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All audiophiles thought they had golden ears at one time

1. Does your own experience support this conclusion? In other words have you actually tried numerous interconnects and speaker cables on various gear and found no significant difference in performance and thus concluded that they were a non-issue?

---- RG:
I particpated in a DBT of Tara Labs $1000 speaker cables versus $10 14AWG Rat Shack zip cord speaker wires with fellow audio club members in a test run by audio consultant Dave Clark in his listening room with much more expensive equipment than I had at home. No one could hear a differences even though everyone wanted to be the official audio club "Golden Ears"! .

I've done three single blind comparisons of borrowed interconnects versus my own Rat Shack interconnects at home. No audible differences.
Given that no audiophile in the world has ever demonstrated his ability to hear wire differences to witnesses, I haven't bothered with any more wire comparisons.

2. Do you use balance interconnects?
----RG:
No

3. Did you believe that you could hear significant differences prior to doing the more controlled testing?
----RG:
I was a golden ear for 15 years before my first DBT.
I even believed I WAS hearing differences DURING all four DBTs I've participated in ... but my scorecards clearly showed I really had no idea whether component X was really A or B. But then a scorecard was really not necessary -- after 30 minutes of listening for asny differences it was obvious that two amplifiers playing at the same volumes and not clipping, for example, sounded so similar that even after long term listening the differences were not likely to be more than subtle. My mood would have more of an effect on how my stereo sounds on any given day!

After a few hours in a DBT it becomes apparent that it is a lot easier to merely assume one has golden ears, than to prove it.

All four DBTS were set up to make differences too easy to hear, IMHO.
Components were compared that had ridiculously large price differences, and instant switching from A to B was possible (where there would be a one minute or longer delay to swap wires at home).
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Richard BassNut Greene
My Stereo is MUCH BETTER than Your Stereo

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