The existance of MP3 proves other things,like cheap way to make low-fi music for those who don't need any better and find the price right.It is the lowest-fi medium today and this needs no subjective proof.It is already scientifically proven
The existance of MP3 proves other things,like cheap way to make low-fi music for those who don't need any better and find the price right.It is the lowest-fi medium today and this needs no subjective proof.It is already scientifically proven
MP3 is an equivalent of a table radio to me in terms of its musical merit.
Well it's kind of hard to use sound rational on an ineffable possibly non existent parameter.
How about this. There are Schools for audio now which are making a ton of money off of kids fresh out of High School looking for a foot in the door to the audio business. Lets say you were teaching a class or was a guest speaker at a school for audio and you had this same question asked of you.
"Mr. Woods? I see a lot of 1,000 dollar ICs and speaker cables on the market. Do fancy cables really make a difference? And if so then why?"
What do you tell the student? Do you inform the student of both sides of the argument? Do you tell him your own personal opinion based on subjective listening tests alone? (in this case you probably don't have an answer to the follow up question)
Andre:
And why do you think they always confirm the sighted tests? Think about it. The sighted tests, wholly subject to error and subjectivity, set the expectations for your subsequent "blind" tests and hence invalidate them. This is why it's quite ridiculous to use anything other than a properly done double-blind test.
Your "results" aren't valid because you like them, or agree with them or because they are on 'your' system. One thing alone validates them - correct methodology and analysis. It is not in the least arrogant to present a rational, evidence based argument - which is what we are trying to do in this discussion, btw. It IS arrogant though to argue that anyone should care about your conclusions when they are unreliable and improperly arrived at. That you are now saying that your claims of cable differences are just personal is further vindication of my point that those claims are entirely subjective. It now remains for you to understand that subjective impressions tell us nothing about physical reality, including the physical reality of how cables work.
I do. But feel free to name the other mechanisms leading to loss of 'low level detail' and how you came to identify those mechanisms. No, don't guess. Don't tell me 'it's dielectric absorption' or anything like that, unless you can show *how* you know. That's important. I show how I know that cables don't make a difference by showing you the physical theories that describe cable physics. You can then see for yourself - no need to take my word on it. I expect the same back from you.
You are correct on this point - clearly any signal at any frequency can have a phase difference (actually, a time difference since we're using seconds rather than radians/degrees). But tell me how that phase difference is lost at low level and not at high level, as is claimed? How, given that cable design doesn't affect phase angle meaningfully, even at 20kHz where group delay is most pronounced (but still undetectable to the ear) can this be a mechanism to explain audible differences in cables? It can't! Further more, even if it were, it would only be detectable if you used different cables for left and right channels... any stereo-related artifacts can not result from cable design, given that left-and-right cables are identical!
It DOESN'T correspond with your hearing! 50microns is an utterly imperceptible distance to human hearing. It's simply absurd to claim you can hear if something has moved by 50 microns. You couldn't tell if something had moved by 1000 microns...
None. So what? I'm not going to waste time with Double-blind testing of cables when I already know the result! Any other kind of blind test is a waste of time. In the meantime, I maintain that the point of DBT methodology is to isolate the things being tested from everything else. That doesn't mean that you perform the test in a vacuum, it means you ensure that all the other elements of the test, including the enviroment in which it's performed, do not affect the test subject. You can have all the annoying people in the world in your DBT, that won't affect whether the test subject itself is showing a difference or not - which is all we want to know. Of course, when it comes to listening, you don't want crowds of people around but if none of them are making a noise or interfering with teh test apparatus (hifi system) then they won't make any difference. Really, if you think having people there pressures you into making mistakes, you should ask yourself why? What are the expectations you're imagining, that you're afraid you won't meet up to with them there? You don't perform tests to meet expectations or please people, you perform tests to obtain test results, without caring what they may be! (because caring what they may be is a form of subjective bias and you don't want biased results). DBT is how you do that. In the matter of audio cables and human perception, there is no other way to do it, full stop.
Isn´t sensory testing subjective testing by definition?
If your´re argueing according to rules of science than you have to readjust the argument at that point because scientifically spoken you can´t know if people were right in their thinking.
Again, the answer is that you can´t know; but of course you can insist that up to now no positive test result exist, at least none that you´re aware of.
But please ask yourself the question what would change for the average Joe Customer, if somebody else somewhere could provide a positive test result?
As long as no thorough theory about the reason for the positive test result is provided what should he do to decide which new cable to buy, if not by pure subjective evaluation?
Wishes
I would tell anyone to first get their core system setup and listen to it for an extended amount of time. This will set up their basic understanding of its signature. Once they feel comfortable with the system, they may try one cable set in this syetm to see what the difference might be for them. Allow this "test" set of cables to reside in their system for at least one week with frequent listening to a set of very well known recordings. Make no decisions about the differences heard, but instead listen to your music. Change the cables back to your references cables and do the same tests for an equivalent amount of time. Did you hear any difference in the musical presentation? Was it more natural, more strained? Did you find that you were listening more intently for longer periods of time?
