It is a shame that another test of a gifted listener isn't on the table. I would change my mind if just one person could identify the difference between two cables that were of wildly different construction and/or metals but had the same LCR. There must be someone who can prove what is claimed by so many to be self evident.
To be fair, this is his actual quote:
"While Pear rattles on about “capacitance,” “inductance,” “skin effect,” “mechanical integrity” and “radio frequency interface,” – all real qualities and concerns, and adored by the hi-fi nut-cases – we naively believe that a product should be judged by its actual performance, not by qualities that can only be perceived by attentive dogs or by hi-tech instrumentation."
John
fredex said:
Sure fredex
And it would be even more interesting if they switched the direction of the cable and could tell the difference. For what ever I know, they listened to the cable in the wrong direction.
😱
Cheers
stinius said:Sure fredex
And it would be even more interesting if they switched the direction of the cable and could tell the difference. For what ever I know, they listened to the cable in the wrong direction.
😱
I would be happy even if this person didn't have directional hearing 😀
stinius. Actually I am fascinated by the idea of Scott Wurcer's gold welding cables. Imagine seeing those heavy beauties twitching between their supports on bass transients 😀 😀
I have cables with marked direction
They are marked so that left and right are oriented the same with respect to how the wire(flat silver) is made
I was told that orientation might matter, but not which
I never bothered to check
Maybe I should have
I just hate changing cables
They are marked so that left and right are oriented the same with respect to how the wire(flat silver) is made
I was told that orientation might matter, but not which
I never bothered to check
Maybe I should have
I just hate changing cables
andy_c said:
Andy,
I came from a slightly different angle. Assuming that there is NO audible difference, how likely is it that someone still gets 5 out of 5 correct identifications? IOW, pure guesswork. That's about three. But that also means that there's about three that get 0 out of 5 correct by pure guesswork. So, in the context of the MF story, the fact that a few people in a whole room get 5/5 doesn't say that there really is an audible difference - with 100 completely deaf people you would also have about 3 that get 5/5 right.
Jan
fredex said:
Scott is a very wise person so I guess the cables would be supported on some wood blocks from a very expensive and rare tree, carved and hand painted in Inner Mongolia.
I was just told a story from an event from an equaliser introduction sales show
They set up a speaker with EQ, and sounded good
Then they placed a bucket over the speaker, and ofcourse didnt sound good
Then they readjusted the EQ unit, and it sounded good again, just like without the bucket
Amazing
They set up a speaker with EQ, and sounded good
Then they placed a bucket over the speaker, and ofcourse didnt sound good
Then they readjusted the EQ unit, and it sounded good again, just like without the bucket
Amazing
The Carver Challenge
Hello Again Scott!
I believe if someone built and placed a network of some kind or another on enough off the shelf Belden wire it could be made to measure indistinguishably from some $15,000 speaker wire but, I don't believe it would also be sonically indistinguishable. As I said before I challenge anyone of the more DIY capable amongst DIYaudio members to build an IC that measures the same as my reference IC WITHOUT knowing what my ICs wire type, geometery, dielectric or wire gauge etc. are! I would then welcome the chance to compare these two completely physically different ICs that measure the same, in a room and on a system I'm intimately familair with via a DBT that employs manuel switching of the ICs. If I cannot detect the difference between these two ICs I'll happily admit so publically here.
Now concerning the test you were speaking of in your quote. I'm not 100% sure I understand what your view on the final results of The Carver Challenge is. I can tell you that I read the original article in Stereophile when it was published and I find a few facts worth noting;
1) Bob back came to the reviewers at least 2X after modding his solid state amp with his "dime bag' of parts, declaring it was now sonically the equal to the much more expensive Conrad Johnson tube amp! Yet both times the reviewers were able to detect which amp was which, forcing Bob to go back and try once again. So it was apparent Bob's method of duplicating the sound of another amp is NOT sufficient by itself, as the reviewers were still capable of differentiating between the two amps even after Bob was satisfied via his method they wouldn't be able to.
2) Eventually ---{after 3X}--- the reviewers stated they could no longer detect any differences between Bob's Model 1.0 solid state amp and the much more expensive Conrad-Johnson Premier Four tube amp. This in and of itself is amazing in my eyes. However it's interesting to note Bob's test hookup showed it was much more than frequency response differences that caused these two amps to sound different. (This next part is taken directly from the original article -TG1954) In fact, one of his most interesting statements, for those of the "every amplifier is the same except for frequency response" school, was that varying frequency response between the 1.0 and the reference amp made up only about 25% of the significant differences. Relative phase shift, source impedances (damping factors)—in short, every electrical difference between the amplifiers—would produce a signal at that test point between the Plus output terminals. When the amplifier outputs were identical, in all respects, there would be total cancellation—a null—of the difference signal. Bob's goal was a 70dB null, or an 0.03% difference between the two amps. Just to indicate how ambitions a goal this is, Bob quoted a figure of 48dB as the null you might normally hope to product between two channels of the same amplifier! TG1954- apparently there's a lot more than frequency response deviations that leads to the sonic differences heard in different amps.
