What is your opinion of audio accessory companies like Audioquest?

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I disagree. What does "evangelical in approach " even mean?
It basically means actively trying to save people from something. Feeling the need to confront people and try to get them to change their ways to what you feel is better.
On the other hand it's the same with the subjectivists. Some get very aggressive if you question their claims.
That is part of my point. I don't see that many subjectivists trying to 'save' the objectivists from their lifestyle but I see a lot of it the other direction. One side tends to be much more of a "if that makes you happy then fine" while the other tends more towards "That shouldn't make you happy!!!!!"
Sure an occasional subjectivist will get aggressive in their response, however I'd say that hardly compares the the response that the other side would get on somewhere like ASR.
A lot of audiophile forums try to stamp out objectivism as it upsets the subjectivists. Which means subjectivism is tolerated more in the community than it perhaps should be.
I think often they just tend to try to stop things before they get ugly. See my original line about 'trying to save people from something' and 'if that makes you happy then fine'. Different forums tend to have different outlooks on things. When I used to frequent ASR I'd see people talking excitedly about stirring things up on the other non-objectivist forums. I've never seen the flip side of that on any largely subjectivist forums.
 
Which is another way of saying some theories work (and then called just) and some don't - not exactly deep. Logical positivism explicitly recommends that theories be formulated to be verifiable (i.e. makes predictions that can in principle be tested), so that it will either be confirmed or rejected by experiment. And in the real world theories can only approximate reality, some more closely than others (Eistein / Newton), if for no other reason than experimental error.
 
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It basically means actively trying to save people from something. Feeling the need to confront people and try to get them to change their ways to what you feel is better.
Ah. What if you're just trying to correct someone's thinking? Audiophiles tend to be conditioned into thinking measurements arent everything, to the extent that when some people are shown the measurements show no difference, they just ignore that rather than questioning their listening methodology.
 
Ah. What if you're just trying to correct someone's thinking? Audiophiles tend to be conditioned into thinking measurements arent everything, to the extent that when some people are shown the measurements show no difference, they just ignore that rather than questioning their listening methodology.
I have had enough personal experiences to convince myself that my ears are fallible assessors of sound quality. And in designing and building almost two dozen speakers as well as measuring a number of commercial designs, I have convinced myself of the value of measurement. Curiosity, interest in technical things, and a desire to understand has driven that for me. But if I hadn't had that experience, or didn't have those drives, why would somebody on the internet referencing some laboratory experiment that contradicts what I have personally experienced convince me otherwise? And if a competent sounding or charismatic YouTuber or writer is on my side, why should I change my mind?

Since I have done the listening tests, measurements, design work, and have had personal experiences that challenged my perceptions, when the topic of measurements or the value of the science behind it comes up, I can give my honest experiences of why those things have high value to me. If they don't believe it, or think I have tin ears, that's on them. But the exchange is personal; my experience and theirs, not their experience and a science paper. Because if a person is going to believe in what you have to say, they need a reason to believe that it matters to them. Especially when it contradicts what their experiences and community are telling them.
 
Power to the pebble!

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Audioquest. Nordost. Furutech. Chord Company.

They make all these products, some quite expensive. But do they do us any good?
That depends on what you qualify as good. Speaker cables cán make a difference in sound, but much depends on your equipment. If you have a run-of-the-mill amplifier and speakers, then different cables won't make much, if any, impression on the sound. If you have a "high-end" quality amplifier and speakers, then cables can make an impression on the sound. For instance: I've listened to a Mark Levinson amplifier driving a pair of Audiostatic ES300 speakers and the difference between a vandenHull Clearwater and copper cables was noticeable, as the Clearwater gave much more sharpness in the higher frequencies.

At this moment I'm using a Harman Kardon PA2200, driving two Driade 22.2 speakers, connected via an Audioquest 4x2 mm speaker cable in parallel and in my opinion that is the best combination for my money. Others may feel different, but to them I'd suggest to try some different combinations and let your ears make your decision four you.
 
