One for the audio physics deniers

While it is difficult to argue with someone who says that they themselves hear the differences between cables, if only because you are not sharing the same ears and brain to process the signal received from said ears, perhaps the naysayers could explain the reasons for not believing there to be differences?

Pretty much the same reasons as for the belief in Gods. In that I don’t doubt for a moment that people have a sincere belief and personal experience of interaction with various gods, however I have never had such an experience, so have to rely on empirical evidence, which for both gods and much of audiophilia appears to be somewhat wanting. When someone finds a quantifiable and repeatable difference in the transmission line parameters of wire declared fantastic by audiophiles compared to one a bit more pedestrian then we might be getting somewhere.

I am not convinced that the intelligentsia of scorn such as crikey and his fellow-travellers have ever been exposed to a real HiFi system and what it can do. Although the level of wit is, of course, very polished indeed…

Likewise, maybe you and I just haven’t been to church enough.

There is actually a serious question in there Mr W. If we are discussing something which is eminently dependent on a sense, it would be interesting to know how degraded said sense is.

You would struggle to be an art critic if you needed glasses but didn’t know it.

…and as I said, hearing degrades with age, and I suspect that disposable income for audio related purchases increases, so are you spending money to compensate for aging ears, or are you spending.g money which will not overcome a physical problem?

Cables matter – without them your system won’t work. Defective cables with insufficient bandwith (excess capacitance) will screw up a digital system just as they’ll cause a lowpass filter effect in analog systems, etc etc. But 13A mains cable meets the requirements for most passive loudspeakers. Those believing in cable snake oil keep the economy moving though…

Obviously they’re not going to be able to tell the difference without cable elevators!!!

http://www.russandrews.com/product-Cable-elevators-4227.htm

I had some expensive denon separates and infinity speakers, decided to upgrade my speaker cables, didn’t like the sound that the new ones made, and had to change them again. How’s that possible if the cable makes no difference to the sound produced?

Those Brilliant Pebbles are a stroke of utter genius – wish I’d come up with them!

hearing may well degrade and you will lose HF response, but the most important part of the audio spectrum is still the midrange and this remains pretty well functional for quite a long time.

russ andrews would have a heart attack if he could see the mess of cables in my system 🙁

Where’s Mr Woppit gone?

I SAID WHERE’S MR WOP…. Ah forget it…

Well?

Gone to bed?

Have you seen how musicians treat their own audio and power cables! Stuffed and tangled up in a Tesco flight case (plastic bag). all crackly, held together with tape, power supplies modified to fit with tin foil. “yeah it does that, if you wiggle it like this its fine…see?”

As long as it’s not tiny wire anything works. Most folk listen to MP3’s all crunchy and horrible. Our venue PA is not flattering to any highly compressed source. I’m trying to educate Dance schools and failing.

What musicians do isn’t really the issue. You’re not aiming to faithfully reproduce the exact spectrum of a guitar string – that would sound really rubbish. There’s a load more distortion aka colour, timbre, texture, whatever, that’s added by the amp, the cables, the room, the medium and all the rest of it that you want reproduced in your living room. And they probably add a load of stuff digitally that goes straight onto the CD/DAT without touching anything analogue.

So you want to reproduce what’s actually on the CD as faithfully as possible – maybe. Then again maybe not 🙂 We all have tastes. Also, I reckon that crappy pop music is produced to sound better on really cheap equipment, knowing their target audience.

Anyway. A lot of people on here are dismissing other people’s experiences and anecdotal evidence as the waffle of a gullible fool. That’s pretty arrogant of you and rather insulting to those who have gone to the trouble to try this stuff out.

How many people have actually tried out different cables and found no difference, rather than just hypothesising?

I should add that I am on my third set of speaker cables. Mostly necessitated by changing rooms and needing longer runs, but I chose to upgrade to £5/m stuff last time (many years ago though) and yes I could tell the difference – more bass.

Anyway. A lot of people on here are dismissing other people’s experiences and anecdotal evidence as the waffle of a gullible fool. That’s pretty arrogant of you and rather insulting to those who have gone to the trouble to try this stuff out.

Quite right, which is why I find the views of some of the alleged gulls on religion so interesting.
People in glass houses etc. 🙂

Straw man argument. Irrelevant.

Any number of people in front of a music system will agree on what it consists of and that there is music coming from it. Their ears are receiving and brains interpreting in different ways, what all agree is actually there.

People who hear voices where no one is present and see things that others present do not, are hallucinating.

BIG difference.

http://www.ethanwiner.com/audiophoolery.html

That tells you pretty much all you need to know.

And Woppit your lack of awareness of your own massive hypocrisy is really quite hilarious. Do keep it up. 🙂

I am glad you’re amused. I don’t understand the hypocrisy charge, though. Please explain.

Makes no difference what you use. Expensive cabling is a huge waste of money.
Talk to anyone in the profession, who does not have a vested interest in selling expensive cables.
Most of the high end audio setups I have seen demonstated use mains cable.

