# Monster Cable vs Coat Hanger



## bigshot

Experiments: Do Coat Hangers Sound As Good Monster Cables?


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## NiceCans

well, coat hangers are excellent conductors . . . . . 
 . . . . ever stick one into an electrical socket?


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## royalcrown

I like the idea of the experiment. Granted, I think there are plenty of benefits to having a proper cable as opposed to a coat hanger (basically shielding, but also just the integrity, convenience, flexibility are all secondary concerns that are real) but it's definitely a reason the monoprice 3 dollar cables will be just as good as Monster Cables.


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## spraggih

Just to join all the threads

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f21/su...hlight=monster

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f21/oh...angers-303107/


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## ethebull

I hang all my shirts and pants on M-series Monster products.


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## Sovkiller

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Experiments: Do Coat Hangers Sound As Good Monster Cables?_

 

Wait...but those guys probably had no trained ears...or the gear used was not up to the task as to reveal the magic nuances of the music...or the experiement methodology was surely flawed...or simply the monster cables suck...or they were not familair with the tracks played, or the gear used, or how they were supposed to sound...
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Just wait and you will see (at least) one of these arguments to show up sooner or later...


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## sejarzo

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *NiceCans* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_well, coat hangers are excellent conductors . . . . . 
 . . . . ever stick one into an electrical socket? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

My HS physics teacher liked goofing around with old TV's, and after zapping himself pretty good during one "experiment", took an 18 inch piece of dowel and attached a long piece of coat hanger wire to the end.......he said that he poked and prodded it around all the big capacitors before sticking his fingers into TV circuitry. 

 Seems to me that one might end up with a section of coat hanger wire welded across the leads of a really big cap, though.....


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## sejarzo

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *royalcrown* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I like the idea of the experiment. Granted, I think there are plenty of benefits to having a proper cable as opposed to a coat hanger (basically shielding, but also just the integrity, convenience, flexibility are all secondary concerns that are real) but it's definitely a reason the monoprice 3 dollar cables will be just as good as Monster Cables._

 

The picture seems not to portray the text of the article properly. I interpreted it to mean that coat hanger wire replaced speaker cabling, not RCA-terminated interconnects (as are shown).......and speaker cabling is generally not shielded.


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## philodox

I guess you can take this a couple of ways. For one, it could just mean that the monster cables are _that _bad.


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## bigshot

That would be a great way to spin it. But if you had actually read the article, you'd see that they tested the monster against belden as well. All tested exactly the same.

 It's painfully obvious that for normal home use, speaker cable is speaker cable.

 See ya
 Steve


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## tstarn06

Well, here's a solution: Fairly-priced speaker cable that resembles coat hanger wires. These things are great, and not too crazy on the cost front (if you keep them relatively short). I use them for my T-Amp/vintage KLH/DVD player system (had them left over from bi-wiring my PSBs in the living room, but decided bi-wiring was a PITA).

Anti-Cables | Home


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## JadeEast

If they had cryoed the coat hangers they probably would have beaten the
 monsters.


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## trains are bad

No surprise here. I've been using extension cord for speaker cable for years, and don't intend to change. Cable supplies nothing but a (generally insignificant) resistive loss and a (definitely insignificant) capacitance.


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## dgbiker1

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JadeEast* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If they had cryoed the coat hangers they probably would have beaten the
 monsters._

 

Haha I'd love trying to explain to the lady why we need cryogenically frozen coat hangers


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## kydsid

egad I knew it I just have to cryo my coat hangers so they wont put little points in the shoulders of my expensive shirts.


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## ecclesand

"NO WIRE HANGERS!!!" 

 From the Mommie, Dearest movie. Couldn't resist.


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## JohnFerrier

YouTube --> "No wirehangers EVER!"


 .


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## Mrvile

Did anyone else see this? 

Monster Cable vs. coat hangers

 Thought it was pretty funny...I'm really curious to see how coat hangers actually sound?


