I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

[terry j]

How about a one piece speaker cable,or same cables in both speakers,at least? I'm sure you would measure differences too

why? Anyways, I splained why there are splices..it is too much of a pain to get in and connect the wire at the speakon every time I need to have a longer cable.

One day when I finally finish renovating the listening room and have the system in it's final place, no doubt THEN I will take the time and effort to get in and put nice looking cables of some description.

They will look nice for purely aesthetic concerns mind, no consideration for a change in sound.

Boy, I am quite concerned now..not only do I need to worry about cable differences on the long run between amp and speaker, you mean I should be concerned about the differences INSIDE the speaker??

Man, this audio gig is harder than I thought....

anyway, measurements show no problem.

every time I (and others) listen there are smiles at the end.

that is all that counts no?

and the only measurements that count no?

If you do not pay attention to detail, don't expect to hear any.

There is often a lot of faux outrage from people around here, and I have sometimes seen it from you (or do I have that wrong...come to think of it you seem to always respond with a smile so maybe I do have it wrong...) anyways I could imagine some getting all upset at a statement like that (me, I don't care haha) but really, how can you possibly think you know how I listen or don't listen??

What IS funny (esp after doing the room treatment...got pics of yours yet andre?? please post them) is just how MUCH detail the system has. Honestly (and I want to get away for a moment from this threads usual 'back and fro to simply win an argument...this is a fellow enthusiast reporting a great result in the system...ahh we are all warm and fuzzy now..very unusual for me!!!) what the room treatment did was astounding. True I had a particularly problematic room to start from, but once the 'echo' and confusion from the bare walls were handled, boy (amongst other things) detail went thru the roof.

For quite a long time the amount of detail was completely overwhelming and this is not an audiophile's hyperbole, I mean that quite literally, it was 'sensory overload.' For the time it took me to 'get used to it' it was hard to listen..no matter what your attention was frantically darting around the soundstage as the plethora pf sounds was coming from everywhere...it was an experience that I still remember vividly.

(oh, and I see the wallabies are second favs for the RWC andre!!!)

Anyway, back to pedantic point scoring haha, the experience sharing is over.



Hi Brooke, hey c'mon mate..you throw out what you thought was a 'gotcha!' challenge, and when I come back atchya and call your bluff you don't even acknowledge it???(well technically you did by quoting it, but you know what I mean)

First you say this..Just so we are crystal, non beleivers seems to wanna hang the price thing around my neck , yet go on to acknowledge that the 'price thing' IS a valid concern in cable land...I wish people would just come right out and say so when they have an axe to grind with people who make lots of money selling cables. Some are ** artists and some are not, same as any other product.


Firstly, if you read the thread you would see that *we* HAVE come out and said we have an axe to grind with the ripoff merchants in the cable business, as hinted by your first quote.

So are you (for example) recommending BJ cables on sonic grounds??

I believe the Blue Jeans cables I mentioned in reference to the McIntosh system are 20 or 30 bucks. To me a well matched system has nothing to do with money. It has to do with sound quality as assesed through long term listening. Shielding and quality build are IMO a starting point when looking for cables that have synergy with your system. Judging with prices [cheap OR expensive] and specs doesn't lead to the best "sounding" synergy.

(just for you, I will ignore and pretend you did not use that stupid audiophool puff buzzword 'synergy', as I want to keep the conversation civil hahaha).

Anyway, I too would highly recommend BJ cables, just 'on principle'. Odd that ain't it, coming from a non cable guy. You will soon see why I would support him.

It might be fun to see what BJ cables themselves say about your sonic differences in cables claim...

For what it's worth...

I deal all the time with engineers who design cables for Belden. They've worked with me to put together our various custom products, including our bonded-pair HDMI, and we've had a lot of occasion to talk over the years as there's always one design project or another on the table and there are always ongoing questions, issues with production, et cetera. These guys are fond of pointing out to me that if they could actually make audio cables which had different signatures--deeper soundstage, richer bass, greater "musicality," and so on--they'd be very happy to make them, and very happy to charge extra for the sonic enrichment achieved thereby. Why don't they? Well, physics has a lot to do with that.

