There's a position in there? All I've seen is, "I will not consider any alternatives to what I've made my mind up is true." Unlike the actual positions taken by Jan, me, and others that our beliefs are ALWAYS subject to revision with decent evidence.
That's not a position, it's a religion.
And you have successfully argued against religion?
I was just pointing to what I think might bring that portion of the religion under the scrutiny of those of you who will actually change your minds when presented with evidence of an objective nature. For that matter even Curly would be open to a successful portrayal of those categories he is pointing to. And I am quite sure both you and Jan have systems capable of portraying what Curly points to.
However, in view of my religious opinion that all alteration of tone, space and internal gradient information is due to dielectric induced losses , your systems might actually be too good to allow differences in cables to be audible. Seems to me that only in systems where information loss or alteration, due to cable differences, is noticeable would be systems where information loss due to these corruptions would be critical. Not that the systems are inferior, but that the information transformation into the air was not as robust as to overwhelm a small change in the parameters that do control the perception of Curly's categories.
It really does not take much corruption to alter these field placement reproduction events and a carefully balanced system, that is not robust, could actually be upset rather easily.
Bud
I was just pointing to what I think might bring that portion of the religion under the scrutiny of those of you who will actually change your minds when presented with evidence of an objective nature. For that matter even Curly would be open to a successful portrayal of those categories he is pointing to. And I am quite sure both you and Jan have systems capable of portraying what Curly points to.
However, in view of my religious opinion that all alteration of tone, space and internal gradient information is due to dielectric induced losses , your systems might actually be too good to allow differences in cables to be audible. Seems to me that only in systems where information loss or alteration, due to cable differences, is noticeable would be systems where information loss due to these corruptions would be critical. Not that the systems are inferior, but that the information transformation into the air was not as robust as to overwhelm a small change in the parameters that do control the perception of Curly's categories.
It really does not take much corruption to alter these field placement reproduction events and a carefully balanced system, that is not robust, could actually be upset rather easily.
Bud
yawnie.
Issues to be dealt with (in order):
1 - ascertain whether an effect ACTUALLY exists. This requires a large scale experiment using listeners in a controlled double blind trial. If the outcome of the trial is that a difference is reliably perceived, then go on to identifying how it comes about.
1a - if no difference is perceived, or if the perception is unreliable, repeat the experiment to ensure the finding is valid.
2 - if the finding of "no difference" is reliable, go to a bar and celebrate the death of the cult of cable.
Issues to be dealt with (in order):
1 - ascertain whether an effect ACTUALLY exists. This requires a large scale experiment using listeners in a controlled double blind trial. If the outcome of the trial is that a difference is reliably perceived, then go on to identifying how it comes about.
1a - if no difference is perceived, or if the perception is unreliable, repeat the experiment to ensure the finding is valid.
2 - if the finding of "no difference" is reliable, go to a bar and celebrate the death of the cult of cable.
Listening levels for tests. Thinking out loud.
Generally speaking:
1. Our sensitivity to nonlinear distortion rises with decreasing SPLs.
2. Our sensitivity to linear distortion rises with increasing SPLs.
So, it seems to me, if you are going to change a component in your system, then you would have to test for an audible change using a low SPL level and a high SPL level. And the SPL levels would have have to be matched between before and after the component change.
Unless a system has rather abnormal electronics or speakers, changes due to different cable might be pretty subtle, so gross changes in the test setup such as listening levels should be avoided.
Generally speaking:
1. Our sensitivity to nonlinear distortion rises with decreasing SPLs.
2. Our sensitivity to linear distortion rises with increasing SPLs.
So, it seems to me, if you are going to change a component in your system, then you would have to test for an audible change using a low SPL level and a high SPL level. And the SPL levels would have have to be matched between before and after the component change.
Unless a system has rather abnormal electronics or speakers, changes due to different cable might be pretty subtle, so gross changes in the test setup such as listening levels should be avoided.
