[Elecraft] Expectations (WAS: tube amplifiers and polyproplene capacitors)

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Keith wrote about audio systems:

Yes, that is it!  Listen.  A/B compare.  Spend money only if you can hear
the difference.  Ignore (completely ignore) the explanations of why the
differences are there.  They are either irrelevant or flat out wrong.  Wrong
explanations lead to myths & superstition.  Go with your ears.

-----------------------------

Don't forget you may be standing in front of a magician. If we believed our
eyes and ears, we'd all be expecting to have all the money we'd ever need
falling out of our ears. Don't all kids learn from favorite uncles that
money falls from their ears?

Being aware of what's likely and what's not is important. Being able to run
meaningful tests under *your* controlled conditions is, I believe, the most
important of all. 

Also, notice a key word in my last sentence. It's "believe". 

We humans do not instinctively work by the scientific principle. We
understand that much of what we "know", we cannot prove scientifically.  We
jump to conclusions based on bad data. That's why we can be startled by a
strange shadow in a darkened room that resembles an animal or person lurking
there. 

It happens in the Ham world too. Look at the number of people who pay money
for a diminutive antenna that plugs into the back of their rig and which is
promised to bring "magic" results. Someone tries it and makes an immediate
contact. Effective antennas produce contacts, this antenna produces a
contact, then obviously it is an effective antenna.

The reason most adults don't expect money to appear from their ears is that
they have sufficient knowledge and experience to understand that's a
phenomenon that occurs only when the favorite uncle is present and when they
aren't really paying attention until the coin magically appears.

Still, we can have a lot of pleasure and excitement making a contact with a
tiny antenna stuck onto the back of our rigs. It doesn't matter that our
signal would be much, much stronger if we had a full size antenna up high.
It's the same pleasure of seeing anything nice we didn't expect actually
happen. The coin appeared from our ear; the other station came back to our
call.

And that leads to another absolutely critical component of our rigs (or
audio systems): the human. We understand that a 10 watt or 100 watt signal
from an Elecraft rig is scientifically identical to a 10 watt or 100 watt
signal from almost any other rig. Those are the scientific facts, but the
human expectation colors and defines the experience. That's why hearing a DX
station replying to our call from a special rig, or seeing a striking
sunset, can be especially pleasurable human experiences.

For me, it's working stations from something I "cobbled together" from a
bunch of parts that produces pleasure that has nothing to do with the
equipment itself, only my personal experience with it. 

I cringe when I see an adult who is so excited about a quarter appearing
from his ear that he'll pay someone a $1000 to make it happen. But then I
remind myself that I could have called Jonas, LY10ZZ, in Lithuania on my
cell phone and chatted as long as I liked with him for a few dollars instead
of having a brief CW contact with him using a thousand dollars of Ham gear.

Maybe it isn't about the money after all...

Ron AC7AC