Belden does make a lot of private-label cable for a lot of boutique cable firms, though. Weird designs, all that. They've got a whole area of the engineering lab set aside for storage of high-value materials like solid silver wire that a lot of these boutique cables call for. Not only do the engineers who actually design wire and cable not believe in these sonic differences, but they have amusing anecdotes to tell about it.

There's an interesting story concerning a "directional" audio cable they made for one firm--it wasn't ordered in very large quantities, and they wound up simply making one run and stocking it so that it could be supplied when ordered. The customer didn't know that, however, and asked that, each time the cable was produced, he be sent a sample, with the ends labeled, just prior to jacket-lettering so that he could connectorize it and determine, through critical listening, which way the directional arrows should be printed. Belden always took these samples off of this same original run of cable, and kept records of how the ends had been labeled. The result? After a number of orders, the critical listening was exactly 50/50: half the time the cable sounded better in the one direction, and half in the other, exactly as one would expect if the "directionality" were as fictitious a property as the Belden engineers thought it was.

Does that prove that all these cable claims are bunk? Well, no, of course not. But it does say something about the psychology at work here. I guarantee that if anyone had an honest-to-gosh recipe for audio cable that imparted interesting and useful colorations to the sound, there would be a great deal of interest from wire and cable engineers. The first thing they'd want to know after verifying that the effect was real would be what its cause is--there's very little use in knowing that the effect exists while not knowing what it consists of, how to measure it, and how to consistently and accurately reproduce it. Once they knew what it was, and how to make it, they'd patent it, price it high, and produce it by the mile. If I thought I had such a recipe, I would get my patent application pending, and immediately try to license it to someone like that. No such luck, though...pesky physics...

Kurt
Blue Jeans Cable

Well, subjective enjoyment is, of course, subjective, and I am certainly respectful of the supremacy of private judgment. I don't like to go around telling people what they do hear or don't hear, because I'm not in their heads and I don't have their ears. On the other hand, I do think that one's listening judgment can be informed by the physics, and that can help you determine whether what you hear is a product of expectation bias, or of known physical processes. If it's the latter, it can help you decide what to do next. Those Belden engineers, if they could design the cable that makes audio "richer," would want to proceed to a rigorous and well-developed understanding of what the electrical and physical properties of "richer" are so that they could further address it in design. Despite having exposure to a lot of interesting design ideas from all those people that they private-label cable designs for, they still haven't found it and are pretty well convinced that they're not going to find it.

What I can say is that when I have done A/B tests with cables that are said to be as different as night and day in some of the audiophile writings that I have read, I do not hear those night-and-day differences. Whether people other than myself can hear differences is something which I have no special qualifications to say; I do know that when rigorous studies have been done they have not tended to support the audiophile view. I do know that my younger brother, who is an audio engineer with a degree in electrical engineering and who has the best and most discerning ears of anyone I know, reports hearing no differences in these comparisons either. This is not some philistine--this is a trained critical listener, far more skilled in it than I, who has done a lot of listening comparisons and who can explain what's going on in the sound both on a subjective and technical level, and who needs to be a critical listener in order to do his job well. Every time I talk to him I learn more about all sorts of audio issues. Is it possible that there are legions of audiophiles out there who hear, and know, more about audio than he does? Well, it's not strictly impossible, but it seems to me to contravene probability.

But yes, people should certainly make up their own minds; people will do so anyway, regardless of what anyone else says. I guess I would just say that the process of making up your mind often involves drawing on what other people already know about the subject. I can make up my own mind that plate tectonics is completely false, if I am willing to completely disregard the geology, but it seems to me that my conclusions about plate tectonics are liable to be better informed if I take the geology into account. It certainly helps to explain things better, and it gives us the insight to ask real, and interesting, questions.

