Snake Oil Beleiver

[Hebrew Hammer 10+ year member]

And he suddenly knows my experience.

dude...you are 21....and I see what you have in your sig..no offense but I doubt you have anywere close to the car/home audio exp of myself....this is the a typical response to people who just want to argue with little or no exp...I've seen it for many years on the forums...

I traveled all over the us from the time I was 13 with my old man to all the hifi shops in the US...I have owned the most expensive and rare car audio pieces in the world and spent many hours a/bing and have been installing going on 13 years now....

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

all these tools are need to properly listen to any audio system..and it takes a long time and dedication to learn the craft...

Agreed.

I can evaluate staging well, but there's always something to learn, something to pick up on...takes well-recorded music and a lot of listening time.

But far too often in these kind of debates I hear people's listening skills being put down instead of trying to come up with a reason why the original person heard a difference in the first place, beyond a "it just is" kind of answer. I have no doubt you heard a difference, I'm sure a lot of other people have too - but that's not something that will universally apply. Furthermore, if someone doesn't hear a difference that doesn't automatically mean their listening skills are weak, it just means that they didn't hear a difference //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[Hebrew Hammer 10+ year member]

Agreed.
I can evaluate staging well, but there's always something to learn, something to pick up on...takes well-recorded music and a lot of listening time.

But far too often in these kind of debates I hear people's listening skills being put down instead of trying to come up with a reason why the original person heard a difference in the first place, beyond a "it just is" kind of answer. I have no doubt you heard a difference, I'm sure a lot of other people have too - but that's not something that will universally apply. Furthermore, if someone doesn't hear a difference that doesn't automatically mean their listening skills are weak, it just means that they didn't hear a difference //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

agreed...i'm a firm believer that all people hear differently...some may be more accute to higher freqs..while some lower etc....but I'm also a firm believer that people can be trained to a certain point....

no difference to people who can see color vs those who are color blind....people who can see clearly vs near/farsided....

 

[dragonrage 10+ year member]

Agreed.
I can evaluate staging well, but there's always something to learn, something to pick up on...takes well-recorded music and a lot of listening time.

I agree. But using age to determine experience, as well as hiding behind that (claimed) experience is the sign of someone who doesn't know what the fvck they're talking about.

 

[Hebrew Hammer 10+ year member]

I agree. But using age to determine experience, as well as hiding behind that (claimed) experience is the sign of someone who doesn't know what the fvck they're talking about.

you just look dumber by the post...any clue on when to quit? I'll be more than happy to link my yahoo photo's with my past collection...and maybe the fact that I worked for a high end manufacturer..and helped a few super high end companies come to the states over the years....seriously you have nothing bro....

 

[dragonrage 10+ year member]

Good for you.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

My question becomes (or remains depending on how you want to look at it...) how can your ear (generally accepted as one of the worst measuing devices known) detect differences that require some of the best measuring equipment known to man? If the difference made by cabling is as dramatic as some people claim that it is (even among cables with the exact DCR measurements) a "trained" ear should be able to go from a reference cable and pick out differences every time. No short term memory involved. You should be able to take a piece of music that you are intimately familiar with on a system you are just as familiar with and be able to pick out the differences in the sound when cables are swapped. Furthermore, if the differences are as distinct as claimed, you should be able to pick out what about the cable changed. For example, and I don't know what the specific claims are because I have better ways to spend my money, if your system as your used to it sounds a certain way with your copper ICs and they are swapped for a set of ICs that make the sound 'warmer' you should be able to tell what the material is and the construction method of the IC based on the sound. Again no short term memory involved. Control vs. sample.

Also, staging cues are frequency based. Any changes to the staging from the cable should be reflected in its effects on the FR as it passes through the cable.

The real problem with doing any a/b testing that isn't double blind is that if you have a preconceived notion of what difference the change supposedly makes, you will hear that difference every time. Your psyche is much more convincing to your conscious mind than your ears are.

 

[joetama 5,000+ posts]

It's the same issue...what parameters do you have for an amp? THD+N, FR, even/odd harmonic patterns, output impedance/DF, etc...changing one of those significantly is going to affect the amp's sonics, for better or worse.
You have resistance, inductance and capacitance in a cable...changing any of those is going to affect what comes out the other end. I could see someone liking a cable with a lot of internal capacitance if they have really harsh speakers, as the cable would function as a low pass filter. But just like amps, I'm at a loss to explain how something would sound different when the defining params are held constant...

How about phase? Phase can affect a lot of different things. Also, cables can have very different impedance, capacitance, inductance and propagation. Outputs of devises will react differently to all of these things. All of these factors will change the sound considerably.