I don't know. I DO know that many seemingly unrelated differences, most importantly physical differences between systems, but also unmatched levels, may cause 'audible differences' that disappear if those factors are taken care of (eliminated). I know it is hard to swallow, we all are pretty sure that 'we hear what we hear'. But it is not so. Savvy salesman can and do use these effects to sell the systems they need to move. This is not amazing, what IS amazing is that with the information so readily available on the 'net and in a few good books at Amazon.com, it is still relatively unknown information.
jd
Sy, at further risk of being laughed off the planet, might I suggest that if you still have those little pieces of cotton enclosed snake goo, send them to Curly and see if they make a noticeable difference in his system. Won't prove anything, but might give us some sort of scale of susceptibility outside of, but related to cables, at least for speakers.
Bud
Bud
Sy I am open to anything, but I simply can not see how I have fooled myself for all these years and in that process have not found moments to question somewhere along the way, what I was achieving. I have repeated my setups again and again to make sure that what I heard in one round, was indeed evident in subsequent listening sessions. The laws of randomness would follow your logic at some point if I were wrong. I have listened to far more cables that did not improve my system than those that have over the years.
But again what I am listening for is spatial clues that affect imaging and sound staging that vary between cables as much as components at times. Sometimes they are rather fleeting and it takes me a longer time to determine if I have a preference for one or the other cables. I take these changes very seriously as they can be expensive and can affect my systems balance.
With really good electronics and sources, I truly do not understand how this is so hard to hear. I have done this for over half my lifetime and have yet to go back and find that I made a poor or wrong decision, once I have satisfied my listening sessions and made a choice. Color biases amuse me though as I have had some god awful colors of cables at one time or another. I could care less who made them, their names or their construction techniques. All that matters to me is how do they sound, period.
Damn, this threads moving... Sorry in advance about the length (and more to come 
) Anyway, to catch up on some points:
rdf:
Andre Visser:
I don't know who to attribute this to, I found it quoted in one of terry j's posts:
Curly John:
You have NOT proven to yourself anything over the years, what you've done is deluded yourself over the years (and as your hearing progressively degenerated according to normal and understood aging processes) that you 'hear what you hear'. That's the whole point you need to acknowledge - that subjective listening evaluations of small-scale signal variations cannot be relied upon due to psychological limitations of perception. You have not ruled these out - ever - so you CANNOT logical, rationally or honestly claim to have proven anything about audio differences of cables. YOU ARE DELUDING YOURSELF. The only way to be sure you can perceive these tiny (or, rather, non-existant) audible differences is by using DBT methods. If you think science proves we cannot hear anything, you're dumb, btw. No-one said that or anything like it. Well, I don't think you're dumb really. I think you're dishonest, persistantly mischaracterising what people say. By the way, those of us standing 'behind science' (what do you stand behind, btw?) do get our facts right. If you think we don't, please show how and where we got our scientific facts wrong. No, subjective opinion does not outweigh science so you're going to have to make an effort to SHOW people the errors you think they make. Just endlessly repeating that your hearing is great is anecdotal irrelevance.
Steve Eddy:
Curly Wood:
rdf:
planet10:
planet 10:
) Anyway, to catch up on some points:rdf:
What's absolutely false? What, btw, is "almost a full decibel variance across wide sections of the audio band"? I'd like to see this, and your Pspice modeling. It certainly doesn't make any sense. I assume the distance you worked with was 48' into 8 ohms. How did you brother measure the same 'variance' using MLSSA, btw? MLSSA works using a microphone... Lastly, 0.025 dBs is what is the *demonstrated* rolloff at 20kHz for a 3m lenthy of audio cable with conductor radius of 2mm. You'd know this if you'd bother to read the article I linked SEVERAL TIMES.
Andre Visser:
What's with the selective interpretation? You and other cable fanatics speak like people who claim to have golden ears - you can't deny you give that impression. No-one thinks or suggested that you don't enjoy music - so spare us the straw-man arguments. And again, no-one said there is anything wrong with hearing music 'as realistically as possible'. What we're saying is you won't achieve that goal in any way by buying expensive cables - the topic of this thread.
No I don't, I never said 'better' - don't misattribute what I said.
Why would you hope that those doing a DBT don't have the idea that you don't need to do it to understand it? They're doing it. And just because test results can be faked doesn't mean they are or have been. The same can be said about subjective tests too, so what was your point? Were you actually referring to an actual test, or just stating the bleeding obvious?
