I don't believe cables make a difference, any input?

[john curl]

Don't touch the Gizmos. You might have been thought to be stealing them. Happens all the time.

 

[john curl]

I like the hi Q gizmos. I like to 'ding' them. They can't easily stop me, because I am known in the industry.

 

[fredex]

True,but between the cable or the plug/unplug it surely must be the cable

You would think so. But I wouldn't necessarily. Janneman's post that you were answering asked whether the differences the graphs showed could have been caused by the testing setup ie contacts. I don't know the facts around this particular test but I do know that at low levels, contact integrity and consistency can be a major factor, to the extent it can swamp the effect you are trying to measure. Neither you or I can jump to conclusions as we lack data.

 

[Pit Hinder]

fredex - too true. In German, "measuring" and "manure" are just a difference of one letter. Do 10 runs, don´t clean your connectors in between, have a loop slowly building static...you need to reinvent physics to explain the results.

 

[Key]

Hi Key!

I suggest perusing audio forums where opponents and proponents of wires are discussing the idea of the audibility of sonic differences. Now do a search of "expectation bias" and see who uses this term as a weapon most often and how they use it!

I'll bet you "expectation bias" is used by the opponents of the idea of the audibility of sonic differences almost exclusively as a weapon and it used in this manner a) YOU SAW the wires and b)YOU EXPECTED to hear a difference and so you heard one!

Then proponents will respond with "expectation bias" negatively as well so that means a) YOU SAW the wires and b)YOU EXPECTED NOT to hear a difference and so you didn't hear one!

Prove me wrong "if" you can and please provide a link to this proof.


Thetubeguy1954

~Rational Subjectivism. It's An Acquired Taste!~

Hey Tubeguy
Well I guess you are right and it does get a little crazy with the hyperbole in these discussions. I just think there are always extremists on either side of the fence in these seemingly unanswerable questions flinging their own brand of easy answers, sweeping generalizations, and straw men into the pile of worthless knowledge in the middle lol. Maybe you have stumbled onto something though that needs to be studied like "The expectation of expectation bias bias"

 

[fredex]

Do 10 runs, don´t clean your connectors in between, have a loop slowly building static...you need to reinvent physics to explain the results.

And there seems to be plenty of good folk trying to do just that.

 

[rdf]

I remember getting yelled at in one room for touching some hockey-puck gizmos .... maybe they needed more hockey pucks.

Were they Canadians? Understandable if so, never mess with another man's hockey puck.

 

[SY]

FWIW, they appeared to have all their teeth.

 

[Panicos K]

You would think so. But I wouldn't necessarily. Janneman's post that you were answering asked whether the differences the graphs showed could have been caused by the testing setup ie contacts. I don't know the facts around this particular test but I do know that at low levels, contact integrity and consistency can be a major factor, to the extent it can swamp the effect you are trying to measure. Neither you or I can jump to conclusions as we lack data.

It seems to me that it was the tested cable he meant,but I may be mistaken.

 

[Andre Visser]

The most unhumorous part of the whole speaker wire debate is the 50 feet of 30 gauge wire the signal goes through inside the speaker.

So?

What have the speaker coil and the speaker cable to do with each other?

 

[fredex]

It seems to me that it was the tested cable he meant,but I may be mistaken.

Same here Panicos. Is there some confusion?

 

[fredex]

@ Panicos. I tried to add this to my last post.
EDIT
I have just re-read your reply to Janneman, you say,
"What would you say if I claimed I can detect a difference in sound when I plug and unplug my interconnect.....without even changing its direction?"

OK I think I understand now. I would say that when you do as you say there would be a measureable difference and it is sometimes possible to hear that difference. This happens because of issues that Janneman and I have suggested ie contact integrity. If the contacts haven't been disturbed for sometime and they have gone bad (unnoticed) then trying a new cable or re-connecting the old one can clean the contacts and it could be audible.

Quote: "What about different interconnects using the same or different connectors?Why doesn't any of you hear any difference?" I don't really understand this, but if you can't hear it you can't hear it. But don't assume nothing has changed.

Quote: "Surely to compare two interconnects,you have to plug and unplug them several times."
And every time you do, things change but most of the time it is below audibility. You can often measure it but you just can't hear everything you can measure.
cheers

 

[TonyTecson]

What have the speaker coil and the speaker cable to do with each other?

you don't know?

