Dissonance or not.
Personally, I do not find discomfort when knowing contradictory pieces of data. No need to resolve anything.
Not even when someone is holding a gun to your head and threatening to blow your brains out, but you can feel water dripping down your cheek which tells you it's a water pistol?
IMO it is natural to integrate and eliminate because our discomfort is effectively an instruction.
IMO it is natural to integrate and eliminate because our discomfort is effectively an instruction.
No doubt rare exceptions exist. Don't know the answer to your question though since it has never happened.
Ironically no contradiction or misrepresentation of Olive's research was raised. To my knowledge his tests focus exclusively on preference and perceived sound quality.
I'm not aware of any tests that compared a speaker to an original acoustic source in room, even something simple and easily mechanically repeatable like a snare or cowbell hit. The closest would be comparing the sound of a headphone to a speaker in room, but those are two artificial sources.
If someone held a water pistol to my head and told me he intended to blow my brains out, I think I’d still want to be careful how I reacted.
At least not aware of a really strictly controlled experiment too, but in the 1950/60s in the UK a series of public demonstrations comparing live acoustical events of real instruments to loudspeaker reproduction was done (and iirc in the US as well) where the audience had to decide if listening to "live" or "reproduction" .
Similar events took place at audio fairs in the 1980s (by Cabasse for example).
As did Edison. Olive does address the topic in what for me is an unconvincing manner:
Audio Musings by Sean Olive: Why Live-versus-Recorded Listening Tests Don't Work
None of this is to criticize the substance of his results. They just have a specific application and scope.
"Value is in the imagination" Especially in the stock market. Especially if it's the "collective" imagination.
You could think a company or ETF you're investing in is great, but if most others (playing the same game) dont think so, you're shoveling cash into the furnace.
Apparently tube stuff as good sound or high end exists enough in the collective imaginations of most audiophiles, that it's perceived as having value. Smart people design a product and make a successful business over this perception.
Personally, I have some tube stuff which I listen to regularly. I paid money for it, so there's value in it - to me. I may / may not be replacing it all in a heartbeat with an all solid state system, if that sounds better to me, i.e. has more value. Waiting for it to come in the mail...
So there's individual perception, collective perception and reality. We can even have a match between individual and collective that doesnt track reality, but it's unlikely. We can have a mismatch between individual and collective perceptions (OP issue), but that doesnt obscure any truth about (and monetary potential of) the collective - whether that tracks reality or not! The 'ol worse measuring sounds better phenomena.
OP, Wiseold-tech could have initially said "I just dont understand the collective perception of such things" And that's it and we should always remember this. I dont understand the collective perception around YouTube videos, however some of those who do are millionaires - and I'm not.
So your own value is therefore based - at least in part - on your capability of understanding what's happening in the minds of most other people. Hit that nail on the head every time and they'll be rolling out the red carpet for you! Have no idea what moves most people to action (like actually watch the video / buy the component for $995), not so much.
You could think a company or ETF you're investing in is great, but if most others (playing the same game) dont think so, you're shoveling cash into the furnace.
Apparently tube stuff as good sound or high end exists enough in the collective imaginations of most audiophiles, that it's perceived as having value. Smart people design a product and make a successful business over this perception.
Personally, I have some tube stuff which I listen to regularly. I paid money for it, so there's value in it - to me. I may / may not be replacing it all in a heartbeat with an all solid state system, if that sounds better to me, i.e. has more value. Waiting for it to come in the mail...
So there's individual perception, collective perception and reality. We can even have a match between individual and collective that doesnt track reality, but it's unlikely. We can have a mismatch between individual and collective perceptions (OP issue), but that doesnt obscure any truth about (and monetary potential of) the collective - whether that tracks reality or not! The 'ol worse measuring sounds better phenomena.
OP, Wiseold-tech could have initially said "I just dont understand the collective perception of such things" And that's it and we should always remember this. I dont understand the collective perception around YouTube videos, however some of those who do are millionaires - and I'm not.
So your own value is therefore based - at least in part - on your capability of understanding what's happening in the minds of most other people. Hit that nail on the head every time and they'll be rolling out the red carpet for you! Have no idea what moves most people to action (like actually watch the video / buy the component for $995), not so much.
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Someone who pays 14K for a power cord would have to be totally oblivious to all the crappy connections going from their wall outlet back to their nearest monument or pole transformer! This is the exact sucker that this maker is looking for.
The last 3 feet of silver or gold wire wont do anything about the electrician who wired your living room outlet to same neutral carrying your A/C load simply because "it was close", and the four other outlets on that breaker where the electrician used back-stab outlets "to save time" and again picked up any handy neutral, and the additional Aluminum to Copper interconnects in the breaker box, the breaker contact, then out to the pole, a few corroding connections there... on and on.
High priced cable sales of all kinds are targeted to low-intelligence people with big wallets, an addiction, and a talent for hiding spends from the wife!
Now if someone had their own dedicated 220V run from the breaker box to their stereo, a box which converted the 220 to 110 whilst providing the waveform cleanliness and low source impedance at the output sockets - that system might be worth 14k.
But I'm an engineer, so my perception is I want something that "makes sense" to me in engineering terms for my money. I dont know what the background of such a person would be, that such a costly cable could be marketed to; i.e. I have no idea how such value could be ascribed for so little - a few wires with appropriate connectors at each end. Makes no sense to me, however makes good enough sense to someone else that they'd buy it.
I do understand the "how can this be?" element of WOT's thread.
But I'm an engineer, so my perception is I want something that "makes sense" to me in engineering terms for my money. I dont know what the background of such a person would be, that such a costly cable could be marketed to; i.e. I have no idea how such value could be ascribed for so little - a few wires with appropriate connectors at each end. Makes no sense to me, however makes good enough sense to someone else that they'd buy it.
I do understand the "how can this be?" element of WOT's thread.
The power cable thing is apparently about functioning as some kind of filter, not about improving the wiring all the way back to the power utility.
Not that that I'm defending the crazy prices for those things.
Not that that I'm defending the crazy prices for those things.
At the risk of suggesting or asking for data, I'd be interested in seeing some data either from users or manufacturers which shows how and why their after-market power cables are better than a stock supplied power cable. Surely, any manufacturer can provide such data. Otherwise, how would they know how to build a "better power cable"?
Lower noise, at what frequencies? Lower distortion, let's see the comparative spectrums. Better current throughput, easy to measure and show. Noise, distortion, current. Easy. What else?
Lower noise, at what frequencies? Lower distortion, let's see the comparative spectrums. Better current throughput, easy to measure and show. Noise, distortion, current. Easy. What else?
And if we try thinking the influence of a power cord is not electrically related? Is it so hard to try thinking into another direction?
I did run 220V to my entertainment system on a dedicated dual 20A breaker using 10 gauge wire, a 20 foot pull from my mains breakers to the entertainment wall. At the J box I simply wired up two commercial-quality 110V outlets on each side of the 220V feed, giving me two 110V outlets in anti-phase. Now I have hum cancelling AC supplies for mono-blocks. Total cost at the home center maybe $80. Yes, doing this is far better than a 14K power cord! An electrician will do it for just his hourly rate alone if you're not up to house wiring.