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

[fredex]

André

The problem with "any measurements", at this stage we measure the wrong things. I also don't believe in magic but if the way measurements are taken fall short, it doesn't mean that something doesn't exist.

I admire your tenacity André. But I think you are making this measurement thing more complicated than it is. All the wonderful things you experience whilst listening to music are all derived from an electrical signal which varies over time and very slowly as electrical signals go. If you look at a vynl record, the sound of every instrument with all their nuances has been reduced down to one "wiggley line" as Andy calls it. The shape of this one line is all that determines the sound you hear. Alter (distort) the shape and you hear something different from the original. We don't need to worry about trying to measure things in the sound that make us feel good, they vary from person to person. You say you don't believe in magic, I don't either.

[Andre Visser]

Originally posted by GlidingDutchman
Andre, I think this is one of thè most important statements.

Late Peter Walker (of QUAD) stated how peoples hearing differ due to the shape of their ears pinnas'.
D

The ear itself is only part of hearing, the brain do all the complicated work and the brain can be trained. (Contrary to popular believe)

I'm certain that trained ears / brain can detect detail that will be hard to measure with current methods. Perhaps two mics and complicated software will help.

André

[Andre Visser]

Originally posted by fredex
André

I admire your tenacity André. But I think you are making this measurement thing more complicated than it is. All the wonderful things you experience whilst listening to music are all derived from an electrical signal which varies over time and very slowly as electrical signals go. If you look at a vynl record, the sound of every instrument with all their nuances has been reduced down to one "wiggley line" as Andy calls it. The shape of this one line is all that determines the sound you hear. Alter (distort) the shape and you hear something different from the original. We don't need to worry about trying to measure things in the sound that make us feel good, they vary from person to person. You say you don't believe in magic, I don't either.

Yes, I agree with the one (two) "wiggley line(s)". Unless we try and preserve all of the detail and phase between the two channels, up to reaching our ears, we loose information needed by the brain to accurately recreate the "picture" (sorry) of the soundfield.

Not exactly what is attempted to be measured at this stage.

André

[ravon]

Originally posted by Andre Visser

It's in the detail, low level, ambience whatever

Then what did I claim?

Yes, if you measure for the right things with the right instruments.

André

Ah, your long term audio memory must be better than your short term lingual memory You wrote something about differences in cables that will never be measured.

Details, low level, ambience and everything else audiophiles seem to recognize in a piece of music is recorded and reproduced with equipment which is designed, built and tested using off-the-shelf technology.
There's no technical reason to assume that this technology would not be sufficient to fully characterize a simple piece of wire.

Perhaps for audiophiles it's easy to think of a zillion of important non-technical reasons which would require the invention of new measurement techniques to measure a cable. But as long as audiophiles prefer claiming over explaining and as long as they buy the stuff, the audio industry won't care.

[Andre Visser]

Originally posted by ravon
Ah, your long term audio memory must be better than your short term lingual memory You wrote something about differences in cables that will never be measured.

Ravon, you read the way you listen.

Here is what I said:

R-Carpenter, the differences I hear with cables will never be measured by normal freq sweeps and SPL.

Originally posted by ravon
Details, low level, ambience and everything else audiophiles seem to recognize in a piece of music is recorded and reproduced with equipment which is designed, built and tested using off-the-shelf technology.
There's no technical reason to assume that this technology would not be sufficient to fully characterize a simple piece of wire.

Not all equipment are created equal, not all can do it. Measuring and reproducing is not the same.

Originally posted by ravon
Perhaps for audiophiles it's easy to think of a zillion of important non-technical reasons which would require the invention of new measurement techniques to measure a cable. But as long as audiophiles prefer claiming over explaining and as long as they buy the stuff, the audio industry won't care.

I can't help if ears / brain are better than current measurements.

These measurements (if possible) will make for far more meaningfull specifications on a hi-fi system that are currently achieved. Measuring cables is only part of it.

Remember "audiophiles" are not necesarilly scientists, but if we can help, we will try.

André

[Jakob2]

@ fredex,

Andre Vissers comments are related to the pov expressed by R-Carpenter. In the same way you´ve argued you could draw quite the opposite conclusion.

If measurements are ´oversimplified´it may occur that any differences seems neglectible, but if you keep in mind that our understanding of the way our brain is processing the information catched by our ears is really limited, than you´ll have to very conservative in regard to dismiss any side effect as valueless.

As measurement by using specialized (and quite often simplified) test signal is needed for some reasons it is otherwise a bit dangerous to speculate about audibility with music signals based on findings with test signals.

