Did you know that you can spend $7,250 on a pair of speaker cables? I mean, this is hard to fathom. I didn’t spend that much for our last car. My professional tuba my parents bought me back in high school was only about $4,400.

So what is the deal with audiophile stuff like this? There are so many examples of high-dollar equipment like these speaker cables. $1000 for interconnect cables. And hundreds more for things that you actually don’t need in order for the stereo to produce sound: CD spray, cone points to “isolate vibrations from sensitive audio circuitry”, amp weights (yes, you put brass weights on top of your amp and they are supposed to help it sound better) etc. You do need an amplifier, speakers, a sound source (CD player, MP3  player, DVD,  radio tuner, etc.), and cabling to hook ‘em all together. But these accessories are extra $$ you can spend to (if you believe the hype) get the last 5% of audio nirvana out of your system.

I have no problem with folks selling this stuff, as long as they are truthful. And I have no problem with folks who buy the stuff. It’s their money. What I do have a problem with is that, for me personally, and for anyone within earshot (screenshot?), there is very little research data to back this stuff up.

In psychological research, if you want to measure if there was a “just noticeable difference” (JND) between two stimuli, you do a double-blind study. That is, neither the experimenter nor the victim experimentee know anything about the two stimuli, or even if they are different. The listener is simply asked to tell whether or not the two sounds were different. That way, neither the listener nor the experimenter can be influenced by whether some high-dollar gear made a difference or not: all that matters is whether it actually makes a discernible difference.

There’s this problem called confirmation bias, and it simply means that we tend to continue believing what we already believe. So in this case, if you just dropped almost 7500 large on some speaker cables, it’s probably because you believe that they will make your system sound better. So you throw out those “ghetto” Monster Cables and drop in these incredible Pear Audio cables. And what a difference they make! For that kind of money, they better, right?

So the problem is that for the normal audiophile, these (apparently) audible differences are usually subject to confirmation bias. The audiophile wants to hear a difference, and so he does. The science of audio perception is well aware that our hearing is very susceptible to this kind of bias.

Double-blind (so-called ABX) tests have shown, for instance, that even trained audio “golden ears” can’t tell the difference between fancy speaker cables and 16-gauge zip cord (lamp cord from the hardware store).

Some closing thoughts:

  • If an audiophile friend says that double-blind studies somehow invalidate listening trials or some such, call shenanigans immediately. He’s probably not lying; more likely, he’s repeating something he’s heard. But if it can’t be discerned in a double-blind test, it can’t be discerned. Period.
  • The James Randi Educational Foundation has offered $1 million to anyone who, in a double-blind test, can tell the Pear Audio cables from ordinary speaker cables. So if you can hear the difference, collect your money.
  • If you have a budget for audio equipment, spend most of you money on your speakers. The most audible differences you can hear will be due to speakers. Next, spend money on a good amplifier, and lastly, buy some decent, but reasonably priced cables (Radio Shack blister pack will work just fine).

Happy listening!