# Why do/don't "audiophile" cables improve sound?



## colonelkernel8

Title says it all. I only want friendly discussion/debate. No nonsense posts. No "I don't know, it just sounds better to me" posts. Only facts please (marketing mumbo-jumbo does not qualify, cite your references). Data and tables/graphs are encouraged.

 Focus should probably remain on the more controversial cables like power cords and digital cables. But analog signal cables are alright as well.

 Trolling is really pointless in this thread, so don't bother, especially if you already know my position on cables.


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## markl

Capacitance and inductance.


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## colonelkernel8

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *markl* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Capacitance and inductance._

 

I can't really tell what you are getting at? Is that a for or against argument? Be a little more specific and informative. That isn't really a reason "why" either.


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## yotacowboy

some light reading. let me know when you're finished, and we can discuss. kthnxbye!


Amazon.com: Grounding and Shielding Techniques: Books: Ralph Morrison

Amazon.com: Electromagnetic Fields and Interactions (Blaisdell Book in the Pure and Applied Sciences.): Books: Richard Becker

Amazon.com: Wire,Cable&Fiber Optics Vid &: Books: Stephen H. Lampen

Amazon.com: Electronic Properties of Engineering Materials (Mit Series in Materials Science and Engineering): Books: James D. Livingston


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## TreAdidas

For me I believe that it is all placebo effect and at the end of the day I am perfectly happy with that. I figure as long as you have a good connection life is peachy.

 Honest opinion - This is going to spark the objective vs subjective debate which :yawn: has been done to the nth degree. As I am sure you are all acutely aware, some people believe results can be measured by machines (yielding tables and graphs) and others believe that the human ear can detect differences that machines cannot. I personally fall into the latter.

 Since you're interested in objective data, perhaps you should revise the thread title to "An objective approach: Why do/don't "audiophile" cables improve sound?"

 I say this not to troll. I am genuinely interested in the objective viewpoint but as the question is currently posed it is bound to start an unfriendly debate. I've fallen into this trap when asking honest questions myself.

 Just a suggestion. Lookin' forward to some informed responses!


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## tot

In digital cables, at least with S/PDIF standard, the signal also carries timing information to the DAC. Thus noise and reflections in the cable do affect the waveform and thus the recovered clock.

 However, a proper DAC should be immune to the incoming jitter and use "average" timing to reclock the DAC. Unfortunately most still are not and could be affected by the cable.

 Thus, IMHO, if a digital cable changes the sound, get a proper DAC instead of an expensive cable.


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## d-cee

shielding


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## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *markl* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Capacitance and inductance._

 

don't forget impedance!


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## chesebert

clock skew, charge deposition, skin effects, lattice interactions, dielectric isolator; mostly these plus the ones mentioned before. oh and don't forget my fav set of formulas lumped wire model (actually my fav are the maxwell equations...pure genius)


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## colonelkernel8

Im sorry, these ridiculous one word answers aren't going to cut it. And just listing off a bunch of so-called effects aren't helping either. How about describing each effect and what it has to do with the cable's performance. Again, cited references are a plus.


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## viggen

Skin effect... or the lack thereof.


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## tot

No nonsense information about cables.

 Besides, I think resistance has not been mentioned yet.


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## chesebert

I think the words mentioned are general concepts that influence performance of any interconnect; without understanding of what those are, one cannot appreciate further discussions based on those fundamental principles . 

 This cable discussion should really be relegated to ppl with EE, Material E, and Physics backgrounds; I am trying not to be snobby about all this, but its really fundamentally an engineering and science problem; and without the prerequisite courses/background, you wouldn't understand or appreciate the discussion.


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## chesebert

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_No nonsense information about cables.

 Besides, I think resistance has not been mentioned yet._

 

R was mentioned as part of the lumped wire model.


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## d-cee

doing a quick search on the keywords 

 shielding stops stray signals from nearby devices or even stuff like radio signals from infecting your signal

 edit: here's some good reading Blue Jeans Cable--Index of Informational Articles no marketing there


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## LawnGnome

Ok, cables do have different inductance, capacitance, and resistance.

 But that is not what is being asked to be proven.

 Show how those qualities affect audio.

 Fact is, the effects can not be measured in the audio range. Despite using instruments many many times more sensitive and accurate than human hearing.

 So you have proved cables have different specs. Now prove that actually makes a difference.


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## Uncle Erik

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_don't forget impedance!_

 

Sure. And resistance should be included, as well. I don't have proof (yet) but I think varying resistance accounts for the difference in sound between cables. For the record, I think the believers are sincere about hearing a difference. My rub is that you should not have to spend $350 on exotic materials to achieve that result. Further, that you can produce the identical sound with lamp cord and carefully calculated resistors and other components.

 Again, just my opinion so far. It is the only way I can reconcile what people say they hear and what I see as objective reality. Every conductor has resistance, but I do not think the difference between cables is anything more exotic than simple resistance, as well as the other electrical properties mentioned.

 The holidays, a cruise and the Zana tapped out my expendable cash for the next month, but I am planning to buy an interconnect, measure the hell out of it, and then build an electrically equivalent clone out of the cheapest parts I can find to see if they sound the same. Might even mail them to other Head-Fi'ers for impressions. Yes, subjective, but I think it would have value.

 As for power cables, I've thought about a test where a third party deliberately introduces line noise into a circuit slowly and the listener would indicate when noise or distortion was heard. I believe that a stock power supply would eliminate a surprising amount before any human heard a difference.


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## chesebert

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Uncle Erik* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Sure. And resistance should be included, as well. I don't have proof (yet) but I think varying resistance accounts for the difference in sound between cables. For the record, I think the believers are sincere about hearing a difference. My rub is that you should not have to spend $350 on exotic materials to achieve that result. Further, that you can produce the identical sound with lamp cord and carefully calculated resistors and other components.

 Again, just my opinion so far. It is the only way I can reconcile what people say they hear and what I see as objective reality. Every conductor has resistance, but I do not think the difference between cables is anything more exotic than simple resistance, as well as the other electrical properties mentioned.

 The holidays, a cruise and the Zana tapped out my expendable cash for the next month, but I am planning to buy an interconnect, measure the hell out of it, and then build an electrically equivalent clone out of the cheapest parts I can find to see if they sound the same. Might even mail them to other Head-Fi'ers for impressions. Yes, subjective, but I think it would have value.

 As for power cables, I've thought about a test where a third party deliberately introduces line noise into a circuit slowly and the listener would indicate when noise or distortion was heard. I believe that a stock power supply would eliminate a surprising amount before any human heard a difference._

 

you can try but I doubt you will be successful because most of the fundamental cable characteristics are a function of freq, so your measurement at DC is IMO useless. But you should try anyway just to satisfy your own curiosity


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## tot

About hearing a difference, someone did a controlled speaker cable test. The interesting thing is that the listener was sure he got all cables right, even though the real result was pretty random.


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## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_About hearing a difference, someone did a controlled speaker cable test. The interesting thing is that the listener was sure he got all cables right, even though the real result was pretty random._

 


 Someone here also sent around 3 cables for people to test. All different construction, but all looked identical.

 Only one person out of about 30 correctly identified the 3 cables. Pure chance alone there was a 1 in 27 chance of getting them right by guessing.

 The rest of the results followed exactly what a purely random test would suggest.


 Also, our famous Patrick82 posted a video of his own blind test. He failed to properly identify the cable used in the test.

 However, he claims it is because it wasn't plugged in just right.

 So even here at head-fi, our own members have shown there is no discernible difference between cables.


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## tom hankins

Simple theory on what a makes a cable good or bad.
 First I dont care at all about cable theory, it makes my brain bleed.
 i do find big differences between some cables and little to none between others.
 Anyway, good cables make my system sound good, bad cables dont.
 The best BY FAR I have used in my present system have been the silver cables from Audioquest. I use four pair Skys and one pair of the Niagras.
 Its not my job to figure out why cables make my system sound the best.......my job is to find them,and pay for them. LOL, My wife just read this and said I need to find a new job.


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## Sovkiller

AFAIK skin effect is only noticebable, and a problem, in ultra high frequencies, *but not in the audio spectrum* see here for more info...

 IIRC the main parameters that are studied and really offer relevance in the majority of the audio signals transmissions are: the capacitance, the inductance and the impedance...see here , here, here, hope this clear some concepts for some members...

 Please before going with the same usual numbo-jumbo that "this company is trying to sell you this and that, etc..." Please read these whole articles, and later on, take a deep breath and think with a fresh brain. Take into consideration the final cost of the cables that this company sell, the cost of materials involved (that can be easily calculated) the labor with ultraexpensive swiss crimping press machines (that could be estimated) and how much profit is left for them after offering 30 days money back warranty "no questions asked" on their cables for any size/type of cable....Then see if you can find any info, on any website of those exotic boutique cables manufacturers that can tell you what they are actually selling you, OK???...with table, graphs, technical data, etc...or anything ot back their claims...

 One more time I have an original factory pressed CD offered some time ago, free of charge, by Wireworld, in which they compare several cables with their own cables, using the same track, and same recording, machine and gear associated, in a recording studio, the recording of this track using different cables, should reveal the differences, if any, among them. Some of the cables they used for the test, were from well known manufacturers, Nordost, Cardas, Monster, BJC, etc...
 Please notice that I said "should reveal the differences", and I'm not quantifying/qualifying that difference, just that there should be one.

 I know that If you beleive that the difference exist, as a result you have to admit that it will be colored also by your setup, but even colored, there shlould still be one specially if your system is so revealing that reveals difference in other cables...

 Sorry but IMO there is none, and if there is one, it is so minuscule, that if you ask me, I don't care about it a little bit, as I do not hear it...if any member wants a copy of the CD, just PM me overed the cost of media and shipping, and I gladly will copy it. Unfortunatelly it is no longer offered, and in part I believe that this CD was a boomerang, as it could be easily used to demonstrate the opposite of what they intended to do, and they simply stop offering it...