Kurt
Blue Jeans Cable

(This is an interesting take on another audiophile 'must have', regarding his company supplying bi wire cables)

That's right. Actually, when customers ask us about bi-wiring, we tell them that as long as the gage of the speaker wire is adequate, there's no real electrical difference between bi-wiring and conventional wiring because the speaker wire has such low resistance that it bridges the speaker posts almost exactly as effectively as leaving the jumpers in place would. Quite a few people want bi-wired speaker cable, however, and when it comes down to it there is no point in arguing with what the customer wants.

Kurt
Blue Jeans Cable

It should be obvious by now why I personally would use and recommend BJcables, and for them to have 'you guys' also recommend them has gotta be good for business right!! They get support from BOTH sides of the equation

Too many common experiences among people for it all to be subcontious trickery.

Funny how audio is so complex as to be riddled with false perceptions but it can be tested in one afternoon with a few guys in someones basement.

Why do I have this funny feeling that these two statements are inextricably linked with the following statement??

DBT = waste of time and energy that could be used to listen to your equipment they way it was meant to be used.

So, what you are saying is just test these cables with some audio buddies, do NOT use DBT or any sort of rigour, then you come here and proclaim to all and sundry that what YOU experienced under those circumstances holds enough objective reality that you can argue that *we* are wrong in a cable thread??

Excuse me, but top marks for arrogance. Especially when you show ignorance of even the most basic points in all of this...

Live with a new piece of gear for a week or a month before you decide you know everything you need to know.

Boy, we have handlked this dunno, twenty times already in this thread???, but no-where does DBT say you cannot listen for a week or month ok?? I hope you have got that now, it is a common misconception.

It's the finely tuned systems that sounds the best. Not the rigs where a scope and meter decided someones personal preference.

Well maybe that is your experience, thanks for sharing.

But honestly I want to ask you logically (remember you mad statements about logic in your post?? Ahh, here it is

You can't just switch the logic off when its conveinient.

in these superior systems you have heard, do you really think the designer of the speakers, amps or preamps never used a scope or meter on them to design them, for what they thought sounds best?? (or at least what they thought would sell best)

Ha, I did not put cables in that category because we KNOW they never used a scope or meter to measure those

Anyway, just because YOU did not measure or cannot use a scope or meter does not mean it has never been used in the components you listen to.

But to acknowledge that I guess would mean that it removes the fantasy about 'assembled purely by ear', something a lot of audiophiles like to stress.

 

[abraxalito]

Your guess would be wrong for a valid study (one with useful results). Your strawman won't hold water

Do please explain why my guess would be wrong.

What 'reporting of side effects'?

That would be the side effect reporting reported by Steve D

The side effects reported are not prompted.

You've already checked the details behind Steve D's 'reported side-effects' ? But he wasn't referring to a specific study AFAIK, so I can't figure out where you're coming from here.

You must not understand the protocol.

Quite possibly, however in this post you're doing nothing to dispel my ignorance of it.

 

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Too many common experiences among people for it all to be subcontious trickery. Some people can hear it and some can't. That is realistic and possible. Having everyone who hears a difference (most people agree on what the differences are, with some exceptions of course) suffering from the same false perceptions is extremely un-realistic and IMO it is impossible. You need to stop and inject a bit of realism every so often.

Funny how audio is so complex as to be riddled with false perceptions but it can be tested in one afternoon with a few guys in someones basement.

DBT = waste of time and energy that could be used to listen to your equipment they way it was meant to be used. Live with a new piece of gear for a week or a month before you decide you know everything you need to know. It's the finely tuned systems that sounds the best. Not the rigs where a scope and meter decided someones personal preference.

Hearing a difference does not equal knowing what the differences are.

If the perception stuff were true people would be running red lights everyday thinking they were yellow or green. You can't just switch the logic off when its conveinient.

We do get it right sometimes.

I wish people would just come right out and say so when they have an axe to grind with people who make lots of money selling cables. Some are ** artists and some are not, same as any other product.

Dare I say "good post" ?