What a moronic thing to say! Thanks for the condescension - it really adds to your credibility in this discussion, I must say. So, did you *understand* the theory? I'm assuming not but you don't say either way. Oh, btw, your ears are subject to the laws of physics as are the electrical properties of cables (more importantly), just like everything in this universe, so they most certainly do care about maths.
I don't know who to attribute this to, I found it quoted in one of terry j's posts:
You test AND listen. I assume you mean you do DBT listening tests and subjective listening tests? Or you actually measure the cable properties? If the latter, then what do you do with the information you get??? In any case "both paths are valid" is not true - only DBT is valid as a means of determining human perception. Subjective listening is useless given the microscopic nature of any claimed audible cable differences. Sure, subjectivists have the advantage (whatever that means) in that all they care about (so they claim) is 'it sounds good' but that's a remarkably low-hanging fruit to aim for. Meanwhile the objectivists have a very different goal, the real one in this thread, getting subjectivists to understand that they can't rationally make objective claims about the audibilitly of cable differences. And that's the point - we're both arguing over the same thing - whether cable differences are audible - yet subjectivists have a habit of withdrawing into their "well, it sounds good to me and all that matters" shell whenever they are confronted with hard evidence that they are ignoring psychological effects on subjectivity that mean they *cannot* make the claims they do. Just to ram this point home: OBJECTIVISTS DO NOT CARE WHETHER CABLES OR HIFIS OR MUSIC "SOUND GOOD" BECAUSE THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE. That's just what the subjectivists throw out as a distraction. Let's be clear on that. Objectivists are not less flexible, we share the same goal - great sounding hifi. We just don't waste our time with voodoo, snake oil or audio cable differences and we object to hifi journalists and industry charlatans conspiring to rip people off.
Curly John:
No-one said you suddenly became deaf, but if you think that's what we're saying you need to work on your lamentable reading comprehension skills. Otherwise, stop trolling. Your ears are NOT working great at 52 - at that age your hearing will be significantly diminished compared to when you were 20 or 25. You ought to know this.
You have NOT proven to yourself anything over the years, what you've done is deluded yourself over the years (and as your hearing progressively degenerated according to normal and understood aging processes) that you 'hear what you hear'. That's the whole point you need to acknowledge - that subjective listening evaluations of small-scale signal variations cannot be relied upon due to psychological limitations of perception. You have not ruled these out - ever - so you CANNOT logical, rationally or honestly claim to have proven anything about audio differences of cables. YOU ARE DELUDING YOURSELF. The only way to be sure you can perceive these tiny (or, rather, non-existant) audible differences is by using DBT methods. If you think science proves we cannot hear anything, you're dumb, btw. No-one said that or anything like it. Well, I don't think you're dumb really. I think you're dishonest, persistantly mischaracterising what people say. By the way, those of us standing 'behind science' (what do you stand behind, btw?) do get our facts right. If you think we don't, please show how and where we got our scientific facts wrong. No, subjective opinion does not outweigh science so you're going to have to make an effort to SHOW people the errors you think they make. Just endlessly repeating that your hearing is great is anecdotal irrelevance.
Level differences DO NOT affect frequency or harmonics. This is not rocket science. Tone is a combination of a fundamental frequency and harmonics of it - clearly not something that will be affected by level or rolloff of any kind and most certainly not by the imperceptible rolloffs demonstrated by cables (even long ones). Any differences in tone are due to a change in fundamental frequency or in the harmonics - any component cable of a subjective change of tone would have to have a filtering characteristic far more complex than mere resistive attenuation. This just goes to show you don't know what you are talking about. Surprising for someone in your line of work - and very disappointing.
Your trial and error testing method is useless for small-scale signal variations and deeply flawed in outline. Subjectivity is ok for large-scale signal variations due to large, complex reactive components like loudspeakers, or complex mechanical analogue systems like turntables. Subjectivity is - I point out yet again - of no use whatsoever for evaluating putative differences in cables (or just about any other 'tweak'). Going into any testing regimen with an expectation of certain results is to introduce bias - given the subjective nature of your trial and error approach, this bias is fatal, rendering your results worthless. With the best intention in the world I'm sure, all you have done is deluded yourself - and your customers.