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## viggen

6 Ns.


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## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Show how those qualities affect audio._

 

You ready?

 First, we need to realize that yes, indeed, bits are bits, and it's unlikely that a cable will cause any bits to drop. BUT, digital noise which is certainly at frequencies within human hearing range can be caused by timing errors introduced by the cable, if it is presenting an impedance mis-match between either the transport or the DAC. take a deep breath (this was gleaned from another audio board, and may be viewed as "unsubstantiated"... as posted by an audiogon member) but it covers the topic quite well:

 "Let's talk about jitter. Jitter is not a harmonic distortion. It is a clock timing error that introduces an effect called phase noise either when a signal is sampled (at the A/D) or the reconstruction of a signal (at the D/A), or both.

 Think of it this way: a sine wave goes through 360 degrees of phase over a single cycle. Suppose we were to sample a sine wave whose frequency was exactly 11.025 kHz. This means that with a 44.1 kHz sample rate we would take exactly four samples of the sine wave every cycle. The digital samples would each represent an advance in the sine wave's phase by 90 degrees (1/4 of a cycle). The DAC clock is also supposed to run at 44.1 kHz; think of this as a "strobe" that occurs every 22.676 nanoseconds (millionths of a second) that tells the DAC when to create an analog voltage corresponding to the digital word currently in the DAC's input register. In the case of our sine wave, this creates a stairstep approximation to the sinewave, four steps per cycle. Shannon's theorem says that by applying a perfect low pass filter to the stairsteps, we can recover the original sinewave (let's set aside quantization error for the moment... that's a different issue). Jitter means that these strobes don't come exactly when scheduled, but a little early or late, in random fashion. We still have a stairstep approximation to the sine wave, and the levels of the stair step are right, but the "risers" between steps are a little early or late -- they aren't exatly 22.676 microseconds apart.

 When this stairtep is lowpass filtered, you get something that looks like a sine wave, but if you look very close at segments of the sine wave, you will discover that they don't correspond to a sinewave of at exactly 11.025 kHz but sometimes to a sinewave at a tiny bit higher frequency, and sometimes to a sinewave at tiny bit lower frequency. Frequency is a measure of how fast phase changes. When the stairstep risers which corresponds to 45 degrees of phase of the sinewave in our example, comes a little early, we get an analog signal that looks like a bit of a sine wave at slightly above 11.025 kHz.

 Conversely, if the stairstep riser is a bit late, it's as if our sine wave took a bit longer to go through 1/4 of a cycle, as if it has a frequency slightly less than 11.025 kHz. You can think of this as a sort of unwanted frequency modulation, introducing a broadband noise in the audio. If the jitter is uncorrelated with the signal, most of the energy is centered around the true tone frequency, falling off with at lower and higher frequencies. If the jitter is correlated with the signal, peaks in the noise spectrum can occur at discrete frequencies. Of the two effects, I'd bet the latter is more noticeable and objectionable.

 Where does jitter come from? It can come if one tries to construct the DAC clock from the SPDIF signal itself. The data rate of the SPDIF signal is 2.8224 Mb/sec = 64 bits x 44,100 samples/sec (the extra bits are used for header info). The waveforms used to represent ones and zeroes are designed so that there is always a transition from high to low or low to high from bit to bit, with a "zero" having a constant level and a "one" having within it a transition from high to low or low to high (depending on whether the previous symbol ended with a "high" or a "low"). Writing down an analysis of this situation requires advanced mathematics, so suffice it to say that if one does a spectrum analysis of this signal (comprising a sequence of square pulses), there will be a very strong peak at 5.6448 MHz (=128 x 44.1 kHz). A phase locked loop can be used to lock onto this spectrum peak in attempt to recover a 5.6448 MHz clock signal, and if we square up the sine wave and use a simple 128:1 countdown divider would produce a 44.1 kHz clock. Simple, but the devil is in the details. The problem is that the bit stream is not a steady pattern of ones and zeroes; instead it's an unpredictable mix of ones and zeros. So if we look closely at the spectrum of the SPDIF waveform we don't find a perfect tone at 5.6448 MHz, but a very high peak that falls off rapidly with frequency. It has the spectrum of a jittered sine wave! This means the clock recovered from the SPDIF data stream is jittered.

 The jitter is there due to the fundamental randomness of the data stream, not because of imperfections in transmitting the data from transport to DAC, or cable mismatch, or dropped bits or anything else. In other words, even if you assume PERFECT data, PERFECT cable, PERFECT transport, and PERFECT DAC, you still get jitter IF you recover the clock from the SPIF data stream. (You won't do better using IMPERFECT components, by the way). The way out of the problem is not to recover the DAC clock from the data stream. Use other means. For example, instead of direct clock recovery, use indirect clock recovery. That is, stuff the data into a FIFO buffer, and reclock it out at 44.1 kHz, USING YOUR OWN VERY STABLE (low-jitter) CLOCK -- not one derived from the SPIF bitstream. Watch the buffer, and if it's starting to fill up, bump up the DAC clock rate a bit and start emptying the buffer faster. If the FIFO buffer is emptying out, back off the clock rate a bit. If the transport is doing it's job right, data will be coming in at constant rate, and ideally, that rate is exactly 44,100 samples per seconds (per channel). In reality, it may be a bit off the ideal and wander around a bit (this partly explains why different transports can "sound different" -- these errors make the pitch may be a bit off, or wander around a tiny bit).

 Note that recovering the DAC clock from the SPDIF data stream allows the DAC clock to follow these errors in the transport data clock rate -- an advantage of direct clock recovery. But use a big enough buffer so that the changes to DAC clock rate don't have to happen very often or be very big, and even these errors are overcome.

 Thus indirect clock recovery avoids jitter, and overcomes transport-induced data rate errors (instead of just repeating them). Better audio DACs, such as the Levinson 360S use this FIFO buffering and reclocking idea to avoid jitter. In principle, a DAC that uses this kind of indirect clock recovery will be impervious to the electrical nuances of different digital cables meeting SPDIF interface specifications."

 So by this estimation, not only can errors occur as a result of signal carrying cables (being that they're not perfectly impedance matched and may be affected by EM, i.e., poor shielding, especially at SPDIF's transmission frequency... go read some transmission line theory type stuff to see that less than optimal impedance matching can introduce standing waves within the cable, causing timing errors, or jitter, yada yada), but by introducing jitter, they alter the frequency of the original signal (what we hear as pitch or tone), and potentially introduce spurious noise and at frequencies which directly correlate to the audio band which most of us can actually hear).

 But, the flipside is that bits are bits...

 regardless, my bits is music.

 -reference thread, there's MUCH more worth reading here:

AudiogoN Forums: Why do digital cables sound different?


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## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You ready?

 First, we need to realize that yes, indeed, bits are bits, and it's unlikely that a cable will cause any bits to drop. BUT, digital noise which is certainly at frequencies within human hearing range can be caused by timing errors introduced by the cable, if it is presenting an impedance mis-match between either the transport or the DAC. take a deep breath (this was gleaned from another audio board, and may be viewed as "unsubstantiated"... as posted by an audiogon member) but it covers the topic quite well:

 "Let's talk about jitter. Jitter is not a harmonic distortion. It is a clock timing error that introduces an effect called phase noise either when a signal is sampled (at the A/D) or the reconstruction of a signal (at the D/A), or both.

 Think of it this way: a sine wave goes through 360 degrees of phase over a single cycle. Suppose we were to sample a sine wave whose frequency was exactly 11.025 kHz. This means that with a 44.1 kHz sample rate we would take exactly four samples of the sine wave every cycle. The digital samples would each represent an advance in the sine wave's phase by 90 degrees (1/4 of a cycle). The DAC clock is also supposed to run at 44.1 kHz; think of this as a "strobe" that occurs every 22.676 nanoseconds (millionths of a second) that tells the DAC when to create an analog voltage corresponding to the digital word currently in the DAC's input register. In the case of our sine wave, this creates a stairstep approximation to the sinewave, four steps per cycle. Shannon's theorem says that by applying a perfect low pass filter to the stairsteps, we can recover the original sinewave (let's set aside quantization error for the moment... that's a different issue). Jitter means that these strobes don't come exactly when scheduled, but a little early or late, in random fashion. We still have a stairstep approximation to the sine wave, and the levels of the stair step are right, but the "risers" between steps are a little early or late -- they aren't exatly 22.676 microseconds apart.

 When this stairtep is lowpass filtered, you get something that looks like a sine wave, but if you look very close at segments of the sine wave, you will discover that they don't correspond to a sinewave of at exactly 11.025 kHz but sometimes to a sinewave at a tiny bit higher frequency, and sometimes to a sinewave at tiny bit lower frequency. Frequency is a measure of how fast phase changes. When the stairstep risers which corresponds to 45 degrees of phase of the sinewave in our example, comes a little early, we get an analog signal that looks like a bit of a sine wave at slightly above 11.025 kHz.

 Conversely, if the stairstep riser is a bit late, it's as if our sine wave took a bit longer to go through 1/4 of a cycle, as if it has a frequency slightly less than 11.025 kHz. You can think of this as a sort of unwanted frequency modulation, introducing a broadband noise in the audio. If the jitter is uncorrelated with the signal, most of the energy is centered around the true tone frequency, falling off with at lower and higher frequencies. If the jitter is correlated with the signal, peaks in the noise spectrum can occur at discrete frequencies. Of the two effects, I'd bet the latter is more noticeable and objectionable.

