You're making that up. I've never had one or even seen one. And the protocol for Tom's test doesn't include one.
Are you really Duane Gish in disguise?
I've been otherwise occupied for a few days and don't know the protocol for Tom's test. Regardless, you argued vehemently enough prior that since I hadn't proved its audibility there was no justification for not using one.
Duane Gish? Impressive.
Duane Gish? Impressive.
WTF?? I am reasonably sure that this test has never been intended to use a switch box, and IIRC that was one of Tom's stipulations??
For sure, a few days ago the switch box came up once again, but that was just more hot air whilst we all await the test.
BUT, I could be wrong in my recollection and you could be right.
So, I'll check.
SY, is a switch box an intended part of your test or not (and if not, did we not determine that quite a while ago??)
Tom, would I be correct in saying that you would never agree to a test that involves a switch box?? If that too is true, would that have been stated quite a while ago??
TIA to both of you.
(ps, who is Duane Gish??)
Of course they do John - thats why they need a good honest religious zealot watching what they do...
Yes, right, I forgot to mention encouragement of antagonistic behaviour that in other forums results in a permanent ban.
Never was. That's been stated over and over and over, which is why I was surprised that rdf would make up something like that.
The ones that do get caught. Ends careers. That's why there's a far higher level of integrity in peer-reviewed research than in pseudosciences like homeopathy, astrology, and so-called high end audio.
I think you are saying that SY should clamp down on some stuff YOU dislike??
I, for one, would be damned annoyed if he did.
Not because I did (or did not) agree with any particular post, but because that would be extremely unethical for him to do so.
He is a part of this thread, hence he cannot undertake any sort of moderation role in the thread.
Else, for all we know, he would simply abuse his power and remove silly posts from the thread.
And if he did, no doubt you would dislike some of your posts going missing??
Plus ten on Boconnors post.
The question has never been 'can cables produce different results at the speaker?'..only a fool would say no. (the question has always revolved around audibilty if I need to make that clear).
For me at least, it has always therefore revolved around the question 'is it worth it'? I don't mean just the 'cost', but being pretty lazy to me it is 'is it worth the fart-arsing around involved?'
THAT it is such a contentious point re the audibilty simply 'proves' my point. And is another statement of bconnors post.
If it were true, and immediately obvious to all who listen, then yeah it would make sense to optimise it all.
Quite obviously it is not.
Further, IF you have everything else in the chain optimised, then then it would make sense too.
Here are my thoughts, but stated in a way I could never match, by none other than earl geddes.
I am not saying that there are no audible differences in amplifiers, cables or what ever; I really don’t care either way. You see, to me, there are three things in audio playback that make up 95-99% of the experience; the speakers, the room, and the speaker to room interface.
Everything else falls into the “negligible” category; audible by some - probably; statistically significant across a large population - I doubt it. So go ahead and argue about the audibility of cables or what-not, I’m really not interested. It’s so hard to get that crucial 95% right that I don’t have the time, and especially the money, to worry much about the other 5%.
and
One thing that did get a lot of attention at our room was the fact that the front-end electronics on our speakers had a total cost of about $220.00 (Toshiba CD player, $50 @ Costco; Pioneer receiver Amps, $150 @ Costco; RCA cables, $20 at Home Depot). Some people could not believe the sound that was achieved with such low cost components while others listened intently until they became convinced that they could hear the poor quality in the electronics. I really have to admire those privileged few who could hear the difference between $220 of electronics and thousands of dollars of electronics. These people have the advantage of be able to spend all that extra money admiring something that most others can’t even perceive. That’s a rare and privileged group.
Now, extending from bconnors post, for the price of a ten thousand dollar (us I presume) interconnect you can have the latest and greatest implementation of DSP (whatever that unit happens to be)
I can guarantee all of you that everyone (in a dbt say) would have no trouble (100/100) in identifying when A=A and B=B.
That is far better than we would ever expect from cables.
Admittedly that only moves the goalpost slightly, better or worse still needs to be determined individually, BUT the fact of a difference is completely undeniable.
If realism is your goal, or enjoyment is your goal, or an 'experience' is your goal, then it makes sense to at least check out what in the field of audio are dramatic advancements.
If you don't like, fair enough, then maybe check out the iffy differences cables may or may not make.
But for us to be arguing about this on a loudspeaker DIY forum is insane to me.
Room treatments, dsp etc etc, stop fighting science/technology and instead be open to it.
I can guarantee you returns far greater than mere LRC differences.
And for those who feel I don't care about other peoples feelings, when I linked to my system I was kind, and did not raise what my source was hahaha, if I had there would have been a few queasy stomachs....
There are other impediments. The immense authority of even as brilliant a man as Antoine Lavoisier backing the 'caloric' theory of heat exchange held Thermodynamics back for decades (?) until the French Revolution cleared the path for acceptance of Rumford. Short term, science is still a human endevour.
Apologies if I misrepresented the proposed protocol here, I had real-life things to attend to and didn't follow recent developments. Apparently I had it wrong and SY no longer approves of the use of an ABX box for DBTs.
No terry. Clamping down should occur on stuff that transgresses forum policy, like discussion of religion or politics, or making frankly libelous character statements. No matter who agrees with whom.
Yes...but it cannot be SY. That is my only point.
Hey, I understand there is life other than a never ending discussion on cables😀
Your explanation of the protocol misunderstanding almost worked...'cept we all caught the dig about SY no longer approving.
FWIW, I think he would be fine on using one, but rather is happy to do whatever Tom feels most comfortable with.
I know that does not gel with your and John earlier comments about it being deliberately set up to go wrong by us 'cheaters', but watcha gonna do??