All of which are down to variations between channels and could only be affected cables or anything else if they were unbalanced. Whatever the microscopic differences between different cables, the differences between similar lengths of identically-made cables (ie pairs of cables) is going to be orders of magnitude smaller. There is absolutely no mechanism by which a cable could affect phase information in a signal to a degree that it would ever be perceptible by any human being.
Yourself included - so don't go criticising others for not understanding what you patently do not understand yourself.
What exactly is your definition of 'revealing'? I've heard a few high-end components and systems, some cost up to £250,000 for the whole system. I'd say the two key differences between low- and high-end gear are levels of distortion and noise and maximum volume/SPL they can achieve. Flat frequency response, stereo imagery, dynamic fidelity (freedom from compression) can be and are all achieved in much cheaper hifi components. I have to ask - what to you does 'revealing' actually mean? Do you mean these systems have lower noise floors?
Sure. Why not? Stuck in a traffic jam, what's the difference there? Doing the school run? That two-seater ferrari's not so hot doing that is it? Or taking the dogs to the park, going to do the weekly shopping, or picking up the laundry. Most people listen to music at ordinary levels in small rooms - they don't need high-end hifi very often. And given the excellent quality of most low-end hifi these days, the high-end world is having an ever tougher time justifying itself. Krell's thousand-dollar iPod dock is proof positive of the levels of absurdity the high-end world goes to, and the greed and contempt they can show. I like high-end stuff, for all kinds of reasons, but I don't pretend it's anything special. I seriously doubt I can tell the difference between a £1000 power amp and a £10,000 one - unless, perhaps, I'm trying to drive a difficult loudspeaker load to very high volume cleanly. Even then, even cheap amps can do that now. Look at Rotel's offerings, just for one example. So please, stop hiding behind the 'hi end' as the justification for your subjective nonsense.
Steve Eddy:
An interesting point. I call them subjectivists because that's their testing paradigm and my beef is not with the subjectivism per se but that the subjectivists make claims of objectivity they are not entitled to make. Which as you say, certainly makes them 'pseudo-objectivists'. Or more like 'wannabe objectivists'!
Curly Wood:
You ought to be careful to avoid such implicit condescension towards listeners who are satisfied without spending large sums of money on 'high end' amps. What you wrote here is practically an ad-hominem and it's not a fair comment - "if you don't insist on my point of view, you're not 'serious'".
rdf:
Yeah, you should try that. It would be better than your usual trolling.
planet10:
I don't suppose you could expand on this rather vague analogy (if it even is one...). What I said was in response to the fact that the electrical properties of a cable vary only wrt to frequency, and only in a straightforward rolloff characteristic of imperceptible level. If you are saying that other, non-frequency dependent audible characteristics of cable exist (apart from resistive attenuation) then please do share. The world of science awaits with baited breath...
planet 10:
It's the methodology of DBT that proves this, not the results of particular tests.
This is basic. You vary multiple parameters while you only are interested in one - the particular cable. You don't want to do that. You want to vary ONLY the cable, not the level, and you don't want to know which cable is playing at anyone time, you don't want to know when a cable is switched, you don't even want to know IF a cable is switched. In short, a double-blind test where only the cable varies. If you can then indentify which cable is which, in a statistically acceptable series of tests, I'm your man.
jd
Frank I do not listen with experimental results as my criteria. I listen to my music to determine if it was affected in a positive or negative manner. The levels are just as varied for one as the other and never alike as I am listening for longer terms to get to understand what the differences are doing to my system, if at all. At some point I would hope that I would not be able to make a decision, if your logic were true. I have yet to not be able to make a easy decision as to what cable was preferred after a few weeks of listening. I simply do not see how anything can be accomplished with short term listening to any component in a system, other than there are differences.
Curly, what you do is not transferable. I've no doubt, given a selection of components you can set them up optimally in a given room. You've been at it for years and I assume you have good hearing and excellent taste.