 Where does jitter come from? It can come if one tries to construct the DAC clock from the SPDIF signal itself. The data rate of the SPDIF signal is 2.8224 Mb/sec = 64 bits x 44,100 samples/sec (the extra bits are used for header info). The waveforms used to represent ones and zeroes are designed so that there is always a transition from high to low or low to high from bit to bit, with a "zero" having a constant level and a "one" having within it a transition from high to low or low to high (depending on whether the previous symbol ended with a "high" or a "low"). Writing down an analysis of this situation requires advanced mathematics, so suffice it to say that if one does a spectrum analysis of this signal (comprising a sequence of square pulses), there will be a very strong peak at 5.6448 MHz (=128 x 44.1 kHz). A phase locked loop can be used to lock onto this spectrum peak in attempt to recover a 5.6448 MHz clock signal, and if we square up the sine wave and use a simple 128:1 countdown divider would produce a 44.1 kHz clock. Simple, but the devil is in the details. The problem is that the bit stream is not a steady pattern of ones and zeroes; instead it's an unpredictable mix of ones and zeros. So if we look closely at the spectrum of the SPDIF waveform we don't find a perfect tone at 5.6448 MHz, but a very high peak that falls off rapidly with frequency. It has the spectrum of a jittered sine wave! This means the clock recovered from the SPDIF data stream is jittered.

 The jitter is there due to the fundamental randomness of the data stream, not because of imperfections in transmitting the data from transport to DAC, or cable mismatch, or dropped bits or anything else. In other words, even if you assume PERFECT data, PERFECT cable, PERFECT transport, and PERFECT DAC, you still get jitter IF you recover the clock from the SPIF data stream. (You won't do better using IMPERFECT components, by the way). The way out of the problem is not to recover the DAC clock from the data stream. Use other means. For example, instead of direct clock recovery, use indirect clock recovery. That is, stuff the data into a FIFO buffer, and reclock it out at 44.1 kHz, USING YOUR OWN VERY STABLE (low-jitter) CLOCK -- not one derived from the SPIF bitstream. Watch the buffer, and if it's starting to fill up, bump up the DAC clock rate a bit and start emptying the buffer faster. If the FIFO buffer is emptying out, back off the clock rate a bit. If the transport is doing it's job right, data will be coming in at constant rate, and ideally, that rate is exactly 44,100 samples per seconds (per channel). In reality, it may be a bit off the ideal and wander around a bit (this partly explains why different transports can "sound different" -- these errors make the pitch may be a bit off, or wander around a tiny bit).

 Note that recovering the DAC clock from the SPDIF data stream allows the DAC clock to follow these errors in the transport data clock rate -- an advantage of direct clock recovery. But use a big enough buffer so that the changes to DAC clock rate don't have to happen very often or be very big, and even these errors are overcome.

 Thus indirect clock recovery avoids jitter, and overcomes transport-induced data rate errors (instead of just repeating them). Better audio DACs, such as the Levinson 360S use this FIFO buffering and reclocking idea to avoid jitter. In principle, a DAC that uses this kind of indirect clock recovery will be impervious to the electrical nuances of different digital cables meeting SPDIF interface specifications."

 So by this estimation, not only can errors occur as a result of signal carrying cables (being that they're not perfectly impedance matched and may be affected by EM, i.e., poor shielding, especially at SPDIF's transmission frequency... go read some transmission line theory type stuff to see that less than optimal impedance matching can introduce standing waves within the cable, causing timing errors, or jitter, yada yada), but by introducing jitter, they alter the frequency of the original signal (what we hear as pitch or tone), and potentially introduce spurious noise (specifically, at around 11kHz, a frequency which most of us can actually hear).

 But, the flipside is that bits are bits...

 regardless, my bits is music.

 -reference thread, there's MUCH more worth reading here:

AudiogoN Forums: Why do digital cables sound different?_

 

If you read that, and understand it, it does not even come close to explaining it at all.


 In fact, that isn't even on topic. That excerpt is about jitter, not cables.


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## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If you read that, and understand it, it does not even come close to explaining it at all.


 In fact, that isn't even on topic. That excerpt is about jitter, not cables._

 

here's the short of it:

 impedance mis-match can cause standing waves in a digital cable carrying SPDIF signal.

 Standing waves can cause timing errors when the bits are converted to an audio signal.

 Timing errors (jitter) can create noise in the audio signal.

 This noise occurs at frequencies which we can hear. in other words, this shows how impedance can affect audio.


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## Sovkiller

I think that the real challenge is not ot prove that cables measure different, we all know that...and indeed the big cable manufacturers (mass cable manufacturers not the voodooish ones) publish those specs and update them while needed. The real challenge is to prove or demonstrate to what extent, those measurable differences in these parameters of the cable, will have a noticeable effect in what we actually hear or not...also consider that the audio is a mixture of frequencies, real complex, we have also distortion that are not inherent to the cable, that is introduced in the equation, at different harmonics, by the sources, amps, recordings, etc...and at the end the limitations of our hearing also, and the difference between the hearing in different individuals...It is not an easy task at all IMO...


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## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_here's the short of it:

 impedance mis-match can cause standing waves in a digital cable carrying SPDIF signal.

 Standing waves can cause timing errors when the bits are converted to an audio signal.

 Timing errors (jitter) can create noise in the audio signal.

 This noise occurs at frequencies which we can hear. in other words, this shows how impedance can affect audio._

 


 That isn't what your article said. Cite your sources so I can look them over please.

 But realize, there is two parts to this, first we have to prove this is actually happening in the slow speeds which is the audio range, and then we have to prove it actually makes an audible effect.


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## viggen

You have to explain why explaining why explains why.


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## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You have to explain why explaining why explains why._

 

Yes.

 Its all about process. 

 If cables measuring differently is A, and those differences making an audible change is B.

 Then first, you have to prove A is true. But then you have to prove than B is true. Because A can be true without B being true.


 Cables measuring differently is a well known fact. However, even partially controlled studies have shown they don't make an audible difference.

 So when people say there is no difference between cables, they actually mean there is no audible difference.


 You must realize that the audio band is very narrow, and very slow. It is not very demanding in the slightest.


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## Sarchi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_So when people say there is no difference between cables, they actually mean there is no audible difference._

 

Certainly no "dramatic" or repeatable differences, in my experience. Rolling cables is just boring as hell. Rolling tubes, capacitors, etc. <-- Fun.


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## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Sarchi* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Certainly no "dramatic" or repeatable differences, in my experience. Rolling cables is just boring as hell. Rolling tubes, capacitors, etc. <-- Fun._

 


 I'd have to agree. When building my PPA, I experimented with Jupiter 28ga copper wire, and 22ga cryo tread UPOCC copper neotech cables, and mogami mic cable. No audible differences, no measurable differences.

 So from now on I'm sticking to the Mogami, its cheap and it gets the job done.
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 Swapping opamps though during the build....
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	










 good times.


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## colonelkernel8

Now isn't this discussion much more civil than one of those, "OMG I JUST GOT A JPS LABS CABLE AN NAO I CAN HEAR EVERYTHING!!!!11" threads?


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## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Yes.

 Its all about process. 

 If cables measuring differently is A, and those differences making an audible change is B.

 Then first, you have to prove A is true. But then you have to prove than B is true. Because A can be true without B being true.


 Cables measuring differently is a well known fact. However, even partially controlled studies have shown they don't make an audible difference.

 So when people say there is no difference between cables, they actually mean there is no audible difference.


 You must realize that the audio band is very narrow, and very slow. It is not very demanding in the slightest._

 

Which study is that? What is there methodology? How did the study come up with its conclusion? Can you prove this study has relevancy to the topic at hand? I want absolute objectivity/empiricism. I am putting my Hume hat on. Link away.


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## manaox2

I'm not going to be really specific because I'm not a professional. Shielding for me makes the most noticeable difference in what I hear. I use pretty sensitive phones, so I even pick up line noise from objects around the cable (static even gets into the little IEM cable for the UE11). My hearing probably isn't near the best, but its pretty audible in the difference between straight teflon, braided teflon, and a cotton insulation. Microphonics are a problem too depending on the construction of the headphone cable for IEM. 

 I also think that a larger gage helps sound quality to a certain point. I wish I had a formula for diminishing returns on that, but I'm also not an electrical engineer. It has a lot to do with what your source puts out in power I think. Silver and copper sound pretty different until you get into really large gages, but I believe that is because of the difference in capacitance.

 I really value the DIY here on head-fi who are great at what they know and don't charge a huge markup because of their knowledge. I personally believe the reason why many claim lampwire is equal to a top cable is because of the gage issue where you get diminishing returns. I don't really trust double blind testing because it seems like the goal in the A-B matching is to try to make them sound the same. Take a cable out of its environment and it won't shine to your ears as well. No one IMO should be fooled into buying a $300 per foot audio cable, especially for headphones, for once it hits that price there is a great difference in the the price for the work and materials and the price they charge. Interconnects probably have the largest diminishing returns of any active component of a system.

 I hope to actually learn more from this thread, so a little criticalness is important.


----------



## manaox2

Here is some info that I deemed very insightful from long ago:
 (the source Warren with EE degree from Stanford)

 Any of the people who try to have empirical discussions about cables will bring up figures like capacitance. They mean well, but they are almost universally using a linear no-threshold model without realizing it. A linear no-threshold model is embodied in the concepts "less capacitance always produces equivalently better sound" and "you can never have too little capacitance." 

 The problem is that a linear no-threshold model is essentially never physically valid. In the context of audiophile gear, many people misunderstand that capacitance is necessary for your amplifier to operate properly. Almost all op-amps, for example, require some load capacitance to remain stable. If you lower the capacitance, the amplifier will begin to distort or, worse, spontaneously oscillate. Op-amps are designed for efficiency over a relatively broad range of acceptable load capacitances, and thus capacitance does not obey a linear no-threshold model. Furthermore, the engineers who built your sound equipment stuck some capacitors on the board specifically to make sure the amplifier always sees enough load capacitance.

 Besides -- look at the specifications on your cables. Almost all of them, even the super high-grade cables, will have capacitances in the ballpark of 10-20 pF per foot. The lesson is that you should be more concerned about the length of your cables than the type of your cables, if you worry about capacitance at all. (And you probably shouldn't.) 

 don't forget those chintzy 3.5mm mini-phono plugs! They're terrible from an electrical engineering perspective. They have large capacitance, large contact resistance, etc. If you're really concerned about interconnect, why not use modern connectors like SMA or SMB that have vastly superior electrical characteristics? That'll certainly have a much larger effect on the overall transmission line than simply connecting two mini-phono plugs with a wire as big as a baby's arm.

