
Clearthink's endorsement certainly makes sense, given the character of his previous replies.

Remember boys:  Stay away from that Tree!

;-)

This has been a revealing thread! I don’t think I’ve ever before seen some audiophiles make such an explicit association between the adherence to subjectivity in this hobby and religious belief.

The hymns have been sung, the hands clasped, the wagons of Faith circled.

So I offer a view from the other side.

Ivan’s post was simply ludicrous.

It was, as is so often the case, a feigned pious humility leveraged to disparage the character of other people. As if simply intoning one is a Christian is a sign of humility, while in fact the whole thrust of the post puts himself on a pedestal above the poor lost souls he’s slagging.

I have voiced some skepticism about tweaks like the fuses, and have given my reasons. But nowhere have I made any close-minded absolutist claims like "they don’t or can’t make a difference," nor have I told anyone to go blind testing whatever they buy, as I don’t do that myself. As I’ve said to each his own. I’ve explained that I come to my skepticism also based on acquaintance with the fallibility of my own perception (as revealed when I’ve done blind tests). Which mirrors the fallibility well documented by scientific studies of human bias. I’m of course willing to drop my doubts with better evidence.

This is about as anti absolutist or dogmatic as one could get.

But for giving the reasons for my own doubts...the response has been so often to cast aspersion on my character, rather than directly interact with my arguments.

Ivan’s post was simply a ridiculous strawman dragged through the mud.
People who voice their skepticism about the things he believes are depicted, from his enlightened perch, as being childish, lost souls, wallowing in the mud, raging and demanding, selfish (with even thinly veiled allusions to the damned).

Get over yourself, Ivan.

I’m not selfishly "demanding" anyone do anything. Asking for good evidence for a claim isn’t selfish or a sin (except perhaps in your faith)...in normal life, it’s being sensible and adult, rather than just believing any claim that comes along no matter how much enthusiasm is behind it.

You claim that you are open to seeking the truth. What exactly have I said that was not consonant with seeking the truth? I have said the sonic benefits of fuses (and AC cords) were a subject of controversy, vs a widely accepted phenomenon. That’s true. When the inevitable anecdotes are given - "I heard a difference" - I have pointed out that there are variables in there. We humans have all sorts of biases that can influence the results, which means we can, and often are, mistaken in our subjective assessments (e.g. in audio, hear changes when no changes are there). This is a well documented TRUTH about human perception. Testable by anyone here.

If you are, as you claim, about seeking truth...exactly how are you accounting for the truths about human bias in your own assessments? If you reject the data on human bias, please don’t tell me you are about truth. But if you accept it, then my bringing it in to the discussion IS caring about truth. If you KNOW the ways you may be mistaken due to bias effects but don’t care...why would YOU get to portray yourself as more interested in truth than the "skeptic" who worries about his own and other’s bias? For my part, to the degree I don’t bother controlling for bias in my own assessments, I at least mitigate my own claims and confidence about the results. How is that NOT being careful about the truth?

But instead of actually dealing with the reasoning I’ve given, you make it easy on yourself using religious analogy to paint a completely false characterization and slag folks like me as lost, selfish children.

This isn’t "beautiful" or insightful. It’s cowardly and uncharitable, and should be beneath any mature adult.

Those of us who have voiced skepticism about certain elements of high end audio are just as passionate about this hobby as you are. We just happen to have our own viewpoint to express.

Those of you patting Ivan and yourselves on the back for his complete strawmanning and fake pious humility - with "amens," - I hope you can pause for a moment and re-consider the wisdom of falling in line with that type of lazy character attack. Wrapping insults in the warm quilt of "faith-talk" shouldn’t so easily blind you to what was actually going on.

Hi oregonpap.

The thing is I've obviously been one of the more prominent skeptics in the last part of this thread.   If ivan did not mean to impune me as well, he could have been gracious enough to do so. 

Instead he produced a lazy post that splattered mud everywhere.

A lot of people who produce those type of insulting posts use and excuse like "Hey, I wasn't naming anyone...and if YOU responded I guess you must think it's about yourself, so that's on you!"