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## rumatt

yes


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## Mrvile

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *rumatt* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_yes_

 

D'oh! Well, I feel like not a lot of people from the lounge actually venture over to the cables forums, so enjoy anyway


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## Lazarus Short

I was told years ago by a fellow whose opinion I trusted that wire is wire. Has anyone really demonstrated that these make any difference?

 metal [copper, silver, steel, zinc, lead, even carbon]
 oxygen content 
 crystal structure
 construction [litz, etc]
 insulation

 I have never been able to tell a difference, as long at the connection was there. The only exception has been going from stock carbon to stainless steel ignition wires, but that's a different application. It would be nice to think that your expensive gold-terminated, silver, oxygen-free, litz-constructed, single-crystal, insulated-with-so-and-so wires sound better, but the only difference I have discerned is how smoothly they push on or pull off of the connections. 

 As I have stated before, if you pull the cover off your gear, you might be shocked to see just what bits of non-audiophile-approved metal the signal typically goes through on its way from input to output.

 This is just my opinion, I don't care to debate this.

 Laz


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## braillediver

There's a reason people chose not to go into the Cable Forum.

 See above.


 Mitch


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## Lazarus Short

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *braillediver* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_There's a reason people chose not to go into the Cable Forum.

 See above.


 Mitch_

 

I venture there rarely. My views are NOT welcome. If this thread gets moved to the cable forum, I'm in deep dooky.

 I just got back, and there are TWO threads in the Cable Forum on this very topic.

 Laz


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## lmilhan

Bluejeans cables for the win.

 Non-nonsense cables that use quality wire, shielding and connectors, custom made to order at very reasonable prices.


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## bhd812

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *braillediver* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_There's a reason people chose not to go into the Cable Forum.

 See above.


 Mitch_

 

seriously that place in the last year went nuts, and i mean just nuts no matter what your ideas are on the issue. i feel like i need to hold another headfiers hand when i click in that section...scary!


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## swt61

C'mon Billy, we'll go in together. There's safety in numbers.


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## RedLeader

Can I come? I'm not sure I'd want to go unless I could hide behind someone.


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## mbriant

Same topic threads have been merged.


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## bigshot

You aren't alone Lazarus.

 See ya
 Steve


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## Lazarus Short

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You aren't alone Lazarus.

 See ya
 Steve_

 

Thanks for the encouraging words! I was considering editing my posts in this thread to nothing - but NO - I will stand by them. 

 Laz


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## tdogzthmn

I found this article on boingboing. Talks about how alot of people pay extra money for "better" sound cables when in reality it does nothing. Read it and let me know what you think. 

Experiments: Do Coat Hangers Sound As Good Monster Cables?

 Makes me wonder if people who upgrade their headphone cables are throwing money down the drain.

 MOD EDIT: This thread/post has been merged into the existing thread.


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## JadeEast

_he took apart four coat hangers, reconnected them and twisted them into a pair of speaker cables. Connections were soldered. He stashed them in a closet within the testing room so we were not privy to what he was up to. This made for a pair of 2 meter cables, the exact length of the other wires._

 Wait a second 4 coat hangers have 2x2x2 meters of wire in them?


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## davidr2287

hmmm....thinking of putting up some coat hangers on the FS forum....


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## TSi

what if the coat hanger was made out of pure copper? =D


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## Lazarus Short

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *davidr2287* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_hmmm....thinking of putting up some coat hangers on the FS forum...._

 

Maybe I can come up with a set of upgrade [U BET!] tonearm wires made from coat hangers...yes the wire-is-wire camp can reach ridiculous lengths, too.

 Laz


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## Uncle Erik

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *sejarzo* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_My HS physics teacher liked goofing around with old TV's, and after zapping himself pretty good during one "experiment", took an 18 inch piece of dowel and attached a long piece of coat hanger wire to the end.......he said that he poked and prodded it around all the big capacitors before sticking his fingers into TV circuitry. 

 Seems to me that one might end up with a section of coat hanger wire welded across the leads of a really big cap, though....._

 

It's not just the caps. Flyback transformers pack a nasty punch, too. A CRT can keep a charge on one for days.