 The second figure everyone brings up is resistivity. Since you're not driving power over your interconnect, resistance should be the least of your concern. If you look at the telegrapher's equations, you'll see that real resistance only contributes to attenuation. In other words, you'll lose some signal amplitude over a length of cable if its resistance is high. Real resistance does not alter the transmitted waveform in any other way; it does not affect waveform shape or spectral content. [these brackets are my personal notes: I have never tried an attenuator that did not dull the sound in an unlikeable way. A good passive preamp that will do this without audibly affecting the sound usually costs over $2000 from information I can find because I obviously wouldn't pay]

 Oxygen-free copper and so on provide improvements in resistivity of at most about 2%. This means, well, essentially nothing. It means you'll have to turn the knob on your receiver a couple more microns clockwise if you use normal cables. [personal note time again: I read that the process removes iron impurities from the copper, those couple of extra notches could cause more distortion or clipping to be imparted. Thats audible.]

 It's already been discussed here many times, so I won't belabor the point, but there's no point in using an enormous cable to connect integrated circuits. Forget about the pins on the iPod dock. Forget about the 10 micron board traces. Realize that inside the black plastic package of your integrated circuits, the signals are being carried on tiny gold wires thinner than a human hair. [my customary personal thought: why should one flaw lead to another? I personally hope they aren't gold wires, I rather prefer silver or copper as conductors. I think the gold is there to prevent corrosion or tarnish which affects sound quality. to clarify, silver oxidation problem isn't audible because of the resulting chemical not changing properties of capacitance. Copper oxidation causes problems. Tarnish will very likely cause problems every time with the connection]

 Anytime someone tries to personify electrons, or make weird analogies between fluid flow or feng shui and electron conduction, be wary: that person doesn't know anything about how signals actually propagate through wires. [yeah, thats probably a good point, I don't think its quite that simple, but it could work for a working man metaphor I suppose]

 Anyone who tells you they can hear things that cannot be conclusively shown on a decent-quality oscilloscope is lying to you (and probably to themselves, as well). Measurement equipment is hundreds or thousands of times more sensitive than human senses. It's positively silly for someone to claim that they can hear something that a high-end spectrum analyzer cannot detect. [no comment here, he's the professional]

 On the other hand, almost no one can really tell the difference between cables, even experienced audiophiles. Perhaps a few people really can, but the majority of the market cannot. This means the market cannot reliably set prices, which is why you find cables priced at anything from $1 to $3000. [Alright, I understand audiophiles tend to be obsessive compulsive. Tube amps for coloration, but the want for neutral cables point taken. "But the spectrum analyzer!" you might say. Its probably inaudible, you may want the comfort in knowing its there. Still seems pretty obvious that most high-end cable manufacturers have an unreasonable markup once you calculate the cost of materials and manufacturing. Your money is better spent elsewhere unless you have more money then you can spend.]

 When you get down to the small, relatively unknown companies, no one really knows which ones are better, and the prices between them can fluctuate wildly with no real rhyme or reason.

 I personally feel the best hi-fi system is the one you enjoy the most. "Enjoyment" is a subjective term, of course. Personally, I enjoy musical variety more than anything else. I love having (and knowing) a large collection of music, because I enjoy always having the right music for every occassion. I like always being able to get people dancing at
 parties. I like having people come up to me and say "wow, I love this music, what is it?" I like taking road trips with people, and having them tell me later that the best part of the trip was the music. 

 Other people like the look of their sound systems. They want lights and meters and fancy looking interconnects. Maybe they want to impress people, or maybe lights and meters are just their thing. To them, it's incredibly important that their system look as good as it sounds. So be it. 

 Other people simply view cables as the "final touches" on their masterpiece sound system. They may admit that it doesn't really affect the sound perceptibly, but they enjoy the system more because it feels "complete" and finished to them. So be it. 

 Again, the best hi-fi is the one you enjoy and use the most. 
 - Warren

 [maybe I'll search out the original post some time]


----------



## infinitesymphony

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *manaox2* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Copper oxidation causes problems. Tarnish will very likely cause problems every time with the connection_

 

I've often wondered about this... With copper speaker wire, the cable will eventually oxidize, especially where the wire is bare. Could this be the cable burn-in that many people hear?

 This thread has been a good read, so far. Since I don't have any electrical background whatsoever, I'll make my exit.


----------



## manaox2

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *infinitesymphony* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I've often wondered about this... With copper speaker wire, the cable will eventually oxidize, especially where the wire is bare. Could this be the cable burn-in that many people hear?

 This thread has been a good read, so far. Since I don't have any electrical background whatsoever, I'll make my exit. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

I've heard a good theory that cable burn-in is the result of the settling of the dielectric properties from the shielding. Eventually it stabalizes.

 Copper oxidation is not good at all, it ruins a cable.


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If you read that, and understand it, it does not even come close to explaining it at all.


 In fact, that isn't even on topic. That excerpt is about jitter, not cables._

 

Actually, Yotacowboy excerpt is about jitter AND cable. In short, it said jitter and cable does not matter because the local clock and jitter buffer eliminated all the artifacts.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_here's the short of it:

 impedance mis-match can cause standing waves in a digital cable carrying SPDIF signal.

 Standing waves can cause timing errors when the bits are converted to an audio signal.

 Timing errors (jitter) can create noise in the audio signal.

 This noise occurs at frequencies which we can hear. in other words, this shows how impedance can affect audio._

 

This is partially correct. Mismatched impedance will create reflection and cause bit error. This is why all cables must have a standard specification to meet to make sure there is no mismatch. Mismatch is a human error not a cable flaw.

 Jitter does not create noise either. Jitter is a time domain issue while noise is a frequency domain component.


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *manaox2* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Here is some info that I deemed very insightful from long ago:
 (the source Warren with EE degree from Stanford)

 Any of the people who try to have empirical discussions about cables will bring up figures like capacitance. They mean well, but they are almost universally using a linear no-threshold model without realizing it. A linear no-threshold model is embodied in the concepts "less capacitance always produces equivalently better sound" and "you can never have too little capacitance." 

 The problem is that a linear no-threshold model is essentially never physically valid. In the context of audiophile gear, many people misunderstand that capacitance is necessary for your amplifier to operate properly. Almost all op-amps, for example, require some load capacitance to remain stable. If you lower the capacitance, the amplifier will begin to distort or, worse, spontaneously oscillate. Op-amps are designed for efficiency over a relatively broad range of acceptable load capacitances, and thus capacitance does not obey a linear no-threshold model. Furthermore, the engineers who built your sound equipment stuck some capacitors on the board specifically to make sure the amplifier always sees enough load capacitance.

 Besides -- look at the specifications on your cables. Almost all of them, even the super high-grade cables, will have capacitances in the ballpark of 10-20 pF per foot. The lesson is that you should be more concerned about the length of your cables than the type of your cables, if you worry about capacitance at all. (And you probably shouldn't.) 

 don't forget those chintzy 3.5mm mini-phono plugs! They're terrible from an electrical engineering perspective. They have large capacitance, large contact resistance, etc. If you're really concerned about interconnect, why not use modern connectors like SMA or SMB that have vastly superior electrical characteristics? That'll certainly have a much larger effect on the overall transmission line than simply connecting two mini-phono plugs with a wire as big as a baby's arm.

 The second figure everyone brings up is resistivity. Since you're not driving power over your interconnect, resistance should be the least of your concern. If you look at the telegrapher's equations, you'll see that real resistance only contributes to attenuation. In other words, you'll lose some signal amplitude over a length of cable if its resistance is high. Real resistance does not alter the transmitted waveform in any other way; it does not affect waveform shape or spectral content. [these brackets are my personal notes: I have never tried an attenuator that did not dull the sound in an unlikeable way. A good passive preamp that will do this without audibly affecting the sound usually costs over $2000 from information I can find because I obviously wouldn't pay]

 Oxygen-free copper and so on provide improvements in resistivity of at most about 2%. This means, well, essentially nothing. It means you'll have to turn the knob on your receiver a couple more microns clockwise if you use normal cables. [personal note time again: I read that the process removes iron impurities from the copper, those couple of extra notches could cause more distortion or clipping to be imparted. Thats audible.]

 It's already been discussed here many times, so I won't belabor the point, but there's no point in using an enormous cable to connect integrated circuits. Forget about the pins on the iPod dock. Forget about the 10 micron board traces. Realize that inside the black plastic package of your integrated circuits, the signals are being carried on tiny gold wires thinner than a human hair. [my customary personal thought: why should one flaw lead to another? I personally hope they aren't gold wires, I rather prefer silver or copper as conductors. I think the gold is there to prevent corrosion or tarnish which affects sound quality. to clarify, silver oxidation problem isn't audible because of the resulting chemical not changing properties of capacitance. Copper oxidation causes problems. Tarnish will very likely cause problems every time with the connection]

 Anytime someone tries to personify electrons, or make weird analogies between fluid flow or feng shui and electron conduction, be wary: that person doesn't know anything about how signals actually propagate through wires. [yeah, thats probably a good point, I don't think its quite that simple, but it could work for a working man metaphor I suppose]

 Anyone who tells you they can hear things that cannot be conclusively shown on a decent-quality oscilloscope is lying to you (and probably to themselves, as well). Measurement equipment is hundreds or thousands of times more sensitive than human senses. It's positively silly for someone to claim that they can hear something that a high-end spectrum analyzer cannot detect. [no comment here, he's the professional]

 On the other hand, almost no one can really tell the difference between cables, even experienced audiophiles. Perhaps a few people really can, but the majority of the market cannot. This means the market cannot reliably set prices, which is why you find cables priced at anything from $1 to $3000. [Alright, I understand audiophiles tend to be obsessive compulsive. Tube amps for coloration, but the want for neutral cables point taken. "But the spectrum analyzer!" you might say. Its probably inaudible, you may want the comfort in knowing its there. Still seems pretty obvious that most high-end cable manufacturers have an unreasonable markup once you calculate the cost of materials and manufacturing. Your money is better spent elsewhere unless you have more money then you can spend.]