IMHO and IME, Backfire Effect is just as applicable to ASR cult believers as it is to anyone else.

One can try to "correct the thinking" of these sadly mislead folks, but Backfire Effect forces some of the most cult-affected to put anyone trying to help them on an ignore list.
 
I have had enough personal experiences to convince myself that my ears are fallible assessors of sound quality. And in designing and building almost two dozen speakers as well as measuring a number of commercial designs, I have convinced myself of the value of measurement. Curiosity, interest in technical things, and a desire to understand has driven that for me. But if I hadn't had that experience, or didn't have those drives, why would somebody on the internet referencing some laboratory experiment that contradicts what I have personally experienced convince me otherwise? And if a competent sounding or charismatic YouTuber or writer is on my side, why should I change my mind?

Since I have done the listening tests, measurements, design work, and have had personal experiences that challenged my perceptions, when the topic of measurements or the value of the science behind it comes up, I can give my honest experiences of why those things have high value to me. If they don't believe it, or think I have tin ears, that's on them. But the exchange is personal; my experience and theirs, not their experience and a science paper. Because if a person is going to believe in what you have to say, they need a reason to believe that it matters to them. Especially when it contradicts what their experiences and community are telling them.
Because it makes sense. And it's not only referencing measurement experiments, it's bringing psychological effects like placebo, confirmation bias etc to their attention that helps people to understand why they think they can hear a difference even though the measurements say otherwise. It's important that both these things are given equal weighting.
 
That depends on what you qualify as good. Speaker cables cán make a difference in sound, but much depends on your equipment. If you have a run-of-the-mill amplifier and speakers, then different cables won't make much, if any, impression on the sound. If you have a "high-end" quality amplifier and speakers, then cables can make an impression on the sound. For instance: I've listened to a Mark Levinson amplifier driving a pair of Audiostatic ES300 speakers and the difference between a vandenHull Clearwater and copper cables was noticeable, as the Clearwater gave much more sharpness in the higher frequencies.

At this moment I'm using a Harman Kardon PA2200, driving two Driade 22.2 speakers, connected via an Audioquest 4x2 mm speaker cable in parallel and in my opinion that is the best combination for my money. Others may feel different, but to them I'd suggest to try some different combinations and let your ears make your decision four you.
Only if they measure really badly either in resistance, capacitance or inductance. And the vast majority do not!

And letting your ears make the decision for you in the case of cables is a really bad idea as there should be no difference in sound, so you are allowing placebo effect etc to have full reign.
 
Only if they measure really badly either in resistance, capacitance or inductance.
Just parroting other wrong stuff you read at ASR?

Maybe your knowledge is about like you said before:
I'm not that technical though to be honest.
So why do you keep pretending like you are some expert?

And why are you so resistant to having your errant thinking corrected? Isn't that what you want to do for other people, correct their thinking? So why shouldn't your thinking be subject to correction too?
 
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Because it makes sense. And it's not only referencing measurement experiments, it's bringing psychological effects like placebo, confirmation bias etc to their attention that helps people to understand why they think they can hear a difference even though the measurements say otherwise. It's important that both these things are given equal weighting.
It makes sense if you have proved to yourself that it is true or you trust the source of the information. What if that’s not the case?

Before I got into DIY, I was something of an amplifier-swapping, cable-rolling, audiophile. I didn’t have a reason to not believe my ears because I had never experienced confirmation bias, and I had never measured anything. In that time I heard all about placebo, bias, and measurements, but I remained unconvinced and at times, put off. Being told that I was being hoodwinked by bias and the placebo effect was most definitely not what changed my mind, it was my own curiosity and interest in understanding why things work; finding that technical and scientific publications were providing me with satisfying answers and performing experiments, and being honest with myself about my experiences, that cemented it for me.

I’m in favor of malarkey making an exit from audio if you were wondering, but in my experience, directly confronting enthusiasts and hobbyists with their alleged wrongness ain’t going to make that happen.
 
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