I agree that Nordost cable and the like are probably a waste of money with much of the “differences” being wish-fulfillment. I say “probaby” because I haven’t actually heard a comparison demo, though I have heard it being used in systems that I didn’t think much of, pretty or impressive-looking though they were…

The difference between audio cable and mains-wiring cable is obvious however. Inability to hear any difference would be like listening to a Harley Davison chugging past and then a Bentley purring by and saying that they sound exactly the same because they are after all, both powered by internal combustion. In my experience.

Having said all that, I do own a mostly NAIM-based system using their relatively inexpensive cable designed for best use with their own equipment, and it outperforms many other makes of equipment that I’ve heard at HiFi shows costing absolutely STRATOSPHERIC amounts of wonga. Go figure, as they say… 8)

Whoppit he may be saying your view is an act of faith or a belief in something you cannot prove. You wont listen to the evidence because you know from personal experience…please dont say you need it spellingout more than that as to what he is alluding too.

Why dont you all take your super ears and do the challenge not only will you be able to prove your point you will have a million.

I am aware that the measurements taken so far by the established methodology indicate what they indicate and I cannot “prove” that there is a difference between the reproductive qualities of audio cable and mains-wiring cable in this way.

I have, however, demonstrated it.

To my mind, this raises some interesting questions as to what method needs to be developed so that this can be explained.

Unfortunately, there was no one else present at the time, for independent verification but I am confident that such would have been forthcoming.

I would suggest that the likes of grum and IanMunro should try out their own demo which would be easily arranged and cost only pennies. They may find the results interesting.

Just a friendly suggestion, no offense intended.

The thing about speaker cables is that the results from obsessing over them are going to be far less effective, by orders of magnitude, than from getting rid of passive crossovers (audiophiles would die if they realised how much distortion is caused by the inductors in a crossover) and using line level active crossovers and amplifiers wired directly to speakers.

If you prefer the sound of skinny cables to decent cables then you’re probably enjoying the mid-bass hump due to an increase in woofer Qts as a result of the series resistance. Cables do make a difference but as long as resistance and capacitance are low (as with 13A mains cable) then that’s the job done.

I’m not convinced that’s really an answer to anything Woppit. I could arrange my own test, but I know that research shows our perception is clouded by various factors. Unless it was a proper double blind test there would be no point.

BTW I’m not disputing that there can be noticeable differences between different types of cable, it’s just that once the basic physics needs of the cable are met any further supposed gains are based on myth. And the claims for AC power leads improving the character of the sound are laughable.

Again:

The total number of correct answers was 73 out of 149, which amounts to 49% accuracy. That is no more accurate than flipping a coin, and therefore, no statistically significant detection of power cable differences.

Test participants were asked to rate themselves as to how much of an audiophile they considered themselves to be. The scale was 1 to 5 where 1 = ?I?m not an audiophile at all? and 5 = ?I?m a hardcore tweak.? (?Tweak? is the word Manny chose; I would not have used such terminology, which I find belittling in this context). The self-proclaimed hardcore audiophiles got 48% correct; the rest got 50% correct. Again, no significant differences based on whether or not a listener felt he was an audiophile or not.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_11_4/feature-article-blind-test-power-cords-12-2004.html

I’m not disputing that there can be noticeable differences between different types of cable

Oh. I thought you were. Many on here are, without actually trying it out, bizarrely.

Care to explain why I’m a hypocrite, BTW?

I am not convinced that the intelligentsia of scorn such as crikey and his fellow-travellers have ever been exposed to a real HiFi system and what it can do. Although the level of wit is, of course, very polished indeed…

Up until August last year, I don’t think I’d ever owned a HiFi set up worth more than £500 in total. Don’t get me wrong, I love good audio, but in the same way that there are people out there who are keen cyclists but don’t feel the need to buy an Ibis Mojo, I was happy with what I had.

Then I moved into a house which had been originally been fitted out as a luxury serviced apartment next door to a 5* hotel, but the hotel decided it wanted a long term let rather than having to manage a serviced apartment. One of the major attractions was a £25k Linn multi room set up (5 zones) with the lounge having a 5.1 type set up).

The system was incredible. Watching movies in the lounge was a joy, and playing BF3 in the cinema room used to give me PTSD.

I’ve moved out of the house now, and I’m back to some fairly basic kit. I think I noticed the difference the first few times I watched a movie or listened to some music. I even considered buying some 2nd hand Linn (or equivalent) kit for a week or so.

But now I’m back to being (almost) completely happy with my basic set up. Yeah, I can hear that it’s not as good as the Linn set up, but £25k? No chance.

Perhaps my ears aren’t as special as audioophiles’ though.

(NB – I’m prepared to spank £5k on bicycle(s), so I have no appreciation of true value, and would have happily spent the money on hifi stuff because i like it, but I just couldn’t get the money/experience factor to balance out. Like I said though, maybe my ears are just shit)

I guess my (long winded) point is that the law of diminishing returns seems to be huge in audio kit. In saying that, some of the 2nd hand Linn kit I looked at seemed to hold its value well, so not necessarily pissing money up against the wall, if components were purchased with care then it could be an investment.

