Speaker wire is it science or psychology

Pops and Detlof hit it on the nose. Like I said, 10% of cable is true science and the remainder 90% is psychology (snake oil) pushed by the press. The minute we can not tell the difference between cables, they ( meaning the press or their advocate/deciples) tells us that our system is not good enough to tell the difference. This is somewhat true, but doesn't that make you feel like an idiot because your not smart enough or can afford to have a system that can tell the difference? What's worse is when you tell them your system (which you have spent a lot if money on), but you still can't tell the difference, they say it's your ear that doesn't know how to listen. Are you suppose to feel handicap now because can't hear that they hear? Before you know it, you start to trick your mind to hear what they tell you what you should hear just so that you can hold a conversation with the press in their lingo. Talk about psychology. I don't mean to insult anyone with my comments. I am just trying to raise questions/discussions to see if we have all gone over board with this. Think of this as the checks and balances of our society/industry. The industry advances every year and they do take us in various directions. Consumers like you and I should have discussions like this to keep the industry going to a direct that we are comfortable with. After all we are their life blood considering how much money we have spent. In addition, don't you think Audiogon tracks and expose these comments to the vendors as feedbacks?

Whosyoudaddy, good comment. I tried out a rave reviewed pair of speakers a few years ago and rejected them because they were too bright. When the dealer told the distributor (a famously obnoxious guy in the industry) his response was that (1) I obviously needed better cables (so I wasnt't smart enough to use his speakers properly) and (2) the dealer shouldnt lend out his speakers to people with junky cables.

Thanks for stealing my thoughts whosyourdaddy. I should have said it is part science, part psychology, part voodoo& snake oil and part whoopla. But the fact remains- With use of science principals you can achieve a perfect cable( with right combination of components) but after certain price point(read percenatge perfection compared to 100% being absolute perfect), the benefits are probably there ( measurements wise) but you are at mercy of psychology science to tell the difference. Similar to system as whole, after certain price point, rate of return diminishes drastically.

I just read this whole thread (whew) and have one possibly original observation to share: there seems to be some suggestion in the original posting and subsequent discussion that "psychological"="sensory"="not verified with electronic measuring equipment and therefore not real." I wish to offer a distinction: there is a popularly understood sense of the word "psychological" to mean "only imagined." I strongly disagree with the implication that "sensory"="psychological" in this sense. Just because something is observed by humans but nobody has caused it to create a statistical artifact on a paper trace, the something can still be real. Steve, while you wait for the measuring equipment to be delivered, please consider gathering some data with the equipment that's already built into your body. The human sensory apparatus is way more sophisticated than the most impressive soldered-together collections of silicon and metal. Consider the fragrance industry, which employs finely-calibrated human noses operated by their owners, and employs them in a most scientific manner. Machines have not been invented which can do what those people can do. Their apparatus is sensory, but their sensory perceptions are not "psychological" in the sense described above. I personally have heard difference in cables strongly enough that I believe them and have no doubt that a blind test would confirm my observations. If I may offer for your sensory measurement the artifact which finally convinced me: Track 2 of Dave Matthews Band "Crash", about 2:50 in--someone in the background is saying "t-t-t-t-t". That sound is palpably different on different cables. I never even noticed it until I installed some better-but-still-cheap interconnect cables a couple days ago (like, $50 or so). Until I heard that, I too pooh-poohed cables. Now I'm afraid to listen to more expensive ones, for fear I'll have to have them. Cheers.

Nice job Kd, I think you may be on to something here. Now how to show it so those who need something on paper, something on a read-out. It's not understood enough to know what to test for or how to conduct the test. As I've been trying to say, but am not blessed with your skill, just because we haven't tested it doesn't mean it's not there, only that we don't understand it or how to test it. Please continue your offerings Kd, very nice to hear from you. J.D.