mugsby - the audiophile crowd will argue about some very very silly things, you can buy wood blocks to hold the speaker wire off the floor, special tiny dots the size of ladybugs to put on your furniture, or special markers to color your CDs.
Science is not important and is rejected or substituted with pseudo-science. Not that every test is perfect nor may reveal exactly why X is better than Y, but there should be some rationale behind a statement.
We all want the best of everything, especially in our hobbies where its a point of pride and part of the satisfaction in participating. But there are limits to practicality, and the term 'audiophile' is generally one where the power of suggestion about what is 'better' gets blurred into perceptions. And perception is reailty.
If there really was a sonic difference to some of the voo-doo type of mumbo-jumbo, there would be a method to measure the difference.
Richard Clark (he stamps CDs not the security guy) decided to find out himself why people talk so much about differences between this or that. He found that some people could discern changes of .1db and that his statistics showed that people picked the louder. This threshold became his standard for the JND (just noticable difference) and he made sure that he knew how sensitive the ear really was when he put $10k on the line as an amplification challenge. You took challenge for free and could walk away with $10k if you could correctly identify amplifier A from amplifier B 16 times in a row. With his own personal money on the line, he made sure his testing methods to make $100 car audio amplifiers keep pace with $10,000 Krell home amps were very good. He would match within .01db and make sure there were no obvious defects like noise/clicks and that the frequency response was matched too (he would put the EQ on the cheap amp) and a few other basic items most people overlook. He hasn't lost yet, and audiophiles conside it an invalid test because its too controlled.
His argument is simple, the audiophiles/salespeople/marketing people talk about sonic difference as the difference between apples and oranges. I can tell an apple apart from an orange 16 times in a row without a problem. Hundreds have tried, no one has passed his test yet and he doesn't bother anymore because countless people discount the test regardless of the setup, even in their own homes with their own equipment!
