Now, how does (the Clever Hans Effect) relate to the wife in the next room? I had that experience myself, several times. When I would fiddle with some components or circuit parameters, and sat listening joyously to the results of my creative labors, my wife would often notice as well that my ministrations had been effective. Clearly, with this unbiased ear (she knew nothing whatever of electronics or acoustics) validating my impressions, I must be on the right track… or so I thought, until one evening, some doubts crept in. Thinking uncomfortably about a variable that I hadn’t controlled, I changed nothing in my sound system, but managed to get a, “Did you change something? It sounds nicer,” from the next room. A pin to my ballooned ego. How did I prompt this comment without changing anything in my system? Simple. I played a cut from “Jazz at the Pawnshop” and a cut from “Kor,” both very popular “audiophile” albums of that era, brilliantly recorded, but of somewhat limited musical interest. I had fallen into the habit of using these for evaluating my system, but wouldn’t ever play these for the sheer joy of hearing boring music. Completely unconsciously, I was cuing my wife that Something Changed and that I was Seriously Evaluating. And being that she liked to say things that made me happy because of the positive feedback to her, her response to those two cuts was to say something nice about the sound. Nothing conscious on either of our parts, mind you, just a lovely folie a deux that happens far more often than many of us would be comfortable to admit.