IMO...blind tests...and double blind tests are nothing more than a memory game..like when you play that childhood game with the flash cards and you have to flip them over and remember everytime...
bottome line is...if you can hear a difference..then there is a difference..no if ands or buts about it....and it's not that money = better...I've listend to a $30,000 set of transparent audio speaker cables and was less than impressed with them....

and if you don't know how to listen...what to listen for etc, then no it doesn't make a difference...no difference than putting my grandmother behind the wheel of an enzo....

I agree with the example of the blind test. I know it takes me lots of time to fully listen to and define what I like and dislike about speakers. I can not do this in 15 or 20 minutes. I takes me hours and hours.



Bottom line is that everything makes a difference in the sound; sources, Amps, Pre-Amps, Speakers, Cables, power, humidity, temperature, everything. If you can’t hear the difference then I wish I was you!

no ass..before you open you big mouth it's simple...
when you flop back and forth and you re relying on short term memory...your mind plays tricks on you..plain and simple...once again...if you haven't tried cable but are still commenting, then you are talking out your ass...

Most people usually do talk out of their asses, but some don't. It is true that a lot of people can not hear the difference in small changes.

a spectrum analizer cannot and will never be able to measure a difference in width and depth which cable can play a roll in

Indeed....

agreed...i'm a firm believer that all people hear differently...some may be more accute to higher freqs..while some lower etc....but I'm also a firm believer that people can be trained to a certain point....
no difference to people who can see color vs those who are color blind....people who can see clearly vs near/farsided....

I agree, no two people hear the same. That is why there isn't just one system out there that everyone loves to death. And, I also agree that people who have a 'trained' ear are much more sensitive to small changes in the sound.

 

[thylantyr 10+ year member]

Cables are a simple science. If you know the specs of your equipment and

the cable specs, you can run the math to make sure the cable is transparent

to the application. You usually have to try very hard to make a non-transparent

cable, therefore, exotic, expensive, esoteric cables are mainly there to make

someone money or to make the buyer feel that they have something special.

People not trained in electronics and common sense may not agree.

 

[dragonrage 10+ year member]

Also, cables can have very different impedance, capacitance, inductance and propagation. Outputs of devises will react differently to all of these things. All of these factors will change the sound considerably.

All of which are negligible compared to the speaker or the amp itself.

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Actually increasing internal capacitance can play a big role depending on the equipment used //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Ask anyone with a transformer-based volume control or similar "passive" component.

But that's something that can be quantified by a number.

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

How about phase? Phase can affect a lot of different things. Also, cables can have very different impedance, capacitance, inductance and propagation. Outputs of devises will react differently to all of these things. All of these factors will change the sound considerably.

Have you noted the frequency at which these factors actually come into play?

Where I work(ed), we have 6 foot power cables that affect the performance of the units we use. When we examined the cables, we could see that they had a nice spide in inductance in the about the 25-30Mhz band. This 6 foot cable did not have any spikes of any sory until these frequencies.

Changing the length of the cable (6ft in our case) is going to change the spike location and amplitude but I seriously doubt it's going to drop into the audible frequency range. This is also talking some ghetto ass power cable and not audio cables which should have a higher strand count which will limit a high frequency roll off.

 

[Hebrew Hammer 10+ year member]

guys..what you fail to realize..is that everything has it's own signature...nothing is so pure that it doesn't effect the outcome in some way or form....nothing...

I can't think of one thing in audio hell anything that doesn't come with a bi product of some sort....

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

guys..what you fail to realize..is that everything has it's own signature...nothing is so pure that it doesn't effect the outcome in some way or form....nothing...

But if you can't measure it, how can you "hear" the difference? I think you fail to realize how much your brain can trick you.

 

[joetama 5,000+ posts]

All of which are negligible compared to the speaker or the amp itself.

Not true... The reason they seem less important is because of the small numbers, however look how low the voltage is compaired to the voltage of the speaker system.

Actually increasing internal capacitance can play a big role depending on the equipment used //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Ask anyone with a transformer-based volume control or similar "passive" component.
But that's something that can be quantified by a number.

My point was why not find a cable (that is not 0 on everything because it does not exist) that matches and works off of the sources outputs to get the most out of them.



There is no point in even debating this really. It is so worn out every time I see one of these posts I just have to say ‘oh **** here we go again’. People are going to believe what they believe and I am going to believe what I believe. People may think I am ignorant and I think they are. So there is no point. It is like arguing if there is a god, or if we came from apes. Some people can see/feel the difference while other do not.