Why dont you all take your super ears and do the challenge not only will you be able to prove your point you will have a million

the challenge involves two specific cables and a power amplifier of which Mr Woppit has no experience.

He has said that he uses Naim amplification.

There is something funny about the design of most Naim amplifiers that means that they are particularly sensitive to speaker cables, and they may go unstable unless they have a couple of metres or so of cable with adequate inductance, such as Naims own cable.

So it is quite feasable that he can hear differences between cables.

Why dont you all take your super ears and do the challenge not only will you be able to prove your point you will have a million.

I believe you’re getting confused here between “I can aurally tell the difference between a specific cable costing thousands and a sensibly priced good quality audio cable,” which is what the challenge is, and “I can aurally tell the difference between sensibly priced good quality audio cable and mains flex,” which is what the Wopster is claiming.

I don’t know the veracity of his claim, but you can’t use “the James Randi organisation says you can’t hear a difference in any cabling” as a basis for evidence, because it simply isn’t true. The challenge is for one very specific cable, not all cabling, and continually dragging it up is misleading.

But even your ‘cheap’ audio cables I bet cost a lot more than some electric strimmer power cord, which they are functionally identical to in use. And what about the power cable?

Can you really not see it? It’s pretty obvious, and Junkyard spelled it out to you. You vehemently espouse a rational, evidence based approach to life, especially on matters of religion, yet here you are suggesting that personal experience trumps everything, including physics.

(audiophiles would die if they realised how much distortion is caused by the inductors in a crossover

what levels are you suggesting – I think there is a lot more distortion in the actual voice coils in a speaker.

I suspect that the enthusiasm for expensive cabling and the like is the result of having reached the point where, due to being minted, a person has reached the point where they have spent as much as can be spent on high-end equipment (amps and so forth) but still have the upgrade bug but, like having a bad cold, can’t shift it. It’s got to the point where the search becomes the object and they’ve forgotten all about listening to the music but can’t stop thenselves.

Let it all out Woppit, it’s better once you admit you have a problem. 😛

You vehemently espouse a rational, evidence based approach to life, especially on matters of religion, yet here you are suggesting that personal experience trumps everything, including physics.

If you’re going to quote me, you’d best be accurate.

I never suggested anything of the kind.

Let it all out Woppit, it’s better once you admit you have a problem

Whatever.

I suspect that the enthusiasm for expensive cabling bike components and the like is the result of having reached the point where, due to being minted, a person has reached the point where they have spent as much as can be spent on high-end equipment (amps carbon cranks and so forth) but still have the upgrade bug but, like having a bad cold, can’t shift it. It’s got to the point where the search becomes the object and they’ve forgotten all about listening to the music actually riding the bikes but can’t stop thenselves.

FTFY

🙂

So you want to reproduce what’s actually on the CD as faithfully as possible – maybe. Then again maybe not

If you wanted to do that you would buy some reference monitors with a flat frequency response, as used in audio production, and not an ‘audiophile’ set up. The sound you would hear wouldn’t necessarily be very pleasant to listen to though, which is why for recreational listening you buy equipment that flatters the sound and makes it ‘nice’, rather than what it truly sounds like.

I admire and agree with Mr Woppits approach to religion, but this has proved most interesting, especially the bit about ‘developing a method to explain it’, which has similarities to the way religious types deal with calls for evidence; your experiments can’t demonstrate x therefore your experiment is questionable, not x.

This is one of those myths propagated by the audiophile magazines to keep you stuck in the cycle of hi-fi upgrading rather than buying some far better value (but still expensive) active studio monitors and being blown away by the sound. Aiming for perfection in the frequency, time and space domains will achieve fantastic sound – you don’t need to ‘flatter’ recordings. If studio monitors were tiring to listen to you couldn’t spend all day mixing and mastering on them.

the bit about ‘developing a method to explain it’, which has similarities to the way religious types deal

Yes. However, if something is demonstrably happening, then it would behove (let us say) science, to figure out 1: a way of measuring it and 2: derive an explanation.

It seems to me.

If you wanted to do that you would buy some reference monitors with a flat frequency response, as used in audio production, and not an ‘audiophile’ set up. The sound you would hear wouldn’t necessarily be very pleasant to listen to though, which is why for recreational listening you buy equipment that flatters the sound and makes it ‘nice’, rather than what it truly sounds like.

Fail.

It all depends which ‘reference’ monitors you use.

I mentioned Harbeth, which are a derivative of the range of monitors designed at BBC research Department. In the same tradition these speakers are still voiced by the designer comparing the speakers performance to real sounds, like human voice, and then tweaking the speakers crossovers (active or passive) to achieve the closest match.

This contrasts to many modern reference speakers that are basically just designed by computer.

I bet when the band, or whatever, were in the studio making the recording they sounded pretty good – if you have an accurate playback system then they should also sound the same and therefore pretty good.