Prune said:
I'm sure some are as well. But how exactly will you know which are and which aren't? A null result in a blind test isn't necessarily absolute proof that the differences are psycholigical in nature. All you can conclude is that an actual audible difference has yet to be demonstrated. Beyond that all you can go by is your gut feeling as to how likely you feel it is that there are no actual audible differences.
Fine.
But what do these people expect? That every cable, tweak, etc. out there be put through a battery of blind tests across a large section of the population?
Ain't gonna happen unless these people decide to get together and start doing the research themelves.
Until then, the way I see it, these people are adults who should be able to think for themsleves and make their purchasing decisions accordingly.
I'llto that. *
* And I don't even like beer.
*bbrrruuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrp!* 'Scuse me.
se
Autonomous collective????Steve Eddy said:Neighborhood? I thought we were an autonomous collective?
That would mean..yes.....resistors are futile....
Hitten sanfran next week...dere's a hot air balloon in Napa Valley with my name on it..and a drop top....gonna have some fun..
Cheers, John
PS..Sy: don't look up...I'll try to keep my breakfast with me..but, no hard promises..
If you take that stance, then it starts to become a religion, not science. There is no such thing as absolute, irrevocable proof, only weight of evidence for and against. A null result from a double-blind test is evidence against, and in the absence of evidence for, it is logical to assume, for the moment, that there is no audible difference.Steve Eddy said:
Psychology is powerful; it can change the entire nature of the universe, let alone a small change in sound.
Of course people can make up their own minds. I myself buy some stuff based on subjective listening because I can't possibly research and test everything, but what annoys me is that a few people seem to think that their senses are some sort of perfect measuring devices, capable of only detecting what is really there, and then they go any try to persuade everyone else that what they hear is most definitely due to a real physical effect, no matter what, and anyone who dares to contradict them must have cloth ears. It's totally irrational and in my opinion rather harmful to progress.Steve Eddy said:
I know full well how unreliable human senses are, and so I will not assume that anything I see or hear is real unless I also have some other way of measuring it, otherwise I would go around painting all the rooms white in the assumption that it really did make them bigger, not just the appearance of bigger!
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In general, I do agree with Mr Evil on this one. Human senses are somewhat unreliable and various psychological factors are also at work here indicating that our sense are not infallible. Despite this, we continue to trust these senses...
Specifically, I built some silver ICs and found their sound to be an improvement over the Monster ICs that I was using before. Will everyone hear the same difference? Probably not. Are my ears "golden"? Clearly not. But I was pleased with the results, so I continue to use my homemade ICs. I have tried other tweaks only to hear no differences. These changes were discarded...
That said, I do have one technical objection to the science vs. religion argument:
Scientifically speaking, it is impossible to prove a negative. To use a religious analogy: Your failure to detect the presence of a soul does does not constitute scientific evidence that one has no soul
<flamesuiton>
Specifically, I built some silver ICs and found their sound to be an improvement over the Monster ICs that I was using before. Will everyone hear the same difference? Probably not. Are my ears "golden"? Clearly not. But I was pleased with the results, so I continue to use my homemade ICs. I have tried other tweaks only to hear no differences. These changes were discarded...
That said, I do have one technical objection to the science vs. religion argument:
Mr Evil said:
Scientifically speaking, it is impossible to prove a negative. To use a religious analogy: Your failure to detect the presence of a soul does does not constitute scientific evidence that one has no soul
<flamesuiton>
Eric said:
I started using silve interconnects several years ago. A while back, I moved my system around due to a house renevotation. After one move, I realized I had lost some detail and magic. Played around with speaker positioning, etc. No matter what I did, it didn't sound as good as it had.
As I looked around more carefully, I realized I had put a pair of silver interconnects on the CD Player I don't use much instead of the player I was using for a source.
Swapped em around and everything was as it should be.
Easy to hear? Yep.
Will it happen in every system? No.
Do I have "Golden Ears" Absolutely not, can't hear much over 7 or 8K
Was I trying to persuade myself of _anything_? Nope, just wanted the detail back.
Cabling is very system dependent under the best of circumstances. I also think it is a lot easier to discern on interconnects.
Regards
Ken L
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Arthur-itis said:
Disagree.
You're saying that in a couple of days enough oxidation occured to diminish the sound and then plugging RCA cables in removed the oxidation that only recently occurred.
My point is that I was not anticpating a change - yet after I noticed that a chang had occurred - when I swapped the cables back the detail returned.
Regards
Ken L
vdi_nenna said:
Arthur-itis said:
I'm quite puzzled why Arthur-itis thinks that originator of the thread thinks that silver wire IS important.
I checked vdi_nenna's 2 posts (in this thread) few times and I was never under the impression that he ACTUALY thinks that silver wire IS important.
Is there anything else going on here?
Mr Evil said:
When I mentioned going by your gut, I wasn't referring to science, but rather that of the consumer.
I don't see such an assumption being what I would call "scientific" as such an assumption pretty much precludes any further investigation. I mean, if you're working from the assumption that there is no audible difference, why would you ever bother to investigate any further?
No, I think looking at it from the perspective that audible differences have yet to be demonstrated is the more rational and more "scientific" way to look at it.
se
this thing cant be proven because is measured by humans and not test equipment .
there were millions of blind tests with the same result-no one can tell the difference ,but still those that believe that theres an audible difference (or even can hear it) cant be proven wrong .
i think that the guys that believe that theres a difference should buy those 10000$ cables and enjoy
there were millions of blind tests with the same result-no one can tell the difference ,but still those that believe that theres an audible difference (or even can hear it
) cant be proven wrong .i think that the guys that believe that theres a difference should buy those 10000$ cables and enjoy
My only problem with the "buy what you want and enjoy" mentality is that encouraging and supporting pseudoscience in audio (indeed, even tolerating it) is ultimately, IMO, detrimental to the pace of progress in the field. Audio is still in the dark ages, or at best is only just now emerging from it. Active speakers still have a bad stigma in most of the "audiophile" world because of all the "bad stuff" going into the signal path (as if passive components weren't just as evil). Digital processing is seen by many as evil as well, who for some reason neglect the tremendous amount of signal processing an untreated room performs. People are convinced by salesmen to spend money on cables, instead of acoustic treatments. Two channels are seen as holy, when in fact they are and always have been fundamentally limited and inaccurate. Many people are more worried about the spikes under their CD players than about the quality of their speakers. Why? Because there is money to be made. Pseudoscience sells. Gimmicks sell. And sadly, IMO, meaningful research in many companies takes a back seat for that reason. The gullibility of the masses ultimately does have an effect on all of us, in a personal way, because the equipment available to us is more expensive and more limited than it otherwise could be.
While I agree with the rest of your post,
* I was going to say 110% wrong, but that would have been too Amerikhan.
This is 100%* wrong. You only have two ears, and it is possible to send them all directional information with only two drivers. And no, they do not have to be headphones (though binarual recordings for headphones demonstrate this). The problem is the way things are recorded -- what we have as stereo is barely more than variations in loudness to indicate direction -- and the lack of crosstalk cancellation. The crosstalk I'm talking about here is left-speaker-to-right-ear and the converse. The signal for each of the two speakers can be preprocessed so that each ear hears exactly what it's supposed to; for a (now dated) demo Google for the "stereo dipole". Processed this way binaural recordings can be played over two speakers (with known positions) with full effect. Further, theoretically it should be possible to customize the signal for each individual's HRTF, as the dummy head HRTF will somewhat differ from every person's.
* I was going to say 110% wrong, but that would have been too Amerikhan.
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