Originally Posted by
Macca
The joy of anything subjective (like perceived sound quality) is that it doesn't matter that you are fooling yourself, unless fooling yourself makes the experience worse.
I tried putting those little washing machine feet under a solid state power amp once. Simple, cheap tweak. I quickly took them out again, I was convinced that the sound was subtly worse. Convinced enough to get up, walk the length of the room and remove them. Then I was convinced it sounded better without them. And I mean I was convinced. However at the same time I also know that feet in or out it is not affecting the performance of the power amp one jot. There is zero rational explanation for there being a real effect. Yet I could not help hearing the sound subtly change for the worse with the feet in situ.
And bear in mind this was supposed to be a positive tweak, albeit a silly one. My expectation was that I would hear no difference.
It isn't the hobby that is mad it is our brains. They do their own thing. It's scary but it is true.