altruistic.lemon said:
How do you go with the vast amount of anecdotal evidence saying people do hear differences? Are 90% of hifi geeks wrong?
It's more to do with the terminologuy they employ to describe the differences they heard. Night and day is a favourite. More air is another. Greater space. Deeper blacks. A range of adjectives that mean absolutely nothing when it comes to detailing what someone means.
My own personal favourite came about thanks to this magazine. Back in 2007, they listed Van den Hul's "The Name" in the buying guide. It sort of went something like "this cable will transform your system...stunning dynamics...." on the single line entry. £60 for a 1m pair. I'd been using a pair of Audioquest Turquoise interconnects for years beforehand, with my then Linn Mimik CD player and a Marantz PM-6010KI amp. Bought them. Plugged them in. The lack of the transformation and supposed dynamism just had to be heard to be (not) believed. Went through all my reference tracks, The Yes Album's Starship Trooper, Genesis' Mad Man Moon and Entangled, and a good few others.
Nothing to do with hard of hearing, there are no magical properties in any of this. It's down to descriptions, what people hear, how they are influenced and finding common terms that everyone understands and can apply equally across the board. Air, Space, Night and Day and many others don't do that job as these things differ from one person to the next in the context in which they're used.