But can you tell me or Stuart or Jan how to do what you do? The vocabulary for audio phenomena (especially reproduced) is not standardized the way it is say, for colour (google pantone). Colour has its vocabulary problems, but at least it sits still or changes very slowly over time - in comparison with it, sound is evanescent. I can get get a colour chip for some shade of violet but how do I get a chip for sound stage?
Do you see the problem? If the criteria you have are to be transferable then they must be objectified in some manner. The way which has the least ambiguity is one in which the variables are limited as much as possible.
Let me give you an example from my experience: Really good speakers 'disappear' and when they play loud, you don't notice they're playing loud. Fine, how do I demonstrate to someone else on paper or with measurements why this happens so they can achieve the same thing? DamnifIknow.
To continue...
Andre Visser:
Robh3606:
Btw, there is no fundamental semantic difference between a 'measurement' and a 'listening test' - what's at issue is whether the scale of the difference expected is such that perception of it might be masked or confused by external factors. You don't need lab equipment to tell if your sub is working - you do if you want to determine how distorted it is at 18Hz at -6dBs for a given input. Likewise, differences between cables if they were audible would be so tiny that careful DBT methodology is required to isolate them.
Andre Visser:
Andre Visser still:
2) - Electrical engineering theory/physics and psycho-acoustics are both on the same side. I think you mean the issues of psychology that cloud subjective evaluations. You're right that the only way to avoid the conflict is to minimise the psychological factors - and that's done by using DBT methods. Or you could just sit down and read some basic physics and electrical engineering and go over some basic research on human hearing and realise tehre's no way whatsoever electrical differences between cables are perceptible by humans. Of course you believe that human hearing is more perceptive that science gives credit for - but that's your faulty and worthless subjective opinion.
And back to Curly Wood:
[/quote]As far as level matching is concerned, I listen for tonality, imaging and sound staging clues, not level or frequency issues when I am comparing equipment. These are the differences that lesser electronics typical destroy that the better equipment allows to be heard.[/quote]
I think it's amazing that you do not listen for level or frequency issues when these can be fundamental to a component's sound - especially speakers. Tonality is a frequency issue, image/soundstaging is the same thing and is an artifact of stereo phase differences in the recording. Cables cannot affect that. Cross-channel interference in stereo components and, secondly, loudspeaker response, dispersion and diffraction affect that. None of these are destroyed by 'lesser' electronics.
You really are full of it.
brianco:
rdf:
Andre Visser:
Perhaps? No, it's not, at all. As far as we are concerned, you can listen for anything you want - we're only concerned with the central, fundamental question - do cables have complex audible differences?
Robh3606:
They aren't extremes, they are basic approaches to making claims of objective fact. Subjectivists think subjective perception alone is sufficient to make such a claim. Objectivists say that subjectivism is unavoidably susceptible to the vagaries and limitations of the psychology of perception, and these need to be controlled for - via DBT methodology - before claims to objective fact can be valid. There is a second angle to this division - subjectivists basically claim that if 'perception is reality' and ignore scientific facts that show that certain things cannot be perceived - because they are not real. People approaching this issue from the scientific angle are often labled as 'objectivists' but I think that's misleading as it misses the point that pre-existing scientific knowledge provides a better understanding of a situation than that claimed or indeed demonstrated by subjectivists. I am not aware of any conflicts between objectivism and knowledge-based argument - but that's really due to the fact that scientific knowledge follows from objective methodologies.
Btw, there is no fundamental semantic difference between a 'measurement' and a 'listening test' - what's at issue is whether the scale of the difference expected is such that perception of it might be masked or confused by external factors. You don't need lab equipment to tell if your sub is working - you do if you want to determine how distorted it is at 18Hz at -6dBs for a given input. Likewise, differences between cables if they were audible would be so tiny that careful DBT methodology is required to isolate them.
Andre Visser:
Silver has 5% lower resistivity than copper. That's the ONLY difference! If you can hear differences in attenuation of about 5% then I guess you can - but you wouldn't need different volume levels. It's worth pointing out therefore that silver cables are a total waste of money, given the significantly greater value of silver. But anyway...