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## rdmorris

I think it comes down to Monster Cables are just as good as hangers. Lets just except it. This wont stop me from buying ALO LODs though.


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## Trubble

Isn't Monster basically like the company BOSE?

_Nothing Special, But You Get Ripped-Off Because Of The Name_


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## oicdn

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *royalcrown* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I like the idea of the experiment. Granted, I think there are plenty of benefits to having a proper cable as opposed to a coat hanger (basically shielding, but also just the integrity, convenience, flexibility are all secondary concerns that are real) but it's definitely a reason the monoprice 3 dollar cables will be just as good as *Most All Cables*._

 

fixed


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## scompton

I think it's ironic that the add on the top of this thread when I just pulled it up was for Monster Cables.


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## edstrelow

This experiment is another example of Troll baloney. 

 There was no control for the issue of break-in and warm up with each set of cables. Every time I change cables they change their sound over several hours of use. You want to know about the stable end level of performance not what they sound like in the first minute or so. 

 Maybe somethings are detectable on an A/B comparison but I want to hear cables over an extended period of time. Every time you pull that switchyou are breaking and making contacts and these need time to stabilize.

 Put them in your system and see what you think after several hours of use. 

 Some companies will allow you to return cables within 30 days if you don't think they are worth having.


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## meat01

It is not troll baloney. It is called an experiment to see if high priced cables really sound better. How would you do the test? Some people would really like to know if their money is well spent on upgrading their cables.

 If the difference is noticeable, you should be able to tell a difference right away and should not have to listen for several hours. So are you saying as long as you listen to your system for less than several hours, a coat hanger will sound the same as other cables?

 Warm up and break-in is another unproven thing that audiophiles talk about.


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## trains are bad

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Lazarus Short* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I was told years ago by a fellow whose opinion I trusted that wire is wire. Has anyone really demonstrated that these make any difference?

 metal [copper, silver, steel, zinc, lead, even carbon]
 oxygen content 
 crystal structure
 construction [litz, etc]
 insulation

 Laz_

 

Nobody has to trust anyone's opinion. It's a fact that wire is indeed wire. Fact. Not opinion. Very much fact. Very much scientifically proven and verified thousands of times a day in thousands of technologies for hundreds of years now. The behavior of copper wire is, you could say, well-known. I'm a materials scientist and my reputation depends on knowing exactly how materials respond and what they can take and what their limitations are (I actually work on solar cells). But you don't have to be, you only need a modicum of common sense and insight to realize that, in audio, wire is indeed wire.

 The metal used has a huge effect on the resistivity of a given size wire. Silver is the most conductive, followed by gold and copper and aluminum and steel. You can look these up in any textbook or google. The oxygen content has an appreciable effect on the resistance of the wire as well. The resistivity of copper drops off pretty fast with increasing oxygen content. And crystalinity also effects resistivity, rather significantly.

 But resistivity doesn't really matter, because if a cable is too resistive, all it does is attenuate the volume of the speaker. It doesn't distort the signal in any other way. That's why we have volume controls. Volume controls are variable *resistors*. It's completely absurd to worry about the resistivity of speaker wire, when you add hundreds or thousands of ohms of resistance for volume control.


 The construction of an audio cable doesn't really matter. The 'skin effect' is a complete joke. Cosmic rays probably effect the signal more, at audio frequencies. And if the skin effect WAS a problem, using multistrand wires would have nothing to do with it. As you would know if you paid attention in electrodynamics class, the net effect of a multistrand bundle of wire, with respect to the skin effect, is the same as a solid wire of the same diameter. At very high (like radio and up) frequencies, where the skin effect IS a real phenomenon, engineers use copper tubing (because the conduction happens more on the surface), sometimes with coolant running inside in high-power applications.

 Capacitances introduced with respect to speaker cable design are completely irrelevant, and it's up in the air whether they are actually a bad thing anyway. As you may know, your speakers have many microfarads worth of *capacitor*s in them, *on purpose*, to add *capacitance*. The manufacturing tolerance of these capacitors, and their variation with temperature is more than the entire capacitance of even a cable that is purposely designed to add capacitance. The only place that capacitance could really matter is the lowest-level stage of an LP playback chain. And then not very much, because cartridges are all different as to their preferred capacitance, again, less is not necessarily better.


