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It's an easy differentiation

Posted by Presto on December 10, 2010 at 14:57:40:
Your list - tweaks of importance in the "YMMV" category. Even if Oyaide plugs just have better build quality and contact mating, they could be offered as a "cost-no-object" device. I've seen the plugs. The additional build quality is a given - without even listen to them in the system. It's accepted gold connectors are better due to reduced oxidation. Why then are not improved contacts in electrical devices not also of value? Again. YMMV.

On one extreme end, we get "measures the same - sounds the same" aka "the range of measurements we have now are sufficient to account for any and all sonic perceptions" which is complete objectivist-extremist bunk. We don't know how to measure things to account for all sonic perceptions. If we did, we could create the perfect audio system (and recording methods) that would transport every listener of every song to the original event every time.

On the other end, we get the parlor tricks. The freezer tricks, faceplate screw slot alignment, color on carpet (different coloring agents in the carpet affects dielectric strength you see), Belt tricks, and small little dollhouse-sized teacup thingies that magically re-arrange all of the mangled sonic nuances of airborne sound. You know. Subjectivist voodoo religion.

A guy could put a pebble from the alleyway out back on his coffee table and claim it to impart the "standard array" of common audiophile improvements that are "far from subtle that his wife could hear in the next room" and then market it in three colors:

red - agressive sound. $1000
blue - mellow sound $1500
white - virgin-pee / white-as-snow pure sound $5000

Some here would own all three, to match their mood that day or just to make sure their psychological bias mechanisms (imaginations) are still fully functional. (They'll hear the agressive red ones, the mellow blue ones, and the pure white ones and know that they have THE GIFT. ha ha ha). That's all I am saying here. Nobody said the devices / products you were referring to were DEFINITIVELY "voodoo". The plugs are different than cheap stock plugs. The isolators and couplers DO make differences to mechanical aspects and vibration. Microphonics CAN affect electronics, especially - but not limited to - tubes. Some guys think living too close to a freeway causes microphonics. I say it causes noisey car sounds more than anything.

When voodoo tweaks are not audible, they are attibuted to being "very very small veils being lifted" and the reason that they can't be heard by SOME is because of tinear-itis or an insufficiently resolving system.

In other words, bullshit.

So if you have yet to align the screw slots in your faceplate receptacles, wear only blue socks in your listening room, or have not yet purchased my "Quantum Pebbles" based on psycho-color technology, then you're not a tweako subjectivist yet. But you might be a bit neurotic if you think everyone here THINKS you are a tweako subjectivist. It's just that you tend to call ANYONE who questions ANY tweak for ANY reason a staunch objectivist when in fact most guys here are more middle ground "YMMV" types who avoid boxing themselves into the dogma of either extreme for any substantial period of time.

I know I'm not in either camp and know that those who want to stick me in one camp or another tend to be "black and white" thinkers who perhaps believe that everything in life can be boxed into one of two extremes.

I'm more of a "shades of grey" guy myself. Being a DIY speaker designer I have to do a lot of measurements. The stuff I do you can't do "by ear". I tend to listen to music by ear though. I've measured music ten different ways but the results don't ever sound any good. They LOOK fantastic on paper there, but only make a sound when I crumple them into a ball.

Cheers,
Presto