Sorry if I personally wouldn't be too sure about this.
There is a lot of debate out there about the sonic preference of a solderless crimp terminated cable versus soldering which by the way would be difficult if not impossible to manage for obvious reasons not only sonic.
For what it's worth, my preference is for crimped tinned copper terminals without any soldering.
In my opinion, no. I personally don't care what others buy or do with their money. I am curious why so many people seem to care so much. Heck, my own brother whom I care for quite a bit bought some (what I'd consider) outrageously expensive cables. I didn't utter a peep. It's his $$ / his fun. I was fortunate enough to be given some wonderful cables to try. I've tried two sets of "audiophile" speaker wires. One set definitely impacted the system. Come to find out they have a (comparatively speaking) VERY high capacitance, or at least I think that was the situation. I only found that out after one amplifier started oscillating and about gave me a heart attack. The other pair is in use now. They sound just fine. I'm not sure I can hear any difference over some decent 16AWG wire or some star-quad speaker cable I was given, but... who knows.
I do understand that some people like to argue from a position of authority and generally just have a chat about fun things, but I admit to be curious why there seems to be such passion around "cables and wires and other things claimed as snake oil etc." Being new(ish) to DIY, it's kind of disheartening.
I am also generally curious why groups of people glom to products that all current evidence suggests "don't do anything". The reason I find this particular discussion fascinating over others is the acknowledgement of the placebo effect. My personal thoughts are that I think it's improbable that a majority or even a reasonable portion of the population could hear differences (repeatably over random chance) with bi-wiring (or other things considered snake oil by some). However, the placebo effect could actually be "in effect", and some people may truly hear a difference. Now, whether that difference was brought about by confirmation bias (the placebo effect) or their senses actually detected something different that we have yet to be able to measure... we'll likely never 'really' know.
Cheers!
I would do the same with a final setting. However, you must then have eliminated most of the faults - tuning using sockets and plugs is then no longer possible;-)
I could even say that the placebo can often work, it is not possible to establish it beforehand because a lot depends on the person.
Just as I already said, the placebo is a pill that contains only sugar that resembles a pill that contains sugar + medicine.
When someone has for example a headache and you tell him to take the inert pill (the placebo) making him believe that it is instead the active and effective pill, sometimes the headache goes away.
But please note that you will never know if that headache at that person would have gone away even if he had not taken the placebo pill, are you following me?
The same is that you will never know if that headache at that person would have gone away even if he had taken the medicine pill, are you here?
This is a crucial point because the above is just impossible to know and in fact no one will ever know.
It is a dead end.
In Medicine it is a question of statistics (and of all its laws and errors) not of certainty.
Because you cannot have certainty, it is impossible.
Moving on to audio, I should believe that you tell me that what I buy will surely sound better than what I have for a reason that only you know or because you make it up.
Then I should hear that improvement in the sound because you have convinced me that way, right?
But this is also impossible, in my opinion, just because no one will ever know how a device sounds in your system before you plug it into your system and then listen to it.
You might even not like it.
As already discussed in this thread, many people do not hear things that are audible because of the brain's processing to discard useless and or confusing information. Go back to the discussion on learning listen to the room while also listening everything else. It can take some practice.
An analogy might be a visual one. Most people have tunnel vision to some extent by default. For an experiment, hold your hands out to as far as you can see to the left and right while looking straight ahead, then move your hands more to the back so you just barely can't see them. Now you are looking at everything there is to be seen with your eyes in their present position. Observe what you can see using your peripheral vision. Try turning your head and see if you can maintain that focus on wide vision. Not so easy? Uncomfortable? It can take some practice.
There is a listening equivalent to that where a person can hear everything at once instead of having tunnel listening.
An analogy might be a visual one. Most people have tunnel vision to some extent by default. For an experiment, hold your hands out to as far as you can see to the left and right while looking straight ahead, then move your hands more to the back so you just barely can't see them. Now you are looking at everything there is to be seen with your eyes in their present position. Observe what you can see using your peripheral vision. Try turning your head and see if you can maintain that focus on wide vision. Not so easy? Uncomfortable? It can take some practice.
There is a listening equivalent to that where a person can hear everything at once instead of having tunnel listening.