Indeed. I did some dbt tests some time ago with cables and amps. I couldn't tell the difference between expensive cables and cheap ones. Same with well designed but significantly differently priced amps.
So I moved my attention elsewhere. Saved me heaps of time and serious $$$s. And Geddes is absolutely on the money with those thoughts that you quoted.
Caught? I thought it painted in bold letters as a tip o' the hat to an equivalent misrepresentation, and the two are unrelated. I'm happy to see an ABX box won't be used, it risks false positives.
AJ linked some other thread earlier, just for gags read a little.
this was back on 11/03/06
This is part of a TG post
I agree that Roger would be a good contestant for my home system blind wire tests. If I can convince him to come over it "might" make him more comfortable with his decision to use Cardas instead of junk wire. But at the same time he might insist on DBT and and ABX comparator. I'm still ok with the blind testing just not adding an ABX comparator to my system. Not at least until it's been proven to be unaudible when installed into my system.
Even tho TG has not answered directly (but SY has) it now seems true that a switch has never been a part of the upcoming procedure. Tg has been against it for a long while.
Good to put that one to bed, finally we hope.
It's good that you are happy RDF. The more we can all agree on beforehand the better.
On that exact question, are there any outstanding disagreements?? or are we getting kinda close to all of us being happy with the proposal.
I did not get that impression. Only that it has never been part of the planned protocol. Your reading comprehension seems to be on par with your writing obfuscation.
Aside from likening cable faith to other types, I have seen nothing of the sort from anybody. Even TerryJ and Tubeguy were relatively civil, in spite of the bluster.
Are you proposing a similar effect on the furthering of "cable development"? Or are you just blowing smoke with irrelevant "analogies"?
I think you sum up the objectivist position nicely: that the cable differences are (if they exist) subtle, whilst other things bring about far grosser changes.
I see this debate as being irreconcilable due to the vast philisophical divide.
On the one had you have those who believe that:
speakers/room are by far the most important;
the signal is robust and heavy handed engineering to attain desired results is fine (- an example might be dsp room correction)
the signal has been through so much in the recording process that the replay process is almost irrelevant;
(competent) signal sources make little difference;
(competent) amplifiers make little difference;
cables differences are non existent or irrelevant.
Then there are those who believe:
speakers/room are important, but the brain quickly adjusts to hear the deeper content;
the signal is fragile and should be subjected to the minimum of signal processing;
everything that is done in the replay system is audible and cumulative to make a difference;
signal sources are the most important - garbage in / garbage out;
amplifiers can make big differences in a revealing system
cables are like the cream on the top - not massive, but worthwhile.
Can anyone really see an agreement being reached??
Ive always thought that would make a great 'topic' for one of these meets, or get-togethers, whatever the correct term is in your part of the world.
A back to back of these two polar opposite views. Plenty of scope for the 'rules'..dunno maybe set a budget and then each camp goes about following thier particular religious belief.
From the way you posed it, it does look like they can never reconcile, and that each is as valid as the other.
To me, the way thru that is to look at the entire chain and apply the following 'algorithm' to it...'fix the worst spot first' or somesuch.
The view of source etc being the most important contains a fatal flaw (I feel)...that each part is equal or as important as the other. From whatever angle you want to look at it, the speaker/speaker room is where things go south the most.
Let's take a hypothetical single driver system as an example....if any electronic component had as bad a response as that it would never make it out the door. It would be rejected as completely flawed and unusable.
Can this be resolved?? dunno, but it would make for a fun meet wouldn't it??
The single most effective demonstration of dsp I have come across is to flick from uncorrected to corrected on a single driver. No-one misses the difference. Better or not is a personal decision.
It would only take a slight modification of the protocol to accomplish it, two source chains (one with an emphasis on the source and amps and cables etc, representing that side of the coin) and another with dsp and bog standard cables and source representing the other.
Each hidden (to the listener), swap the end of each chain in turn and listen.
No 'egos' on the line (as there can be in cable audibility etc), just 'which is better?'.
It's all well and good for us to sit back and blab on forums...valves vs ss, cd vs vinyl, on and on.
It's always best to learn if we can, and I for one would love to be a part of something like that.
And the best part is it would be fun, unlike tests were there are reputations (for lack of a better word) at stake.
A back to back of these two polar opposite views. Plenty of scope for the 'rules'..dunno maybe set a budget and then each camp goes about following thier particular religious belief.
From the way you posed it, it does look like they can never reconcile, and that each is as valid as the other.
To me, the way thru that is to look at the entire chain and apply the following 'algorithm' to it...'fix the worst spot first' or somesuch.
The view of source etc being the most important contains a fatal flaw (I feel)...that each part is equal or as important as the other. From whatever angle you want to look at it, the speaker/speaker room is where things go south the most.
Let's take a hypothetical single driver system as an example....if any electronic component had as bad a response as that it would never make it out the door. It would be rejected as completely flawed and unusable.
Can this be resolved?? dunno, but it would make for a fun meet wouldn't it??
The single most effective demonstration of dsp I have come across is to flick from uncorrected to corrected on a single driver. No-one misses the difference. Better or not is a personal decision.
It would only take a slight modification of the protocol to accomplish it, two source chains (one with an emphasis on the source and amps and cables etc, representing that side of the coin) and another with dsp and bog standard cables and source representing the other.
Each hidden (to the listener), swap the end of each chain in turn and listen.
No 'egos' on the line (as there can be in cable audibility etc), just 'which is better?'.
It's all well and good for us to sit back and blab on forums...valves vs ss, cd vs vinyl, on and on.
It's always best to learn if we can, and I for one would love to be a part of something like that.
And the best part is it would be fun, unlike tests were there are reputations (for lack of a better word) at stake.
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