 When you get down to the small, relatively unknown companies, no one really knows which ones are better, and the prices between them can fluctuate wildly with no real rhyme or reason.

 I personally feel the best hi-fi system is the one you enjoy the most. "Enjoyment" is a subjective term, of course. Personally, I enjoy musical variety more than anything else. I love having (and knowing) a large collection of music, because I enjoy always having the right music for every occassion. I like always being able to get people dancing at
 parties. I like having people come up to me and say "wow, I love this music, what is it?" I like taking road trips with people, and having them tell me later that the best part of the trip was the music. 

 Other people like the look of their sound systems. They want lights and meters and fancy looking interconnects. Maybe they want to impress people, or maybe lights and meters are just their thing. To them, it's incredibly important that their system look as good as it sounds. So be it. 

 Other people simply view cables as the "final touches" on their masterpiece sound system. They may admit that it doesn't really affect the sound perceptibly, but they enjoy the system more because it feels "complete" and finished to them. So be it. 

 Again, the best hi-fi is the one you enjoy and use the most. 
 - Warren

 [maybe I'll search out the original post some time]_

 

This is an excellent writeup. The essence is cable issue usually happens in long length (Km) and high frequency (MHz). This is why LAN cable has a specified length and telephony cables needs to add loading coil for long run.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


 Anyone who tells you they can hear things that cannot be conclusively shown on a decent-quality oscilloscope is lying to you (and probably to themselves, as well). Measurement equipment is hundreds or thousands of times more sensitive than human senses. It's positively silly for someone to claim that they can hear something that a high-end spectrum analyzer cannot detect. [no comment here, he's the professional] 
 

Are we to conclude we've already learned absolutely all there is to learn about human auditory perception?

 Perhaps it is from an electrical engineer's perspective...


----------



## tot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Jitter does not create noise either. Jitter is a time domain issue while noise is a frequency domain component._

 

Jitter does create noise on DA conversion. The amount of the noise depends on the size of the error (~130ps being the threshold for 16 bit signal) and the frequency of the noise is the frequency of the signal itself ± frequency of the jitter.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Are we to conclude we've already learned absolutely all there is to learn about human auditory perception?_

 

No, but we know exactly that we did only put the things on the recording that we know about. Or do you asume we "accidently" record a attribute, store it, reproduce it, amplify it, change it back to sound again without knowing about it?

 You say: "Maybe I can hear things that can not (yet) be measured."

 I say: "If you really can, there's nothing like that on the recording in the first place"

 Even if the knowledge about what is going on inside any component (in an electrical or physical way) was as poor as you think:
 What matters, is that the transducers at both ends of the chain (microphones, synthesizers on the "front end", loudspeakers or headphones on the other end) receive or produce only one thing: changes in air presure level (or electricity of a certain quality in case of the synths).
 You're really, really sure that your ears are more reliabel when it comes to measuring sound pressure levels than a microphone?
 Your ears (or better: the thing in between them) are ansurpassable, when it comes to receiving and interpreting *music*. But for measuring *air pressure*, they plain suck.

 Guys, you are not discussing quantum physics here. It doesn's matter at all, what the cable or any other component does. 
 At the end of the day, you can measure what is beeing converted to sonic waves. 

 It helps to keep in mind, that after all a headphone is nothing but a piece of plastic moving back and forth, forcing the air in front and back of it to move.

 That's at least one way of explaining why audiophile cables do not improve sound.


----------



## OverlordXenu

@ some ealier comments: I've always assumed shielding was a given. Am I wrong to think "basic" (eg. BLC) cable doesn't have shielding?


----------



## Pars

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_<snipped>
 This is partially correct. Mismatched impedance will create reflection and cause bit error. This is why all cables must have a standard specification to meet to make sure there is no mismatch. Mismatch is a human error not a cable flaw.

 Jitter does not create noise either. Jitter is a time domain issue while noise is a frequency domain component._

 

This is not quite correct. Impedance mismatch would have to be rather drastic to create a bit error at these rates. Timing errors related to edge detection would be much more likely. The transmitter / cable / receiver make up a system which if mismatched, will cause problems... how audible? I don't know but worth fixing? Yes.

 Some interesting reading:

Digital audio transmission, SPDIF, and Jitter | Peufeu's Electronic Stuff

 On cables in general, I always liked the thoughts of Bruno Putseys (sp?), an ex-Philips engineer who is now involved in class-D amps as well as Grimm Audio who IIRC makes studio DACs, etc.. These were posted a few years ago (2002-2004 timeframe) on rec.audio.equipment, where he said that yes, he did hear differences in cable, but as an engineer, it always bothered him because he felt there shouldn't be any differences. He claims that impedance mismatches were the probable cause and was discussing working towards a standardized interface specification for components to minimize/eliminate this problem. He felt that if it was eliminated, differences would no longer be heard, or at least minimized. The Audiogeek cables of a couple of years ago were done using a termination method (ProSink?) devised by Kevin Gilmore which IIRC was intended to do something similar.

 When I got back into hi-fi in the late '90s, I started down the cable path (AudioAsylum, etc.), but decided there were better avenues for me to spend money (and time) on.. so I'll leave it at that.


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Pars* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_This is not quite correct. Impedance mismatch would have to be rather drastic to create a bit error at these rates. Timing errors related to edge detection would be much more likely. The transmitter / cable / receiver make up a system which if mismatched, will cause problems... how audible? I don't know but worth fixing? Yes.
_

 

I was trying to find a picture of a waveform distorted by reflection, but it was too much work. Essentially the reflection creates a "bump" in the rising edge of the pulse. The slicer of the receiver can interpret this as an extra pulse and thus create an error. The question is how large is this bump. This will depend on the length of the cable and the degree of mismatch.

 However, I do agree with you the mismatch has to be very large for a short cable to create an error. Let's assume if you have a 100 meter of cat. 5 cable , a 25% mismatch will be enough to generate a bunch of error.


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *manaox2* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_
 Anyone who tells you they can hear things that cannot be conclusively shown on a decent-quality oscilloscope is lying to you (and probably to themselves, as well). Measurement equipment is hundreds or thousands of times more sensitive than human senses. It's positively silly for someone to claim that they can hear something that a high-end spectrum analyzer cannot detect. [no comment here, he's the professional]_

 

Can depth and width of soundstage, and change in tone be measured? Because i have had all these changes when switching cables in my speaker system. The overall freq. responce may not have changed but the presentation was a big difference.


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Jitter does create noise on DA conversion. The amount of the noise depends on the size of the error (~130ps being the threshold for 16 bit signal) and the frequency of the noise is the frequency of the signal itself ± frequency of the jitter._

 

What I am trying to say is; jitter is in the clock domain. in order to generate noise you will have change the numerical value of the data.

 It is not a good analogue, but I'll give a try. Let's assume you have a off center LP playing on the turntable. The cartridge will see an uneven groove speed. This is very similar to clock jitter although not the same. In this case you might hear a pitch change (frequency +/- the timing error) but not an added noise.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You're really, really sure that your ears are more reliabel when it comes to measuring sound pressure levels?_

 

Are you sure we already know all there is to know how the human brain deciphers information detected by the ear and how the ear detects sound?

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_What matters, is that the transducers at both ends of the chain (microphones, synthesizers on the "front end", loudspeakers or headphones on the other end) receive or produce only one thing: changes in air presure level (or electricity of a certain quality in case of the synths)._

 

I'd agree with you if I regularly visit car stereo shows.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Guys, you are not discussing quantum physics here. It doesn's matter at all, what the cable or any other component does. 
 At the end of the day, you can measure what is beeing converted to sonic waves._

 

I'd agree with you only because most people, myself included, are incapable of examining phenomenas and explaining them at the quantum level. But, to pretend this doesn't matter is an ostrich head in the sand symptom.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Are you sure we already know all there is to know how the human brain deciphers information detected by the ear and how the ear detects sound?_

 

Just to make it clear: so you're constructing the hypothesis that the cable-effects work on a "non-sonic-"level? That the ear is a receiver for a kind of energy that has not been discovered yet? That we record and reproduce this energy by accident, and the cable is a critical factor for this energy? That this energy- which has nothing to do with sonic waves- is perceived by the human ear in form of "soundstage", "warmth", "clarity" and so on?

 Daring.


----------



## tot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_What I am trying to say is; jitter is in the clock domain. in order to generate noise you will have change the numerical value of the data.

 It is not a good analogue, but I'll give a try. Let's assume you have a off center LP playing on the turntable. The cartridge will see an uneven groove speed. This is very similar to clock jitter although not the same. In this case you might hear a pitch change (frequency +/- the timing error) but not an added noise._

 

As far as I know jitter does not have same effect as analogue pitch change.

 Let's say you have 10kHz signal and add 1kHz jitter to it, the result will be 10kHz signal plus small peaks at 9kHz and 11kHz, where the size of the peaks depend how big the timing error is.


----------



## viggen

Nice strawman. It is the reversal of this hypothesis that we can simply preclude what we currently know is enough to access, examine and say for certain that everything audible by the ear and decipherable by current apparatus is "daring".


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Are we to conclude we've already learned absolutely all there is to learn about human auditory perception?

 Perhaps it is from an electrical engineer's perspective..._

 

Good question. IMO, no. No reliable instrument has been created to measure perception. However, instruments are very accurate in measuring signal.

 What I'm trying to say is we can measure the data (audio signal) you received, but we can't measure your interpretation

 For example, we know very low frequency is visceral, you don't really hear it but you feel it. So you are creating that bass you think you hear in your mind.

