It is still possible to suspect that something is wrong and not notice it for hours or weeks or even months depending upon your mental state at the time of listening, or until a glaring observation is made. There are such subtle differences made in each component of an audio system that it can take time to not only notice a difference but also acknowledge it in the human mind that something has changed.
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I have related my Turntable reversed cable direction experience previously.I had a friend visiting one of the magazine reviewers and he swapped the speaker cables on one channel with ordinary zip cord and concealed it well. After a week of occasional listening without issues he told him and he said, "Oh I knew something was wrong".
This 'fault' took some time for me to discover the error of my ways.
This error was directly due to my listening to those who maintain that cables can have no directional properties.
It's all about the central or common signal....if the two channels are not identical in all behaviors correct central imaging will never occur.
Dan.
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And yet most people don't hear what you describe, and every change you describe, even moving a brick, creates a sonic difference you can hear.
Cables are made for different purposes, including price point requirements. Triaxial electrometer cable is different than triaxial RF cable, and it depends on what frequency range of RF among other things. Hopefully, you pick something appropriate for the task at hand. As far as audio cable, if a reasonably short length cable intended for normal audio use is directional something is wrong. Rather than turning it around, it might be a better idea to replace it with a cable that doesn't sound different one direction or other, or figure out what's wrong. Saying its because of how cable is extruded from a forming die is not a plausible reason, so better come up with a better theory, if you think a theory is needed.
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Why should they have to *try* to hear anything in particular? Knowing in advance what to expect is very often a problem for humans, its just the way human brains work. They get prepared for what they are expecting, even if the owner of the brain is not aware of it.
Therefore, when I have coached people how to listen, I always try to get them to hear for themselves. I might take an EQ, adjust it to some frequency, turn it up and down, and ask do you hear that sound that's changing when I turn the knob? If they say yes, then I might say, okay, listen to that same part of this new sound (with no EQ, it was just for training). What does it sound like to you? You help people find a sound or learn how to hear on their own, not tell them what to hear.
I can give you a nearly opposite example. Many years ago I was involved in listening tests at a friend's house along with about half a dozen audiophiles. We were trying to pick the best series capacitor for a crossover. Several hours of critical listening, zeroing in on the best sounding cap, much discussion, and eventually even consensus. At the end of this, when cleaning up the setup mess, found out that, through an oversight at the very beginning -- the tweeter driven through said capacitors hadn't even connected.
VF you're on the right channel there, I had a lady friend musician (objectivist) who balked at playing any of this type of music, too bad for her.
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It took a Pioneer head unit installation on my car at 5AM this morning and then listening to ABC Classic FM to find a nice song to peak my interest in it again. the inbuilt Head unit amp sounds predictably terrible but I hooked it up just to test things just fyi, I'm hunting down a nice Class AB amp to use the preamp outs with, Not that one that I posted but A Drop in the Ocean was playing at the time. I don't know the Performer who was playing, I've sent them an SMS and no reply as of yet.
Anyone know of a good performance of A Drop in the Ocean?
Anyone know of a good performance of A Drop in the Ocean?
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What was the schematic of said crossover...ie were there shunt components in parallel with the 'missing' tweeter ?.
Dan.
Impedance matching
Many years ago, I considered buying some Music Interface Technology cables.
Ultimately, they were more money than I could afford, but the store had a list of equipment brand names, to match the cable's impedances to.
If a customer's components weren't on the list, they were to bring their stuff to the store, to be measured, and a suitable cable would be selected from inventory, or with a down payment, one would be custom ordered from MIT.
Neither MIT or Transparent Audio seem to promote impedance matching anymore.
MIT seems to be a passive eq now; a friend of mine spent several thousands on preowned cables which seem to depress the midrange, like a V on a graphic equalizer.
I couldn't resist pulling apart a near lowest cost Transparent Audio interconnect he gave me, after his purchase.
It's little box covered what looks like a shunt capacitor, going from just before a ferrite ring with a few wraps on it, followed by what's probably a tiny resistor.
Pretty much what I tried out as a simple first order rf filter on a homemade power bar years ago, minus the resistor.
It doesn't colour the music near as much as his MITs, but does output more bass than plain wire. Since my light sounding ADC cartridge is on a Dual turntable whose leads stopped working when I rearranged my components, the Transparents are hardwired on that turntable now.
And the bass is too fat with a new 12AX7 based phono stage kit from Little Bear.
Many years ago, I considered buying some Music Interface Technology cables.
Ultimately, they were more money than I could afford, but the store had a list of equipment brand names, to match the cable's impedances to.
If a customer's components weren't on the list, they were to bring their stuff to the store, to be measured, and a suitable cable would be selected from inventory, or with a down payment, one would be custom ordered from MIT.
Neither MIT or Transparent Audio seem to promote impedance matching anymore.
MIT seems to be a passive eq now; a friend of mine spent several thousands on preowned cables which seem to depress the midrange, like a V on a graphic equalizer.
I couldn't resist pulling apart a near lowest cost Transparent Audio interconnect he gave me, after his purchase.
It's little box covered what looks like a shunt capacitor, going from just before a ferrite ring with a few wraps on it, followed by what's probably a tiny resistor.
Pretty much what I tried out as a simple first order rf filter on a homemade power bar years ago, minus the resistor.
It doesn't colour the music near as much as his MITs, but does output more bass than plain wire. Since my light sounding ADC cartridge is on a Dual turntable whose leads stopped working when I rearranged my components, the Transparents are hardwired on that turntable now.
And the bass is too fat with a new 12AX7 based phono stage kit from Little Bear.
I can tell you that I was that bad that I was giving my visitors a listening test with tweeter unconnected.
Another favorite tests were mono recording for imaging test and phase reversal in one of the channels.
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