(I would not be surprised to see this follow up...)

But that is essentially extending an already trolling style of posting.

It's like walking in to a party and saying "I just want to everyone here to know I think *some* of you have appalling taste in clothing!"

It of course leaves people wondering if they are being targeted.  The idea that "well, you'd know if you were the target of the insult if you fit the description" is of course a silly counter reply, because OF COURSE no one thinks they fit the description of the insult.  So you still have to wonder WHO EXACTLY the person has in mind.  Essentially the person making this type of insult couches it as not directed at anyone in particular as if he's not being confrontational, but what he's doing is actually just splattering the mud of insult in every direction to see what sticks.  And that is actually trollish. 

So even if ivan didn't have me in mind, he's nonetheless taking the same tact in insulting others who voice skepticism - lazily characterizing them without directly engaging in anyone's argument to justify his claims.

nonoise,

He painted skeptics as selfish demanding children who bog down conversations with "demands for proof!" and himself and those like him as enlightened and charitable.

It’s a b.s. characterization. His characterization won’t map on to what I’ve written. Nor have I seen other skeptics demanding PROOF but only better evidence.And the charitable characterization he gives himself doesn’t map to his own post, or to many of the responses against skeptics in this thread either.

If he wants to engage the reasons someone else has for another view, let him do it. But just tossing out barely-veiled insults without showing they are warranted at all is poor form.   It's just dismissing someone's position with insult, without doing the work to justify his claims.

I hear you there, nonoise. 

Peace out :-)

uberwaltz,

I'm in the same position regarding blind testing of some gear I own.
(Again, not that I blind test everything...only when I'm curious about or puzzled by something).

I went to town making an isolated platform for my Turntable.  I have no idea how I could blind test it with and without the platform in any remotely practical way. 

On the other hand, other gear is more amenable to blind testing, and I have an audio buddy who helps me out.  He helped me blind test my new music server a while back.  Blind testing can actually be a wonderful cure sometimes for "audiophile nervosa" :-)

uberwaltz,

I'm sorry to hear that.   I think audiophiles are used to a certain amount of isolation given how niche this hobby is.  But some of us are fortunate to know another audiophile...or more.  Although I have some friends and family who can really get in to the great sound they hear at my place, there's only currently one friend of mine who is a fellow audiophile and who gets it.  It is great having someone to call up and blather on about this stuff.  Vs the eye-rolling from my wife....:-)

This unholy thread is still kicking?

Hasn't anyone ordered the air strike? :-)

@ted_d

Let me repeat this, there is absolutely NO OBJECTIVE CRITERIA OR TEST THAT EXISTS TODAY THAT CONCLUSIVELY PROVES ANY PRODUCT TO BE BETTER THAN ANY OTHER.

Admittedly I haven’t monitored all the pages since I joined this thread but...that phrasing strikes me as a straw man.

I count myself as a skeptic about fuses, but I wouldn’t be making any such claim, and I didn’t see any other skeptic make such a claim. (Unless someone has made it more recently).

The issue isn’t "Proving X is better objectively" but rather "demonstrating that the difference between X and Y are actually audible."

THEN we can talk about which one someone might prefer.

I’d also point out that in many ways one CAN show objectively one product to be "better" than another. We just have to look at the parameters of performance we want to improve, then measure them (or do controlled tests showing people can hear one as better than the other).

There are simply too many variables, known and more importantly unknown that can only be taken in as a whole from a subjective standpoint.

That doesn’t sound very scientific. But then I suppose you aren’t trying to be scientific? (And if that were the case, I’d wonder on what principles you base your products?)

If there are "too many variables" to test in a controlled manner, then there’s no reason to think uncontrolled subjectivity is going to do any better - in fact it’s less likely to discern between variables and likely just introduces more variables.

Well...er...yes...but only if you use the word "proven" in the most uninteresting sense of that word.

You haven't "proven" I don't have a magic, invisible friend, or a time-share condo I share with aliens on another planet .  Whoo-hoo!

;-)

Or, rather, you can play games like shifting the burden of "proof."