 Example #2, from our physics class we know images through a lens is inverted. But we are not seeing inverted images. Our brain is correcting the image.

 Example #3 when you are watching a movie, you are really watching a sequence of still pictures. Your brain makes you think you see thing moving.

 I think that's enough examples. My position is people can make their decision what works for them. But they also should be well informed.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Nice strawman. It is the reversal of this hypothesis that we can simply preclude what we currently know is enough to access, examine and say for certain that everything audible by the ear and decipherable by current apparatus is "daring"._

 


 A recording is not a complete copy of the "holistic" event. It's a bandwith-limited cut-out, *only* of the *sonic waves* emitted at the moment of the sound. Those were changed to electricity by the microphone and stored analog or digitally. Because that is what a microphone does.

 It's not about "all that we can hear". It's about what we have recorded and reproduced in the first place.


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_As far as I know jitter does not have same effect as analogue pitch change.

 Let's say you have 10kHz signal and add 1kHz jitter to it, the result will be 10kHz signal plus small peaks at 9kHz and 11kHz, where the size of the peaks depend how big the timing error is._

 

I agree it does not change the pitch like a LP. What you are saying is the jitter is modulating the signal. What if the jitter is very large and the peaks at 9KHz and 11KHz become very large. Isn't that a pitch change? With small peak you just can't hear pitch change. I think we are talking about the same thing. 

 Noise means frequency independent signal like pink noise.

 Harmonic distortion are generation of odd or even harmonics and I won't call them noise.


----------



## chesebert

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Can depth and width of soundstage, and change in tone be measured? Because i have had all these changes when switching cables in my speaker system. The overall freq. responce may not have changed but the presentation was a big difference._

 

technically (let me put on my engineer hat for a bit here) depth/height of field and soundstage is an illusion created by stereo recording by which 2 independent waveforms are played back simultaneously; so what you hear is mere an illusion and nothing more. So technically you can represent stereo with 2 waveforms and each one can be represented by an aggregation of sine waves at any given moment. If we look from a pure wave form point of view, then yes all those 'audiophile characteristics' can be represented by the waveform - remember you can only amplify a continuous sinusoidal wave (square/sawtooth is sine wave too). So if we are just passing sine waves around, then a perfect coaxial should transmit the waveform in its entirety without any degradation. 

 (ok..time to take the damn hat off), given all that tech stuff I just spewed a few lines ago, I cannot understand, nor can my former EE colleagues who are also audiophiles understand why things like vibration, speaker cable, interconnect, power cord could have such a profound effect on the final output. now days I don't even bother to understand I just try everything (reasonable stuff).


----------



## viggen

Those are good examples of how the brain may take information perceived one way and is perceived differently by machines. 

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_For example, we know very low frequency is visceral, you don't really hear it but you feel it. So you are creating that bass you think you hear in your mind._

 

I think you're onto something. Perhaps what we hear or what our brain have us think we hear are only information partially received by our ear. And, the rest is received by other parts of our body such as bone, skin and fluid. Our body, after all, have natural mechanical resonance.

 This, in theory, is why lots of audiophile tweaks are moving towards carbon based materials...


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_A recording is not a complete copy of the "holistic" event. It's an bandwith-limited, cut-out *only* of the *sonic waves* emitted at the moment of the sound. Those were changed to electricity by the microphone an stored analog or digitally. Because that is what a microphone does.

 It's not about "all that we can hear". It's about what we have recorded and reproduced in the first place._

 

Does any recording go straight from media to brain?


----------



## ph0rk

Viggen: We already know enough about perception and memory to know that they are quite imperfect. Some individuals may have exceptional hearing, some of the time. However, to reduce error (which is what the whole game is about), we must sample as many people (and, ideally, as many states of mind) as possible.

 Otherwise, we are dealing in _non_ demonstrable phenomena. They have shows for that, like crossing over and ghosthunters 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 And, for the record, I'd be quite happy to know if a, say, $80-100 interconnect would produce real results (as compared to the freebie studiolink I have). And I'd go buy one. The evidence at hand presently is not enough to prompt me to buy such a cable.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Does any recording go straight from media to brain?_

 

You're aware of the fact that a headphone or speaker is basically a reversed microphone (or vice versa)? That your mysterious energy has to survive the transition air-electricity twice?


  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Those are good examples of how the brain may take information perceived one way and is perceived differently by machines. 



 I think you're onto something. Perhaps what we hear or what our brain have us think we hear are only information partially received by our ear. And, the rest is received by other parts of our body such as bone, skin and fluid. Our body, after all, have natural mechanical resonance.

 This, in theory, is why lots of audiophile tweaks are moving towards carbon based materials..._

 


 It doesn't matter which part of your body receives the changes in air pressure that your transducer produces. It's still good old air vibrating slow or fast. Nothing else is on the recording.

 By the way, your "other body-part"-theory dissents with the fact that we're in a headphone-board with an extraordinary amount of cable-phenomenon experiencing people. 
 Maybe i have to put the headphones somewhere else than i usually do?


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Can depth and width of soundstage, and change in tone be measured? Because i have had all these changes when switching cables in my speaker system. The overall freq. responce may not have changed but the presentation was a big difference._

 

Yes, those are all functions of the waveforms.

 People tend to give sound properties that it does not have. There is no magic to it. It is all about accurately produced waveforms.

 Soundstage, timbre, etc are ALL determined by the waveform we perceive.



 It seems that many people here do not quite understand the very physical nature of sound. I think this is why there is such confusion.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *ph0rk* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Viggen: We already know enough about perception and memory to know that they are quite imperfect. Some individuals may have exceptional hearing, some of the time. However, to reduce error (which is what the whole game is about), we must sample as many people (and, ideally, as many states of mind) as possible.

 Otherwise, we are dealing in non demonstrable phenomena. They have shows for that, like crossing over and ghosthunters 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 And, for the record, I'd be quite happy to know if a, say, $80-100 interconnect would produce real results (as compared to the freebie studiolink I have). And I'd go buy one. The evidence at hand presently is not enough to prompt me to buy such a cable._

 


 Yes, perhaps we can have this type of show. "Real or Placebo". I am sure it will be a hit with the 1% of the male between 18-35 demographics.

 But, serisouly, it is disingenuous to question perception in the manner you did. That's like relegating non-mainstream to the looney bin.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You're aware of the fact that a headphone or speaker is basically a reversed microphone (or vice versa)? That your mysterious energy has to survive the transition air-electricity twice?





 It doesn't matter which part of your body receives the changes in air pressure that your transducer produces. It's still good old air vibrating slow or fast. Nothing else is on the recording.

 By the way, your "other body-part"-theory dissents with the fact we're in a headphone-board with an extraordinary amount of cable-phenomenon experiencing people. 
 Maybe i have to put the headphones somewhere else than i usually do? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

According to your description, there's no reason why a recording doesn't sound exactly as the original.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Good question. IMO, no. No reliable instrument has been created to measure perception. However, instruments are very accurate in measuring signal.

 What I'm trying to say is we can measure the data (audio signal) you received, but we can't measure your interpretation_

 

You do realize what you just said is called placebo.

 If your perception changes, because you expected a change, when no real physical change occurred. That is called placebo, and that is what you said is happening with cables.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You do realize what you just said is called placebo.

 If your perception changes, because you expected a change, when no real physical change occurred. That is called placebo, and that is what you said is happening with cables._

 

You did learn about the scientific method when you were in school right?


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_According to your description, there's no reason why a recording doesn't sound exactly as the original._

 

Why? I didn't say the components cannot change the sound or sound perfect under any circumstances.
 Im talking about that there is no "unmeasurable" factor to be heard when you play a CD through your headphones.

 Even if you were a bat, all you could hear is what is on the CD. In quantity (frequency range limited to 20Hz to 20KHz) or regarding absolute quality ("which form of energy is recorded" ; for example recording lightwaves can produce a stellar photograpy, but it will sound like crap). 
 The recording doesn't contain anything other than sound; and yes, alterations like distortions from transducers, amps or anything else are, at the end of the day, -guess what? 
 Airwaves. Pressure changes. Nothing else.

 What else do we talk about here? Electromagnetism? "Spirit"? "Aura"? "Soul"?


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Why? I did'nt say the components cannot change the sound or sound perfect under any circumstances.
 Im talking about that there is no "unmeasurable" factor to be heard when you play a CD through your headphones.

 Even if you were a bat, all you can hear is what is on the CD. In quantity (frequency range limited to 20Hz to 20KHz) or regarding absolute quality. The recording doesn't contain anything other than sound; and yes, alterations like distortions from transducers, amps or anything else are, at the end of the day, -guess what? 
 Airwaves. Pressure changes. Nothing else.

 What else do we talk about here? Electromagnetism? "Spirit"? "Aura"? "Soul"?_

 

Exactly.

 Cables _could _only change the physical electrical signal being passed through it. So why would the changes that makes be unmeasurable?


----------



## viggen

Quote:


 Why? I did'nt say the components cannot change the sound or sound perfect under any circumstances.
 Im talking about that there is no "unmeasurable" factor to be heard when you play a CD through your headphones. 
 

If that is your belief, then that is your belief. My perception tells me otherwise.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Exactly.

 Cables could only change the physical electrical signal being passed through it. So why would the changes that makes be unmeasurable?_

 

Because scientests are not yet all powerful?
 Another daring thought...


----------



## manaox2

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Can depth and width of soundstage, and change in tone be measured? Because i have had all these changes when switching cables in my speaker system. The overall freq. responce may not have changed but the presentation was a big difference._

 

Oh, I agree. I spend up to $200 on a great cable. It might have nickle carbon shielding, special braiding, and high quality copper and silver. But I think you can make a cable that stands its own very well at $200 a foot compared to $3000 a foot. HUGE diminishing returns. I'm only trying to explain why some high priced audio cables seem hardly justified in their mark up.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If that is your belief, then that is your belief. My perception tells me otherwise._

 

OK, then what is this extra "force"?