 Wire is wire. Buy the cheapest you can find. I use common lamp cord from home depot. I do insist that one of the conductors is marked somehow so that I can easily hook them up, and that they are of sensible gauge. Cables sold specifically for audio are at best completely shameless marketing and at worst, downright fraud.


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## sejarzo

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *edstrelow* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_ .... Every time you pull that switch you are breaking and making contacts and these need time to stabilize..._

 

Is there a scientific basis for that claim?


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## Currawong

Quote:


 Needless to say, after the blind folds came off and we saw what my brother did, we learned he was right...most of what manufactures have to say about their products is pure hype. It seems the more they charge, the more hyped it is. 
 

Still amazes me how people conduct supposedly "scientific" experiments and come to un-scientific conclusions. All it proved was in that particular system, those particular cables made no difference to coat hangers to those particular people. I'd agree though, Monster cables are no better than coat hangers. I don't need a test to tell me that.


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## 883dave

Notice how 

 "We gathered up a 5 of our audio buddies" 

 turns into 

 "Unknown to me and our 12 audiophile buddies"

 I wonder how valid the results of this test are, seeing that he was unable to keep track of how many people were actually in the room

 Read through the previous posts and found this reply

 "he took apart four coat hangers, reconnected them and twisted them into a pair of speaker cables. Connections were soldered. He stashed them in a closet within the testing room so we were not privy to what he was up to. This made for a pair of 2 meter cables, the exact length of the other wires.

 Wait a second 4 coat hangers have 2x2x2 meters of wire in them?"

 I think this article....experiment...what ever... may just be a wee bit of fiction....just to set all you arguing types to arguing....

 Sorry to interupt

 NOW GET BACK TO ARGUING


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## JadeEast

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *883dave* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Notice how 

 "We gathered up a 5 of our audio buddies" 

 turns into 

 "Unknown to me and our 12 audiophile buddies"

 I wonder how valid the results of this test are, seeing that he was unable to keep track of how many people were actually in the room_

 

I still want to know how they made a stereo pair that were 2 meters long out of 4 coat hangers, seems that would only make half the length.????


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## 883dave

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JadeEast* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I still want to know how they made a stereo pair that were 2 meters long out of 4 coat hangers, seems that would only make half the length.????_

 

I read your prior post and edited mine to include yours. Seems the experiment has several holes in it

 Also notice that he has Monster 1000 cable....14 gauge, oxygen free Belden stranded copper wire with a simple PVC jacket...and four coat hangers...all together in a ABX switch box 

 Last time I looked an ABX test is .. A = input "one" .. B = input "two" .. X = random A or B

 Can we say...make believe


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## morphsci

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *meat01* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_It is not troll baloney. It is called an experiment to see if high priced cables really sound better. How would you do the test? Some people would really like to know if their money is well spent on upgrading their cables._

 

Unfortunately the "experiment" may or may not be valid. From the information given I cannot even calculate the power they had to reject since I cannot tell, explicitly how many independent (READ INDEPENDENT) trials they actually did. At this point I cannot accept their results since their description leaves much to be desired. A simple table of the actual results would solve that problem easily. Just the POV of a practicing statistician but argueing over the results is futile unless one can adequately judge those results. This is over and above the other "minor details" mentioned above.


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## JadeEast

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *883dave* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I read your prior post and edited mine to include yours. Seems the experiment has several holes in it

 Also notice that he has Monster 1000 cable....14 gauge, oxygen free Belden stranded copper wire with a simple PVC jacket...and four coat hangers...all together in a ABX switch box 

 Last time I looked an ABX test is .. A = input "one" .. B = input "two" .. X = random A or B

 Can we say...make believe_

 

My reading of it was that the Belden cable was what that they said they were going to test, but the trick was swapping in the coat hanger. So it was a test where the participants thought it was monster vs belden but in fact it was coathanger vs monster.


