OK then! If this really is DO it yourself audio - and not DISCUSS it yourself audio - why don't we design our own cable test?
There are enough smart people here on both sides of the issue to do that. And if we establish a protocall, then it could be done by DIYers in Hong Kong, Houston or Honolulu.
Yes, I know the excuses. "No need, it's been done before" "Nothing to prove." "What's the point?" etc. But the same objections could be raised against building a 3 way BR speaker, or a class-a amp, or a low jitter DAC or a custom tonearm. But there seems to be a lot of building going on here.
Anyone up to the challange?
There are enough smart people here on both sides of the issue to do that. And if we establish a protocall, then it could be done by DIYers in Hong Kong, Houston or Honolulu.
Yes, I know the excuses. "No need, it's been done before" "Nothing to prove." "What's the point?" etc. But the same objections could be raised against building a 3 way BR speaker, or a class-a amp, or a low jitter DAC or a custom tonearm. But there seems to be a lot of building going on here.
Anyone up to the challange?
Not one DBT conducted by anyone that I have ever seen replicates the audiophile experience. NOT A SINGLE ONE. Not the Toole speaker test (from which Janneman draws his grand conclusion), no AES test, nothing. Thirty years of quick and easy tests that have nothing to do with the way audiophiles listen to music. Nearly every reference to "listening tests" has no correlation to how music is enjoyed in the home. The closest thing any of them comes to is a sales demonstration. Show me just one reference to a long term experiment where the subjects listen to music of their choice at any volume level with their own equipment with which they are familiar. Please, just one.
Can you imagine the medical community conducting a drug efficacy test where a tester gives the subject a pill and says. "Here try this one."? Then, "Don't feel better? Then try this one." "Still nothing? Here, try another one of these." That is how crudely DBT audio tests are conducted.
John
Can you imagine the medical community conducting a drug efficacy test where a tester gives the subject a pill and says. "Here try this one."? Then, "Don't feel better? Then try this one." "Still nothing? Here, try another one of these." That is how crudely DBT audio tests are conducted.
John
John: Funny, in all of the sensory testing I've done professionally in organoleptics, food and wine are not tasted at a dinner table. Yet subtle differences are detected blind- when they actually exist.
Quite a few folk in this thread have called the changes obvious and easy to spot quickly. Why does this ability go away when they can't peek?
Quite a few folk in this thread have called the changes obvious and easy to spot quickly. Why does this ability go away when they can't peek?
Well, maybe the popularity of wine tasting owes its success to the prospect of instant gratification. There's a lot of that going around.
Not me nor anyone I know (whom I take seriously).
John
Not me nor anyone I know (whom I take seriously).
John
Conclusion after 180 pages:
We can tell the difference between cables, we just don't want to prove it.
Magura 🙂
We can tell the difference between cables, we just don't want to prove it.
Magura 🙂
Magura said:
True except that some people cannot accept it because to do so would challenge too many equally strongly held beliefs backed by scientific 'facts'. 😉
Boy will their idols fall when new, scientific, gods say that the old gods were wrong!!😀 The day will come!!
SY said:
Why don't you then ask some of those testers to have a DBT test on cables since you are trying to tell us that tasting wines and listening to music is ......the same?If its not,why the example?
jlsem said:
John
By "the audiophile experience" I presume you mean sitting in your chair at home relaxed and really enjoying some music. I don't think you can have this experience whilst doing a test no matter how or where its done.
Andre Visser said:
You could use your own system.
Question. Can you tell instantly between two speaker cables, or do you have to live with one for awhile? I ask because of aural memory issues.
fredex said:
Someone's prefered cable has been chosen in his system and room.The same cable in another system and another room,even in the same system in another room,is no longer what he knows.
With wines things might be different though,I'm not sure.I could however tell if something I taste has been cooked by my mother,not only in another place,but between 50 different samples.Irrelevant? I KNOW.
Panicos K said:
A friend was a professional taster (Port) and the exactitude adopted amazed me. The testing glasses were as close as is possible to being identical. The weight was an exact match to -+ 0.5 grams. The room, a candle-lit cellar, was kept to a constant temperature and humidity level. The 'variables' were reduced as far as was possible.
Yes, cable or for that matter any audio testing should follow the same controlled methodology.
Panicos K said:
Because of John's rather inapt excuse.
And yes, I absolutely DO ask anyone claiming to hear cable differences not due to R, L, and C (i.e., frequency response and amp stability) to subject themselves to the same rigor as any wine taster or food product taster. if they can't, or won't, the presumption must be that they're fooling themselves, absent any actual evidence beyond bloviation.
Panicos K said:
"......no matter how or where its done." Means even at home with his own system.
My input: I cannot tell the difference.
I can't really disprove those that claim that they can tell a difference either,
however, the burden of proof surely lies with them, since one never has to prove a negative.
This debate exists because there is underlying science that says cables make a difference on paper, but whether it is audible, is subjective.
Even if there was an audible difference, it might not even be significant enough to prefer one cable over another.
I found this to be true of certain mp3's I have, where I preferred them over the loseless versions in a blind listening test.
Also, not to sound sanctimonious, but there are people who can barely afford to feed their families, and we are out spending grands on ******* cables, it's ridiculous and shameful.
I can't really disprove those that claim that they can tell a difference either,
however, the burden of proof surely lies with them, since one never has to prove a negative.
This debate exists because there is underlying science that says cables make a difference on paper, but whether it is audible, is subjective.
Even if there was an audible difference, it might not even be significant enough to prefer one cable over another.
I found this to be true of certain mp3's I have, where I preferred them over the loseless versions in a blind listening test.
Also, not to sound sanctimonious, but there are people who can barely afford to feed their families, and we are out spending grands on ******* cables, it's ridiculous and shameful.
fredex said:
Sure but do you really think that my testing on my system will make any difference no matter how it is done?
fredex said:
With some cables it take a bit of cable swapping to identify the differences but once identified, I can normally tell within seconds which cables are used.
Part of the reason why a familiar system is suggested is because aural memory become much longer than the few seconds that tests show. I'm quite sure that I will still be able to identify the four different IC's that I've tested about two years ago purely by remembering their sonic qualities. I regard all four of them as very good quality cables, two were coaxial (copper and silver) the other two twisted pair shielded, also copper and silver. That test were described quite a while ago on this thread.
eisenhower said:
This thread is about cable differences not cable prices, BTW what car do you drive? 🙂
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