He may be one of 99.9% of the Roon forum active members who are of the same opinion regarding boutique exotic network peripheral stuffs.
We all suffer from it. Anyone who believes themselves immune is delusional.
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Ever since my interest in audio/hi-fi began, at the age of around 10, Iāve never purchased anything other than by using my ears.
As for ādouble blindā listening tests and trusting measurements over our ears, the logical conclusion of that is that we should purchase something that sounds worse to us as long as it measures better, or is āprovenā to be better by some sort of convoluted listening test.
I mean, does anyone actually do that - go out and buy something that sounds worse to them because they believe that they canāt trust their ears?
Many people loved the Linn and Naim speakers of old, myself incuded. However they rarely fared well in group listening tests in magazines, usually coming at or very near the bottom of the group. So was that a reason not to buy them even if you loved the way they sounded? Presumably those that fear they could not trust their own ears would buy something near the top of the group instead, despite liking the Linn or Naim offerings better!
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I would say that all of us can suffer from it on accaisions - we are certainly not immune. But to suppose that we all suffer from it all the time, as a sort of default state - now that certainly is delusional.
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So you dont think people here are āTechnically Savvyā ? 
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No, not a bit, except a very few individuals.
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I think. Maybe not that much as on Roon, but much more vs a lot of audiophile forums I know.
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First, I would like to apologize for a strong language, but I feel sympathetic to someone like @Simon-in-Suffolk, who has been preaching to the deaf ears.
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Itās easy to overthink these things. Iām a simple guy, adding a Farad 3 to my EE8 made a significant improvement to my system. I donāt really care why it works, I like it, it stays.
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Thanks, but itās fine, I participate on this forum as an enjoyable distraction. I hope I donāt preachā¦ I just try and explain and put my view across 
The key thing is that no one consuming these products should take any of it too seriouslyā¦ because this is to some extent in its own little consumer bubble.
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Exactly my approach. I have absolutely no idea if the noise reduction products Iāve recently purchased do exactly what is claimed of them, and I really donāt think it matters one way or the other. They make my hi-fi more enjoyable to me personally, thatās what matters.
Likewise I have no interest in āprovingā anything to anyone, or in undertaking any kind of objective measurements or blind testing evaluation. For those that enjoy this sort of thing thatās fine, but itās not for me.
Iām happy to recommend products Iāve tried and had success with to other forum members. This always with the, I hope always understood, proviso that just because it works for me doesnāt mean it will work for you. I think most here do understand that anyway so it doesnāt need to be continually explicitly stated.
We shouldnāt take this hobby or ourselves for that matter too seriously. Itās all about having fun - a pleasant indulgence that doesnāt have to make any kind of sense or to even achieve anything as long as participating makes us happy.
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So, the iFi has arrived and I have just done a very quick test between the MCRU LPS and the iPower on my EE8. Whilst I know the iPower may need to be run in a bit to do a proper comparison, I can confidently say the Ā£350+ I spent on the LPS was a waste of moneyā¦
The Ā£69.99 iPower is pretty much identical sounding and takes up a lot less spaceā¦I will leave it running all day and then try a comparison again, including against the stock power supply. If there is no difference compared to the stock supply I will go back to using that, sell the LPS and use the iPower on my router.
ps. I am impressed with the build quality of the iPower for such a reasonable price.
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Here here! Well said that man!
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One thing I forgot to add is how annoying I find the shape of these DC power supplies! I am sure there is a reason for it; but the cable facing north of the unit compared to south as on all my mains leads is so very, very annoying when trying to get things concealed and tidyā¦
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Exactly what I found. Hence, now using the EE8 stock SMPS.
Sold the LPS and got a refund on the iFI power supply.
DGā¦
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I just did a longer test and made sure I fully switched off the system before changing the PSUs on the EE8 as Iām conscious some of the music may be cached in my NDX2. I am still concluding I hear no difference.
Iām going to keep the iPower though as one really nice benefit it has is a long DC cable, which will allow me to move my router to a better position. That is the main grumble I had with the EE8 power supply, the cable is very short and makes it hard to find a discrete place to position it. Not a great looking thing when it has multiple ethernet cables coming out of it that are very inflexible.
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Personally, and i stress this is my opinion, I think that expectation bias is a vastly overrated concept. I have made literally hundreds of upgrades in my 50+ years with hi-fi and logically I have NEVER expected an upgrade to sound worse. I mean why otherwise would it be called āupgradeā. But on many, many occasions, those rosy expectations were countered by my earsā initial reaction; āhell, I hope this changes for the betterā
In the majority of times my initial judgement was reversed after a period of burn-in, but itās a rare component indeed that sounds great from the very first notes. As a minimum a few hours are required before my ears stop sounding some form of alert. And before anyone claims that what Iām dealing with is listener acclimatisation, thereās been quite a few āupgradesā that simply never made the grade.
In 50+ years of listening, its only been on fairly rare occasions and then only recently that my ears have been 100% satisfied with what they were hearing. For the most part, my hi-fi always sounded great, but never perfect. My ears are the harshest judges I knowā¦.always pointing out whatās not quite right, what could be just a bit better, which parts donāt sound quite real, what seems to be missing.
Also, whenever a new piece of kit enters my system I can describe what difference it made, good and bad. If I canāt, I donāt buy it
So in summary every upgrade Iāve ever made has been preceded by positive expectations, but those expectations are always over-ridden by a very clear dose of first-listen reality.
One of the reasons I keep banging on an about the importance of network quality is because of what it allowed me to finally achieve. 50 years of expecting my version of perfection, a couple of years of actually achieving it.
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IME people use it to attempt to rationalise their experience being different from someone elseās, or to justify a āclosed mindā approach that they have to certain things.
An example might be that someone has a belief that a change of power supply on a network switch canāt possibly bring an improvement, even when they have not bothered to try it. They believe that they donāt need to try it - they ājust knowā that it canāt happen.
If someone else reports an improvement then they rationalise this by taking the view that it must be imaginary. Due to āexpectation biasā or some other psychological phenomenon.
My experience has been that when someone adopts this stance then there is very rarely any way forward in terms of sensible open-minded discussion. Their mind is made up - finito.
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Yep, after a longer listen with the iPower plugged in, the LPS has gone straight onto the bay! Wonāt make that mistake again.
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Yeah, the science is pretty solid on this. And weāve seen multiple accounts of buyerās remorse after a few months and it turns out the improvement believed to be had by a particular bespoke component wasnāt what was initially thought. Which is to be expected in the world of subjective experiences and unscientific observations. Nothing wrong with partaking in the tweaking ethos though. I echo Simonās sentiments as itās not worth taking too seriously.
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