now that the JREF has laid down the gauntlet, I think they are obligated to follow through. You don't go about making public accusations of fraud, offer the million dollar prize, then later back off.
Agree.
To me, this seems a question of "Can tiny differences that are detectable with sensitive equipment also be detected by the human ear?". Nothing paranormal about it. And I would suspect that there are individuals who -- either through training, or genetic bias -- are able to detect subtle differences that most of us would not notice (similar to those with "super noses" who can pull of feats of olfactory brilliance that would be beyond the ability of most of us).
It is sad that there's more interest in the media-attraction ability of $1 million than in learning about human abilities. Goodness, there are olympic games that let us learn over time what physical feats some humans are capable of. We are interested in coordination, team work, and what level of performance different human muscles can achieve. Sad that we are so biased in favor of muscle related feats, not on how well human senses can perform.
So...is James Randi claiming that the "benefits" of these cables are impossible to discern by anyone? Or that only a small number of people would be able to discern the difference? If they were able to produce one sound-sensitive technophile who actually could discern the difference, would the million dollars be paid out? Or would they have to prove that the difference can be detected by the average consumer?
Good point. I think the $1 million challenge is ill-oriented here in the first place. Why challenging and discrediting just Pear Audio? The most valuable question to tackle in this context I think would be whether some humans are really able to tell cables apart, not whether the quality of the cables made by one specific cable manufacturer is questionable.
It is interesting to simply verify whether *some* people are truly able to tell some cables apart; whether speaker cables, or headphone cables, or even "interconnects" (the line-level cables between your CD player and your amplifier.) That test could be carried out irregardless of the existence of the paranormal and debunking-oriented $1 million challenge. I think JREF was right in challenging the cable believer's claim. But I think it was likely very wrong to challenge their claims with the $1 million prize though.
Consider wines. I myself have a very 'uneducated' palate, and am pretty much incapable of discerning much difference between a fine wine, and a bottle of alcoholic fruit juice. That does not mean that there is not, in fact a difference; nor does it mean that my inability to tell the difference means that the higher price of the fine wine is unjustified (it means only that I'm really stupid to buy the more expensive wine if the cheaper one gives me the same degree of drinking pleasure).
In the Head-Fi.org (headphone related) forum, the Wine analogy has been referred to several times when talking about differences between cables.
The fact that some people can´t tell a premium wine from a $5 wine clearly doesn´t prove that no one is able to differentiate them. Not to fall into a fallacy, and of course, what happens with wine and sense of taste doesn´t prove anything about cables and our sense of hearing.
But some people do seriously claim they can tell cables apart. Those are the ones to be properly tested, and it does fall under the self-proclaimed jurisdiction of JREF to validate those claims, I think.
they are claiming that differences that are quantitatively and qualitatively measurable by sensitive electronic equipment are also discernable to the human ear. That claim may not be true...but it is hardly on par with most of the other issues I see Randi taking on.
It may not be true... but it might be. Until people making the claim gets properly tested, we will never know for sure.
If Randi doesn´t care about checking those claims, it´s too bad. Those are probably not paranormal or superhuman ability sort of claims, same way claims about being able to differentiate wines wouldn´t be paranormal. But validating those claims falls under the realm of checking unfounded claims, cognitive tricks, self-delusion, or simply verifying an unfounded claim that ends up being true.
Critical thinking shouldn´t be just about not letting other people BS you, or just learning how to argue properly; it should also be about getting down to pursuing the truth in knowledge domains of interest, shouldn´t it?
Once again, whether it falls under JREF's $1 million prize I don´t know, but validating the cable-related claims is pertinent to the essence of this educational foundation, in my humble opinion.
Randi may be right -- there may be no difference that is discernible to the human ear -- and he may be wrong -- there may be some individuals who can detect some degree of difference -- but regardless of that, it seems a trite and pointless effort, a useless expenditure of time and money on an almost entirely irrelevant issue, when the JREF could be far better spending its time and money to pursue more worthwhile and meaningful goals.
Many people have donated money to the JREF to fund its efforts. I have a hard time seeing many of those people being concerned about over-priced cables that only a very small number of people are every going to buy, especially when the few people who are buying them are people who will pretty much inevitably have already spent thousands of dollars on other components that will make this purchase seem relatively insignificant overall.
I disagree here. For one thing, validating whether people can tell cables apart shouldn´t be very expensive. But I agree, it can be time consuming.
In any case, I think the issue is not really about helping people not spend too much on expensive audiophile cables; I think the real scientific interest in this is to learn more about human hearing abilities.
What percentage of people worldwide can tell wines apart? To what degree of reliability can those discerning people differenciate those wines? At what ages seem discerning abilities manifest the most? Are women better able to tell wines apart than men, or the other way around? Are women and men equally capable of differentiating wines?
Those same questions could be asked about the ability to detect differences between cables though our sense of hearing, and I think they are valid scientific questions that haven´t been properly answered yet.
There has been quite a large response to the cable challenge. We are slowly working through all of the e-mails regarding it, and will have more information soon. We are also in contact with Michael Fremer. We hope to develop a test for the cable challenge sometime in the near future.
I'd like to stay informed about this, since I'm interested in the cable challenge myself, not so much on the media-attraction of the $1 million.
), I wonder why I bother posting! 
