Why Power Cables Affect Sound

n80. I am 'lucky, or cursed as may be.. that my system is really on a knife edge of clarity vs lean sounding. So for years (even before I bought the 20.7 Magnepans, same thing with the 3.6 Magnepans) So for years I have deliberately balanced this on my quest for more clarity. So I do something to gain in the clarity, but usually this also loses some fullness in the midrange and I have to get that back, without losing the clarity gain. (I have done this many times) So my listening to this particular oddity of my system is highly honed and shaped by experience. So this basic thing I can spot immediately with any cord change. or even different LP or CD mastering! 
For example right now the sound is a trace lean since I added 6 new powercords last week. No problem as they still are breaking in fully. I will have to see how swapping them with previous ones etc after about a month of use.            
Sine I acquired the Magnepan 20.7s began to be way easier to hear details, then adding in the Furutech duplex multipled that.. SO I am getting to really hear in detail what is there in recordings.. For good and bad.

Actually, no offense intended, but my impression of Lizzie is that she’s not really Exhibit A of a careful and thorough listener nor is she particularly interested in tweaks. Nor is she particularly open minded. But that is just my opinion. Maybe she’s entirely different from how she presents herself here, as more of a curmudgeon. She is probably Exhibit A for a person who’s general attitude can be summarized into one word. - “whatever.”

Meeeoooow!😻

Well, hi there, 💩 for 🧠 👨🏻‍✈️🚌  Have you been huffing aviation fumes again? Bad martini time, bad!

I'm not the one who introduced the term "placebo" and would not - as I had clearly stated - simply attributed either real audible results or imagined audio results to the "placebo effect."  As I keep mentioning, we suffer a range of perceptual biases.  "Placebo effect" is often raised in threads like these as a short hand for bias effects.


The placebo effect is absolutely fascinating in that it's not restricted to mere bias and perceptual error, but it can actually produce a variety of physical results.  Lots is known about the effects of placebo, but very little understood about the mechanisms.  In the drug trial I mentioned the subjects comprised people with a history of peanut allergy reactions, so they were familiar with what it was like to react to peanuts.   And yet some who were given the placebo pill actually vomited...even had hives and other physical reactions...of the type they get when they are exposed to actual peanut protein!

The power of the placebo effect (among other biases) is why - whether we know the mechanism or not - if you are testing for the efficacy of the drug in question, you have to control for the placebo effect to sift the efficacy of the drug from that caused by placebo. 


The necessity of these controls was further apparent when, after the results were unblinded I talked to the researchers.  They had, in essence for "fun," been trying to ascertain which of their subjects was on placebo and which were on the actual peanut protein.  It turned out in many cases they were simply wrong, due to the confounding reactions to the placebo.  Some people they felt SURE were reacting to peanut protein were on the placebo.  Some people they were sure were on the placebo (due to lack of symptoms) were on the peanut protein.  This shows how utterly skewed their empirical inferences could have been if they had not conducted a controlled, blinded test.



In fact there was a fascinating article in the NYT a while back I read on people trying to get to the bottom of the mechanisms involved in the placebo effect.  Here it is:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/magazine/placebo-effect-medicine.html

But, all that said, as I've written many times "placebo effect," although often used as a short-hand in these discussions, does not at all denote, or cover, all the specific forms of bias and phenemonena going on in human perception, including what we would have to untangle in understanding the relationship between our gear and what we are hearing.

I also have mentioned many times I would never expect or advocate the idea everyone needs to go blind testing everything...or anything!...they buy.  I don't.  We all just have to satisfy ourselves.

It's only when we get in to discussions trying to understand what is going on, and when claims start being made - e.g. "AC cables DEFINITELY alter the sound of a system" and "I know this because I've heard it, and it can't be on the basis of any perceptual bias"....when people make these declarations, it's fair to raise the reasons one can have for caution in just accepting such claims.