Open-Minded or Gullible?

Marco,
The Ultimate Tweak---a superb piece of writing!!!! Well done!! Thanks.

I noticed when i set my Star Wars Boba-Fett action figure on the amplifier with his arms down, it produces no noticable effect, however, when i raise his arms up, it made some improvement. Then i decided to give him his Pistol and Rifle, and noticed a strengthening of the bass with tighter punch, but the mids seemed thin, but when i took replaced his rifle with his other pistol and everything sounded smooth, clean, and tight.

I've been messing around with a dead raccoon as well, what i did was lay it over the speaker cables and it seemed to bring out a little more warmth. Of course, this tweak is only lasts as long as the carcass. And sometimes the smell started to get to me, so i tweaked my nose with some vix vaper-rub and it seemed to lessen the burden of the stench.
My current raccoon set is almost used up, i need to go get some fresh ones here soon.

I also have been experimenting with a tweak that might seem a little strange. I replaced the fuses with carrots with a copper wire fed through them. I then removed all the internal circut boards from the chassis and hung them up with fishing twine. That seemed to result in a little broader soundstage and the highs seemed a little bit more refined.

Well, thats my tweaks. I'd like to hear some more of yours! :)

I don't think that you need to spend $2k on a pair of speaker cables just because someone says they sound good. But you might find if you try a pair, that you may wind up buying them because YOU think that they sound good. It has happened to many others. It is likely that every other person that has bought expensive cables has doubted the possibility that they could be worth the investment. But in many cases, the cables were bought because they actually did make the system sound better. There are very few audiophiles that are interested in dropping big bucks for no improvement. Just the sheer percentage of audiophiles that are using upscale cables says quite a bit about their viability. Healthy skepticism is just fine, but the proof is in the listening. As I've been known to say in jest, "I don't care if they have a hamster running in a wheel inside the thing. As long as it sounds better, I'm satisfied". However, I'd prefer not to have to feed the hamster.

Regarding the gullibility issue. This is a market with many types of people, but nearly all prefer to spend less money if they can get the same result for less. If a product doesn't do what it is supposed to do, it will not make it in the market. There are a few who will buy for status alone, but they are not enough to keep any company alive for long. It has to work well, and if it doesn't, it is doomed. There is no mass hypnosis happening in the audiophile world. It either works well or not. I'm sure that there is some level of "power of suggestion" involved in some of this, but when it comes to spending big dollars it has to be real, or there is no sale. Remember, they don't have to buy these products. They have to hear something that makes them want the product. And it has to be good enough to make them get out the wallet and spend a couple of G-notes. If you ever spent any time in a high end audio store as a salesman, you'd know that customers are not eager to buy anything that isn't a very noticeable gain for their system. They will be very quick to tell you that they don't hear the value of that product, and then you can forget selling it to them. Contrary to popular opinion, audiophiles are not running around trying to find useless items to spend tons of money on. I really don't think they are gullible at all. And for the reversing polarity on a fuse question, it costs nothing to do it, so many would be willing to try it. So what if it does nothing? It costs nothing. But when it comes to spending money, that is a whole different story.

Now I agree that some people will buy some useless items because they heard some change, and thought at first it sounded better, and then discovered that it was just different, and maybe not better. That is the way of the world. But, by and large, the consumer will make a fairly balanced decision about what is better and what is not. Audiophiles are typically successful people who have made money, and are not stupid. So if a large number of them are using certain products or technologies, it is fairly certain that they do work. Whether these products are worth the money to you is a different matter. Only you can decide that.

Some ideas and products are legitimate while others are not.

Sometimes the legitimacy is there, but there's simply no way an inferior system can reveal such benefit. Hence the illusion that it's snake oil.

Therefore, just to be all-encompassing and open-minded, you might consider adding the terms 'close-minded', 'inferior-system', 'deception', and 'self-deception' to your question above.

-IMO

what KIND of fuses?

just kidding

I draw the line at raising wire off the floor even though I can believe the reasoning I just do not know (or care?) if I can hear the difference.