Could someone please explain to me why it is that in audio some of the daftest things are believed and propagated by those who make their living from it? I realise that there are incompetent people in every professsion, but the density seems high in audio. Why is it that audio amateurs like me have to keep correcting the basic errors of 'audio professionals'?Overkill Audio said:
Scientific enogh for you guys....
Thanks Bill,
This shows good corrolation with the Harvard study I posted and facts are:
" Teflon -190 -N Surface is fluorine atoms-- very electronegative."
"Silver maintains a small negative charge "
" The charging by metal is strongly dependent on the amount of pressure used, and sometimes will even reverse polarity. At very low pressure (used in this table), it is fairly consistent. A letter "N" (normal) in this column means the charge affinity against metal is roughly consistent with the column 2 value. "
Now if sy & marce want to disagree thats fine.....In my experience there is no static problem with silver in teflon tubes and in my opinion the two papers quoted show data which offers a rational explanation.
Note the low pressure as that is how I would classify my loudspeaker cables and interconnects.....
Now if you guys are putting too much pressure on your cables "cable rubbers"? your millage may vary....😀
Thanks and hope this helps
Derek.
Thanks Bill,
This shows good corrolation with the Harvard study I posted and facts are:
" Teflon -190 -N Surface is fluorine atoms-- very electronegative."
"Silver maintains a small negative charge "
" The charging by metal is strongly dependent on the amount of pressure used, and sometimes will even reverse polarity. At very low pressure (used in this table), it is fairly consistent. A letter "N" (normal) in this column means the charge affinity against metal is roughly consistent with the column 2 value. "
Now if sy & marce want to disagree thats fine.....In my experience there is no static problem with silver in teflon tubes and in my opinion the two papers quoted show data which offers a rational explanation.
Note the low pressure as that is how I would classify my loudspeaker cables and interconnects.....
Now if you guys are putting too much pressure on your cables "cable rubbers"? your millage may vary....😀
Thanks and hope this helps
Derek.
I am asking WHY silver cable is better than copper for music reproduction, the tribelectric thing is a minor concern to me...
Funnily we can measure cable effects down to a very low level and can quantify how this affects a signal, the thing is can people really hear this when the measurement's so minute differences, nope, unless the cable is badly designed (or in audio terms designed to have some character and differentiate it from a competitors cable).
Funnily we can measure cable effects down to a very low level and can quantify how this affects a signal, the thing is can people really hear this when the measurement's so minute differences, nope, unless the cable is badly designed (or in audio terms designed to have some character and differentiate it from a competitors cable).
So what?
Magic audio cable has been significant to audio since the late 1970s. In the same time frame relatively easy means were developed to perform reliable listening tests. It is now the late 2010s, or about 40 years later.
It would seem like the advocates of magic cables have had enough time (4 decades) to progress beyond their initial experiments which because they were initial were excusable, even if grievously flawed.
Unfortunately no such thing has happened. Advocates of cable magic still rely on grievously flawed casual sighted evaluations to support their claims.
In fact the concept of reliable testing has been extended into the real world of medicine, engineering, and physics. The first medical DBTs are found in the annals of science dating back to the first decade of the previous century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_experiment
"Double-blind describes an especially stringent way of conducting an experiment which attempts to eliminate subjective, unrecognized biases carried by an experiment's subjects (usually human) and conductors. Double-blind studies were first used in 1907 by W. H. R. Rivers and H. N. Webber in the investigation of the effects of caffeine."
Pardon me...I stand corrected!
My methodology is obviously wrong.....df96, do please tell me how I should in fact seek to progress.....Are you suggesting I should seek the highest cost route to the lowest performance....
I wait with baited breath and I promise not to continue with my flawed methods....
Hope this helps and all the best
Derek.
My methodology is obviously wrong.....df96, do please tell me how I should in fact seek to progress.....Are you suggesting I should seek the highest cost route to the lowest performance....
I wait with baited breath and I promise not to continue with my flawed methods....
Hope this helps and all the best
Derek.
I remember looking in an F-111 simulator once (sims were built from ejected cockpits) there was a terrain switch which had 3 settings 'soft', 'medium' and 'hard'. Probably had big arguments not to put it in meters clearance!
Of course the tornado could fly lower and faster than almost anything, which is why its still going 40 years on. Anyone aware of anything new that can fly in so low and deliver bombs that still has a man in it?
One very strong influence that promotes this sort of thing is the naive audiophile habit of continued reliance on sighted evaluations.
In most professions, the standards for judging performance in that the profession is based on indicators that are far more objective.
As one who has been engaged in other professions than audio for much of his life, I am frustrated that the area for which I have the most passion is based on so much obvious incompetency.
Basing the judgement of progress on reliable, unbiased indicators goes a long ways towards rationalizing things. The mind boggles if one considers what would happen if human progress were evaluated by means of sighted evaluations. Would you want to cross on bridge or live in a building whose sole criteria was whether or not people felt good when they looked at it?
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All cables are flawed and thankfully about to be replaced!
I do agree, the static thing is a minute detail, I just like a bit of banter and enjoy ruffling feathers....Audio development is pretty boring, only when its all done and I can play music is it actually fun!