 And why should that not be considered absurd, considering it clashes not only with modern physics, but with simple logic itself.


 The information on the CD is finite. You can not get information from a recording, that is not in the recording.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If that is your belief, then that is your belief. My perception tells me otherwise._

 

Really? Now that one made me think. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 That's why i said your thesis was daring.

 BTW, believing is "accepting something as true, which cannot be proven". This is the essence of believing, and exactly what you do. Not that there's anything wrong with it;
 i just don't assign it to much value when it comes to technical problems.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Because scientests are not yet all powerful?
 Another daring thought..._

 


 Did anyone say they were?

 We can measure FAR more complex signals than a simple 20hz-20khz signal. 

 If we can very accurately measure much much more complex and demanding signals, why do you beleive we can not measure the extremely basic audio band?


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_OK, then what is this extra "force"?

 And why should that not be considered absurd, considering it clashes not only with modern physics, but with simple logic itself.


 The information on the CD is finite. You can not get information from a recording, that is not in the recording._

 

The force is probably partly kinetic and partly physical.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Really? Now that one made me think. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 That's why i said your thesis was daring.

 BTW, believing is "accepting something as true, which cannot be proven". This is the essence of believing, and exactly what you do. Not that there's anything wrong with it;
 i just don't assign it to much value when it comes to technical problems._

 

Accepting something that is true when you know to be untrue is faith. Accepting somethign to be true when it is unproven to be true is intellectual curiousity.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Viggen, I am not sure what you are getting at. I really think LawnGnome and Vul have hit the nail on the head. In terms of audio reproduction, humans have it down to a pretty good science. Besides, if what you are talking about is not science, then how can cable manufacturers understand it enough to put it into their cables?


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Did anyone say they were?

 We can measure FAR more complex signals than a simple 20hz-20khz signal. 

 If we can very accurately measure much much more complex and demanding signals, why do you beleive we can not measure the extremely basic audio band?_

 

We've moved on from audible frequency to how the brain interprets audile frequency.


----------



## manaox2

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The force is probably partly kinetic and partly physical._

 

Kinetic isn't physical? As in, the energy an object has due to motion?

 I want to get back to cables here. I thought my post summed up what may help to make a good cable and what doesn't. Matching impedance, shielding, and the connector. Look at the name of the post; a cable doesn't "improve" sound. Its a passive transport for the signal. It shouldn't cost $3000 a foot to do its job at full expectation. Cable making IS a science, $30 can get you a great cable. $200 can get you a cable that you probably shouldn't really have to ever consider getting replaced, though maybe cleaned.

 Frankly, I'm tired of the same old design system. Mini jacks and true audiophiles don't go together. Cables DO matter, but not as much as the real hardware meat of the system at all and the diminishing returns for the money could easily be placed elsewhere on 99% of systems to create noticeably better sound in comparison to something we argue about.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *colonelkernel8* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Viggen, I am not sure what you are getting at. I really thing LawnGnome and Vul have hit the nail on the head. In terms of audio, humans have it down to a pretty good science. Besides, if what you are talking about is not science, then how can cable manufacturers understand it enough to put it into their cables?_

 

That depends on how you define science. Are you only taking and applying scientific "laws" or are you taking applying both scientific "laws" as well as uknown "x" factors into consideration. Both are science. One of them requires a higher level of brain activity than the other though.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *manaox2* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Kinetic isn't physical? As in, the energy an object has due to motion?_

 

Blah replace physical with potential.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The force is probably partly kinetic and partly physical._

 


 .....I don't mean to sound rude. But it appears you have little knowledge on physics.

 Also, you do realize that sound waves are just air with kinetic energy given to the air from the driver. The energy given to the driver was transfered from the amp.

 All of this is EASILY measured to a very precise degree.


----------



## colonelkernel8

I define science as everything we humans understand about the universe and the studies to expand that knowledge. How can a cable alter your perception if all it does is transfer the audio information read from a disc containing only audio information. It doesn't transfer anything else, because it physically cannot, because it can only transfer what exists on the recording, which is audio information in the form of electric current.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *colonelkernel8* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I define science as everything we humans understand about the universe and the studies to expand that knowledge. How can a cable alter your perception if all it does is transfer the audio information read from a disc containing only audio information. It doesn't transfer anything else, because it physically cannot, because it can only transfer what exists on the recording, which is audio information._

 

Exactly, 

 I think what some of the people here are trying to propose as what happens with cables, breaks the law of conservation of energy.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That depends on how you define science. Are you only taking and applying scientific "laws" or are you taking applying both scientific "laws" as well as uknown "x" factors into consideration. Both are science. One of them requires a higher level of brain activity than the other though._

 

It's the substance of science, to question the points of view held true at the moment. The fact that science progresses proves that it does in fact question itself constantly and successfully.

 If your proposition "science holds on to whatever laws it has constructed" (which is a awkward subjectivist classic) was right, we would still be dancing in a breechcloth for rain and a good harvest.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_.....I don't mean to sound rude. But it appears you have little knowledge on physics.

 Also, you do realize that sound waves are just air with kinetic energy given to the air from the driver. The energy given to the driver was transfered from the amp.

 All of this is EASILY measured to a very precise degree._

 

No offense taken. I am not a physicist. I am not even sure how what you are posting contradict what I said. See how little I know about physics?


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *colonelkernel8* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I define science as everything we humans understand about the universe and the studies to expand that knowledge. How can a cable alter your perception if all it does is transfer the audio information read from a disc containing only audio information. It doesn't transfer anything else, because it physically cannot, because it can only transfer what exists on the recording, which is audio information in the form of electric current._

 

You don't practice what you preach.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You don't practice what you preach._

 

Meaning?


----------



## Pars

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Can depth and width of soundstage, and change in tone be measured? Because i have had all these changes when switching cables in my speaker system. The overall freq. responce may not have changed but the presentation was a big difference._

 

Change in tone would be a change in frequency response. Image width and depth I'm not so sure about regarding what in response effects these. Frequency response, and group phase delay would be a couple of guesses, which both can be effected by R, L and C parameters. Cables such as MIT have boxes on them which I assume contain passive networks of some type. Different cables combined with the interface parameters of your equipment probably do have subtle interactions which could effect the overall presentation.

 I don't know of a way of directly measuring depth or width of soundstage, but possibly some type of room response measurement tools might be able to?


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_It's the substance of science, to question the points of view held true at the moment. The fact that science progresses proves that it does in fact question itself constantly and successfully.

 If you're proposition "science holds on to whatever laws it has constructed" (which is a awkward subjectivist classic) was right, we would still be dancing in a breechcloth for rain and a good harvest._

 

Contextually, I didn't say "science holds on to whatever laws it has constructed."


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_No offense taken. I am not a physicist. I am not even sure how what you are posting contradict what I said. See how little I know about physics?_

 


 Then why are you trying to argue something you have no knowledge of?

 And why won't you accept what people with knowledge of the subject can show?

 I just don't understand this.


----------



## viggen

You asked me what properties might pertain to my perceptual change when swapping cables. I perchanced stated that it probably pertains to the realm of physics.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Why don't I practice what I preach?

 The 595 is recabled because my dog chewed through the old cable and I wanted a bit shorter cable. The Audiflex Gold Plus IC's were $30 on eBay. They are well built, durable, and have a lifetime warranty. They are also shielded.


----------



## viggen

I wasn't referring to you recabeling.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I wasn't referring to you recabeling._

 

Then what? Please consolidate your posts.


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Yes, those are all functions of the waveforms.

 People tend to give sound properties that it does not have. There is no magic to it. It is all about accurately produced waveforms.

 Soundstage, timbre, etc are ALL determined by the waveform we perceive.



 It seems that many people here do not quite understand the very physical nature of sound. I think this is why there is such confusion._

 


 So you are saying that different cables can be different at recreating these waveforms. And if (which I witnessed in my speaker system) true, then different cables can and do make a difference.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


 Then what? Please consolidate your posts. 
 

I was referring to your definition of science.


----------



## colonelkernel8

The cable doesn't recreate anything. It transfers whatever goes into it.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* 
_I was referring to your definition of science._

 

What do you mean by that?


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You do realize what you just said is called placebo.

 If your perception changes, because you expected a change, when no real physical change occurred. That is called placebo, and that is what you said is happening with cables._

 

Yes I do. People here are somewhat sensitive to that term. So I don't use it.
 That is why I said the brain can perceive things that are not there.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *colonelkernel8* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The cable doesn't recreate anything. It transfers whatever goes into it.



 What do you mean by that?_

 

You defined science as "expanding". Granted that you're perfectly happy with your recabeling. But, this happiness resulting from your recabeling seems to have dulled your intellectual curiousity. However, it's fine that your curiousity is dulled. It doesn't mean those with difference experiences from yours has to accept the same conclusion as yours.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Yes I do. People here are somewhat sensitive to that term. So I don't use it._

 

Is it also placebo when one anticipates no changes and hence perceives it as such?


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is it also placebo when one anticipates no changes and hence perceives it as such?_

 

Yes.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_So you are saying that different cables can be different at recreating these waveforms. And if (which I witnessed in my speaker system) true, then different cables can and do make a difference._

 


 I'm saying if cables made a noticeable difference, we could measure it. But we can not. So they do not make a difference. Unless there is some sort of unmeasurable "magic" property to cables that breaks the laws of physics. 

 But I don't think that is the case.


 Have you ever wondered about the descriptions people give when describing things?

 copper cables are warm, silver cables are bright.
 Metal housed cans sound metallic, wood housed cans sound organic.

 People base their views on the appearance, and terms associated with them.


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Pars* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Change in tone would be a change in frequency response. Image width and depth I'm not so sure about regarding what in response effects these. Frequency response, and group phase delay would be a couple of guesses, which both can be effected by R, L and C parameters. Cables such as MIT have boxes on them which I assume contain passive networks of some type. Different cables combined with the interface parameters of your equipment probably do have subtle interactions which could effect the overall presentation.