Sometimes I wonder why people with a scholar education longer than my arm can be so blinded.
Maybe there's a relation between "highly educated" and "lost common sense" somewhere? As in totally brainwashed perhaps?

The arrogance of the ignorant, right?

Cheers,

 

[abraxalito]

Benefit of bi-wiring

That's right. Actually, when customers ask us about bi-wiring, we tell them that as long as the gage of the speaker wire is adequate, there's no real electrical difference between bi-wiring and conventional wiring because the speaker wire has such low resistance that it bridges the speaker posts almost exactly as effectively as leaving the jumpers in place would. Quite a few people want bi-wired speaker cable, however, and when it comes down to it there is no point in arguing with what the customer wants.

Kurt
Blue Jeans Cable

What's interesting about this comment is Kurt's assumption that there's no non-linearity. But anyone who has used a distortion analyser across a speaker cable will know that speakers draw non-linear currents even when fed with perfectly pure voltage sinewaves. Bi-wiring tends to prevent the harmonic distortion induced by the bass/mid non-linear impedance getting fed into the tweeter as the tweeter gets its own clean feed direct from the amplifier output terminals.

 

[SY]

Funny how its only hearing and specificly hearing cables.

Swing and a miss. Strike two.

 

[Pano]

Cables, or something else?

Well here's a fun little story.

I was doing some equipment and cable swapping today. Got a new Yamaha CD/DVD/DVD-A/SACD player. Nice little fellow.

So I connected it to the system via Toslink. Just an orginary plastic optical cable. Worked, sounded nice. Then I thought I'd try the coax to XLR digital cable I normally run from the computer. Home made like this. RCA male ->Coax ->75:110 transformer -> CAT5 ->XLR. So going into either the optical or the AES/EBU input on a Berhinger DEQ2496. Then out via AES/EBU to the DCX2496.

They didn't sound the same. Obvious shift in tonal balance. The upper mids were more pronounced with the optical link. Easy to hear. Of course after a minute or 2 the ear adjusts to the new tonal balance. But there was another striking difference. Position. Going from optical to coax/XLR, the voice would shift down about 18". Like the singer was siting down. Very consistent, very repeatable. I could even close my eyes and point to where the voice was. Always the same spot ~18" apart - for each cable.

Now that is a "digital" signal. Is the difference the cable, or is it the digital input?
Or were those peppers at lunch a little too hot......

 

[BudP]

weight of the transformer iron... quite obviously....



bud

 

[Pano]

LOL. Yep!

 

[abraxalito]

Now that is a "digital" signal. Is the difference the cable, or is it the digital input?

First guess would be jitter - TOSLINK receivers are notorious for it. If the DXO uses a Crystal receiver chip, the odds on this will be better still....

 

[gedlee]

Sometimes I wonder why people with a scholar education longer than my arm can be so blinded.

There might be a very logical answer to that, but I guess that I'm too blind to see it.

 

[terry j]

woah brook, it's only audio!

You have not read all the thread as you've explained, so you have missed the times when I gave what I love about these 'debates', ...the human nature angle.

Plenty to see in your post!!

Help me out here, you said..Thanks for twisting my words to suit your narrow minded view on everything., THEN go on to say things like Man, this audio gig is harder than I thought.... You made it that way all by yourself.

But, no point in dissecting your post, I'm sure even you can see you fall into the category of accusing others of your own actions.

Anyway, you did provide me with a bit of amusement, so cheers for that.

So did you not find it in anyway interesting what BJ said about your claims? If not, then fair enough. I just enjoyed the disconnect.

Why can a DBT not be blind if it is a month long?? Is it really so hard to work out the methodology?? It is clear from your statements that for that month period you are not swapping them in and out every day, so why not enlist the help of someone and they can make a change (or not), or put A or B in your system. You do have mates that can help you in the basement, so that sounds like they are fellow enthusiasts, surely they would be willing to help?

All that is required is that you do not know the identity, surely it cannot be that hard to do.