This would be my advise to anyone that is attempting to try out any new cables in their personal systems. Differences are irrelevant to what the over all musical presentation is to me. I am looking for a more involving sound, not better highs, deeper bass, etc. If these factors accompany better overall sound then that will be great. No one can tell another how to enjoy their own systems. It is and always will be a personal issue.
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Curly Woods:
Skin Effect and cable impedance
It's straightforward and the conclusions are perfectly clear.
I hope it won't be necessary to link it again for you. Please book mark it.
Look, I don't use science to enjoy music and I don't think anyone else should. I slam a CD in the tray, hit play and turn the volume up to whatever level sounds good without disturbing the neighbours. Hifi is really that simple. But if you want to understand what you hear and why - then you need to turn to science.
False assumption, unless you've used DBT to confirm it. Until then, you cannot exclude the critical factor of your own subjective biases and hearing limitations misleading you.
Why is of only secondary importance, I agree, and then only to some. Still, that's the (b) I referred to above, and we're still at the (a) stage of determining IF they make a difference. Well, you are. I already know they don't.
Where you said that subjectivism was a legitimate means of determining objective facts. Specifically, sighted and 'blind' (but not rigourously DBT) testing can determine objective differences between cables.
Do you even realise how ironic that statement is? Because the whole basis of your argument is that subjectivity is the basis of your happiness and all that's needed to 'know' that cables sound different!!!
You should. Science can explain a lot and, as I've explained before, relying on existing knowledge enables you to focus your own efforts gainfully, rather than wasting 20 years or whatever re-inventing the wheel - and badly at that. Science plainly tells you that cables aren't going to affect system sound, much less the more subjective matter of you enjoying it or not, so heed that and spend your efforts finding better speakers, turntables, etc.
YET AGAIN:
Skin Effect and cable impedance
It's straightforward and the conclusions are perfectly clear.
No time like the present
I hope it won't be necessary to link it again for you. Please book mark it.Then I think you haven't understood them. Perhaps you can start with the one I've linked above and point out what you don't understand or what you disagree with and we can take it from there.
So sad, and you're really missing the point of this discussion. Why would you try to recreate something and ignore science? That's sheer folly. That you are the only person listening to or enjoying your system is utterly besides the point and quite meaningless in the context of this discussion. If you think science is telling you what you hear, you are correct, so heed it but if you think science is telling you if you enjoy it or not then you don't understand science, because science isn't telling you that.
Look, I don't use science to enjoy music and I don't think anyone else should. I slam a CD in the tray, hit play and turn the volume up to whatever level sounds good without disturbing the neighbours. Hifi is really that simple. But if you want to understand what you hear and why - then you need to turn to science.
Of course not. That's not fair. The answer is known - wasting the student's time with outmoded and incorrect thinking is unfair and a waste of class time, etc. If it's a history of audio class, otoh, then it might be interesting as a topic. Physics classes don't waste time teaching thaumaturgy, alchemy etc... they teach physics.
No. Not at all.
I don't need to. Enjoyment is not the issue so I don't care if they enjoyed their snake oil - it's still snake oil.
If such a hypothetical result were obtained it would be most interesting, of course, but it would not invalidate current scientific knowledge (how could it?) as far as predicting audibility were concerned. Even so, such a positive result would by its nature be extremely marginal, to the point I would say that Joe Average Consumer could and should safely ignore it. But, that's not going to happen. I'm not saying cables don't make a difference because there's an absence of proof that they do, I'm saying that because there is proof that they do not. Alas, your hypothetical must remain in the realm of fantasy, alongside teleporters and stardrives
Of course a DBT is subjective. One relies on the reactions and observations of human beings. They hear something or they don't. Please don't fall into the wrong-think of of "objective vs subjective" with "rational and provable" vs "claimed with neither evidence nor logic."
"Subjective" is NOT the opposite of "controlled."
"Subjective" is NOT the opposite of "controlled."
And frankly that is crap advice. Nowhere is there any attempt at DBT methodology. Instead, you've already pre-empted the answer by implying the customer might detect a difference, and to choose which they might prefer. You're introducing bias into the test right from the start! Furthermore, nowhere in your advice is there any explanation of how to control for other possible factors that might affect the perception of any 'difference'. Of course, that's what DBT is all about - eliminating those factors.
Then why waste hours, days and weeks of your life searching for these microscopic differences? Anyway, I'm LOLing because you've just contradicted your entire position in that one sentence...
Absolutely right and absolutely irrelevant to the question at hand - do audio cables have complex audible differences or not? That's a question of objective fact and one entirely unrelated to system design, musical enjoyment or any other canards you might throw up to disguise the fact you have no rational basis for asserting these differences exist.
