Panicos K said:
I,too,agree! In fact most of the thread - other than for those who have a particular theory to propose - and then defend to the end - is boring. We all have our ideas on this subject and I would bet that not one convert has been made by either side since this thread started. !😉
jlsem said:
If the differences are wholly unexpected then what leads the listener to believe it's the cables and not some other factor?
I am sorry but I do not think this is limited to parlor tricks or slight of hand. This is something that we may do on a daily basis to survive or just increase intelligability when trying to communicate in a difficult enviroment.
And what I am telling you guys is that being aware of the trick really makes no difference you still hear the false positives - words that are not on the recording.
Then wouldn't you be expecting that to make a change? Maybe partially on just the way the cable looks? I readily admit to being susceptible to this type of suggestion. If a piece of gear looks cool I often expect it to sound good ya know. Same with instruments. I am weird though because I can even do the opposite - psych myself into liking a pos because it's the "alternative" or non conformist thing to do.
There are other factors involved even if you only change the cables. Your ears, fatigue, your mind, the barometric pressure etc... These things must be considered.
There are other factors involved even if you only change the cables. Your ears, fatigue, your mind, the barometric pressure etc... These things must be considered.
janneman said:
Maybe so but if it can consistently reconstruct the same music on the same system to sound the same or enable us to hear when something is wrong or different, then surely it is doing something right.
janneman said:
Of course it is accessible to us, maybe not directly but it can be influenced by the conscious mind.
janneman said:
Jan, for example, if I have a box full of different cables that I can choose from, what else than the air vibrations will influence my choice of which one to use in my system?
No, you made a sweeping statement about people who inhabit mental institutions in general. Now you are talking about a small (if even existing) segment of the population of mental institutions. I don't know about the situation in the Netherlands, but the inability to cope with day to day pressures isn't enough to land a person in an institution over here. There are certainly medications that can help people in that case. In this country, you generally have to be suffering from a very serious brain impairment to be institutionalized.
I'm a completely sane person myself, but I don't believe I'm living under any form of self-deception at all. I'm totally cognizant everything that's wrong with myself, everything that I do wrong, and every mistake I've made. I also believe that gross self-deception shortens the path to mental instability, rather than the other way around.
John
What if I wasn't aware that a change had been made? I've been the unwitting subject of blind tests before. They weren't rigorously controlled DBTs so I won't draw any scientific conclusions, but they were convincing enough for me for the moment.
John
panomaniac said:
Maybe so but a musical performance must be recorded and recreated quite accurately before the brain will accept the information and create a believable or realistic "illusion".
brianco said:
If you pay $7500 for a set of speaker cables before thoroughly testing them on your system, making sure that they are worth the difference in money, you really NEED to see a docter. 🙂
Hi,
So, you just bought that set of cables based on a review, looks or whatever tipped the balance.
It cost you a big chunk of your annual budget so you must be pleased with it.
You hook the stuff up expecting miracles.....
Big disapointment. That stuff nowhere near sounds as described in that mag.
What's wrong? Is it you, the cable, the system perhaps or something else entirely?
Sorry guys, but I don't buy the argument that if something has cost you an arm and a leg it will trick the brain into convincing you it actually is good.
If anything, most hyped goodies tend to disappoint....Lance A. does too.
Similar to the analogy above, when we want to hear a difference we usually do.
Sometimes we even do when we don't really want to.
Point is most of the arguments brought to the table are based on how we trick our minds into believing that something is or isn't there.
While I believe that could actually work a couple of times, I'm having a hard time believing it would work all of the time.
So, instead of pinching your arm to see if you're dreaming or not, why not repeat tests so that it will at least gain some credibility for you?
I'm pretty certain that most people defending the fact that cables can make a difference are absolutely correct.
The counter argument being that provided L, C and R are identical for two cables they should sound the same.
That is completely untrue and can easily be proven.
I think VladimirK's latest post points into the right direction for a start.
That no one seems to pay attention to that is rather ominous....
But there's more....Much, much more fruitcake.... 😀
For sure all the guys from the measurement brigade have systems that reveal the truth and nothing but the truth or do they??
To be blunt, I very much doubt it. 😎
Peace, 😉
So, you just bought that set of cables based on a review, looks or whatever tipped the balance.
It cost you a big chunk of your annual budget so you must be pleased with it.
You hook the stuff up expecting miracles.....
Big disapointment. That stuff nowhere near sounds as described in that mag.
