Is it intolerance of differing opinions or intolerance of differing facts? An intelligent informed person will treat the two quite differently whereas an uniformed or unintelligent person may not. It is unreasonable to expect intelligent informed people to respect incorrect facts though it is reasonable to expect them to do so in a civil manner.
The problem for moderators of home audio forums like this is that in the late 70s magical thinking entered the mainstream and not the fringes like it had earlier and like it does today in most other consumer product sectors. The reasons are interesting but it created problems for moderators of home audio sites who had to choose what to tolerate and what not. Most opted to go with the flow and accept magical thinking over the scientific method but that is not so easy on a site like this where posters are not purely passive consumers of marketing but more active and continually getting their faces rubbed in technical reality by taking measurements, performing simulations and seeking to understand what is going on in order to improve their designs. The approach of being fairly firm about not tolerating incivility but not taking sides when it comes to magical thinking vs technical thinking, opinions vs facts, etc... seems to work pretty well though it does mean that supporters of magical thinking or the scientific method will have to tolerate posts from the other side.
There is often some confusion between the magical thinking and the technical facts. The factual people who measure everything (they believe it's scientific method as you suggest, but it's not, it falls well short of any objective scientific practice) believe that by measuring basics using tools like an AP analyser, they are measuring what defines the sound of a device.
Measuring the THD of an amplifier is a bit like measuring the speed of a car - many cars can do 100mph but they will all feel very different doing it and just because one car can do 140mph doesn't make it more comfortable. They conflate basic measurements with sound quality. Now, basic measurements are fine, it's good to measure what we can as it helps designers improve some of the basics, but it doesn't automatically translate to help with sound quality which is what some of the factual people believe.... note my use of the word believe 🙂
Measuring the THD of an amplifier is a bit like measuring the speed of a car - many cars can do 100mph but they will all feel very different doing it and just because one car can do 140mph doesn't make it more comfortable. They conflate basic measurements with sound quality. Now, basic measurements are fine, it's good to measure what we can as it helps designers improve some of the basics, but it doesn't automatically translate to help with sound quality which is what some of the factual people believe.... note my use of the word believe 🙂
Do you think we have the collective knowledge of what, quantitatively, makes amplifiers sound fine or sound bad?
I don't think the majority of engineers who control the quantitive measurement and design spaces, have a concept of what sounds good to everybody, they seem to work on what, according to physics/electronic doctrine, a sound should be and that's the sound they like, ie, a piece of string with gain. Obviously not all engineers, my brush isn't very broad. But sufficient numbers believe a warm amplifier is fundamentally faulty, the warmth is created by distortion, which it might be in some cases, but not all, and distortion is bad as it's distortion, a deviation from the original signal. They assume the original signal is perfect.
I think it's important to remember that we are re-creating the sound of a Jazz club, a large rock band on stage or an intimate folk club in a smokey bar in the backstreets of London/Tokyo/New York etc. The microphones used are imperfect as are the mic pre-amps, the storage medium, the ADCs if there are any etc - none of those devices are perfect and can never capture the complete auditory sound, feel and personality of the artist and venue combination. So in reproducing that sound, some license has to be given to the designers to massage the incoming signal (via amps, speakers, maybe even cables ?) to make it more realistic and involving and lifelike, as might have been heard when the recording was made.
Certainly if you look at some of the YouTube channels which purport to discern the good from the bad and the downright ugly by measuring THD and noise floor, they miss the point completely - they are treating an amplifier or DAC as a piece of medical or scientific equipment, which it's not, so they start from the wrong end of the stick, so to speak. But I don't think those measurements are without merit, just that they do not help define the sound, the sound quality or the personality of the product, just a small set of operational parameters within which the product operates.
There is no confusion , only by individuals who are pandering to their own personal belief system contrary to the laws of physics. Would these same audiophools stand in the middle of the road to get struck by a truck armed with only their personal opinions to test their ability to survive the laws of kinetic energy. Personally I would use the "Scientific Method" to prevent imminent death.
A proper analogy would be do you measure the horsepower of a car engine by listening to the exhaust or use a dynamometer to measure the performance. How would you determine the air/fuel ratio, temperature and timing, not possible without resorting to the "Scientific Method"
These statements are typically made by individuals bereft of formal education in electronics or engineering only to replace it with their own personal version of audio religion.
If I had a spool of unneeded Cat5e cable laying around, I might use as speaker cable. I don't think I would have considered it before reading this thread. I don't have a spool of Cat5e laying about.
This is my go-to cable for internal wiring in speaker cabinets.