Have you disproved my condo shared with Aliens?   No?  Well, I guess you have no grounds to be skeptical then.

tommylion,

Who is making "absolute" statements? Certainly not me, and I’m unaware of any other skeptic here who has done so. This is the usual straw man.

If I am doing a scientific study, there is a “burden of proof”. If I am sharing my experience with others who may be interested, there is no such thing.

Of course, sharing experiences make sense. I do it all the time like anyone else.

The problem comes when people "sharing experiences" insist on the veracity of their experiences against any skepticism. The "you can’t tell me I didn’t hear what I heard" reply which is so common. It’s one thing to say "I tried X and heard Y." That’s a report of a subjective experience. Fine. But anyone using critical thinking understand that this is not necessarily the most reliable method for determining whether there are "real" audible changes produced by the product, vs imagined differences.

The problem is that those of the "just try it for yourself" school promote this as the right way to determine sonic differences and THAT becomes a claim that is rightly disputed. It just ignores too much of what we know about the effects of human bias and malleability of our perception.

And this is the point that your comments aren’t quite getting right.

In science, someone does an experiment (tries something), reports the result, and then others try to replicate (confirm) their result. Reaching a conclusion about someone else’s experiment, without bothering to try and replicate the results, seems pretty unscientific to me.

But in science you recognize when an experiment has been done in a sloppy, unreliable manner! You don’t have to perform a specific experiment yourself to recognize it’s a poorly designed experiment.  If it's a poorly designed experiment the results aren't going to be any more reliable if I perform it for myself, vs anyone else!

If you see an "experiment" for a new medical treatment that is performed completely without control of variables, you can’t say "Well the treatment doesn’t work" but you CAN say "The method you used to evaluate the treatment is unreliable, so your conclusion is unreliable."

And THAT is generally what skeptics are saying about many audiophile tweaks. Not that they ABSOLUTELY don’t work so much as the type of evidence used to support the claims are unreliable, which warrants our skepticism. (And that is combined with the fact many tweaks are based on empirical claims that are unlikely to be true GIVEN what we know about the relevant physics/engineering issues/human perceptual issues involved).

tommylion,

I don't have an inclination to try the fuses.  Which, again, is not to say they don't work or wouldn't produce an audible change in my system.

My motivation for posting in the thread is, well, just having an interest in high end audio and having opinions of my own :-)  And those opinions, like many other audiophiles,  are relevant to a wide range of subjects in high end audio. 

My interest was piqued just by the heading of this thread.  I then read what seemed to be an epitome of the type of ravings that make many critics (rightly so I believe) roll their eyes at audiophiles.  Huge, over the top claims for the sonic difference in...fuses...which are to say the least highly dubious.

For instance "I’ve seemed to gain about an octave in low bass response."

Is there a technical reason why anyone should expect another octive of bass response from an audiophile fuse?  Not that I'm aware of.  But if there IS, it should obviously come from some measurable parameter that would identify such behavior.  (And of course an octave of bass extension would be easily measurable in in-room response0.  But I don't see any such evidence being presented.   So what we have, very typical in the area of tweaks, claims for Big Obvious sonic alterations in the sound, with little to no evidence in support of the claim beyond someone's subjective feeling that's what he heard.  And when this is pointed out, we tend to get versions of "you can't measure what I'm hearing." 

And this is precisely the type of "evidence" used for every crackpot claim out there, from energy healing therapies, to astrology, psychics and every new age nostrum.

Does it mean fuses don't or can't alter the sound?  Again: no.  But the NATURE of the claims and the type of "evidence" audiophiles like Frank rely on are, I think, rightly objects of skepticism.

So in my case, I count myself as an audiophile.  I love high end audio equipment, have owned a lot of it over the years, and obsess about little changes like every other audiophile.  But I'm also concerned with the nature of knowledge, rationality, empiricism etc (my philosophy-luvin' side) and the claims made in high end audio intersect with these concerns all the time. 

So said testers simply CANNOT take the stance that because they did not hear an improvement then absolutely nobody else can or should!

uberwaltz,

Honest question:  Can you point to anyone who has in fact made that claim?