Yep, good point. Obviously I personally would not buy 'expensive' cables, it is just not my thing (tho fine if it is yours), hence I used the phrase IF I were to buy cables BJ would get my custom. Tho I am sure you will tell me it is ME that cannot read properly.

Sure they did and then they charged an arm and a leg for stuff that is inferior to a simple chip amp, why no hostility about them screwing everbody? Is it because you dont harbour any common fallacies about amps and preamps etc.?

I think we crossed here, I may have not been clear. Sorry. Anyway, if it matters to you (it seems to) don't worry, I have strong feelings about hi end rip offs in audio. Thanks for asking.

The point simply was that you said It's the finely tuned systems that sounds the best., (not the ones that have been measured.) I pointed out the speakers etc YOU use (but do not pay attention to the specs on) HAVE been measured and designed with a scope. Even if YOU didn't.

So yes, measurements are important in audio in contradiction to your claim. Even if audiophiles don't use scopes to hear.

I and my mates at BJ need to come up with numbers to prove our point of view??Nope, to date any rigorous test has not shown audible diffs in cables, so now it is down to YOU to come up with the numbers to prove that hypothesis wrong.

As you said, you have not read the whole thread, so you may be unaware that Tom is getting ready to do a test with SY, and we are all looking forward to see how he goes.

He may pass with flying colours!?! So that will be interesting, and at least one thing will come out of this thread.

 

[Andre Visser]

What's interesting about this comment is Kurt's assumption that there's no non-linearity. But anyone who has used a distortion analyser across a speaker cable will know that speakers draw non-linear currents even when fed with perfectly pure voltage sinewaves. Bi-wiring tends to prevent the harmonic distortion induced by the bass/mid non-linear impedance getting fed into the tweeter as the tweeter gets its own clean feed direct from the amplifier output terminals.

I guess it all depends on what is regarded as good enough, that will surely differ from system to system.

Andre do you have the capability to hear soundstage, image depth, instrument placement when you listen to your system?
jd

You should know that by now. Can't figure what you are getting at though.

How does one correlate one's subconscious (if he even knows what it may hold) to what he may hear in an audio system? It certainly won't have anything to do with expectations, because those are rarely met.
John

That's the part where all these 'logic' fails for me too.

There is often a lot of faux outrage from people around here, and I have sometimes seen it from you (or do I have that wrong...come to think of it you seem to always respond with a smile so maybe I do have it wrong...) anyways I could imagine some getting all upset at a statement like that (me, I don't care haha) but really, how can you possibly think you know how I listen or don't listen??

I was just pulling your leg hence the .

Seeing that photo does make me wonder how much attention to detail is put into the rest of the system though. Positive properties of a cable can easilly get buried if the rest of the system isn't sorted.

 

[terry j]

I was just pulling your leg hence the .

Seeing that photo does make me wonder how much attention to detail is put into the rest of the system though. Positive properties of a cable can easilly get buried if the rest of the system isn't sorted.

yeah, suspected as much! as I said, no matter how heated I didn't think (upon reflection) that you ever got too riled up

cept when we kick some bok butt later

I totally get where you are coming from, I mean it is easy to understand your position and then put myself there, and in that position I can well imagine your reaction..which of course is completely why I posted those pics

Man, very soon I gotta rile you (and panikos) up some more by taking a picture of the back of my cdp remote..it says 'cash converters..$58' hahahaha.

(better put that into a little bit of perspective..I go straight digital out into the deqx, so a crappy cdp has much less effect than it otherwise might have. oops, it's actually a crappy dvd player I got for nix. someone else paid 58 bucks for it, then gave it to me!!)

That pic I posted is a good litmus test of our prejudices tho...how on earth can you actually judge whether or not I have the rest of my system sorted?? ALL you are reacting to is the speaker cable I use. and your belief of the importance of cables has led you to question the other aspects.

In fact, from my position (you should know it well enough by now, fix the speakers and fix the room, then worry-if you wish-about tenth order effects like cables) I'd be very willing to bet that those aspects of my system are far more sorted than yours.

Because that IS what I pay attention to.

But I do understand your position.

