Why do intelligent people deny audio differences?

I'm NOT about to type out the novels that i did last time all of this "evidence" was introduced. Rsbeck failed to respond to any / all of my previous rebuttals on the subject because he couldn't refute the information that i used as a reference. That's because my reference was his reference. Refuting my statements would be the same as impugning his own reference point, hence his silence.

Since that thread has since been deleted ( hmmmm... wonder why??? ), i'm not going to argue with a brick wall. He keeps arguing the same thing, over and over again, which only covers a very narrow part of the big picture. When it is repeatedly demonstrated to him that cable bandwidth is directly related to the impedance of the speaker load that it is terminated with, he seems to go deaf / refuse to face the facts.

Pabelson: Most EE's know what their text books have taught them. The smart ones are the ones that use the text book as a guideline and then learn on their own. This is how technology and our knowledge base is furthered. If we relied on past technology and accepted "perfectly understood" theories as being the final word, the world would still be flat and the Sun would be revolving around the Earth.

I'm done here. I hope you guys have fun. Sean
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PS... Welcome to Audio Review take II

Sean said:

Pabelson: Most EE's know what their text books have taught them

And textbooks teach quite a lot about circuits & circuit design -- don't they...
Despite what we (consumers -- not EE's involved in audio circuits) know or don't know about them:)!

Because the most significant variable is the ear/brain processor and nothing that is inherent in the equipment we listen to; try getting that across to subjective audiophiles. Audiophilia is a faith-based activity these days... No it doesn't all sound the same, but most of the time the differences are so insignificant as to make the whole thing beside the point.

Text books, and the study they relate to, teach us how to learn, as well as some facts and techniques. Most of the electronics technology current when I went to school is obsolete today, but the open-minded but systematic approach to learning that I was taught is still valid, and, at last report, Ohm's law still applies. One cannot chase after every fool idea that comes down the pike, and science can help identify the ones that just might be valid for further study. Could science miss a good one? Sure. But some crazy guy will try it anyway, and become a hero.

By the way, how are we doing with cold fusion?

I'd suggest this approach.

Amongst the audiophile community, there is a very significant statistical majority that there are audible differences in cables. These are people who have done all kinds of listening tests in their home environments, and many would have preferred to not spend any unnecessary money.

These differences are statistically significant enough to comprise a valid observed phenomenon, over a disparate group of individuals.

Now, the scientific response should be that since existing electrical testing methodology has only shown minor differences,and that A/B/X testing has not determined anything sufficient, that there must be some other testing methodology found to either support or refute this widespread observation.

Case in point: When optical communications networks are used, fiber-optic cables carry the signals. Electricity is applied to one driver, and comes out the other end's receiver as electricity(of course opto-couplers are used in this case, but bear me out). If I took that fiber-optic cable and tested it for electrical characteristics, it would seem that it wouldn't even carry any electricity, and it won't. But that doesn't mean that signals are not carried on it. You have to design your testing protocol to measure what you are trying to determine. When we add in the opto-couplers and know(ahead of time) that we are transmitting light signals with couplers on both ends, then we can measure the performance adequately. Similarly, we don't really know for sure(and this whole thread bears this out) what we are trying to measure. All we know is that the existing measuring techniques are apparently not adequate to account for a statistically significant and widespread observation.

So, one way to deal with it, is to just "dismiss" it as folly, or imagination. The other way is to figure out why the tests are inadequate, and determine new tests that actually can make some headway to finding out how to measure what is so commonly observed. The first step in this is to try to determine what the cables are doing that is not in our testing.

If every scientist dismissed everything that could not be readily measured at the time, we wouldn't know anything at all. Measurements are made to quantify observed phenomenon. Anything that is a statistically significant occurrence, justifies further investigation to find tests that can quantify it, whether they be electrical tests or acoustic tests, or whatever.

Something is going on here with these cables, and it would behoove us to find out what it is, and why it is.