Therefore difference measurements are a nice way to overcome this limitation in a way. It is possible to use normal music for difference measurement and even to listen to the difference signal to get an impression of its sonic nature.
Thats the reason why i often point to the freeware named diffmaker , which helps a lot in generating difference files.

Originally posted by Andre Visser,

.... the brain do all the complicated work and the brain can be trained. (Contrary to popular believe)

An interesting statement from the mentioned Paul Frindle paper is:

´We have found that the only fundamental difference between people, of normal hearing faculties, in their ability to detect audio artefacts is experience. Even a trained professional may not be sensitive to an artefact he has not heard before.

And in addition a comment from Dave Moulton:

` It boils down to this obvious but inescapable fact: it is harder to correctly answer questions whose answers we don’t know than questions whose answers we do know. Setting aside the obvious issues of prejudice, bias and cheating for a moment, we will get “correct” answers more often when we “know” the answers than when we don’t. I’ve seen this effect a lot when doing my Golden Ears seminars (I publish a set of audio ear training CDs called “Golden Ears,” and often present ear-training seminars using them). Listeners asked to identify the difference between two versions of the same recorded excerpt will have real trouble, at first, hearing that one version is 3 dB louder than the other. Once they are told and shown that such a difference exists, they find it “obvious.” `


source is:
http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/wack...blind_testing/

[Andre Visser]

Originally posted by Jakob2
Therefore difference measurements are a nice way to overcome this limitation in a way. It is possible to use normal music for difference measurement and even to listen to the difference signal to get an impression of its sonic nature.
Thats the reason why i often point to the freeware named diffmaker , which helps a lot in generating difference files.

I believe this would be an easier way to look for the differences, just keep in mind that the differences we look for in cables will still be in the smaller signals, perhaps making it more difficult. I would like to see the results.

Originally posted by Jakob2
An interesting statement from the mentioned Paul Frindle paper is:

´We have found that the only fundamental difference between people, of normal hearing faculties, in their ability to detect audio artefacts is experience. Even a trained professional may not be sensitive to an artefact he has not heard before.

And in addition a comment from Dave Moulton:

` It boils down to this obvious but inescapable fact: it is harder to correctly answer questions whose answers we don’t know than questions whose answers we do know. Setting aside the obvious issues of prejudice, bias and cheating for a moment, we will get “correct” answers more often when we “know” the answers than when we don’t. I’ve seen this effect a lot when doing my Golden Ears seminars (I publish a set of audio ear training CDs called “Golden Ears,” and often present ear-training seminars using them). Listeners asked to identify the difference between two versions of the same recorded excerpt will have real trouble, at first, hearing that one version is 3 dB louder than the other. Once they are told and shown that such a difference exists, they find it “obvious.” `

Very true, learning to listen to compare and evaluate, took me years and I'm still learning new things. The problem is we can't learn to listen if we do not concentrate and analyse what we hear and also the system must be able to reproduce these "things".

André

[R-Carpenter]

Originally posted by Andy Graddon


chuckle

enough said, no further comment required, QED .... etc!!

Do you have an idea of how and why the speakers are measured?

[ravon]

Originally posted by Andre Visser

Ravon, you read the way you listen.

Please feel free to think that the fact that I don't care quoting what you exactly wrote down is an indication for my reading or listening capabilities.

Not all equipment are created equal, not all can do it. Measuring and reproducing is not the same.

You don't seem to understand that I'm referring to a certain standard of technology.

I can't help if ears / brain are better than current measurements.

No. Everything you can really hear can be measured using off-the-shelf technology.

These measurements (if possible) will make for far more meaningfull specifications on a hi-fi system that are currently achieved. Measuring cables is only part of it.

Remember "audiophiles" are not necesarilly scientists, but if we can help, we will try.

André

Perhaps you could help me with this one: Suppose those measurements which produce meaningful specifications will exist this afternoon. And these measurements show clearly that there is no difference between two cables in between you claim to hear differences.

Would you accept that result? Or would you think that the measurement technique needs further improvement because what you believe is reference?

[AJinFLA]

Originally posted by Andre Visser
Yes, we must keep in mind hearing between people obviously differ

Yes and peoples ability to run faster differs too, remember? Own back yard, etc?

So the psychogenic crowd believe that the phenomena they "hear" exists in physical reality, but "it's" properties cannot be measured eh?
Pray tell, how does one design and engineer a widget to have these properties?

cheers,

AJ