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## dgbiker1

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *sejarzo* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is there a scientific basis for that claim?_

 

No. For a 2 meter cable a reasonable resistance (Blue Jeans Cable example) would be 0.204 ohms and capacitance of 73.2pF. That gives the cable a time constant of 14.93 picoseconds. Since it takes 5 time constants to get to 99+% of steady state, it would take 75 picoseconds to get to steady state. Thats 0.000000000075 seconds, 75 _trillionths_ of a second. I'm 100% sure the human ear wouldn't even pick up that initial transient when you turn on the system.

 So you don't need hour of use to interface the cables with the system, you only need about 100x10^-12 seconds... and that's being on the safe side
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 Coincidentally, human memory retention drops to about 40% after a few hours (bottoms out at ~30% after ~3 days). Feel free to make your own conclusion, but my opinion the bulk of the difference after a few hours is taking place in the brain and not the cable.


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## bigshot

Auditory memory is measured in seconds, not hours. The only accurate comparison is a direct line level matched A/B. It's the same as trying to judge a slight difference between the colors of the walls of rooms on the opposite sides of a house. It's easier to just compare swatches side by side.

 See ya
 Steve


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## UseName

i don't get it? 

 Fair experiments are repeatible. Instead of arguing that monster cables suck in the first place, or the parameters are bad, ect, ect. 

 Why not just repeat the experiment, or better yet, create a new experiment that both sides agree on? Have a couple respectible posters from both sides design and carry out a test, then sticky it... whatever the results may be. 

 Seems pretty childish to argue about something that can be proven.


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## oicdn

FWIW, in the article of Hi-Fi this month, the Monster Cable head haunch-o said they did testing with silver instead of copper and SPC on their new high end cables, and they stated "Silver sounds good for marketing, but even on the measurable level, it's differences are negligible." 

 Nice...


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## dgbiker1

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *UseName* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_i don't get it? 

 Fair experiments are repeatible. Instead of arguing that monster cables suck in the first place, or the parameters are bad, ect, ect. 

 Why not just repeat the experiment, or better yet, create a new experiment that both sides agree on? Have a couple respectible posters from both sides design and carry out a test, then sticky it... whatever the results may be. 

 Seems pretty childish to argue about something that can be proven._

 

Unfortunately it's not that black and white. You have people that believe the only parameters that affect SQ are the measurable R,L, and C values of the cable, while other believe science hasn't reached the point where it can measure things that make an audible difference. People can and have done very scientific measurements of cable properties (i.e. ex-McIntosh engineers, someone that I would trust in the field) and measured sound output from speakers using various cables, but skeptics won't buy that.

 When it comes to listening tests, you'll have sides that disagree on how those should be conducted too. I think everyone would agree on double-blind testing, but do you do A/B testing, do you listen to each for a few hours or days at a time? A few posts back you see someone claiming switching back & forth between cables doesn't give you a steady-state response, while I think long-term testing is influenced more by memory than actual cable differences. Who do you test it on, enthusiasts or experts?

 The problem is the listener's brain is one of the (extremely non-linear and unpredictable) variables in the experiment, and no one has a rock-solid, no-doubt-about-it understanding of the brain. In my human subject research (neuromuscular properties), you do everything you can to get de-cerebrate information (usually de-cerebrate cats, not people
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




), or eliminate the effects of the brain through some protocol or instruction. Here, the brain is one of the critical links. If/when someone comes up with a comprehensive model of the brain, and it is widely accepted, this subject _might_ be laid to rest... but that won't be for a loooooong time.

 The way I see it if you perceive a difference, whether it's placebo or real, just be happy with it. You may have paid for a physiological difference and not an electrical one, but at the end of the day your brain hears something different, so just be happy with it. Just don't try to force your interpretation on others that don't perceive the same difference.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *oicdn* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_FWIW, in the article of Hi-Fi this month, the Monster Cable head haunch-o said they did testing with silver instead of copper and SPC on their new high end cables, and they stated "Silver sounds good for marketing, but even on the measurable level, it's differences are negligible." 

