No. Its a sacred part of the objectivist religion to automatically reject any claim that cables can have audible effects.
"Sacred" has two meanings. One means spirituality, the other something precious.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-wise-brain/202006/look-what-is-sacred
The Sanctity foundation makes it easy for us to regard some things as “untouchable,” both in a bad way (because something is so dirty or polluted we want to stay away) and in a good way (because something is so hallowed, so sacred, that we want to protect it from desecration). If we had no sense of disgust, I believe we would also have no sense of the sacred.
The Righteous Mind, Johnathan Haidt
"Sacred" has two meanings. One means spirituality, the other something precious.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-wise-brain/202006/look-what-is-sacred
The Sanctity foundation makes it easy for us to regard some things as “untouchable,” both in a bad way (because something is so dirty or polluted we want to stay away) and in a good way (because something is so hallowed, so sacred, that we want to protect it from desecration). If we had no sense of disgust, I believe we would also have no sense of the sacred.
The Righteous Mind, Johnathan Haidt
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Sure. And you should note their casual statement:
“In addition, it has been quantitatively shown that the output impedance on the drive side may be reduced to a level at which a change in sound quality due to a change in cable capacity cannot be detected.”
I see this test as artificially set up to prove a point that under some conditions, various interconnect cables can show a difference.
I drive my cables from extremely low impedance sources (mΩ range). Interconnect cables does not sound different to me, even those with silver wires.
True. If you don't test under the same conditions from which the claim has arisen (like if intending to 'debunk' the claim), then you are doing the wrong experiment/measurement in relation to that claim. Also if there is intention to debunk, then there is an expectation bias on the part of the experimenter to contend with.
Equivalent HRTF issues apply to speaker listening, just inversed. Speaker positioning natively imposes left/right HRTF contours on a phantom centre image that shouldn't have one regardless of what Devore or Stereophile do.
Lets not get carried away. Not every person on TV wearing a lab coat is a scientist. And not every paper formatted using LaTeX is scientific proof.
As far as cables are concerned, I think everyone has accepted that special circumstances can make an impact.
Long runs of line level cable. Medium runs in EMI/RFI rich environments. Runs of cable ending with equipment that present very unusual impedance characteristics. Etc.
All of these are engineering matters well recognized and addressed by engineers when they are recognized.
That paper focuses on voltage-dependent (with applied disturbance voltage far exceeding line level) capacitance shifts measured in 100th of pF over long runs of line level cables ending in a guitar (?) or headphones. (it’s not clear)
9 subjects, untrained.
All it tells me is that there are circumstances where high-resolution scientific instruments can measure negative effects.
As far as cables are concerned, I think everyone has accepted that special circumstances can make an impact.
Long runs of line level cable. Medium runs in EMI/RFI rich environments. Runs of cable ending with equipment that present very unusual impedance characteristics. Etc.
All of these are engineering matters well recognized and addressed by engineers when they are recognized.
That paper focuses on voltage-dependent (with applied disturbance voltage far exceeding line level) capacitance shifts measured in 100th of pF over long runs of line level cables ending in a guitar (?) or headphones. (it’s not clear)
9 subjects, untrained.
All it tells me is that there are circumstances where high-resolution scientific instruments can measure negative effects.
True. The one's you don't a priori disagree with tend to count as proof for you. IOW, scientific papers don't make objectivists change their minds any more than they make subjectivists change their minds. They are both looking for confirmation, not dis-confirmation. Same as for humans in general.
shouldnt have one? im not quite sure what you imply.
https://www.linkwitzlab.com/headphone-xfeed.htm
All scientists are objectivists by training. So, your statement is an incorrect generalization.
But in the real world of mortals and people who will stop at nothing to avoid cognitive dissonance, every straw is a raft.
I agree with that.
Plenty of well designed studies have changed my mind on a number of subjects, but I have also been fooled by totally manufactured data.
Than I must be objectivist. Yet I have seen some high level trained scientists/professors argue over who is right. One say the other is full of crap.
I also learned how to mix, master, play instruments, etc., so I learned how to listen to small detains along the way. Maybe that makes me a subjectivist too.
You don't get how it's a trick our mind play on us then: try to bring a recorder into a noizy environment ( eg a bar) and then start to record focalising your real life attention on the discusion happening in the next or second next table. Remember what was the subject of the discussion and then go back home and try the same from the recording. You won't be able to hear what you heard in real life situation... as such it's a trick your mind play to yourself.
And something we use when mixing tracks to give movement and surprise.