LOL. Sure you don't, you'd get busted for being a charlatan. How about for a chance for $10m to be donated to a charity or charities of your choice - would you do it then? Probably not. What about $10bn? You have to agree that would make a big difference to a lot of people. Just in principle, would you do a properly-run DBT then?
Andre Visser still:
1) - You've been repeatedly told what the issue is - you DO know why there is a conflict. The only puzzle is why you, Curly et al continue to deny that subjectivism is not a basis for making claims of objective fact (eg - cables have complex audible differences).
2) - Electrical engineering theory/physics and psycho-acoustics are both on the same side. I think you mean the issues of psychology that cloud subjective evaluations. You're right that the only way to avoid the conflict is to minimise the psychological factors - and that's done by using DBT methods. Or you could just sit down and read some basic physics and electrical engineering and go over some basic research on human hearing and realise tehre's no way whatsoever electrical differences between cables are perceptible by humans. Of course you believe that human hearing is more perceptive that science gives credit for - but that's your faulty and worthless subjective opinion.
And back to Curly Wood:
You really need to lay off with this condescending attitude.
No, you're not. You haven't learned how to test and it seems you don't understand what to listen for or what it means. You've made that clear. And capacitors??? LOL.
Again with the condescension... It's not logic, by the way, just a premise for your pointless argument.
Personal ... and quite irrelevant.
So, you've been trolling us all along, and never had any intention to listen or make an effort to understand? I'm not surprised, but ultimately I wanted to believe you were open-minded enough to listen to evidence and reason. Apparently not.
No-one's asking you to do anything they feel you can't do and telling us anyone can learn to hear differences if they really want to just underlines the depth of your delusion and the absolute failure of your subjectivist approahc.
As has been made clear multiple times, your test regime is faulty and unable to reveal objective information about your 'test' subjects (cables, capacitors, etc). So believe me, not only has it failed you, it has ALWAYS failed you.
[/quote]As far as level matching is concerned, I listen for tonality, imaging and sound staging clues, not level or frequency issues when I am comparing equipment. These are the differences that lesser electronics typical destroy that the better equipment allows to be heard.[/quote]
I think it's amazing that you do not listen for level or frequency issues when these can be fundamental to a component's sound - especially speakers. Tonality is a frequency issue, image/soundstaging is the same thing and is an artifact of stereo phase differences in the recording. Cables cannot affect that. Cross-channel interference in stereo components and, secondly, loudspeaker response, dispersion and diffraction affect that. None of these are destroyed by 'lesser' electronics.
You really are full of it.
brianco:
He doesn't KNOW any such thing and nor do you. System synergy is yet more subjectivist mumb-jumbo and explains nothing.
rdf:
In the context, you can substitute 'belief' for 'knowledge' without changing the meaning. Technically, one can believe something that cannot be known but getting into epistomology would not help address the question.
Actually, it would help. It's what most of this discussion is about.
Edit: Private knowledge and public overlap and its how we can increase the overlap in an error free fashion which is a problem - that can be very difficult. All we have is words, numbers and pictures and about 5 billion overlapping subjectivities. And the overlap is not a huge area compared to the infinite black spaces behind our eyeballs.
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So what in your opinion does explain something and will help us learn what and/or how to listen for?
Don't tell us about a 20 years old 100db sesitivity disco speaker driven by a 250w/ch questionable amp fed by a questionable dvd player and used off e-bay crappy wires.
It's a wonder that we have made any advancements in audio with Doom Lords appraoch to good sound
It sounds to me like everything sounds the same, everything is a rip off and everything is just hype. Did I get that right? Disco systems Oh come now sources can not make any difference! They all sound the same
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Wow that is more than the Amazing Randi offered Fermer, then decided that he did not want to risk it
It's a wonder that we have made any advancements in audio with Doom Lords appraoch to good sound
Well,if someone judges how music should sound using a system like this for reference,then,yes you got that very right
No from where I sit it is a closed mind. Science will never move forward with this attitude. Well science still has not shown definitively what the human brain/ear combination is truly capable of, but you seem to have all the answers for everyone. Sorry I don't buy what your selling. The antithesis of Snake Oil is all that I am reading from you.
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