 Nice..._

 

But neither sounds as good as my homemade Uranium cables. They give the music a "glowing" quality


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## oicdn

I dunno, I just seem to think that if a monster marketing-brainwashing-based (for the typical consumer atleast) cable company thinks silver is a waste of time...then, I dunno, I would assume it is. Not saying it's absolute, but makes me go "hmmmm...."


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## Uncle Erik

dgbiker1, this skeptic would very much like to read the cable measurement studies done by McIntosh engineers. I just ran a few searches for that and did not find them. If you could post a link or cite a book or academic journal, I would be quite interested in reading it. I want to know what they found and, especially, what test methods they used. So often, people claim that there is no way to test cables. These engineers did, and how they did so should be of interest to everyone in this debate.

 Also, why test cables with anything alive? I would like to see a very sensitive microphone record music played by a speaker fed, alternatively, with an expensive cable and lamp cord. Take the two recordings and have a computer compare the two. That should reveal any difference.


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## dgbiker1

Uncle Erik, here is the link: Speaker Wire
 I should clarify that by skeptics I mean skeptics of scientific method and not cable skeptics... I was a unclear with that. Basically The McIntosh guys found no difference between lamp wire and "magic" wire. The big factor was wire gage.
 I agree about keeping anything alive out of the test (specifically anything that thinks), that's what I do in all my research. I think they gray area here is that audio ultimately ends up in the brain to be processed, and some people will say a difference might not be measured by equipment. I think if a difference can't be measured, it probably isn't big enough to be heard. And if you can hear it back-to-back, you probably won't remember it after a few seconds, so what's the point?


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## UseName

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dgbiker1* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Unfortunately it's not that black and white. You have people that believe the only parameters that affect SQ are the measurable R,L, and C values of the cable, while other believe science hasn't reached the point where it can measure things that make an audible difference. People can and have done very scientific measurements of cable properties (i.e. ex-McIntosh engineers, someone that I would trust in the field) and measured sound output from speakers using various cables, but skeptics won't buy that._

 

This I can understand. 

  Quote:


 
 When it comes to listening tests, you'll have sides that disagree on how those should be conducted too. I think everyone would agree on double-blind testing, but do you do A/B testing, do you listen to each for a few hours or days at a time? A few posts back you see someone claiming switching back & forth between cables doesn't give you a steady-state response, while I think long-term testing is influenced more by memory than actual cable differences. Who do you test it on, enthusiasts or experts?

 

Why not do both? Test as much as you can. Seems to me it would be beneficial to everyone on this forum if we could determine exactly what causes our systems to sound better. 

 But first I think it would be helpful to start somewhere instead of getting into heated arguments. 

 I mean, the original article in this thread supports the theory that cables do not make a difference. We have some people here that have issues with the experiment. That is fine, but it doesn't totally debunk the theory or experiment. What would help debunk it is if these people were to reconduct the experiment with parameters that make sense to them. 

 For example, lets say a person thinks monsters suck to start with. How about you reconduct the test with cables that you know make a difference. If you want your test to have credibility, you would use an unbiased 3rd party to assist you. 

 If you think it needs to be steady state to make a difference, then fine, perform a steady state experiment. The first question that is causing the problem is, do ANY cables make a difference. Once an experiment is successful in showing that they do, we can then proceed to find out which cables, and the why. 

 I mean, if believers really want to end these discussions, they have to be the ones willing to show that they can tell the difference. A non-believer, has no way to prove that they can't tell the difference. But a believer sure does. 

  Quote:


 The way I see it if you perceive a difference, whether it's placebo or real, just be happy with it. You may have paid for a physiological difference and not an electrical one, but at the end of the day your brain hears something different, so just be happy with it. Just don't try to force your interpretation on others that don't perceive the same difference.