What's wrong? Is it you, the cable, the system perhaps or something else entirely?
Sorry guys, but I don't buy the argument that if something has cost you an arm and a leg it will trick the brain into convincing you it actually is good.
If anything, most hyped goodies tend to disappoint....Lance A. does too.
Similar to the analogy above, when we want to hear a difference we usually do.
Sometimes we even do when we don't really want to.
Point is most of the arguments brought to the table are based on how we trick our minds into believing that something is or isn't there.
While I believe that could actually work a couple of times, I'm having a hard time believing it would work all of the time.
So, instead of pinching your arm to see if you're dreaming or not, why not repeat tests so that it will at least gain some credibility for you?
I'm pretty certain that most people defending the fact that cables can make a difference are absolutely correct.
The counter argument being that provided L, C and R are identical for two cables they should sound the same.
That is completely untrue and can easily be proven.
I think VladimirK's latest post points into the right direction for a start.
That no one seems to pay attention to that is rather ominous....
But there's more....Much, much more fruitcake.... 😀
For sure all the guys from the measurement brigade have systems that reveal the truth and nothing but the truth or do they??
To be blunt, I very much doubt it. 😎
Peace, 😉
Oh dear,,,,
Back to the soap opera. "As the Cable Turns." "All My Cables." "The Young and the Cabled"
Back to the soap opera. "As the Cable Turns." "All My Cables." "The Young and the Cabled"
Well I don't think that is my counter argument more of a tangent I just went on thinking about listening tests and measurements etc..
My stance on the argument still is that I don't know. I don't know if cable quality is truly an imperative piece of the puzzle in making a revealing system. But one thing about the whole thing that makes no sense to me is where the Mixing engineer should meet the listener in this arrangement assuming that cable quality is imperative.
I have heard the claim that good cables make recordings sound "less electronic". Well how can you be sure that is not the actual sound of the recording? And if you were a mixing engineer using these cables that make recordings sound less electronic, how could you ever notice the problem let alone address it? Is the proper way to address that problem to expect the listener to buy the same overly expensive cables you used when you mixed the album? Or would it be better to use an average cable which sounds "electronic" and then treat the sound on the recording with other means - mixing?
My stance on the argument still is that I don't know. I don't know if cable quality is truly an imperative piece of the puzzle in making a revealing system. But one thing about the whole thing that makes no sense to me is where the Mixing engineer should meet the listener in this arrangement assuming that cable quality is imperative.
I have heard the claim that good cables make recordings sound "less electronic". Well how can you be sure that is not the actual sound of the recording? And if you were a mixing engineer using these cables that make recordings sound less electronic, how could you ever notice the problem let alone address it? Is the proper way to address that problem to expect the listener to buy the same overly expensive cables you used when you mixed the album? Or would it be better to use an average cable which sounds "electronic" and then treat the sound on the recording with other means - mixing?
panomaniac said:Oh dear,,,,
Back to the soap opera. "As the Cable Turns." "All My Cables." "The Young and the Cabled"
I love/hate this thread!!! 😀
Andre Visser said:
Andre Visser said:
fdegrove said:
fdegrove: THAT is EXACTLY my point...I was quoting a real life incident from some twelve years ago. Can't remember when I had money to waste on cables at anywhere near that money...I prefer to buy recordings. My 'system' is a mixture of stuff where cost has been a major factor...low cost or DIY or a gift.
Andree:
Yes - based on work done when I was helping a designer in the rolling process for what became a very well known cable we tested many aspects for sound we used three systems. A respected big AB amp+ commercial well known speakers, a (borrowed) top end amp system and a DHT VT4c based system + horns designed by the cable designer. All used the same front end which was top end turntable arm We tested them against just two well known brands and heard a lot of difference between all three types on each system. The main differences were perceived in the amount of information heard and soundstage. The cables did not measure equally...our prototypes were designed to have ultra low capacitance coupled with as low resistance as could be easily incorporated.
But back to my response to the above:
I agree with everything above: The cables I referred to cost a friend that bigggg money......NOT me! (I make my own or use a pair of freebies given to me by the designer! 😉 ) This guy who did spend that money was a real classical music lover, really rich (inherited), BUT he trusted a top audio shop owner of (then) international repute to fully advise him on a very expensive system: the hapless buyer owner heard it demoed once in NY in a purpose built fully treated room.
(The most defining property of those big money cables was that they were thick and brown...they only lacked the authentic smell!
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