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

[SY]

Peter, the question is not whether or not, in specific situations, cables can sound different. It's trivial to show that they do. The question (in my mind, at least) was whether or not factors outside of well-established impedance parameters and integrity of connection have any significant effects at audio frequencies. The overwhelming evidence, when one bothers with evidence rather than fott-stamping and raw assertion, is "not."

If you like the way some exotic cable sounds in your setup, merely get a cheap cable with similar or lower DCR, then use some relatively simple passive component networks to match the desired Z. I've not run across any cases where, at these impedances and frequencies, factors like loss tangents made any difference.

BTW, a fun thing to try is to take a crummy capacitor of a hundred or two pF and have someone alternately connect and disconnect it across the amp output out of your sight while music is playing.

[jh6you]

Soon we might have to change the title, diyAudio, to diySience.

JH

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by SY
Yes, that's right. And, as you point out, the concept of electrons "flowing" is flawed- except at DC. When quantum theory is invoked to explain audio phenomena, it's a good indication that (Ebers-Moll and the like aside) we're dealing with wild speculation on the basis of zero reliable evidence.

As for quantum phenomena, I'm still wondering why quantization distortion hasn't become an issue. Charge is quantized at 1.6 x 10^-19 Coulombs so you can never have a truly continuous, analogue waveform and will have a quantization error of +/- 1/2 quanta.

se

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by SY
Peter, the question is not whether or not, in specific situations, cables can sound different. It's trivial to show that they do. The question (in my mind, at least) was whether or not factors outside of well-established impedance parameters and integrity of connection have any significant effects at audio frequencies. The overwhelming evidence, when one bothers with evidence rather than fott-stamping and raw assertion, is "not."

What's the overwhelming evidence you're referring to here?

se

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by jh6you
Soon we might have to change the title, diyAudio, to diySience.

Hehehe. Well, as long as people are going to go beyond simply sharing their subjective experiences and begin making objective claims, there will be discussions of science. I mean, there's simply nothing to argue when it comes to one's subjective experiences. Objective claims are a whole other matter.

Bill Nye, DIYScience Guy! BILL! BILL! BILL!

se

[SY]

Originally posted by Steve Eddy


What's the overwhelming evidence you're referring to here?

se

Every published paper in reputable journals on cable phenomena involving measurements and listening, from Greiner's JAES paper forward. And, one might add, if one is the cynical sort (who, me?), the total lack of any evidence to date presented in support of a thesis that factors outside of impedance are significant at audio frequencies. This desite the rather large amount of "superduper" cable sold with, um, rather extraordinary claims. I was disappointed that in the Stereophile article on cable measurement by Ben Duncan a few years back, they failed to provide L,C, and R values for the cables under test so that readers could verify whether there was anything unexpected going on. But that's the difference between junk and JAES. All it will take, as you allude to in another thread, is just one reliable paper showing audibility in a valid listening test to sway me and every other reasonable skeptic.

My first exposure to this was a blind cable comparison/demonstration by a famous speaker cable maker where the difference between his high-end cable and some zipcord was gross. Of course, the high-end cable had much more capacitance and was causing the weedy amp to break into oscillation and current limiting, an effect easily duplicated with the zip cord and a 29 cent capacitor...

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by SY
Every published paper in reputable journals on cable phenomena involving measurements and listening, from Greiner's JAES paper forward. And, one might add, if one is the cynical sort (who, me?), the total lack of any evidence to date presented in support of a thesis that factors outside of impedance are significant at audio frequencies.

And that's really all you've got. A LACK of evidence. A lack of evidence of the existence of a thing does not necessarily prove the thing's non-existence.

So you can't rightly say that there's overwhelming evidence that parameters beyond L, C and R don't make a difference. You can only say that so far there is no evidence that they do. Anything else is merely speculation and educated guessing.

Anyway, just saying that if those who make objective claims to the affirmative with regard to cable differences are going to have their feet held to the fire of logic, reason and the scientific method, those on the other side of the debate should be held to those same standards.

So I hope you don't take this the wrong way.

se

[mrfeedback]

Originally posted by Steve Eddy
As for quantum phenomena, I'm still wondering why quantization distortion hasn't become an issue. Charge is quantized at 1.6 x 10<sup>-19</sup> Coulombs so you can never have a truly continuous, analogue waveform and will have a quantization error of +/- 1/2 quanta.
se

Presumably this effect would become more significant as wanted signal level decreases - yeah ?.
Is this low level step-wise conduction characteristic a factor in exciting low level quantum resonance or something conditions, or effecting other low level quantising characteristics.?.
Can local fields or dielectrics effect this +/- 1/2 quanta characteristic and cause statistical 'noise shaping' perhaps sort of like along the lines of Sigma-Delta DACs ?.

Eric.

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by mrfeedback
Presumably this effect would become more significant as wanted signal level decreases - yeah ?.

Yes. Just as with other quantized systems such as digital audio.

Is this low level step-wise conduction characteristic a factor in exciting low level quantum resonance or something conditions, or effecting other low level quantising characteristics.?.

Doesn't matter. Charge remains quantized regardless.

Can local fields or dielectrics effect this +/- 1/2 quanta characteristic and cause statistical 'noise shaping' perhaps sort of like along the lines of Sigma-Delta DACs ?.

No.

However I do have some wire here that effectively deals with quantization distortion by way of dithering (using a Gaussian PDF) which decorrelates the quantization error from the signal so instead of signal-correlated quantization distortion, you're left with just a bit of quantum level noise.

se

[mrfeedback]

Got any web references for that, or more details ?.

Eric.