I participated for quite a while in the thread earlier, and didn't see someone making that claim. Has it been made since, and if so by whom?

Thanks!

uberwaltz,

Your whole post seemed predicated on the fact that critics were making such absolute statements, so it's not like I ignored the rest of your post. 

uberwaltz,

So...3 of your 4 paragraphs specifically referenced the people who tested fuses, didn’t hear a difference and you criticized those posters for making "blustering" posts with absolute statements that it’s "impossible" to hear an improvement.

But asking you about the subject of 3 of your 4 paragraphs is simply "picking away at a small part" of your post?

Hookay.

Maybe you can provide guides with your posts - color coding? - as to the parts that are actually relevant, and should be discussed, and which parts people should ignore and not respond to? Usually when I see someone devote the bulk of a post to a critique, I presume that’s the salient point of the post. But I guess I’m thick that way ;-)

uberwaltz,

Either you have trouble communicating...or you are just desperate to disavow what you even wrote.

What I wrote:

prof: So...3 of your 4 paragraphs specifically referenced the people who tested fuses, didn’t hear a difference and you criticized those posters for making "blustering" posts with absolute statements that it’s "impossible" to hear an improvement.

Let's see if this description is apt.  What you wrote:

P1:

I totally understand and respect those here who have tried an aftermarket fuse and garnered no discernible sq  change. Kudos to those few.However that was still in their room with their equipment and to their ears, which is still highly subjective.

^^^ Identified the people you are talking about in the post, and beginning a critique of the relevance of their findings.

P2:

So said testers simply CANNOT take the stance that because they did not hear an improvement then absolutely nobody else can or should!
That is utter nonsense and arrogance beyond belief.

^^^^ Talking about those same people and criticising them for drawing arrogant, absolutist conclusions.

P4:

So we need to quit with the blustering posts that proclaim it is a fact that it is impossible to hear an improvement!

^^^^ Clearly continuing your critique of the people making such posts, such as you referenced in your first two paragraphs.

So, yeah, 3 of your 4 paragraphs were obviously, undeniably, concerned with the people you claim have made blustering claims about "impossible" improvements.  (Which is why I asked for evidence they were making such claims).

I don't see what you mean to gain by denying the obvious content of your own posts (why not just support what you wrote?), but the internet is strange that way.

 

Agreed.  It is a very odd thing to write something then, when simply asked to defend it,  resort to denying it's main content.  Especially when the post is sitting right in this very page to be seen by anyone. 

But this is the age of Trump...so denial is all the rage I guess ;-)

It's fascinating how simply voicing some skepticism about an audio tweak brings out the most emotional, irrational responses in some audiophiles.

"jafreeman" has just posted a screed that has been so typical of these conversations. (Certainly not everyone who disagrees with me and other skeptics about fuses has been so off-kilter, but jafreeman-style posts have certainly tend to come up quite a bit in these type of conversations).

No matter how many times I explicitly state "I'm not claiming fuses don't make a sonic difference or that people are not hearing a difference" some more "subjectively inclined" can't seem to read this with any intent to understand, and instead replace it in with "He's saying THERE CAN BE NO DIFFERENCE and that I HAVE TO BE DELUDED!"

What is it with this absolute addiction to strawman rather than actually trying to understand what someone is saying who...gasp!...just might not share your own confident conviction of the TRUTH that your experience has revealed?

jafreeman,

It's clear you are driven to see a skeptic as some sort of villain, so honest, nuanced dialogue is not really going to be possible.

It's a funny thing, this hobby. 

And in the meantime, tens of thousands of SR fuses have been sold to satisfied customers.

And homeopaths will point out that millions around the world - 100 million in India alone! - have been sold homeopathic medicine.

All those people can't be wrong can they?  Diluting a substance until there is literally none of it left except it's magic powers MUST be true!

