By popular demand, your winner and topic for this week’s discussion is….
Has Anyone Ever Studied The “placebo” Effect With Amps, Cables Etc?
Please share your experiences, knowledge, reviews, questions, or anything that you think might add to the conversation here.
Vote for the next topic in the poll for the next discussion.
Previous discussions can be found here.
Alright, this is the small, insignificant hill I’m prepared to die on.
Firstly, placebo is the wrong word - I’d argue it’s more of a perceptual phenomenon.
Why? Because we prioritise visual information over auditory information - we know this from the Mcgurk effect where hearing a word said over a video of a different word being said causes people to hear a different (third) word.
In this scenario all the ABX studies would show this had no effect on the audio, but we can clearly see from studies ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3196040/ ) that what is perceived by people and what auditory information they are receiving can be different things.
This would mean that we could equate the ABX studies to be victims of looking for or measuring the wrong thing. The see visual information on the cables as a confounding variable, when in reality they should be considered as part of the dependent variable - with audio and visual data being seen as one/a whole.
Also, we know that 2 headphones can have the same/similar FR, but will/can sound different.
So, what we need is a blind or some kinds of ABX test where copper cables are put in either copper or silver sleeves and vice versa, not tell the participants and then see what the results are. I haven’t been able to find any studies on this, and until I do I won’t accept that cables don’t change a persons perception of how music sounds - and after all, perception is reality.
Don’t die on this hill bro.
I’d be happy to be proven wrong - I haven’t been able to find anything that has studied or discounted it yet though!
I’m with you 100%. Cables (certain cables) can provide an audible difference from another cable.
In the case of speaker cables, the most important factor is to look at the purity of the material - how pure is it in terms of crystals and air? If you’re serious about sound, UP-OCC Copper or Silver is the only way to go. When I went from OFC to OCC, that’s when I began to believe.
The dielectric and geometry also play a big role.
None of what you described has a real, audible effect on an audio signal. It would have one on signals of a much higher frequency, such is in the mhz or ghz, but audio is not transmitted at those frequencies.
Everything you said is completely bunk when it comes to what you can hear. The ONLY time cables matter is for speaker-wire, and it is very specifically gauging of the wire based on the length of the run and impedance of the transducers themselves. Choosing the wrong gauging can cause very measurable, detectable high-frequency roll-off.
Any other situation, there is 100% no difference whatsoever.
None of what you described has a real, audible effect on an audio signal. It would have one on signals of a much higher frequency, such is in the mhz or ghz, but audio is not transmitted at those frequencies.
Everything you said is completely bunk when it comes to what you can hear. The ONLY time cables matter is for speaker-wire, and it is very specifically gauging of the wire based on the length of the run and impedance of the transducers themselves. Choosing the wrong gauging can cause very measurable, detectable high-frequency roll-off.
Any other situation, there is 100% no difference whatsoever.