I am delighted by the calls for a little respect and courtesy from all, but otherwise we don't seem able to make much progress here. I was out last night (Vaughan-Williams and Tippett at a slightly warm Albert Hall), but have tried to catch up. So...
It looks as if speaker cables are a more widely considered issue than the FOQ tape that started this thread, and I have speaker cables and no FOQ tape. I hope it's ok for me to use speaker cables as an example in these discussions, and it looks to be helpful in understanding how different many people's views are, but the range of different products that we are dancing between on this thread does make it all a bit more complicated.
@sq225917 - you mention above the view that cables are pointless, that their differences in result can all be replicated by a few pence spent on a resistor and a capacitor and that the only difference is in frequency response. Is that always consistent with what you hear when listening to a hi-fi, and how universally would you apply it (no difference if above QED79 or if above Naim A4 or if above Naim A5, for example)?
@Purité Audio - I think the comment that all expensive cables offer no improvement in SQ is as clear and unequivocal as any of us could ask for.
Most here who disagree vigorously with that on the basis only of what we consistently hear over many years have no such problem with your statements that seem to suggest that looking at the measurements can only go so far, and won't typically tell us whether A will sound better than B to 0%, 50% or 100% of listeners.
I find it hard to understand how your views on listening to power amps are consistent with your views on speaker cables. However, I am very willing to accept that this is because I have not really understood your actual approach in the real world. If not bored to tears already, can you try explaining again?
@Octavian - I am struggling here. You have asked repeatedly for examples of generalisations that I don't regard as supported by facts, while quoting sections from me that include examples! See the snippet on BICC cables for an example of those examples.
You also mention being a non-native speaker, though by comparison with my negligible French and Russian (it's a long time since I was at school), I would say that your English should be complimented. However, when I see you using 'methodology','supernatural', 'proposition' and so on so correctly, it becomes easy for me to forget that you are not as fluent as you would like to be. In any event, if there are things I have said that you would actually like me to make comprehensible (rather than merely avoid), please let me know.
You also say directly that 'cables and racks are foo because there is no evidence of their significance'. Can we agree that the crux of the matter here is what is 'evidence'? Do you think that results of any sort (including 'hated it') from listeners can be evidence of anything, or do you think that how much people think they enjoy A versus B is largely irrelevant to what hi-fi they should have?
I think we agree that some speaker cables measure differently from others to some degree, but (as
@Purité Audio said, if I understood properly) no-one can explain why small measured differences produce perceived sound A and not B. Thus I would argue that we each need to decide what is evidence for the key question - and I think that that is whether A or B will please more listeners more of the time.
If what we hear is not evidence at all, and only measurements are evidence (even though we cannot predict what the measurements will mean for perceived sound), doesn't that make all testing beyond checking for gross distortions and all listening tests equally pointless?
@awkwardbydesign - are heading toward the works of Wittgenstein now? In any event, I'd agree vigorously here. If one does not accept that any of the reviewing cliches (perhaps soundstage depth or timing or crispness or even excessive sibilance) mean anything at all, and that only things that can be measured (and with measurements whose relevance we fully understand) have any useful meaning or worth, then what most of us have written here will make no sense at all. On the other hand, why would music 'work' at all for someone who actually thinks that?
Part of the reason that this thread is now on page 23 (!) seems to me to be various disbeliefs.
Most obviously, most here do not currently believe that FOQ tape can make music 'better' in any meaningful sense of the word.
A smaller number don't believe non-basis speaker cables (or supports better than a carpet or sideboard) can make music better.
A yet smaller number don't believe, if I have understood correctly, that there can be any meaningful and consistent difference in SQ from two amps (say) that both measure 'blamelessly'.
It is easy for those with a more subjectivist stance to group all those people together, which is unfortunate. However, it may encourage a second problem, which is that several of us clearly find it hard to believe that even the most hardcore objectivists are nearly as unequivocal in the real world as they say.
If what is measured is what matters, and we know enough science to be able to be able to measure all the right things, then I don't really understand why all objectivists don't have the same hi-fi at home (unless rooms or tastes are really weird). More generally, I have a sneaky suspicion that I am being biased by my not really believing that the more extreme views are really sincere or consistent with enjoying music at all. However dispassionate I think I am being, I suspect that this suspicion (even when wholly unwarranted) may be colouring things for me.
On the other hand, I am still more biased by the limited number of people producing the sneering, the patronising and what looks sometimes to be the misuse of science just as bad as many Woo salesmen manage.
In any event, it may be that other people find it hard always to keep on a properly even keel for similar reasons.