Audtek 16 AWG twisted pair
It is relatively inexpensive, and very easy to work with. It is flexible, but not limp, and the strands are not super fine... This makes it easy to solder and easy to crimp. I use this for woofers and midrange drivers.
I am not going to argue with anyone about what they hear or don't hear. I have not been able to detect a difference in sound quality or character due to wire changes. But other people seem to be able to perceive something. Perhaps it is a real difference, perhaps it is imagined ? I don't know, and quite frankly, it is not my concern.
In the mid 1990's, I had a friend who wanted a substantial upgrade to his music system. He went to a hi fi shop with a $5000 budget, which was a lot of money back then. The salesman steered him to some Thiel speakers and some nice electronics, but he allocated a substantial amount for cables and interconnects. The final bill was $1200 for speaker wire and RCA cables, and $4400 for speakers and electronics, which I thought was an outrageous ratio. I told him that $150 out of $5000 would have been more appropriate for wire and cable, and he could have spent the extra money elsewhere. This is an example of the snake oil sales tactics that @Bryguy was talking about.
This is my go-to cable for internal wiring in speaker cabinets.
Audtek 16 AWG twisted pair
It is relatively inexpensive, and very easy to work with. It is flexible, but not limp, and the strands are not super fine... This makes it easy to solder and easy to crimp. I use this for woofers and midrange drivers.
I am not going to argue with anyone about what they hear or don't hear. I have not been able to detect a difference in sound quality or character due to wire changes. But other people seem to be able to perceive something. Perhaps it is a real difference, perhaps it is imagined ? I don't know, and quite frankly, it is not my concern.
In the mid 1990's, I had a friend who wanted a substantial upgrade to his music system. He went to a hi fi shop with a $5000 budget, which was a lot of money back then. The salesman steered him to some Thiel speakers and some nice electronics, but he allocated a substantial amount for cables and interconnects. The final bill was $1200 for speaker wire and RCA cables, and $4400 for speakers and electronics, which I thought was an outrageous ratio. I told him that $150 out of $5000 would have been more appropriate for wire and cable, and he could have spent the extra money elsewhere. This is an example of the snake oil sales tactics that @Bryguy was talking about.
For amplifiers it is straightforward given it is straightforward to design an amplifier to have inaudible levels of distortion and straightforward to synthesise with DSP forms of distortion one would like to assess. The problem is that those looking for high quality sound don't want to degrade it by adding distortion while those with an interest in coloured sound don't want to achieve it by adding distortion in a controlled manner via a "niceness" knob.
Speakers are more interesting because unlike amplifiers there isn't an undistorted sound to act as a reference. For a well designed adequately sized multiway speaker operating at SPLs comfortably within the linear operating range of the drivers the dominant contribution to the perceived difference in sound quality will be the difference in reflected sound at the listening position. There isn't a correct reflected sound. There are incorrect ones such as sharply varying spectral content (which can in some cases sound more detailed and attractive). With an undistorted flat on-axis response and negligible nonlinear distortion, varying the off-axis response trades perceived image precision, perceived spectral balance and forms of perceived spaciousness. Within reasonable bounds the optimum balance is a matter of preference.
Isn't it suppose to be a reflection of art? Something which escapes quantification? It is after all a "pleasure device" for an animal in a form of human and not a drill machine for a dentist. You go to the Arty gallery and see a single dot on a canvas. There comes twenty art critics bringing you 20 volumes of explanation what that dot suppose to mean and why it's so important for humanity and why you should reach into pocket and shell out $25.000 for it.
I think it’s generally good that we are curious and experiment. Yeah most times we are traversing well trodden ground but learning is fun.
We had several hundred feet of CAT6 left over when we bought a new server and jumped from CAT 5 to 6 building wide.
I have a big sound system on the mezzanine and was adding to it thought hey, I can use that left over CAT6 for all the horns so I did.
No magic, still running a decade later and no one who has heard it ever called me out over it.
Barry.
We had several hundred feet of CAT6 left over when we bought a new server and jumped from CAT 5 to 6 building wide.
I have a big sound system on the mezzanine and was adding to it thought hey, I can use that left over CAT6 for all the horns so I did.
No magic, still running a decade later and no one who has heard it ever called me out over it.
Barry.
Hey , I visited a friend to hear his system and he didn't notice right channel was off. On other audio meet one of the bass drivers was dead and nobody dared to say a word.