;-)

clearthink,

If you could reformulate what amounts to your "complaints" into an actual coherent argument against what I’ve actually argued here, then we could have a discussion. If you could actually point to anything I’ve written - not something you imagined I wrote but that I actually wrote - as untrue, or unreasonable, then your complaints may have some footing. But until then....you are just complaining when someone voices skepticism. boo-hoo.

geoffkait,

Look, professor, you can’t have it both ways. Either fuses make a difference and are audible or they’re not. Make up your mind.

Again, you’ve confused yourself. The only way you could imagine I’m trying to "have it both ways" and can’t "make up my mind" is that
you’ve confused a real dichotomy with a false dichotomy.

Real dichotomy: Fuses make an audible difference or they do not.

False Dichotomy: You have to either BELIEVE fuses make an audible difference or BELIEVE they do not.

See the rather important difference there?

Something may be true, or not true, but that OBVIOUSLY doesn’t entail you must accept one or the other, before having good reason you know which is true! If a new medical treatment for high blood pressure is proposed, well it’s either efficacious or it isn’t. But how does a rational people decide this? "Let’s take a vote! Who believes it works, who doesn’t? Ok, that’s 45 for the proposition it works, 20 for the proposition it doesn’t work. It’s settled then, our new blood pressure medicine works!"

Of course not, right? You withhold your conclusion UNTIL the good evidence comes in. (Though, given your website, which until recently I thought was entirely a lark, I’m starting to infer maybe you don’t actually understand these basic principles?)

Your argument is absurd. Humans easily distinguish types of car engines, types of aircraft engines, types of bird calls. Why not fuses. Is everyone lying?

Another false dichotomy from you, geoff. If the sonic difference between fuses are not audible, the choice isn’t between people "lying" or "telling the truth." They can simply be "mistaken" and that is the variable some of us skeptics are raising. (And it’s amazing the resistance people here have to just considering they may actually...gasp!...be mistaken! And ironically it’s the skeptics that they imply are arrogant.)

I wasn’t "lying" when I thought certain cables sounded completely and obviously different from others in my system. But my subsequent testing suggested I WAS mistaken. (When tested "blind" and I didn’t know which cable was being used, there were no such obvious differences allowing me to identify any difference).

The sonic differences between cars, people’s voices, bird calls etc are large and understood to be well into the threshhold of audibility. And you can measure those differences. (In fact, just now I’m going through various jet sounds for a show I’m doing sound for, and the waveform output and frequency profiles are obviously different).

But the claim of sonic differences between audiophile boutique fuses and regular (competently employed) fuses in a component is not so well established, and is in fact an area of controversy. And if the type of measurements pointed to earlier in the thread are the best we’ve got in support of the claim, then they still leave plenty of room for doubt (the inadequacies have already been pointed out, and they amount to the fact that even the attempts of the author to explain their effects were highly speculative, and did not even demonstrate the *audible* difference in either case).

And then if all we have beyond that are audiophiles saying "I heard a difference" then, as I say, this doesn’t rise above the level of "evidence" discerning from perceptual error/bias effects, that plague so many other tweak-claims.

Are 70,000 people under hypnosis?

Are a hundred million people believing the claims of homeopathy under hypnosis?

^^^^ Please recognize the reductio ad absurdum this time, geoff ;)
That is, presuming you understand homeopathy is bunk....which I admit it may not be so wise to presume...;-)

Geoff, do you really not understand at all why there is the scientific method in the first place?

If researchers want to get confirmation (strong evidential support) that a medical treatment is efficacious - whether it’s homeopathy, or an allergy treatment or whatever - do you think they just give it to people and ask "Well? You’ve received treatment for your problem, how do you feel?"

No. They set up blind and double blind studies, control groups on placebos, etc.

Do you know why they do this? Why simply taking the subjective report of people, without reducing the variables of our well documented forms of bias....isn't a good method?   And do you not know our perceptual biases extend everywhere, including to audio?

Do you know why, for instance, when you go for a hearing test it’s a blind test? (You aren’t given any other visual cue as to when a tone is being played)?

And...again...yet again!...do you understand that none of the cautions I raise in support of my skepticism amounts to my claiming fuses "don’t make a difference?"

