Thanks for the links. They were entertaining. But I'm afraid they don't provide evidence to support the claim that audiophiles can't tell the difference between audiophile equipment and more mundane equipment.

You've shown two anecdotes of audiophile reviewers making claims that a high-end digital cable improves audio quality. We both know that those claims are bunk. But picking a couple of anecdotes doesn't qualify as conclusive evidence. For example, I could find a few scientists that claim that global warming isn't real. But those scientists have a dissenting opinion from the rest of the scientific community on global warming. Hence, the anecdotes don't indicate the overall trend.

Every field has its share quacks. Showing me a couple anecdotes doesn't convince me that an entire field is filled with quacks.

> If anybody can reliably distinguish the expensive SATA cable from a regular one in a proper blind test, then I will cheerfully retract all of the above.

I appreciate that you're approaching this with skepticism. I think that's the right approach. I highly doubt that anyone will ever be able to distinguish between SATA cables in a blind study, so I think our conclusions about digital signal cables will hold.

The lack of skepticism on the part of the reviewers is the real problem we're seeing here. This quote from your second ZDNet link is telling:

I know full well that it is ‘scientifically' not possible for a data cable to exert such influence but I know what we heard and hoped that maybe someone might be able to throw some light on what might be going on.

I wouldn't be surprised the reviewer really did hear a difference, but it was probably in his head. (Even though he admits that he knows its impossible.) Enjoying music is a psychological process, which makes it even more important to do double-blind tests when doing a comparison in order to remove expectation bias.

This problem, I admit, is prevalent among hi-fi reviews. I've read a lot of reviews of different stereo equipment and not once seen a reviewer use a double-blind test. I've heard that a lot of times, reviewers have a financial incentive to post glowing reviews. I don't know how true that is. If it is true, that will probably make it harder to get reviewers to adopt double-blind testing. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes (ZDNet author) should be commended for taking Malcolm Steward (hi-fi blogger) to task over his SATA cable reviews. I'd love to see hi-fi reviewers take a more scientific approach.

However, it does not follow that all audiophiles are incapable of discerning the differences in equipment. First of all, the evidence we've looked at so far only concerns reviewers. We haven't looked at hobbyists. Do hobbyists accept everything that the reviewers write? It's one thing for a reviewer to write a glowing review for a new product (especially when the manufacture pays a lot of money for ads in their magazine). It's quite another for someone to actually spend hard-earned cash on that new product. Lastly, we've only discussed digital cables so far. Which isn't really fair, because that's not a component that can make a difference. What about DACs, amplifiers, and speakers? Do you honestly think that audiophiles can't tell the difference between a good speaker and a budget speaker? Even better, do you have any evidence that that's true?

I honestly don't know the answers to these questions. If I was a betting man, I would bet that a lot of people can tell the difference between cheap and mid-range, but I have no clue about mid-range and high-end. (Say, for example, $30 headphones from Best Buy versus $300 Sennheissers versus $3000 planar magnetic headphones.) So it's also going to depend on how we define "audiophile equipment" versus "mundane equipment." Are we comparing the $3000 headphones to the $300 ones or the $300 pair to the $30 pair? I suspect it will make a difference which ones we decide to compare.

My point in all of this is that more evidence is needed to substantiate a claim as large as, "not even audiophiles can distinguish much audiophile equipment from more mundane equipment in a blind test." Just like you're demanding a double-blind test for the reviewers to prove a difference in cables, I'm demanding a more representative sample of evidence from you to substantiate your claim that an entire group of people can't distinguish between two classes of equipment.

In case you're wondering why this matters so much to me, it's because of two reasons. (1) Generalizations about groups of people are the root of prejudice. (2) I want to build a better stereo system for myself. If there's a categorical bias within the audiophile community, knowing the details of that bias (e.g., at what price point does the bias start to outweigh the actual differences in equipment) could significantly reduce the solution-space that I have to search within. Telling me that some people believe that there's a difference in digital signal cables doesn't help. I already know that. And I already know that that's bunk.