 

[SY]

So?

What have the speaker coil and the speaker cable to do with each other?

Superposition. One more example of magical thinking. Somehow, basic laws of Nature don't apply to audio.

 

[jan.didden]

Hello Janneman!

Like most things it's how something is used that defines "if" it's a weapon or not. Pick up a hammer to nail boards together in order to build a house and the hammer's a tool. Pick up that same hammer and go bash someone's brains in and what was previously considered to be a tool is now considered to be a weapon instead! Although the general tone of your post causes me to realise this isn't the case, at first I was hoping your next few following comments about "expectation bias" were an attempt at humor. As a reasonably intelligent person I certainly fully realise the term "expectation bias" points to a phenomenon that is well documented! However, that said, I also equally realise the way most wire naysayers use the term is as a weapon against wire proponents, and it's done in a manner that's intellectually dishonest and IMO is highlighted by a lack of integrity as well!

To take such a complex phenomenon as "expectation bias" and attempt to reduce it down to simply;

a) YOU SAW the wires
b) YOU EXPECTED to hear a difference and so you did!

Is screaming with a lack of integrity "if" it's done knowingly. Surprisingly enough it's quite easy to have the naysayers themselves prove they used the term "expectation bias" willfully in an intellectually dishonest manner. All one needs to do is remind them that just like placebo has it's negative, i.e., nocebo, "expectation bias" works in the negative too. Therefore if their arguement is a correct one, it's equally correct to assume the reason they don't hear a difference in wires is because;

a) YOU SAW the wires
b) YOU EXPECTED NOT to hear a difference and so you didn't!

Now all of a sudden this intellectually dishonest bunch of folks wants to be sure everyone fully well understands all of the complexities involved when speaking about the phenomenon of "expectation bias." Now that the light of "expectation bias" is being shone down on them in a negative manner, they want to be sure to remind everyone that these statements would ONLY be true "if" you were concious of "all" your expectations, which no one could ever possibly be. So Janneman I'd say "if" anyone here should be giving anyone else a break, it should be you giving that break to me.

Now as to whether or not I would also call a book, an explanation or a course, a weapon, would also be equally dicated by how they were used as well! I have to be honest with you Janneman and tell you I view this post of yours as suspect. Why? because I'd like to give you the credit of being intelligent enough to have known what the answers to your questions were well before you asked them of me. As I've also previously stated my postion on this topic I believe you knew what my answers would be as well. So now I have to wonder what other motives may have caused you to ask these questions...

Thetubeguy1954

~Rational Subjectivism. It's An Acquired Taste!~

Well I don't know what I can say to change your mind about what you think of people with other opinions than you have. You seem to consider those generally as mean and dishonest people out to get you.

But in my opinion you misjudge the majority of the naysayers. Most of them are NOT naysayers. It's very rare that someone says categorically: "all cables sound the same, period!" But lots of people say: "nobody has proven that cable differences are audible, in a statistically relevant, repeatable test". That's not naysaying at all. It is precisely the goal of the DBT we are trying to get of the ground here, to eliminate things like expectation bias. Weapon? We're not fighting to outshout the other guy. We're trying to find out if there is an audible difference. And if you don't take care of things like expectation bias, your opinion on that audibility will never rise above just that. And it goes without saying that expectation bias works for (or against) both sides; I thought that was a given?

I feel you misjudge the opinions of most of the sceptics, and you assign them dishonesty too easy and unwarranted.

jd

 

[marce]

Any one tried testing a cable on say an Agilent U8903A audio analyzer, or has any details on how to set up some cable tests on such a piece of equipment.
I have access to one amonst other bits and pieces and would like to do some tests myself. Personaly I belive cable direction cant make any difference, ignoring shielding issues. Of course if someone posts some links to non anecdotal information!!! Again if it was sooo critical other area's of electronics would would argue over the direction of cables (ie life support, aerospace/mill etc).
As siad earlier, I have pinched the manual for above equipement but being only a lowly PCB designer, I would like some idea of what sort of tests to conduct on the conductors
Again only my opinion, but the more I read adverts, reviews etc of "high end audio" the more I subsribe to the late Bill Hicks view of marketing. The amount of words written that has no real content other than to soothe the person who has been suckered (or is about to be suckered) out of lots of dosh for a 1m bit of wire.

