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

[cbdb]

Do one have to understand the math to understand the article, I don't think so. Of course the reason why I believe him is because his explanations are in line with various listening tests that I have done long before I've read his article.

Funny again, you belief the story of a nameless somebody quoted in the Audio Critic of all places but discard the contents of a paper written by a very known somebody and "only published in a HiFi mag". Is that because it supports your beliefs? What are your beliefs based on, your own tests or some distorted Audio Critic views?

Two words "peer review". When I first read Hawksfords paper, something didnt sit right with me. It took a day to figure out what. Ive been working in recording studios for 20 years and never heard of this paper! I remember going to an AES convetion in 91 and going to a panel discusion on "cables". On one side of the panel were EE Phd's on the other HiFi reviewers and Monster cable marketers. Not a mention of this paper. Had no one heard of such a earh shaking finding or did they know it was ** and the Phd's could prove it wrong.

[planet10]

Originally Posted by Andre Visser

Unfortunately the ears are all that matter in quality audio, no amount of measurements can tell you what a system will sound like, only after you are satisfied with the measurements the real measuring can begin.

Well, plus the consideration that measuring gear is still not up to the level of 2 ears + a brain -- that has been my belief for a long time but it was really driven home by Floyd Toole's latest book.

dave

[Curly Woods]

Originally Posted by cliff

"Never stated or read anyone say that recording engineers were engineers either"

From #5813

"Passion seems to think this is true and he is an engineer. Who do I believe if I can not trust an engineer?"

You seem to be unable to remember what you posted a few hours ago!

Your bluster about nothing is getting very boring.

I did not realize that Passion was a recording engineer. My mistake :-) Feel free to not read my posts. Or do you not have a choice to not read what you dislike?

[planet10]

Originally Posted by Curly Woods

I did not realize that Passion was a recording engineer. My mistake :-)

You might also want to check out some of Frank's old posts too

It brought quite a chuckle you back & forth with him.

dave

[Curly Woods]

Originally Posted by planet10

You might also want to check out some of Frank's old posts too

It brought quite a chuckle you back & forth with him.

dave

Thanks Dave I will do that. Keep up the good work on the new speakers also. I am envious of what you and Scott do for all of us!

[cbdb]

So - back on the technical topic - is there a *general* agreement that the 19dB difference may not be critical because that although the scale of that difference (dB) is big, the absolute values that generated the delta are very small and inaudible? Now that is something I can understand.

Yes this is correct. this is what the graph is showing
(Vin -Vout)/Vin

eg. Vin=1v so if vout1=.999, and the other cable Vout2=.99999 there is about 1 milivolt difference in the delivered signal level, you get error voltages of .001 and .00001 or -30db and -50db, a 20db diff.

Now if Vout1=.999999 and Vout2=.9999999999 the diference is only about 1microvolt now, but in db; the first is -60db the 2nd is -100db so although the diference in signal is smaller the db figures make it look larger. Thats why ask for a graph with voltages not db.

As for a general agreement, only with the people that understand the above.

[cbdb]

I did not read where anyone stated that every speaker, even the same models, ever sound the same.

Sorry I wasnt clear, I was refering to your post about the customer who came in to the store and was wondering why his "exact" system at home sounded different. You said it was the cables. I say it was the room,speaker placement,humidity etc. Did he buy some expensive cables?

[doug20]

Originally Posted by Key

I think I already pointed this out. But you can do ABX testing in the leisure of your home with your computer. There is no pass/fail only guessing/not guessing. You can pick any recording you like for this test. You could even get drunk during the test and no one would know. You can do an IC comparison test very easily by re-recording with various ICs the same song and then being able to directly compare what they are doing to the signal that is different than the other.

I see a very obvious advantage to using A/Bing. It allows DIRECT contrast between 2 events making things that normally your brain could just adjust to over time (similar to different ambient lighting being adjusted to with the eye) very obvious where normally it would be imperceivable. And there is no pre-condition that says you have to even pay attention to fast A/Bing. YOU have control of the switcher in personal ABXing and you can listen to A as long or as many times as you want before going over to B.

You can even take software to compare the two wave files.

[Key]

Originally Posted by planet10

Well, plus the consideration that measuring gear is still not up to the level of 2 ears + a brain -- that has been my belief for a long time but it was really driven home by Floyd Toole's latest book.

dave

In some respects I'd say yes and in some I'd say no. I think we can measure some things with a recording chain that are way beyond what we can perceive and also our ears and brain can interpret things and hear them in a totally different manner which is way beyond what we can directly capture/measure.

It's figuring out where these things overlap and what is imperative to be present on the recording/testing end in order to emulate what is going on with normal hearing that is key to understanding/interpreting measurements.

[Key]

Originally Posted by doug20

You can even take software to compare the two wave files.

Yes this is a decent control to save you from wasting your time. Make sure there is an actual difference with an inverse cancellation test and then move on to see if that difference is easily perceivable. I find that I can differentiate recordings that are very similar with the aid of ABing but in some of the examples the differences are just boring and negligible. A difference of 1dB in the uppermids isn't going to make much of a difference over time in real listening imo but you can detect it with ABing.

Spectral annalysis can give you a great visual interpretation of the differences and you could also use something like HolmImpulse to compare the different files.