In my view it's not but we are not all equal with this, let alone the fact you are trained or not too.
I don't think you ever been involved in an ABX as one of the point is to hide the device tested behind a screen and what is tested is not known either by the Subject UT or by the operator shifting the option.
I don't see myself used this in the quote you made from my previous but i could have used it anyway because as long as i don't state it's something verified and repeatable it's an hypothesis, so an opinion. All scientific research start from an hypothesis you search to invalidate/ validate and is repeatable under a set of conditions and only the outcome of the search reach a status of certainty under conditions explained. The rest is opinion and intuition.
Here it's me that doesn't follow you, at least your first sentence. And i disagree about the second sentence: it's all a matter of phylosophy and i'm not into yours. Etherality of spirit i don't buy, consciousness and self consiousness is for me the result of chemical and electrical interactions happening inside our brain and results from evolution. As such they were not created each others in a marriage or neither perfect either.
But i fear we are not allowed to go further this path as we are borderline crossing forum rules if going further.
That said it's not because i don't share that point of view that i don't respect it. I hope it's a clear point.
I get your example but it's still non sense to me: high fidelity have to be taken accurately in what it means, which to me always been 'high fidelity to the source'.
The source if stereo is an illusion and as such will imply some issues related to the fact you can't mimic reality with only two source so there will be some artefacts. But in mono or if you focus on certain 'qualities' results should be as homotetic to reality.
In that sense if an amp have silky high ( which will refer to freq/phase response and transient behavior in my view of what it could maybe mean) of which are not present into source it's not high fidelity as it brings ( or take) something from the initial signal to be reproduced.
And being at the different places i can be ( musician/technician) i had many opportunities to compare reality vs reproduced signal and to my preference something accurate is what i want, not an aestheticly pleasing tool.
So all this blabla about quality of an amp are meaningless. If i can plug an amp in my chain and it gives an accurate representation of what i track i'm ok with it, no need for something more than accurate to me. And believe it or not in some case wrt how amplifier are integrated with loudspeakers as a system it happen more often than not and independently to the price of amp.
Where are the aesthetic experience documented? Please point me to something which is universally recognized as such. It happen to exist within some culturaly referenced field ( EG: the 'triton' chord which should reproduce sound of 'evil', some suit of chords which will evocate some feelings in western music) but once you shift cultural prerequisite it's not true anymore ( how do we react when music is not based upon the 12 notes we are used to but introduce 1/4 tons? What about phrases during 15min including complex polyrythms...).
If there was things which were universal diversity of music would be much lesser. And way more boring imho.
Audiophiles are not nescessarely idiots, but one of the key issue i see is this: someone which doesn't have access to the source can't make comments others than related to fantasy.
We ( humans) have poor listening memory. At much you can believe our short term one ( in the order of 20sec at most) and even there 'tricks' happen.
So even if you go to concert regularly the basis on which you make judgement is fooled: recordings are so differents between them than it's (very) difficult to evaluate things. It's not impossible but even for trained professionals it's not an easy task.
So, when you mix that to the usual issue audiophile have ( ego, social status statement, etc,etc,...) it makes for difficult to be credible pov.
At least for me.
About what? Instruments, and tools to record them we agree. But about reproducing chain no way as these are the tools used to evaluate the aesthetical choices made, you need something accurate.
You mix things together, and be rassured you are not the first or alone in that case.
The issue is people makes their own idea of things they don't know enough or don't practice and this lead to fantasy interpretation.
Sound engineer have to deal with artistic choices we translate into technical things ( limits of media, limits of technology, tools availlables,...).
As i already told you the 'artist' language is as poetic as audiophile's one and in my case don't wan't to face it once i don't work anymore ( read i'm not paid to endure this).
Well yes the aesthetic part i talked about, but to be honest if they could say 'had a little 200hz on the snare', 'cut that 1khz range on my guitar', 'bring 3db compression with a 15ms attack and 3/1 ratio on my bass' things would be much faster and linear than trying to translate poetic BS... But it exist nevertheless, it happened many times i worked with 'session musicians' ( in french 'requins de studio' - session sharks- which tell you which mic, where to locate it and how to set up the eq to sound good right away... and better listen to them as they'll put you to shame if you don't listen to what they say initially). But they are the best in their genre...
Yeah, why use the correct technical terms when you can put people into an hazy undefined mood about what they want or like? Lol.
And anyway you presume things about 'corectness' of sound, each style have a cultural background asking for different quality: boomy might be required in hip hop derivative as well as electronic music, scritchy highs might be wanted as aestheticaly researched into punk, realistic soundstage never happen with rock band... you are just putting your own preference as a global requirement which doesn't exist in real world.