Is nuance that hard to grasp?

geoffkait,

Please brush up on your understanding of fallacies. You’ve completely misunderstood what should have been the obvious point. No my post was not a personal attack at all, and does not even imply oregonpapa believes any of those other things. In fact, if anything it relies on the opposite: that he or others here will recognize other dubious beliefs as fallacious (like homeopathy).

oregonpapa’s post obviously implied, against the skepticism of a few here, that the a far larger number of people - tens of thousands! - have bought fuses believing they make a difference.

Insofar as that is meant to imply the truth of the disputed claim "fuses make a sonic difference," it’s a fallacious argument.

It’s been recognized as a fallacy for a looooong time and it’s called:

Argumentum ad populum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

And I rightly replied to this fallacy with a type of reductio ad absurdum:
Taking the same logic ("so many people believe it, it must be true") and showing the same appeal large groups of believers can support an absurdity ("look how many customers believe homeopathy works, homeopathy must be true"). So, since this for of appeal doesn’t help distinguish the truth of the matter, it’s a poor form of rebuttal.

Hope that clears things up for you ;-)

And, anyone paying attention will note: Nothing in my reply argued that fuses DO NOT make a sonic difference. Only that the type of arguments and evidence on offer are of dubious quality.

And, btw, tommylion, I  have not been arguing for a "conspiracy" over fuses.

Ok geoff,

If, when your objections are shown to be fallacious, you (and some others) prefer to fall back on complaining and name calling, so be it.

The blame, then, for crappy conversations about tweaks like these can hardly be put simply in the lap of the skeptics.

Though, I don't see why that level of discourse is preferable to providing a careful argument for a position.


 

uberwaltz,

Personally I could not care less.....

Can I just report my personal gratitude for your proper use of this phrase?

:-)

Is THAT the viciousness you alluded to? LMAO ...

Not "viscous," but it was you who started off in the original post "poisoning the well" by name-calling skeptics.

And that type of attitude was adopted or continued by others here who fall back on name calling and negative characterizations of anyone voicing even reasonable skepticism.

uberwaltz,

My reply to you was meant as a good-matured quip:  that I was happy to see someone use "I could not care less" (instead of the horrible "I could care less").

Are you seriously complaining about that now too? 

How did I change any "meaning?"

Otherwise I have no idea what post you are referring to.

oregonpapa,

Nothing but positivism.

Oh, right, except for, you know, this part about skeptics:

Debbie Downers and Negative Nellie’s have hijacked the original RED fuse thread. A pox on their houses and their Pioneer receivers.

So, yeah, your attitude is all positive for anyone who will share your view that fuses obviously make a sonic difference, but not so much it seems for a dissenting view.

Yes, I did dis-invite the worst of the lot.  

 

There was no way to know who YOU think to be the "worst of the lot" or any suggestion that one can reasonably be a skeptic about fuses. Given this, your "dis-invite" looked suggestive of a general swipe against people who would voice skepticism of your claims. As in "Stay out if you aren't going to agree with my view that fuses cause obvious sonic differences!"

Note that virtually EVERY skeptic here, no matter how careful or nuanced their position, has been castigated in the same vein as being "Negative Nellies" (and "psuedo skeptics" etc).  

So your name-calling of skeptics didn't offer any obvious reason to distinguish any individual vs just "those who will voice skepticism."

oregonpapa,

Again ... tens of thousands of Red, Black and Blue fuses sold to an appreciative customer base with very few returns says tons more than a few skeptics posting here.

I'm afraid not.  That's a fallacy.

If there are good reasons to be skeptical of a phenomenon being reported by large groups of people, it doesn't matter if those reasons are voiced by a handful, or even one person, vs the majority.  A lot of people using a faulty method of inference doesn't add up to a sound method of inference.