Mods please delete my last two posts. I may have been suffering hostility transference from Terry.

Hey brook, thanks for matching me and talking eh?? I apologise if I put your nose out of joint, really did not mean to. honestly. and I get how you could easily be trigger happy. (audio forums AND audio is meant to be fun, so lets keep it that way yeah?)

now we are mates again, can I ask a few things?

Your right, it can be done, I just learned through rolling tubes and cables that the initial impression is usually not the best one. I also don't expect people to do blind testing at home. I am way too laid back for stuff like that. Hell the testing puts me in the wrong frame of mind to even discern what is happening with the sound.

I don't really get this. Testing puts you in the wrong frame of mind. Well I do get that, but what I don't get is surely any testing of cables should then put you in the wrong frame of mind?

(I presume) you meant DBTesting puts you in the wrong frame of mind, but if you are comparing cables are you not in fact testing cables??

WHY does the mere fact of you not knowing the identity make such a difference? That is the part I don't get.

Choose 10 songs you love and listen to them all about 5 times in a 1 to 3 day span. Then change something in your system and start over with the same 10 songs. If a difference exists for you than you will know it, and know what exactly it is. I have faith in you and your hearing.

Exacatactly. Except (with cables..or tubes..or any component) simply don't know what it is! Every other part of your audition protocol stays exacatactly the same.

Can I ask a simple yes no question? If as you claim cable brand excelsior sounds better than excalibur, that difference is an objective demonstrable fact yes?

Then logically following on from that, you should be able to pick the difference between the two based on their sonic properties alone, do you agree? (or not?)

Then why is it needed for you to know which it is you are listening to to enable you to determine which is better.

that is what I don't get (also).

Now I will beam to you a bit of social happiness, and you should get some transference from that...here it comes...

oooooommmm

(((Oh, BTW, I had a great gag to post if you had still been angry at me. (not nasty or anything, but quite funny I think)

IF you still feel like responding and answering my questions, it would be fun if at the end you said something like 'Oh I get so angry sometimes at you non-believers'...that way I can out my gag in.

You'll have to trust our new found friendship that it is not nasty or a put down. just dying to use it haha)))

 

[Panicos K]

why? Anyways, I splained why there are splices..it is too much of a pain to get in and connect the wire at the speakon every time I need to have a longer cable.

One day when I finally finish renovating the listening room and have the system in it's final place, no doubt THEN I will take the time and effort to get in and put nice looking cables of some description.

They will look nice for purely aesthetic concerns mind, no consideration for a change in sound.

Boy, I am quite concerned now..not only do I need to worry about cable differences on the long run between amp and speaker, you mean I should be concerned about the differences INSIDE the speaker??

Man, this audio gig is harder than I thought....

anyway, measurements show no problem.

every time I (and others) listen there are smiles at the end.

.

I have no doubt that there are smiles at the end
But please tell me you have the same drivers in both speakers......please

 

[terry j]

I have no doubt that there are smiles at the end
But please tell me you have the same drivers in both speakers......please

ahh, that DID make me laugh.

good one.

 

[markus76]

As it does to me, but driven by debates over the ability of audio systems to reproduce height (neither here nor there) some have indeed argued we can't localize sounds vertically, period. A complete shock to me but I'm trying to maintain an open mind about how some people hear.

Of course we can. We can localize sounds in all directions. Our brain is presented with information from different physical cues. [1] But the interesting question is how our brain processes those cues. And that's where neuroscience comes in.
Stereo and multichannel presents an artificial sound field to the listener. It mixes physically correct cues with wrong ones. How does our brain interpret this mixture? Is it the same for everybody (innate) or are there differences (aquired)?
If we don't have answers to these questions we won't be able to decide which properties of our gear are important. All that's left is trial and error. And what part of our gear can be swapped out most easily? Cables

[1] http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/publibrary/Begault_2000_3d_Sound_Multimedia.pdf

 

[Andre Visser]

yeah, suspected as much! as I said, no matter how heated I didn't think (upon reflection) that you ever got too riled up

cept when we kick some bok butt later

First try and beat the Bulls.