 

[tigro]

Cables hoax

Dear Paulinator

Your listening test just emphasizes what I suspected for a long,long time namely that the multi Kdollar "high-end" cables exist mainly for bringing a nice profit to their makers.
It is obvious that cables do not sound the same because they have different electrical parameters(capacitance,inductance),but the high purity single crystal copper or pure silver or any other esoteric
materials have nothing to offer soundwise because in the audio frequency range (20-20000Hz) and
at cable length needed in the usual home environment the advantages of the "special" cables do not
exist.
Furthermore you almost never see any measurements which might explain a better cable performance.
All you get is some obscure theory verging on mystics, usually delivered with crushing superiority
by some smooth talking salesman hinting that you do not really belong to the "Initiates of the Great Knowledge",
but you might belong if you buy rightly.

Regards

Tigro

 

[jan.didden]

[snip] It is obvious that cables do not sound the same because they have different electrical parameters (capacitance,inductance),[snip]Tigro

But could we not have the situation that cables have different electrical parameters yet still sound the same?

jd

 

[Jakob2]

The most unhumorous part of the whole speaker wire debate is the 50 feet of 30 gauge wire the signal goes through inside the speaker.

The old Einstein (in its simplified version ) comes into mind:

"Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler."

It might be a similar case as the power cable argument, that it can´t make a difference because of several (hundred) miles of power cable already installed before "the last meter" .

That is just _too_ simple.

Wishes

 

[doug20]

Hello Janneman!

Like most things it's how something is used that defines "if" it's a weapon or not. Pick up a hammer to nail boards together in order to build a house and the hammer's a tool. Pick up that same hammer and go bash someone's brains in and what was previously considered to be a tool is now considered to be a weapon instead! Although the general tone of your post causes me to realise this isn't the case, at first I was hoping your next few following comments about "expectation bias" were an attempt at humor. As a reasonably intelligent person I certainly fully realise the term "expectation bias" points to a phenomenon that is well documented! However, that said, I also equally realise the way most wire naysayers use the term is as a weapon against wire proponents, and it's done in a manner that's intellectually dishonest and IMO is highlighted by a lack of integrity as well!

To take such a complex phenomenon as "expectation bias" and attempt to reduce it down to simply;

a) YOU SAW the wires
b) YOU EXPECTED to hear a difference and so you did!

Is screaming with a lack of integrity "if" it's done knowingly. Surprisingly enough it's quite easy to have the naysayers themselves prove they used the term "expectation bias" willfully in an intellectually dishonest manner. All one needs to do is remind them that just like placebo has it's negative, i.e., nocebo, "expectation bias" works in the negative too. Therefore if their arguement is a correct one, it's equally correct to assume the reason they don't hear a difference in wires is because;

a) YOU SAW the wires
b) YOU EXPECTED NOT to hear a difference and so you didn't!

Now all of a sudden this intellectually dishonest bunch of folks wants to be sure everyone fully well understands all of the complexities involved when speaking about the phenomenon of "expectation bias." Now that the light of "expectation bias" is being shone down on them in a negative manner, they want to be sure to remind everyone that these statements would ONLY be true "if" you were concious of "all" your expectations, which no one could ever possibly be. So Janneman I'd say "if" anyone here should be giving anyone else a break, it should be you giving that break to me.

Now as to whether or not I would also call a book, an explanation or a course, a weapon, would also be equally dicated by how they were used as well! I have to be honest with you Janneman and tell you I view this post of yours as suspect. Why? because I'd like to give you the credit of being intelligent enough to have known what the answers to your questions were well before you asked them of me. As I've also previously stated my postion on this topic I believe you knew what my answers would be as well. So now I have to wonder what other motives may have caused you to ask these questions...

Thetubeguy1954

~Rational Subjectivism. It's An Acquired Taste!~

You are aware that one side that actually understands "expectation bias" just asks everyone with any strong opinions to do the "proper" testing before they ramble online?


Audio science is not an Acquired Taste either, maybe that is your biggest problem. Audio to you is more like wine tasting? Its not to me at all.

I live in Florida, you set up the proper test and get 5 people in the room for listening, we all will put $1000 on the table to find out who really can hear what.