A medical study using poor controls that yields a "positive" result isn't any more reliable if it uses 100 or 7,000 people.  Similarly, if the technical explanations for the sonic influence of audiophile fuses are only speculative, and the evidence beyond that is "many audiophiles reporting a difference" then it's just being reasonable to admit "the results could be due to perceptual bias."   Thousands, millions, of people believe things in unison due to such biases and cherry-picking to support their own biases.  It's just human nature.  That's why controls are put in place when studying anything that relies on our reporting our perceptions - be it medicine, studies of human hearing, etc.  (Note that geoff could not, or would not, answer why hearing tests are blinded for the subject.  Why not?   Because admitting the reason clearly has implications for the reliability of his beliefs about fuses and other tweaks.
Instead...he fell back on name-calling and silly "blind tests are for sissies."  I guess he'll be insisting on being told every time a tone is playing if he ever goes for a hearing test).

Again, that is not to conclude fuses don't make a difference; only to identify weaker arguments in defense of that claim.

I have no problem with anyone buying any tweak, trying it out, feeling it made a difference reporting on that, etc.  Fine.  I do that, we all do that. We all can't spend our time doing scientific-level testing on everything we buy.

But it's different when people refuse to show any epistimic humility, and use their subjective impressions to make objective claims that such tweak DO make a sonic difference, and that their own personal impressions are sufficient to establish this fact.  Especially when we have entered an area of controversy, THAT is when it's prudent to caution "Well, no, actually you haven't really accounted for the possibility of bias in your results." 

Its good to remember The Golden Rule. Do not try to dissuade others from buying and enjoying products that you haven't experienced for yourself. Pretty simple, really.

First, I'm not trying to dissuade anyone.  But I disagree. It's far from that simple.

As I've pointed out numerous times, you don't have to "try something for yourself" to understand when the method is an unreliable one, and therefore to have reasonable doubt about claims made on such a basis.

If I "tried astrology for myself" using the same method people use to read their horoscopes, engaging in the same method of cherry-picking hits and ignoring misses, then sure I can come out with the same result.
Astrology works!  But, adopting what you know to be a dubious method of inference is hardly the way to establish whether something is true or not.

If I just put aside everything I knew about the type of bias effects humans, and hence I myself am susceptible to, and think "Well, I'm just not going to apply those rules to audio" then sure, I can try out fuses, and green pens on CDs, and tiny vibrating discs and come out thinking "They all make a difference!" 

But...if I care about truth...why would I do that? I'd want to make sure I account as best I can for what I know about human bias when making such inferences.

And raising reasonable skeptical doubts is a good thing (outside of church, anyway).   It's more information into the pot.

Think of people who are desperately ill who are swayed by reports of nonsense "cures."   They will be able to find numerous true believer reports of the efficacy of the cure - but if they don't know these reports are based on a very unreliable sample type - this can have bad consequences.  People can and do lose valuable time, e.g. when they have cancer, going for b.s. treatments based only on subjective inference, that fail and allow them to die, vs going for more scientifically established treatments.  Being right actually matters.

So if someone is being advised of a dubious "cure" to "just try this cancer cure for yourself" it's a good thing to let them know "actually, there's little basis for that claim."   Knowledge is power.

High End audio isn't life-and death.  But there are still consequences to being wrong.  You may end up spending tons of money that you didn't have to spend - and wouldn't want to spend on something that actually didn't do what it purports to do.  

Why would it be good for a newbie, for instance, to only hear one side of the story?  Only "THIS tweak works!" If there are good reasons for skepticism, then I think that side should be presented as well, so people get a fuller picture of what is going on.  Then they can be in a more informed position to spend their money.

I'm certainly glad to have encountered all sorts of skeptical arguments I encountered early on.  They saved me money!   Though I could have, and sometimes have, bought tweaks anyway.  But at least I did so with a fuller picture of the facts.

And, again, someone doesn't have to "try it for himself" in order to raise reasonable doubts about a claim.

Finally, I saw your next post and agree about the nature of on-line misunderstandings.

Cheers,

jafreeman,

If you can ever step out of your need to caricature, please note:

I do indeed have experience with items like audiophile cables. I've had plenty over the years (and various other tweaks), and still have access to some of the most highly lauded cables available. 

I also have some experience attempting to be even more careful about my inferences, using blind testing to weed out my perceptual biases.  And those have been educational.