That pic I posted is a good litmus test of our prejudices tho...how on earth can you actually judge whether or not I have the rest of my system sorted?? ALL you are reacting to is the speaker cable I use. and your belief of the importance of cables has led you to question the other aspects.

No prejudices, I said it make me wonder. Chances to see a Ferrari with retreaded tyres is very slim.

In fact, from my position (you should know it well enough by now, fix the speakers and fix the room, then worry-if you wish-about tenth order effects like cables) I'd be very willing to bet that those aspects of my system are far more sorted than yours.

How much?

Fixing the speakers and room is a good beginning, don't stop there.

 

[jan.didden]

[My question whether Andre can hear soundstage, depth, width, instrument placement etc]You should know that by now. Can't figure what you are getting at though.
[snip].

I gather that's a yes? Anyway, I don't expect you to answer a question differently depending on 'what I'm up to', right? I mean, you can or you can not. Yes you can?

jd

 

[kareface]

I'm amazed how much time people have to post in this thread, I'm the least busy of the people I fraternize with and I'm dumbfounded by the number of replies people have time to offer. I'm not going to go back and read through all the posts between now and my last post. I'll just pick up from here and offer what I can.

I would like to bring up the "keep an open mind" comment. On the surface I'd agree with the concept of keeping an open mind. I don't believe there is anything I wouldn't be willing to accept given the proper burden of evidence. I think that's something everyone should adhere to. Keeping an open mind should not however equate to being willing to assert belief in something that not only lacks evidence but flies in the face of reason. By claiming something is true with no subjective proof you are doing the exact opposite of keeping your mind open, you've closed it to any other outcomes by being unwilling to accept evidence as a basis of understanding. By simply taking that idea out of context it's easy to see the fallacy of the logic.

How does one correlate one's subconscious (if he even knows what it may hold) to what he may hear in an audio system? It certainly won't have anything to do with expectations, because those are rarely met.

The same way you make uncontentious correlations about everything else. If you get really sick and you eat a meal, you can uncontentiously correlate being sick with the food you ate while sick. Even if you loved it before it'll taste terrible after that point. Did your taste buds change? Did you decide to start hating the food? No, you were sick and your mind associated it with the food you ate. If you don't understand how it's possible you should read one of the many good books about subliminal messaging or brand association. There's a reason why companies spend so much money on branding. There's a reason why sexy women sell products. Branding has really become the soft form of subliminal messaging. Anyone who claims to be immune to it is claiming to be mentally handicapped really. Once again, just because you don't understand a factually supported theory doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Product bias is a well understood phenomenon, and pretending that it doesn't exist or isn't effective is laughable.

If we don't have answers to these questions we won't be able to decide which properties of our gear are important. All that's left is trial and error. And what part of our gear can be swapped out most easily? Cables

Even if you knew nothing about the brain, if you know enough about the source of the sound it wouldn't matter. If you played a series of sounds that were identical, but it was discovered that each of them was heard differently by the user would this justify any changes to the source of the sound? No. If 2 lights are shown to you and you think one is brighter does that make one light better than the other or the claim of one being brighter any more justified? No.

 

[Panicos K]

Of course we can. We can localize sounds in all directions. Our brain is presented with information from different physical cues. [1] But the interesting question is how our brain processes those cues. And that's where neuroscience comes in.
Stereo and multichannel presents an artificial sound field to the listener. It mixes physically correct cues with wrong ones. How does our brain interpret this mixture? Is it the same for everybody (innate) or are there differences (aquired)?
If we don't have answers to these questions we won't be able to decide which properties of our gear are important. All that's left is trial and error. And what part of our gear can be swapped out most easily? Cables

[1] http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/publibrary/Begault_2000_3d_Sound_Multimedia.pdf

I could change 5 cartridges before you loosen your speaker cable's spades
Now,I haven't ever tried to see how long it takes to change all my 11 cartridges on the Jelco arm