This is a clickbait article to make the reader feel a sense of superiority. The forum thread is linked on the article. It's not a real blind test. Secondly the title is just a straight up lie, it's not that they couldn't tell that the sounds were different, they could not determine the original sound.

The test includes 4 unmarked 30 second clips of various songs. 1 clip is the original file, 1 clip is the file looped through a copper cable, 1 clip is the file looped through a banana, 1 clip is the file looped through mud. If this were a serious test, the original sample would be labeled so that people would know what the reference point is. Secondly, how would anyone be able to tell the difference between mud and banana? Do you know what a banana sounds like?

The forum post was just meant to be a silly game and the article treats it as a serious test.

I have 4 printing of the Mona Lisa. One printing is the original, one printing I dipped in water, one printing I dipped in apple juice, and one printing I dipped in piss. Can you spot which Mona Lisa was dipped in apple juice and which one was dipped in piss? The Mona Lisa is already pretty yellow, which yellow is the correct yellow?

This sounds damning, until you realize who the merchant who sold them the copper is.

Fuck yeah man give me that banana sound

This is why I pack my left ear with mud and put a banana in my right ear. The copper wire is used to scoop out my brains for the embalming.

The wire isn't generally something that's focused on though, is it? Like everyone knows those gold plated cables are scams. I thought the quality of the audio or the speaker/headphones were the big focus.

Also, sample size of nine people and two of them failed to fill out the survey correctly lol

The audiophiles: "It all sounds like shit compared to my extruded ruby core cables with quantum disentangled untwisted pairs"

Is being an audiophile anything close to the same as having ear or musical training though? Any random schmuck can say they like flac files but I wouldn't expect anyone other than a well trained musician, sound engineer, or musicologist to actually be able to discern the difference between them and a 256 kbps mp3, and even then how significant would that actually be to them?

I got a DAC/headphone amp, and replaced all the 192KBs files in my library with 320KBs. Nothing sounds tinny, and I've been happy. I've never looked into it further, and feel no need to.

Music has been one of the most important aspects of my life as long as if can remember. Every memory and thought I have has a song attached to it. I wired built in speakers throughout my house so I can always play whatever I feel like.

I can't imagine giving a shit about wire composition or watching a waveform for unperceived errors. That sounds more like a mental illness than a hobby.

I Also mostly listen to music in my ten year old car, which has a dogshit soundsystem, so I guess I'm not an audiophile.

once your cable is shielded (and preferably coaxial, but for audio those get into fantasy territory very quickly) and it fits power of source, there isn’t anything you can do further, your power sources will fuck up much more than cable being 1% better.

But very cheapish non shielded 3,5mm cables do funny stuff on speakers, you can hear them hum louder when you loop cables or press your fingers on them, so they do be catching 50/60hz from all of the wiring

(Not that i care, cause my speakers don’t have dynamic range for this to be a problem, and you will see it as an issue only with high dynamic range songs, like classic/jazz or long silences as in pink floyd + i don’t know if i really want to experience true cymbal hit anyway on full faithful representation of bolero, it’s uncomfy irl)

In Taiwan all the hifi dealers scam the crap out of rich people with expensive cables

I'm an audiophile because nothing sounds better than the old marshall stacks

FLACbros lose everything! ~~3gp for the win~~

At a certain point, your sound quality is going to more affected by the placement of your furniture over any real and perceived improvement in audio equipment. It's like g*mers who splurge on some graphics card and gaming monitor but completely cheap out on the cable.

I PUSH MY ~~FINGERS~~ BANANAS INTO MY ~~EYES~~ EARS

I just want cables that flex nicely and have good connectors that last a long time.

As a self proclaimed audiophile, i fill my ears with wet mud for maximum frequencies

Openly calling yourself any kind of -phile seems like a red flag or at least kinda sus

Cool, what range can you get out of sending audio signal through mud?

Encrypted audio sent through the ground or through water could be useful for secret messages, not gonna be many trying to listen.

Playing insect warfare through a bowl of wet mud is the proper way to listen tbh

I guarantee the sound difference would be evident on a higher power set up. The obvious problem with that is why would you be listening to music at a high enough power level that it would be noticeable.

I’d pick scientology over an audiophile