Has anyone yet learned something new about cables that they were not interested in previously? Have you noted the change in Dielectric constant with frequency and materials? How about DA? Skin effect? The effect of conductor thickness on inductance? These are topics that should have been studied about, before launching in criticism of others and their personal experience with cables.
Only if they were claimed as causal by those hearing cables. Otherwise, the effects you list are generally acknowledged as so small as to be immaterial when cabling is applied in "normal" quantities and situations.
Even if they WERE real and material, they are all constants of sorts - and hence universally applicable. Yet we still are subject to claims of event, time or equipment specific results.
Either way, there are a lot more basic questions to be answered before we trouble ourselves with the difference in dielectric effect of red and black cable sheathing...
I said a few thousand posts before that I can accept a test but without switching box,but I was told I live very far.Those who are really interrested to see if what I say I hear is real,are welcome anytime.
Does this answers your question?If you would feel happier with any other answer,let me know.I will answer any way you like.Afterall Christmas is coming,and the thread is about to explode any minute.
You haven't told me how YOU know that what you hear is real.
Yeah, that does sound reasonable. As long as a specific protocol reviewing and setup was defined ... like what terminology to use, and where to place the cable.
You'd need a score card, something like this:
Brightness - 1 2 3 4 5
Soundstage - 1 2 3 4 5
Dynamics - 1 2 3 4 5
Bass - 1 2 3 4 5
Imaging - 1 2 3 4 5
Transparency - 1 2 3 4 5
1 = less/worse, 5 = more/better
Intangibles (free review):
------------------------------
And the score for each cable should only be referenced to the other cables. Then add up the score for each cable. And see if the same cables win in the defined areas.
Need more than 5 reviewers, more like 25 reviewers and 25 cables? Or could circulate the cables but we'd have to quit posting or leave enough posts before 10,000 so we could do the test and get the results. 🙄
and still we assume that people can perceive a difference...
I'd go even simpler. Heres the script:
Quesiton 1 - can you hear a difference between the cables tested when you are prompted?
(x number of prompts advise the change (or purported change) of the cable)
No need for ANY more questions until this one is proven - see you guys in six months.
Easy. Lets do it at John C's or Curly's. They have great gear - all mine's crap. Apparently.
I'd go even simpler. Heres the script:
Quesiton 1 - can you hear a difference between the cables tested when you are prompted?
(x number of prompts advise the change (or purported change) of the cable)
No need for ANY more questions until this one is proven - see you guys in six months.
Easy. Lets do it at John C's or Curly's. They have great gear - all mine's crap. Apparently.
Never said that, your post suggested that WE simply don't notice such things. Just wanted to show that it is different for me at least. 😉
I've explained in a post to Doomlord why I'm sceptical about switchboxes.
With these cables I've mentioned, I will tell the difference while standing in the kitchen. 😀 I've explained earlier that you can use cables to hide or highlight certain aspects in a system, if you get it wrong, it will certainly be very audible.
Good recordings will obviously be made with good equipment, including cables. You can never put back what is lost.
Hell you only need to take a speaker out of the shop and it drops 50% in value... Does its sound change too???
Heres a thought - speaker manufacturers would have a strong incentive to ensure their $10k speaker maintains its value - surely they have the resources and smarts to put a big sticker (removable of course) on the enclosure pointing out that such and such is the minimum spec for cabling for that speaker, or even more pointedly, the speaker will not perform to its optimum unless used with so and so's cable?
Now, why don't they do that?
I think that it is important to study a subject, before you can successfully form a strong opinion about it.
Oh, I smell chicken!!! We send them only to people who can hear a difference (i.e. cable believers). It has to be an extended listening test.
aaaah that'll work! No surer way to get a good result than pick good people...
By good result, I mean the result you want.
By good result, I mean the result you want.
Carts and horses John. Given there is no current proof that cables of reasonable quality and build make any audible difference in a complete system, it seems premature to go looking for causes for that effect.
As stated before, I believe that you and others perceive differences and make judgements based on those perceptions. I believe you and others (but not some others again) do this in good faith and with only the best interests of your system, your clients systems and the wider audio community at heart regardless of whether or not you are rewarded financially - a mans gotta live after all!
I want to emphasise this is not a question of personal integrity. But it is a question of scientific proof.
So, in the search for first principles, we should put to bed the argument at the bottom of the heap - can people hear differences between cables (interconnects and speaker).
Only once that question is answered (and only if in the positive) does the question of incremental differences between cable constructions become of interest.
No, if the different cables get the same ratings by all the different reviewers then that would show audibility of cables.
what if they get different ratings? Does that mean they made it up, or experienced differently?
In the first instance, you HAVE to ask a binary question imho. As I've pointed out, we can't even agree on IF there is a difference to hear let alone the nuances if there is a difference.
KISS
Not only that, if you send it only to believers (and I don't think the chain letter cable is a valid test, but anyhooo) then the only ones who will be involved and accepting of a positive result are the believers. Of course a null result will have the agnostics and heretics absolutely ecstatic, but with no good reason since the test itself is tainted and flawed regardless of outcome.
Drug companies don't test on just those with a belief in a cure. They test randomly. Let that be your guide.
In the first instance, you HAVE to ask a binary question imho. As I've pointed out, we can't even agree on IF there is a difference to hear let alone the nuances if there is a difference.
KISS
Not only that, if you send it only to believers (and I don't think the chain letter cable is a valid test, but anyhooo) then the only ones who will be involved and accepting of a positive result are the believers. Of course a null result will have the agnostics and heretics absolutely ecstatic, but with no good reason since the test itself is tainted and flawed regardless of outcome.
Drug companies don't test on just those with a belief in a cure. They test randomly. Let that be your guide.
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Easy. Centre image is an ILLUSION, created by (among other things) balancing the relative levels in both ears. Get a different pair of ears, you can get a different balance point. OBTW the centre image ILLUSION is also reinforced by the visual situation. Try increasing the level in one speaker slightly over the other, then try to find the centre image. It will look somewhat wrong because it will not correpond to the visual centre. Interesting experiment.
jd
Here for a conference. Stuck downtown with no car, but if you're around tonight or Friday night...
Excellent point. One thing my speakers do really, really well for me is image and create a very tight center when fed a mono signal. There's a TV set between and behind them, and with a mono signal, I'd swear that the sound source is the TV. But for The Eye Lady, they don't put the image in the middle. What's the difference? She's partially deaf in one ear (the side where the PA system was in her musician days), so what sounds dead center to me is pulled to the side for her.
I've said it before, but it may bear repeating- once you collapse a complex 3-d soundfield into two single-valued channels, all the other compromises are pretty minor.
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