No. You shouldn't listen to impassioned diatribe from salesmen. Most people buy what they can afford without ever listening to it. They buy what magazines or websites publish in a top ten list and then buy it on Amazon. They trust the pundits and marketers. Very few people have the time and money to actually go to a dealer, sit down, and critically listen to audio systems. Also, very few dealers will allow you to spend a lot of time in their store just listening to expensive equipment. They want you to buy. So, what to do? An easier path is to find someone with a similar 'ear' to yours or someone you know and trust their opinion, or an actual engineer. Of course there are rich dudes who can buy whatever they want and they end up buying fantastic systems for hundreds of thousands of dollars and probably never have time to listen to them, their stereos and surround systems are status symbols like their houses and cars. They usually want something that looks nice, or looks impressive. Then they turn the bass way up and listen to a Kenny G Christmas. As a rule of thumb, don't listen to the rich dudes or someone hooked on Amazon Prime deals day. Also, ugly systems matter. Most significant others (there are exceptions) don't like stereo or surround systems of any kind, they tolerate them. An option in this case is to put the speakers in the wall, my wife doesn't even like that. Don't listen to the sound system haters! They have no appreciation for the hobby and are happy with Apple ear buds. The best thing for me after the kids moved out was to turn a bedroom into a listening room where I can hook up electronics and projects. It's great. So, NO! Don't listen to experts listen to the system. This can easily be proven by watching the audio fads come and go. Look at the opinions on these pages, there are full range people, tube people, class D people, ... you will never get one clear answer and you shouldn't.
"Expectation bias" and "placebo" apply to everyone, whether concept believer (wrongly called objectivist in audio discourse) or objectivist (wrongly called subjectivist in audio discourse;-)
Wiki: "Physics is the scientific study of matter"... (from then on x-sense;-)
... ergo: material
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics
Wiki: "Physics is the scientific study of matter"... (from then on x-sense;-)
... ergo: material
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics
This could very well be, but not forever.
The placebo effect does not last forever.
However I agree that many people may not notice any differences anyway.
But some ones just may.
That is why one should be cautious, if not humble, when making certain statements (I'm not saying yours, but in general): simply because we can't know with certainty.
Actual placebo effect would be more like this: You aren't hearing everything there is to hear because you don't believe its possible for there to be more that's real. Someone says, "here, try this magic cable and you will hear everything." If you then believe you can hear more maybe it will overcome to some extent your preexisting expectation bias that there is nothing more to hear than what you already hear. In that case the placebo cable will have changed you in a positive way to heal your old, mistaken expectation bias of no difference. Thus the placebo has produced a real positive outcome. That's what placebo does. Then the test of a real cable being better is whether or not you can hear more real differences with it than you can with the placebo effect of the "magic" cable.
The following is IMHO and IME: In reality most of the mistakes people make when listening are not placebo effect. Rather they sort of a type of "focusing illusion." A focusing illusion is when something seems much more important than it really is merely because you are thinking about it. IOW, it happens because you are focusing attention on that something, whatever it happens to be. If you focus attention on crossover frequency distortion, then you are inviting such an illusion. You have to learn to listen to everything at once with very familiar music that you know intimately. If there are real differences you should be able to describe them in perceptual terms, not engineering terms. (e.g. "the vocal at 54 seconds into the song is missing some mouth sounds that are more distinct with the other amplifier" "There is some low-level lip smacking followed by a weak vocal growl effect that is harder to hear on the first system") The more you can pin it down to exact differences in a piece of music you know well, the more you are your way to learning how to make fewer listening errors. Just saying the HF sounds "a little more rough," is not precise and or specific enough. Its too easy to imagine that type of vague difference if in the middle of a focusing illusion.
The following is IMHO and IME: In reality most of the mistakes people make when listening are not placebo effect. Rather they sort of a type of "focusing illusion." A focusing illusion is when something seems much more important than it really is merely because you are thinking about it. IOW, it happens because you are focusing attention on that something, whatever it happens to be. If you focus attention on crossover frequency distortion, then you are inviting such an illusion. You have to learn to listen to everything at once with very familiar music that you know intimately. If there are real differences you should be able to describe them in perceptual terms, not engineering terms. (e.g. "the vocal at 54 seconds into the song is missing some mouth sounds that are more distinct with the other amplifier" "There is some low-level lip smacking followed by a weak vocal growl effect that is harder to hear on the first system") The more you can pin it down to exact differences in a piece of music you know well, the more you are your way to learning how to make fewer listening errors. Just saying the HF sounds "a little more rough," is not precise and or specific enough. Its too easy to imagine that type of vague difference if in the middle of a focusing illusion.
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With all due respect, it seems to me (but I could be wrong) that the concept of placebo is not yet fully realized despite the explanations and it seems once again that personal beliefs prevail without giving space to the new meanings.
In my opinion, there can't be a placebo cable, because what does a placebo cable mean?