Anyway, re all cables are flawed....Check out WiSA The Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA®)Association
I have been testing (oops sorry sy, just casual listening in my own system, may I be allowed to call that testing?) and I am delighted to say that no cable sounds better than any cable!
Joking aside, I do have a very high resolution system that reveals very subtle component differences and the bottom line is that in my digital system the WiSA transmit / receive modules sound better than my best cables.
The fact that the WiSA modules are vastly more convenient and reliable ( they do not use the normal WiFi bands or technology) they are much cheaper than high end cables.
Bang and Olufsen own the patents and initial prices are high, but I can promise that within a couple of years the tech will be mainstream and and mass market prices....Goodbye Sonus and crappy lo-fi blue tooth junk!
Hope this helps and all the best
Derek.
I do agree, the static thing is a minute detail, I just like a bit of banter and enjoy ruffling feathers....Audio development is pretty boring, only when its all done and I can play music is it actually fun!
Anyway, re all cables are flawed....Check out WiSA The Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA®)Association
I have been testing (oops sorry sy, just casual listening in my own system, may I be allowed to call that testing?) and I am delighted to say that no cable sounds better than any cable!
Joking aside, I do have a very high resolution system that reveals very subtle component differences and the bottom line is that in my digital system the WiSA transmit / receive modules sound better than my best cables.
The fact that the WiSA modules are vastly more convenient and reliable ( they do not use the normal WiFi bands or technology) they are much cheaper than high end cables.
Bang and Olufsen own the patents and initial prices are high, but I can promise that within a couple of years the tech will be mainstream and and mass market prices....Goodbye Sonus and crappy lo-fi blue tooth junk!
Hope this helps and all the best
Derek.
You are misunderstanding. PFTE is about as electronegative (read bad) as you can get. At low pressure it is consistently bad. There is nothing that PTFE offers that you would need in a domestic environment at audio frequencies and several things that in low signal areas (say tonearm wiring) can and has caused problems (tonearm wires move).
Because they are buying into a belief system, and exclusive club where they can wax lyrical about the minute of perception...
Perhaps, you've sold yourself a bill of goods.
The actual WISA specs are pretty elusive, but I've found some of them here:
http://www.almainternational.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/WiSAwhitepaper.128160315.pdf
(This document is essentially identical to the Wisa White Paper that requires registration to download.)
They are summarized as:
"
24-bit uncompressed audio – HD Audio quality, perceptibly 50%
better than CDs
• Sample rate that matches the content: 32, 44.1, 48, and 96k
samples/sec – Realistic sound, up to 2 times better than CDs,
HD Audio quality
• Rapid error detection and recovery – smooth, uninterrupted
sound
• 5.1 ms fixed latency – perfect lip synch and game response
• Speaker-to-speaker delay of ±1 μs – theatre quality surround
experience
"
BTW other sources say that the number of concurrent channels is limited to 8 (or 7.1).
All are substandard or at best no better, as compared to the capabilities of even just commodity audio cables. A $5.95 HDMI cable has better technical performance in almost all areas.
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A Damascus Road experience, eh? I suggest you start by learning some circuit theory, in particular potential dividers and how this relates to audio interconnects. If necessary, precede this my studying Ohm's Law (not a law of nature, but often almost exactly true) and Kirchoff's Laws (which are laws of nature).Overkill Audio said:
No. I am suggesting that you already are seeking the highest cost route, and it would therefore be wise to refrain from this. Changing from silver to copper cabling makes no difference to the signal and therefore makes no difference to the sound, yet saves a lot of money.
I am very pleased to hear this.
In the meantime, I will continue to travel in cars designed by real engineers over bridges designed by real engineers with my security assured by airmen flying in planes designed by real engineers. Because I have an awkward streak in my nature, my audio system too has been designed by real engineers. What a boring life I lead! What musical pleasure I must be missing!
You're allowed to call it anything you like. Call it nuclear fusion. Call it Fred and Ernie. Call it six cubes of cheese and two rusty paper clips. But be prepared to have your basic errors and non-understanding in the interests of selling stuff pointed out.
So people now want to replace cheap passive analogue wideband low noise low distortion systems with expensive active digital bandlimited noisy quantised systems - and call this progress? Can anything be closer to ideal performance than a piece of copper wire?
My wife's dearest wish is for all those copper wires in our living room to go away. So yes, it's progress.
Derek, my experience is that wire conductor type can make subtle differences.
I have also found thin wall pigmented teflon sleeving to cause a subtle difference to sound.
I have also found different solder alloys to cause differences to sound.
These are all relatively minor/subtle differences, but in combination they can add up to a system or component unit that sounds more acceptable, or less acceptable.
Ditto.
Ok, a few questions of those deeply in the know.
Different elements have differing electron shell arrangements, so WHY should differing conductor types NOT sound different ?
On the macro scale, all generally used conductors do the same job albeit with slightly differing resistive losses.
So is that a clue ?.....the lost energy is converted to heat, but heat is a general term.....is there a slightly differing spectrum of these losses according to conductor material/alloys/impurities ?.
Dan.
Because one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. A course in basic solid state physics will help you rid yourself of comic-book level understanding of how metals are structured.
Ask yourself why no-one could distinguish copper from a potato in listening tests.
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