3) Although Bob should be contragulated for acheiving what he did, it's important to note he couldn't duplicate those results in mass production. (I was 31 at that time this article was published and I was literally jumping for joy at the thought of being able to obtain the sonic virtues of a $3K tube amp ---which might as well have been $10K in regards to what I could afford--- for ONLY $700! So as soon as I had saved $700 I set off to the closest audio salon that sold the Carver 1.0 I was all set to bring this $700 solid state, $3K tube amp killer home! I cannot tell you how deeply dispointed I was with the sound of the Model 1.0 Carver amp when I auditioned it at the audio salon. That day I left the audio store with either a HK Citation 16 or a GAS Ampzilla instead. I don't remember which amp I purchased that day because I owned both the Citation 16 and the GAS Ampzilla.
Thetubeguy1954
scott wurcer said:
Hello Again Scott!
I believe if someone built and placed a network of some kind or another on enough off the shelf Belden wire it could be made to measure indistinguishably from some $15,000 speaker wire but, I don't believe it would also be sonically indistinguishable. As I said before I challenge anyone of the more DIY capable amongst DIYaudio members to build an IC that measures the same as my reference IC WITHOUT knowing what my ICs wire type, geometery, dielectric or wire gauge etc. are! I would then welcome the chance to compare these two completely physically different ICs that measure the same, in a room and on a system I'm intimately familair with via a DBT that employs manuel switching of the ICs. If I cannot detect the difference between these two ICs I'll happily admit so publically here.
Now concerning the test you were speaking of in your quote. I'm not 100% sure I understand what your view on the final results of The Carver Challenge is. I can tell you that I read the original article in Stereophile when it was published and I find a few facts worth noting;
1) Bob back came to the reviewers at least 2X after modding his solid state amp with his "dime bag' of parts, declaring it was now sonically the equal to the much more expensive Conrad Johnson tube amp! Yet both times the reviewers were able to detect which amp was which, forcing Bob to go back and try once again. So it was apparent Bob's method of duplicating the sound of another amp is NOT sufficient by itself, as the reviewers were still capable of differentiating between the two amps even after Bob was satisfied via his method they wouldn't be able to.
2) Eventually ---{after 3X}--- the reviewers stated they could no longer detect any differences between Bob's Model 1.0 solid state amp and the much more expensive Conrad-Johnson Premier Four tube amp. This in and of itself is amazing in my eyes. However it's interesting to note Bob's test hookup showed it was much more than frequency response differences that caused these two amps to sound different. (This next part is taken directly from the original article -TG1954) In fact, one of his most interesting statements, for those of the "every amplifier is the same except for frequency response" school, was that varying frequency response between the 1.0 and the reference amp made up only about 25% of the significant differences. Relative phase shift, source impedances (damping factors)—in short, every electrical difference between the amplifiers—would produce a signal at that test point between the Plus output terminals. When the amplifier outputs were identical, in all respects, there would be total cancellation—a null—of the difference signal. Bob's goal was a 70dB null, or an 0.03% difference between the two amps. Just to indicate how ambitions a goal this is, Bob quoted a figure of 48dB as the null you might normally hope to product between two channels of the same amplifier! TG1954- apparently there's a lot more than frequency response deviations that leads to the sonic differences heard in different amps.
3) Although Bob should be contragulated for acheiving what he did, it's important to note he couldn't duplicate those results in mass production. (I was 31 at that time this article was published and I was literally jumping for joy at the thought of being able to obtain the sonic virtues of a $3K tube amp ---which might as well have been $10K in regards to what I could afford--- for ONLY $700! So as soon as I had saved $700 I set off to the closest audio salon that sold the Carver 1.0 I was all set to bring this $700 solid state, $3K tube amp killer home! I cannot tell you how deeply dispointed I was with the sound of the Model 1.0 Carver amp when I auditioned it at the audio salon. That day I left the audio store with either a HK Citation 16 or a GAS Ampzilla instead. I don't remember which amp I purchased that day because I owned both the Citation 16 and the GAS Ampzilla.
Thetubeguy1954
tinitus said:I was just told a story from an event from an equaliser introduction sales show
They set up a speaker with EQ, and sounded good
Then they placed a bucket over the speaker, and ofcourse didnt sound good
Then they readjusted the EQ unit, and it sounded good again, just like without the bucket
Amazing
No not amazing, but just another story and of course totally wrong, you can’t use an eq to compensate everything.