On audio shows they sometimes have speakers wired out of phase - public is gobsmacked and sweating reviewers are snatching front seats meaning starving manufacturers are kicking the public off those seats to seat press big wits. As long as you serve decent food and drinks to your visitors nobody will utter a word of truth 🙂
On audio shows they sometimes have speakers wired out of phase - public is gobsmacked and sweating reviewers are snatching front seats meaning starving manufacturers are kicking the public off those seats to seat press big wits. As long as you serve decent food and drinks to your visitors nobody will utter a word of truth 🙂
We are in violent agreement.
I will provide actual E/M understanding, but refuse to use words that denigrate others.
J
More than 20 years ago I built CAT5 speaker cables. They sound pretty good. Made them longer than needed because they are tedious to make. Required 3 days of braiding. I didn't measure the gauge but I would say they are 9 or 8 gauge by 10 ft long. I want to say they have around 64 strands per cable. It was recommended to remove the jacket of the CAT5 cables before braiding, I built them with and without jacket. I don't remember the result. Used the jacketed cable with home theater speakers because I don't really care about HT sound.
Site I used to build DIY CAT5 speaker cables:
https://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html
Maybe save yourself the trouble and buy some Kimber bulk cable and throw some connectors (or not) on them and you're ready to go.
https://partsconnexion.com/bb-kimbe...aker-cable-grey-black-1-92ft-piece-available/
I went as far as building speaker cables with a single wire-wrap wire and also braided them, they all sound fine.
Get Allen Wright's book on DIY speaker cables. Some of the ongoing speaker cables available today are a ripoff from this book. At a minimum, the book was used to develop speaker cables from the knowledge inside.
Just have fun and dont get too crazy chasing sound through cables.
Site I used to build DIY CAT5 speaker cables:
https://www.venhaus1.com/diycatfivecables.html
Maybe save yourself the trouble and buy some Kimber bulk cable and throw some connectors (or not) on them and you're ready to go.
https://partsconnexion.com/bb-kimbe...aker-cable-grey-black-1-92ft-piece-available/
I went as far as building speaker cables with a single wire-wrap wire and also braided them, they all sound fine.
Get Allen Wright's book on DIY speaker cables. Some of the ongoing speaker cables available today are a ripoff from this book. At a minimum, the book was used to develop speaker cables from the knowledge inside.
Just have fun and dont get too crazy chasing sound through cables.
Attachments
I definitely don't call it scientific, but I think the realm of hifi demands a level of healthy skepticism, since I don't think there's any debating there are companies out there eager to empty your pockets on imaginary claims of audio excellence. Sure, there is an artistry to sound reproduction, but that classification can easily become a shield to hide behind whenever people ask for any reason to believe a $10,000 product is any better than another $100 product. The most expensive, exotic manufacturing process just happens to sound the best! Why? Don't worry about it it's art! And any time you bring up the placebo effect, you're immediately dismissed. The placebo effect is INCREDIBLY powerful, and it's quite easy to take advantage of with anything involving hearing. Our auditory perception is not even remotely reliable. Just look at the McGurk effect. So I believe you have to tread VERY carefully when deciding how to spend your money on audio equipment. It's quite easy to be taken in by total nonsense, and that doesn't mean some people have golden ears or that everyone with fancy cables is an idiot. It means humans are very suggestible, and if we want to make good purchasing decisions we'd do well to keep that in mind. As for myself, I use 12AWG Mogami speaker cables. Is it probably overkill? Yeah. Whatever. It's fun
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Agreed.
And a blind listening test would eliminate the placebo affect and might shine a critical light on all the artistic adjectives as well.
If buying exotic components makes you enjoy the music that much more, then that is perfectly acceptable. I love a beautifully crafted amplifier chassis just as much as the electronics in side it. That can be an art form.
What I take issue with, is when it becomes a way of projecting an air of superiority or discrediting those who don't hear any difference.
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So would I. It would put to bed once and for all the fallacy that material science and chemistry are not relevant - it would show that it is. I hope it would also show that anything other than good quality, stout, copper mains cables with quality well made connectors, makes absolutely no difference. If not I'll have a lot of back peddling to do 🙂
On one of the shows years Dave Cope who was US Audionote front man pulled some Scandinavian sourced mundane looking power cable. Just a single length to a power strip..He just replace what was there at the end of presentation. He didn't bust any exotic myth just replaced that power cable. People were confounded by the change and he started to laugh. Bastrad wanted $100 for a meter and was not willing to reveal the source 🙂 I think now it was Supra but the jacket color wasn't quite the same . Anyway a sure proof of mass hypnosis and brainwashing.
If you're not breaking at least $80k a year in a flyover state you are a beggar. Set up a small audio shop and try to earn it ...
If you're not breaking at least $80k a year in a flyover state you are a beggar. Set up a small audio shop and try to earn it ...
