New Study Reveals Why Most Audiophiles Still Fall for Snake Oil Without Realizing It
https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/12/study-reveals-why-audiophiles-fall-snake-oil/
Excerpts
Researcher Emilian Kalchev’s study identifies what he calls “brain burn-in,” where your neural pathways gradually adapt to a sound signature until it becomes familiar and therefore preferable. The equipment isn’t changing. You are.
...Expectation doesn’t just shape opinion. It physically alters neural activity. ..
Give an audiophile a new upgrade and 50 hours, and the brain does the rest. A recent study maps how belief and repetition reshape what we hear. This makes the changes feel real, even when frequency response and distortion numbers stay the same. ... ..
.... Repeated exposure to ..claims in online communities doesn’t just reinforce beliefs. It literally strengthens the neural pathways associated with them...
Consider speaker cables costing $10,000 when $20 hardware store alternatives measure identically. Professional recording studios (the ones producing the music audiophiles obsess over) use standard cables. As Benchmark Media observes, audiophile cable marketing “doesn’t exist in the pro-audio/commercial studio world because it wouldn’t work on engineers.” ...
In 2007, magician and professional skeptic James Randi offered $1 million to anyone who could prove that $7,250 Pear Anjou speaker cables sounded better than Monster Cable in a blind test. .... ” If the cables could do what their makers claimed, “they would be paranormal.”
Stereophile writer Michael Fremer accepted the challenge. Pear Cable withdrew and refused to provide cables for testing. The challenge ran until 2015. Over 1,000 people applied for Randi’s broader paranormal challenge across all categories. None succeeded.
Read full article:> https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/12/study-reveals-why-audiophiles-fall-snake-oil/
Agree, it's all in the mind.
I have an audio cable from my computer to the processor(currently Cuthbert) and the other from there to the transmitter. I have tried the hi fi ones that are double/triple shielded, have a directional arrow, pure oxygen free copper, 18 gauge wire and it's snake oil alright. I then use the cheap ones you can get at dollar stores, Canada Computers, Best Buy, Amazon wherever, $5.00 to $10 for 6 ft 1/8"/1/4" TRS to 2 RCA and there is no difference! Even without the triple shielding with foil and thicker gauge, oxygen free copper and gold plated connectors.
Sounds exactly the same.
Amazing you go to a hi fi shop and the same type of cable runs you as much as $100 and up.
Well for that money your brain says yes it has to be better.
"....Pano, the moderator who built the experiment, invited other members on the forum to listen to various sound clips with four different versions: one taken from the original CD file, with the three others recorded through 180cm of pro audio copper wire, via 20cm of wet mud, through 120cm of old microphone cable soldered to US pennies, and via a 13cm banana, and 120cm of the same setup as earlier.
Initial test results showed that it’s extremely difficult for listeners to correctly pick out which audio track used which wiring setup. “The amazing thing is how much alike these files sound. The mud should sound perfectly awful, but it doesn't," Pano said. "All of the re-recordings should be obvious, but they aren't." ..."
You gotta love it!...
@richpowers Shows how we can be brainwashed into thinking the $150 cables have to be better than the $10 ones so you think you are hearing a difference. Subliminal seduction.
Doesn't work with me. Although I wouldn't think a banana could conduct audio signals.
Although I wouldn't think a banana could conduct audio signals.
Bananas and mud are both 90% water, anything that can conduct electricity can conduct audio signals. Potatoes, cucumbers, pears, etc.
Not quite the same, but I remember making batteries out of potatoes at school. The ultimate in green (or brown) power.