I agree, what people spend money on or fiddle with is what interests them, I have built a turntable, amps, cables and speakers as I find them all intersting, but speakers and rooms have the most influence on sound quality in my book.doug20 said:
Hi,
First of all an audiophool is just that, a fool thinking of improving his system by throwing money at it or something else entirely foolish.
I'm not in the habit of putting everyone in the same sac and I'm well aware that the ones that call themselves the "objectivists" tend to stick to what they have been taught not to what they could have learned.
Cheers, 😉
@SY: Time to move on to what exactly? Cycling? 😀
Panicos K said:
First of all an audiophool is just that, a fool thinking of improving his system by throwing money at it or something else entirely foolish.
I'm not in the habit of putting everyone in the same sac and I'm well aware that the ones that call themselves the "objectivists" tend to stick to what they have been taught not to what they could have learned.
Cheers, 😉
@SY: Time to move on to what exactly? Cycling? 😀
Hi P. ,
I promise you, one of these days I'm going to put a garrot around their neck and make them confess to the fact that they're all shameless prostitutes.
In the meantime we'll just have to keep on wondering why so many so called "objectivists" take an interest in what's ultimately and truly "subjective".....
Cheers, 😉
analog_sa said:
I promise you, one of these days I'm going to put a garrot around their neck and make them confess to the fact that they're all shameless prostitutes.
In the meantime we'll just have to keep on wondering why so many so called "objectivists" take an interest in what's ultimately and truly "subjective".....
Cheers, 😉
SY said:
If by "AA" you mean Audio Asylum, then I don't know what you mean. Nothing I've said has had anything to do with any particular discussions on AA.
No, the test was NOT to be limited exclusively to the Pear cables. Here's the offer put forth to Fremer, in public, on his SWIFT blog by Randi himself on October 19, 2007:
Mr. Fremer, for further clarity, here is the essence of what the JREF will accept as a response to our challenge: We are asking you – and/or Adam Blake – to significantly differentiate between a set of $7,250 Pear Anjou cables and a good set of Monster cables, or between a set of $43,000 Transparent Opus MM SC cables and the same Monster cables – your choice of these two possible scenarios. We will accept an ABX system test – if that is also acceptable to you. This would have to be done to a statistically significant degree, that degree to be decided.
It was in response to this that Fremer added a third option, that of using his Tara Labs cables. An option that Randi himself said that he preferred, however he would first have to consult his "advisers."
So again, the test was NOT exclusive to the Pear cables. There was also the Transparent cables and the possibility of Fremer's Tara Labs cables.
Since the test was not exclusive to the Pear cables, Pear's backing out would not result in their being no test at all.
There was no "totally different test." The test, as described above, evolved from Randi's initial mocking of Pear Cables in one of his SWIFT blog entries.
A new test wasn't negotiated because Randi disingenuously ended the original challenge when Pear withdrew their offer to supply their cables.
At the time Randi ended the challenge, there had been no issues brought up about the electrical characteristics of either the Transparent cables or Fremer's Tara Labs cables.
Oh, nothing much. Just the facts of the matter.
To be even more precise, the challenge wasn't exclusive to the Pear cables. The Transparent cables were also an option and at the time Randi ended the challenge, Fremer's Tara Labs cables had not yet been ruled out.
The bottom line is that when Pear withdrew their offer to supply cables, Randi took advantage of that to disingenuously end the challenge put to Fremer and to just as disingenuously make it appear that Fremer had somehow managed to cleverly squirm out of a "huge dilemma."
There was no actual dilemma. It was the fabrication of a disingenuous magician.
se
SY said:
If it's not worth as much unpaid work as it takes for the glory of being on the right side of the issue, why is it worth one single post? 😉
Hi,
Untill they realise what a garrot is.....YES. 😀
Cheers, 😉
stinius said:
Are you seriously meaning this?
😱
Untill they realise what a garrot is.....YES. 😀
Cheers, 😉
I'd be willing to give making a matching cable (or pair) a try. Do you know the R, L, and C of your cable (and the needed length)? Or do you want to send it for me to measure? I promise not to hire a metallurgist to find out what it's made of!
Anyone have any suggestions on what kind of tolerance these R,L,C values would have to be matched to, for the test to be believable?
Should the cables be proved to sound different (say, 19 out of 20 takes?), I'd like them both back afterwards, though, to try to find what WOULD be different between them. And then to do some differencing tests playing signals through them into a loudspeaker-like load, to see what happens to signals going through.
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