 But neither sounds as good as my homemade Uranium cables. They give the music a "glowing" quality


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## Drag0n

They neglected to tell you that the coat hangers used in the test were pure silver and taken from Paris Hilton's personal walk-in closet. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 She had Kimber Silver melted to custom create these


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## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dgbiker1* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_People can and have done very scientific measurements of cable properties (i.e. ex-McIntosh engineers, someone that I would trust in the field) and measured sound output from speakers using various cables, but skeptics won't buy that._

 

I'm not sure how you're defining skeptic. I certainly agree that there are properties to cables that can affect the sound. I just don't think that high end cables are any better than budget ones in this regard.

 When it comes to aspects of sound that are not yet measurable... The first step is controlled testing to make sure the aspect actually exists. The second step is defining what the difference is, and the third is determining the cause. It isn't good enough to just throw your hands up and say, "we can't know everything." You have to go through the process of trying to figure it out.

 See ya
 Steve


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## PointyFox

According to this, "Audiophiles can't tell the difference between monster cable and coathangers".
   
  http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/03/audiophiles-cant-tell-the-difference-between-monster-cable-and/


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## flight567

so my question is, if i hear a difference, isn't the money well spent? psycoacoustics, placebo, what ever you call it. if i hear a difference it was worth it to me. give a person with a disease a sugar pill you label "magical curing pill" and they get better, did they actually get better? yes.  so perhaps there isn't a "difference" but when i know it, on my setup, there is a difference to me. and that's what makes the money well spent. too, they generally look better lol.


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## sonq

I can accept that SOME branded cables are little more than marketing hype and nice packaging, but it's totally different thing to say cables all sound the same. Even  differences in audio quality between stranded and solid core cables from radioshack is fairly obvious on a good, well setup budget system.
   
  Saying that I there are no differences just because it's not measurable is like saying germs and viruses doesn't exist before the microscope was invented.


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## liamstrain

Quote: 





sonq said:


> Saying that I there are no differences just because it's not measurable is like saying germs and viruses doesn't exist before the microscope was invented.


 
   
  Maybe, but you have a long row to hoe, to show that the ear can detect them either then. Since we can demonstrate pretty conclusively that the instrumentation is many more times more sensitive than the ear, and mathematical analysis of measured data many times more accurate. 
   
  It also doesn't explain why those differences vanish when blind testing is used. 
  
  Once you add in the brain's demonstrated and proven penchant for psycho-acoustic biases, any objective argument for cables has vanished.


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## sonq

liamstrain said:


> Quote:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




If a component or cable sounds good in my system, I simply do not care if it measures well. I purchase it for my own listening pleasure and nothing else. 

Why bother to buy any component that need a host of measurements and double blind tests to proof that the improvement are real? I'm sure there are better things to spend money and time on.

Here's an interesting article on measuring audio quality http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-20113895-47/can-sound-quality-be-measured/


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## liamstrain

Quote: 





sonq said:


> If a component or cable sounds good in my system, I simply do not care if it measures well. I purchase it for my own listening pleasure and nothing else.
> Why bother to buy any component that need a host of measurements and double blind tests to proof that the improvement are real? I'm sure there are better things to spend money and time on.
> Here's an interesting article on measuring audio quality http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-20113895-47/can-sound-quality-be-measured/


 


  Does the truth matter? Does it matter to you that something sounds good to you because you (unconsciously) expect it to, rather than something (usually expensive) actually having an objective true effect? There are many good reasons for better and custom cables - but none of them are related to sound quality.
   
  *shrug*


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## Mauricio

Quote: 





sonq said:


> If a component or cable sounds good in my system, I simply do not care if it measures well. I purchase it for my own listening pleasure and nothing else.


 


  No quibbles if it sounds good to you.  For those of us who have a greater curiosity about the physical world and greater awareness and humility of our own biases and senses, we like to know *why* it sounds better.


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## fatcat28037

STOP...........this thread died 4 years ago, let it lie.


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## Photogeo180

Objection: There will always be newbies like me reading old threads 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  (especially when looking for answers to questions like cables and their placebo or non placebo effects....!!)


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## Mauricio

Objection:  who put FatCat in charge of the universe?


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## liamstrain

Quote: 





photogeo180 said:


> Objection: There will always be newbies like me reading old threads
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 


  The sound science subforum is the best place for those discussions, old a new. Hope to see you there.


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