Not saying you are not right into your preference, just this isn't the reality pro face everyday.
YOUR preferences. Not universal.
Then i think you should quite your confort zone and start going to events and cultural representation you would have not being into. You probably won't like what you'll meet but take this experiment as a journalistic experience: talk with crowd, talk with musicians, technicians about what they look for into what they do, play, listen.
You'll be surprised by how differents the motivations can be.
With 30 years experience into this i'm still amazed by how different we are as a species and what we like.
I'm reassured. I though my devil doeppleganger took the lead! 😉
You should start learning electronic imho. It would make you change pov ( or maybe a whole paradigm shift?) about many things discussed here. Understanding principles at play, pro and cons, limits and such would bring a different light to many things.
And you don't need to take an academic course: many are self taught in here ( i'am) and audio in the first principle used (at least, of course you can complexify things a lot if you have the skills) is not rocket science.
I suggest an entertaining and fun first approach: go to Firstwatt site and download F-5 manual and start to read the second part of it. Nelson Pass is gifted to make things accessible and enthralling. If you want more then there is a full list of article to read and then come back into Passlab subsection of forum to learn more.
It's not bad to approach a field with one of the most recognised designer as a teacher too. It's one way to see things and other gifted designers belong to here... lucky you to be in the best place to learn imho. 😉
Maybe because world is vast and there is MANY ways to do things ( well)!
You got it wrong: newer doesn't equal better. You should rather study why this schemo are still being used and how good some of the past time designers were.
Don't overlook knowledge from the past, as GM calls them : PIONNEERS deserve respect and attention to their work... as the newcomers.
Assumptions. And you definitely never been involved into ABX: these are not widespread because of the difficulty to do them and even more well.
If you think things doesn't hit market because of ABX then delete this fantasy, it never happen or happened.
I think I've already answered this somewhat.
You forget your audience in here: we don't buy amplifiers, we build them!
Price matter yes but when you can built your own and understand more or less how they works this kind of 'social status products' will at most trigger curiosity not much more...
Studies for which you already had very strong convictions to the contrary? Confirmation bias is one of the most ubiquitous biases. Once a human has firmly decided something, it can be very hard to change their mind.
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Bizarrely stupid and incorrect statement. As religion is not allowed, perhaps you are trying to persuade someone to close the thread?
IIRC, its not the first time the word has been used in this thread.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/search/1198949/?q=religion&t=post&c[thread]=403848&o=relevance
That it is tolerated sometimes may tend to encourage the further taking of license, or at least not dissuade it.
That said, I would agree my post was a purposely provocative response to the purposely provocative and mocking statement just before it.
Understood, I am expected to disregard such posts by certain other people. Most often that's what I do.
EDIT: Also, the term religion does not necessarily refer to spiritual beliefs. Not clear if its usage in another context is also not allowed?
It also may refer to:
a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
"consumerism is the new religion"
https://rb.gy/p9tq2
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/search/1198949/?q=religion&t=post&c[thread]=403848&o=relevance
That it is tolerated sometimes may tend to encourage the further taking of license, or at least not dissuade it.
That said, I would agree my post was a purposely provocative response to the purposely provocative and mocking statement just before it.
Understood, I am expected to disregard such posts by certain other people. Most often that's what I do.
EDIT: Also, the term religion does not necessarily refer to spiritual beliefs. Not clear if its usage in another context is also not allowed?
It also may refer to:
a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
"consumerism is the new religion"
https://rb.gy/p9tq2
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Correct from the polar plot of (redundantly) a human head's HRTF. Speakers are left and right, your head's left/right HRTF is not the same as your head's direct frontal HRTF. The centre phantom image is experienced through left/right HRTF.
Linkwitz was a very clever man, not sure what crossfeed has to do with HRTF or the sub-optimal treatment of a single curve as a universal panacea for headphone spectral balance. The point was more about the social beliefs regarding these elements.
You seem a little too sure of this fact, but in reality you can't know what you state.
However...
Okay, in other words the biological wonder of Selective Listening will work for me in a noisy environment to make me perceive what I could not perceive without Selective Listening, that's to understand a dialogue occurring between two friends in a noisy environment, right?
I couldn't forget it even if I wanted to.
Okay.
Really?
I've lost you completely here: could you elaborate please?
Please describe clearly without any possibility of misunderstanding what you meant, I would like to understand exactly what you mean before possibly replying.
Thank you! 🙂
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