SY:
No, it's not subjective, not at all. In a DBT you're testing whether a person can perceive a difference in a test subject (a cable, in our case). The question is simply: can a difference be perceived? The answer is yes or no and it's not subjective. Just because it is a human making the determination of whether a difference was perceived, doesn't make it a subjective test - because the presence or absence of the perception is the objective data sought. That is then correlated with the cable-switching (if any) and statistical analysis shows whether there is an actual correlation between the data from the test and the cables 'listened' to.
I don't know what that means - I think you're missing a verb. In any case, it's not 'wrongthink' (Orwell fan?) to point out the critical difference - and relevance of that difference - between subjective testing and objective (DBT) testing. It's central to the issue here, because people are relying on subjective means (prone to the misleading effects of the psychology of perception) to arrive at objective conclusions (independent of the psychology of perception) and that's a gigantic mistake, because you *cannot* argue an objective conclusion from a subjective premise.[/quote]
I didn't say it was. I said that by controlling for subjectivity, you remove it. In the matter of testing perception, you do that using DBT methodology.
You are unfair.Curly Woods never said that he was for 20 years trying to re-invent the wheel,that is wasting his life on cables.He said he was dealing with high-end audio equipment for more than 20 years.His experience is not so easy to match as you may probably think.
Science does not quantify ones experience. Subjectivity is the root of all evil and the mind is not be trusted.
How in the world did the human race ever advance to where it is today with out trusting our minds? I am a terrible human being
If a human being is making a judgment based on sensory input and brain processing, it's subjective. The question of audibility (a subjective phenomenon) can be determined objectively (e.g., by controlled sensory testing), but the phenomena are indeed subjective.
Inigo Montoya comes to mind here...
I don't intend to argue assertions I've read ad nauseum since the dawn of public Usenet access nearly 20 years ago. No 'Doomlord', you're not rocking my world with paradigm shifts. The above screed suggests a lack of understanding how science and DBTs work, as well as familiarity with the contents of this thread. Brad Mayer himself warns about tester bias, then of course, like you suggest, 'knowing' the proper result in advance promptly ignores his own advice in the BAS demonstrations. Funny how the Clever Hans effect can lead to false positives but never the null results desired, don't you think?
No, he didn't say that - but I did. His knowledge of high-end audio components is not questioned by me, but his conclusions about how and why they work together most certainly is questioned, including his belief that cables affect sound. He cites his 20 years of experience as justifying his conclusions but in doing so he's effectively stating that 20 years of experience is good enough to reach solid conclusions. Yet, his conclusions are no good. We knew in the 19th century how audio cables would work (if we had had audio then, we might have asked...) because electromagnetics is 19th century physics - ie very well known and established by now. If Curly Woods thinks 20 years of subjective experience invalidates 150 years of science he's mistaken. Yet he implies that such experience is useful to his clients. I say it is not, because all he's done then in that time is reinvent the wheel of audio knowledge when he could simply have read an EE textbook and known better than to waste his or any of his client's time with cables. 20 years or 50 year of experience isn't worth diddly squat if the conclusion you reach from it is wrong.
@ Doomlord_uk,
i´m afraid, but that´s what SY and i were meaning; the double blind part of a test is a measure against a certain kind of influence hence tries to control something. The participants are evaluating by subjective decisions but the experimentator tries to control this process.
But the golden rule of every test in the field of cognitive psychology is " the more control the less the practicability of the results", so that´s the other subjective part of sensory testing. What degree of control is acceptable?
The next part would be the statistical analysis, it is a very subjective decision to accept that certain kinds of tests are more conservative.
Wishes
P.S. Are you sure that the inaudibility of cables can be proofed by physic alone?
At least i´m able to measure differences in most cases between two DUTs.
i´m afraid, but that´s what SY and i were meaning; the double blind part of a test is a measure against a certain kind of influence hence tries to control something. The participants are evaluating by subjective decisions but the experimentator tries to control this process.
But the golden rule of every test in the field of cognitive psychology is " the more control the less the practicability of the results", so that´s the other subjective part of sensory testing. What degree of control is acceptable?
The next part would be the statistical analysis, it is a very subjective decision to accept that certain kinds of tests are more conservative.
Wishes
P.S. Are you sure that the inaudibility of cables can be proofed by physic alone?
At least i´m able to measure differences in most cases between two DUTs.
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See this is exactly the type of stuff people have taught me over the years. Do you understand how confusing this is?! haha I'm not trying to be mean here either. It's just that when you tell the listener things like "It shouldn't change the sound but make it more accurate" you are setting up people to try and listen to things that are sooo small they are on the edge of perception. I could make a large detailed list of objective things you can do to improve your sound system. And as far as I can tell everything involves changing the sounds in easily noticeable ways. At least the things that will get my hard earned money.
SY:
True in general but in the simplest possible question of perception (yes/no, was there an input?) the answer is objective. And again you're missing the point that the person's ability to judge is what's being tested here. Hence the set of judgments in the aggregate can be considered - and are - objective test data. The DBT ensures that. The accuracy of the judgments - the ability to judge, iow - is then determined by correlating the judgement data with the cable-switching data. The resultant pattern, if any, answers the root question and it's an objective answer.
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