Power Cables diminishing returns

Al,
You're absolutely correct concerning the very high cost of pharmaceutical development, testing, trials and finally FDA approval. Contrary to popular myth it's a very long and very costly process. Sometimes companies don't recoup their investments. There are losers as well as winners in this process.
Charles

I worked for a major pharmaceutical company for over 30 years. On average, it took about 10 years just to bring a product from conception to public consumption. Obviously, many never make the trip.

and as of 5 years ago they spent more than double on advertising than on research...just like the cable companies...

the concept of diminishing returns ia very subjective and an economic assessment.

i don't think a mercedes is worth $50,000, while some car buyers probably do.

the notion that a $1000 power cord does not provide twice the performance as a $500 one is a moot point.

each listener makes the assessment as to what a product is worth relative to another. disagreements are likely to occur.

thus the concept of diminishing returns is not applicable to an aesthetic medium.

it is useful where objective measurement is possible, such as in a production environment.

this term was originally applied in micro economics. it is debatable whether it has any usefulness in audio.

A couple of posters above, I believe it was Robsker and Schipo, talk about double blind testing and how listeners could not tell the difference between PC's. That's fine, but the problem I have is that I would like to see the tests myself. This is one of those emotional topics that people get caught up in on both sides. Its understandable for many reasons.

My position is that I can hear differences in power cords. Sometimes its a big difference and other times, its very small. On occasion, I don't hear any difference. Not only that, about 50% of the time, I find the results to be negative over a stock cord. Its just a mixed bag of results. But there are results (usually), at least for me.

The reason I state the above is to be very clear where my personal bias or experience is. If you guys want to cite tests that were done that contradicts what I know or believe, you have every right to. Not only that, I encourage it. I like to be challenged. But if you want me to take your posts seriously, though, you have to do a better job than to just say that you read about some tests. I want to know as much about them as I can. I need to read them for myself. I may even want to try them to see if I can get the same results. How else can we learn? With all the different people that post here, maybe we can even come up with a better test.