A cable will work no matter what, placebo effect or no placebo effect.
I guess that someone should explain to a buyer what that cable should do in your system, then it should not be difficult to confirm or deny it once inserted in his system for the buyer/listener.
Also because if he is not able to hear differences why would he buy a new and expensive cable?
Anyway, the placebo effect can act sometimes, but it does not last forever.
It means a cable that has been determined by a competent perceptual scientist to not be any different than the cable that it is replacing. Actually the two cables could be identical but with different names printed on them. If you are told the one with gold print is "magic," and if being told that makes you hear more real differences with the gold print cable, then you are experiencing a placebo effect.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002570
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About 20 or 30 years ago, the three of us had listened to his new Dynaudio Contour 1.3 at a friend's house. He had proudly purchased his Dynaudio OCOS cable to go with it. The two of us visitors had simple 3 X 1.5 mm installation cables with us. We all heard that the OCOS was terrible - no matter how much it was praised everywhere. Well, our friend left the OCOS on anyway, because "that's the way it has to be" ;-)
I think we all have these experiences, which indicate that it is probably also a matter of attitude to be honest in your hearing assessment;-)
I think we all have these experiences, which indicate that it is probably also a matter of attitude to be honest in your hearing assessment;-)
I'm not sure if all of that was directed only to me since you quoted me, but I absolutely understand and know about the placebo effect. That may benefit others. Either way, I agree.
Not always. That's painting things with a broad brush. What you've described is one example of a placebo.
Yes, I am, but if the study is done properly... you do 'know' with a level of probability what percentage of people plus or minus your error were 'cured'
with just the placebo. That's how we know about the "placebo effect". You are correct that down to a person you can't know specifically whether that single person would have gotten better without the placebo. That's why proper studies / trials have (forgive the hyperbole) LOTS of people.
Again... I don't need it explained, but others may find it useful.
We agree, but I'm not sure (if this was directed toward me) why you think I need it explained. If you'd read any of my previous posts, have I shown a lack of understanding? I've been ardent about using even the term placebo effect properly... and much to my chagrin, even that's been tough.
Now I'm not following...
Maybe... we can never really know... as you say. 🙂
I agree, wholeheartedly. That's one of the reasons I don't understand all the passion around the topic.
Cheers!
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OMG, there is a risk of sky falling as I have to agree with you. 🤣
👍👍
But, ....
Apologies for beating a dead (or is it?) horse.
Pure copper wire has no directional preference. To say that it does, and that there is a best direction in a purely AC circuit, contradicts that statement. AC by definition is equal current flow in both directions over a period, so the effect will be the same in either orientation of said wire.
This video is a bit goofy in its form, but is correct in what is being taught:
Pure copper wire has no directional preference. To say that it does, and that there is a best direction in a purely AC circuit, contradicts that statement. AC by definition is equal current flow in both directions over a period, so the effect will be the same in either orientation of said wire.
This video is a bit goofy in its form, but is correct in what is being taught:
Not saying there is any effect or not; I don't know. However, has there been any effort to measure directional excess noise possibly arising from die-drawn grain structure? If not, then how have you ruled it out? To put it another way, how have you determined that your model of copper wire physics is not oversimplified?
Grain structure induced by the drawing process is a likely thing. A better sounding direction when the signal is AC is not likely since there is no DC component.
Heck, with a speaker-level signal, I'd be curious to know if anyone's ever done a proper study on whether or not a population of people could reliably hear the difference between aluminum / copper / silver speaker wires, nevertheless any influence a grain structure may have on an AC signal and the "directionality".
Again... seriously expressing curiosity, not arguing over directionality, Geoff (if you're out there still). I still stand by my statement that I think it's highly unlikely, but... hey... anything's possible.
Again... seriously expressing curiosity, not arguing over directionality, Geoff (if you're out there still). I still stand by my statement that I think it's highly unlikely, but... hey... anything's possible.
AC is correct. However, some loudspeakers sound different on LF transients if both channels are out of phase. Thus the speakers can be directional even though driven by AC. Maybe we need a better physical model of speakers as well as for copper wire.
If both speakers and cable are directional to some extent, how does one rule out there can be no audible effect from directional cable excess noise without doing tests? If no tests then there are (often unstated) assumptions being made about the physics and about the psychoacoustics.
Seems to me in a lot of these "debunking" videos the presenters are reformed audiophiles, now self-proclaimed objectivists, who aren't really all that scientific to begin with. Much of what they say is enough oversimplified so that they are not much more correctly informative than some of the cable salesmen who exaggerate.
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