On 29 Dec 2002 11:54:34 -0800, sorry_no_email@yahoo.com (BrianEWilliams) wrote:

>Had a couple of chuckles reading the thread about tube motherboards.
>Google won't let me post there (thankfully), but I had a couple of
>observations.
>
>Seems like newsgroups are full of people cut from the same cloth as
>Aristotle who reasoned that heavy things fall faster than light
>things. He couldn't be bothered actually dropping some stuff to
>verify this conclusion, prefering to stay within the pristine world of
>the mind. Leave to Galileo to actually TRY the experiment and arrive
>at the truth.
>
>The abovementioned thread is full of people trying to reason this way
>and that about some determinates of sound quality. I am guilty of a
>post or two along those lines as well, but I did try to frame the
>issue somewhat empirically. Basically the tube motherboard or monster
>cable either sound better to a majority of subjects in a double-blind
>study or they don't. This is the ONLY way to actually arrive at
>something close to truth. We should all keep that in mind as we spout
>what is often OPINION. This might improve the level of discourse to
>something better than outright hostility when people disagree.
>
>Can't we all just get along?

Ah, but it is much more complex than that...;-)
By "sounds better", do you mean, "more accurate
in reproduction and therefore closer to the original
recording quality (and therefore closer to the original
sound of the music, the "ultimate reference") - or do
you mean, "more euphonically satisfying" (quite a different
thing)? And, if the latter, are you willing to accept that
the same "Item Under Test" is likely to sound different
(and possibly worse/better than what it is being tested
against...) with a change of associated test gear? And,
are you aware of the strong effects of perceptions, and
how easily they are shifted, even under what appear to be
controlled conditions? And, is it meaningful that some
assumptions about gear are patently silly and therefore
can be dismissed "out of hand"? (So, "there is a strong
temperature incline at upper altitudes that produces
a "hard" air layer that makes it possible to jump off
high cliffs safely, with a controlled glide down - but
this only works for humans for some reason"... Would you
like to test this yourself, or are you satisfied that
this is incorrect, without a test...?;-) Are you not
a bit "put off" when someone presents as fact something
that is obviously false (and easily tested...)?
In other words, arriving at the "truth" may be neither
easy nor straight-forward, and it may involve intricacies
of both pure science and of human nature, with all the
good/ill effects of religion also thrown into the mix...;-)