 I don't know of a way of directly measuring depth or width of soundstage, but possibly some type of room response measurement tools might be able to?_

 

Not sure why either? But the biggest effect I have had over the last couple years in depth and width of soundstage has come through a complete cable change, from Cardas to Audioquest. My love of recorded symphany music has grown because of it. It has taken "music you can watch" to the next level.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I'm saying if cables made a noticeable difference, we could measure it. But we can not. So they do not make a difference. Unless there is some sort of unmeasurable "magic" property to cables that breaks the laws of physics. 

 But I don't think that is the case.


 Have you ever wondered about the descriptions people give when describing things?

 copper cables are warm, silver cables are bright.
 Metal housed cans sound metallic, wood housed cans sound organic.

 People base their views on the appearance, and terms associated with them._

 

Do flutes and oboes sorta sound dissimilar?


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is it also placebo when one anticipates no changes and hence perceives it as such?_

 

not placebo, but bias. bias can manifest itself any time there is a living human being involved with both an experiment (gathering of data), and/or the analysis of data.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Not sure why either? But the biggest effect I have had over the last couple years in depth and width of soundstage has come through a complete cable change, from Cardas to Audioquest. My love of recorded symphany music has grown because of it. It has taken "music you can watch" to the next level.
	

	
	
		
		

		
			



_

 

In my experience with Audioquest especially when bi-wriing, soundstage does expand. Sorta at the cost of coherency tho.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Do flutes and oboes sorta sound dissimilar?_

 

Yes, they do. Measurably.


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I'm saying if cables made a noticeable difference, we could measure it. But we can not. So they do not make a difference. Unless there is some sort of unmeasurable "magic" property to cables that breaks the laws of physics. 

 But I don't think that is the case.


 Have you ever wondered about the descriptions people give when describing things?

 copper cables are warm, silver cables are bright.
 Metal housed cans sound metallic, wood housed cans sound organic.

 People base their views on the appearance, and terms associated with them._

 

 I am not talking about any of that. I am talking about width and depth of soundstage with a speaker system. I want to know how and why a cable change would add the amount of gain in both directions? reference material where guitars on Dire straits albums were inside the left speaker have now moved to close to the outside wall of the same speaker. Drummers that were sounding almost even with the lead singer on the stage are now sounding like they are 4-5 feet behind him. I am not claiming to have gotten deeper bass or higher highs. Only bigger soundstage.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I am not talking about any of that. I am talking about width and depth of soundstage with a speaker system. I want to know how and why a cable change would add the amount of gain in both directions? reference material where guitars on Dire straits albums were inside the left speaker have now moved to close to the outside wall of the same speaker. Drummers that were sounding almost even with the lead singer on the stage are now sounding like they are 4-5 feet behind him. I am not claiming to have gotten deeper bass or higher highs. Only bigger soundstage._

 

Opening your window curtain, placing a poster on the wall or moving the head an inch left or right can and will alter the sound. Staging is greatly affected by the proportion of direct and difused sound. Both will vary measurably, as soon as you just dare to move.

 And even Dire Straits are no excepition when it comes to the "air-pressure-thingy".

 This, plus presumably you're imagining things as you know which cable is playing


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is it also placebo when one anticipates no changes and hence perceives it as such?_

 

Of course, that's why there's blind test. Placebo is not a bad thing. It actually cures people of their disease. The mind does wonderful things.

 People are just too sensitive about the word here.


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Opening your window curtain, placing a poster on the wall or moving the head an inch left or right can and will alter the sound. Staging is greatly affected by the proportion of direct and difused sound. Both will vary measurably, as soon as you just dare to move.

 And even Dire Straits are no excepition when it comes to the "air-pressure-thingy".

 This, plus presumably you're imagining things as you know which cable is playing 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 


 Well all those changes might have something to do with it if I didnt have a dedicated room that has not made a change in years. No windows, one door in(closed when I'm listening) My sweet spot is alot bigger than a couple inches. If you have heard some really nice dynamic speakers the imaging of the soundstage tends to stay very solid even when moving around the room. it stays in place. you just look at it from a different dirrection. Like walking back in forth in front of the stage. it doesnt move at all you just see it from different directions. Hopefully someone can answer why changing from one brand to another has made such a nice change in stage. 

 Viggen, Thanks for the info. I wonder why the Audioquest have the ability to add so much size over other cables I have used?


----------



## Sovkiller

Sometimes I get shocked with some of the posts I got here. Cables are not a magic potion that needs to be discovered, and studied to see which rules are applicable or not, under a microscope, or that those secret parameters were kept by an elf for years in a magic cave. Studies in cables are indeed very simple, and were done decades ago, long time ago, and all the parameters that mainly affect the performance for audible frequencies, or the sound in general, are all well known and measurable, even for frequencies far above the audible ones....That is not the point, the point is to define the level of acceptance, and from which point on those parameters (or the interaction among them) will affect the overall result, and are audible or not, as there is some guys here that seems to hear more than a bat in the darkest night...the rest is voodoo...


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Well all those changes might have something to do with it if I didnt have a dedicated room that has not made a change in years. No windows, one door in(closed when I'm listening) My sweet spot is alot bigger than a couple inches. If you have heard some really nice dynamic speakers the imaging of the soundstage tends to stay very solid even when moving around the room. it stays in place. you just look at it from a different dirrection. Like walking back in forth in front of the stage. it doesnt move at all you just see it from different directions._

 

There you go, see how much your ears suck.

  Quote:


 Hopefully someone can answer why changing from one brand to another has made such a nice change in stage. 
 

O.K., how's this:
 You can hear something that science hasn't discovered yet, and isn't even on the recording. Through a strange twist of fate, Audioquest is able to engineer cables with properties that are not known to mankind (but to Audioquest, and a few hundred other "developers"; major equipment developers excluded), ensuring their cables transfer the unknown "force" extraordinary well. You must be a lucky guy. You seem to have made a real bargain there. 
 Probably, the next nobel price is going to Audioquest. We'll see.


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I am not talking about any of that. I am talking about width and depth of soundstage with a speaker system. I want to know how and why a cable change would add the amount of gain in both directions? reference material where guitars on Dire straits albums were inside the left speaker have now moved to close to the outside wall of the same speaker. Drummers that were sounding almost even with the lead singer on the stage are now sounding like they are 4-5 feet behind him. I am not claiming to have gotten deeper bass or higher highs. Only bigger soundstage._

 

That happened to me once. But as it turns out that my wife pushed the amp too close to the wall and crimped the cable. When I was putting in a new component I put in a new cable the soundstage just expanded. Took me a while to figure it out because the IC is the same brand.

 The crimping actually cause a small leakage of current between channels and created a cross talk that I didn't realize and I don't even know how long I have listened to the bad cable without realizing it is defective.


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That happened to me once. But as it turns out that my wife pushed the amp too close to the wall and crimped the cable. When I was putting in a new component I put in a new cable the soundstage just expanded. Took me a while to figure it out because the IC is the same brand.

 The crimping actually cause a small leakage of current between channels and created a cross talk that I didn't realize and I don't even know how long I have listened to the bad cable without realizing it is defective._

 

My wife starts pushing these around I am going to start paying alot more attention to her when she tells me what to do? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Good night.


----------



## ph0rk

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Yes, perhaps we can have this type of show. "Real or Placebo". I am sure it will be a hit with the 1% of the male between 18-35 demographics.

 But, serisouly, it is disingenuous to question perception in the manner you did. That's like relegating non-mainstream to the looney bin._

 

Are you trying to imply that I am being insincere? I really do think that human perception in the realm of the individual is imperfect - and I am not alone, as the subfield of psychology dealing with perception tends to feel the same way. Or did you meant to say that I was merely incorrect?

 There is a difference between non-mainstream and snake oil, and snake oil permeates even mainstream products (check out cosmetics).

 It isn't as if some sort of testing will make the individual experience of an item like interconnects any less exciting or involving. They test cars, but if you -really- want to know what it is like, you have to drive it. However, they can pick the successful designs from the bad.

 People rarely change their minds without someone else disagreeing with them. Chances are, that is how most of the pro-cable people became that way, and possibly so for some anti-cable people. Remember, many people think that more than $50 on headphones is lunacy.

 There is even the possibility that I (or anyone) could hear a difference between your favored interconnect and my own and to find it _irrelevant_. Saliency is, in a very real way, in the mind of the beholder.

 What would help the debate? Some consensus-based ranking classifications system, something that can be modified with new information and checked. Some way to evaluate things absent their presentation. Presentation is nice, don't get me wrong, but I think it contributes to satisfaction in a way unrelated to sound.

 More than whether or not _random_nordost_cable_X will change my sound, I want to know what the cables I already have do to the sound, in a way I can with headphones. Preferably, without spending a great deal of money. It is difficult to accept interpretations of something like a cable when the whole idea has questionable legitimacy.

 Of course, I have several interconnects in the sub $30 range that sound pretty identical to me, and several pairs of "free" rca interconnects that sound worse due to bad shielding. I would probably not spend more money on a cable unless that money wouldn't create better gains elsewhere. When is that?

 Enough drunken rambling.


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_My wife starts pushing these around I am going to start paying alot more attention to her when she tells me what to do? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Good night.









_

 

Very nice. I'm not allowed to have my speakers out in the living room either. When I'm done I have to put them back in the corner against the wall.


----------



## Arainach

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Exactly, 

 I think what some of the people here are trying to propose as what happens with cables, breaks the law of conservation of energy._

 

And in the real world the Ideal Gas Law is broken too.

 This isn't a question of physics, it's one of Engineering. The most beautiful and pure theories often bear little to no resemblance to the real world. That's why we have Engineers.


----------



## LawnGnome

All the theories work completely fine. It is just other theories are not taken into consideration when applying them in real world.

 Also, what is being claimed is not within the realm of physics as we know it.

 And I for one doubt some cable makers are going to be the ones to make giant break throughs in this field. 

 And on the ideal gas law, from what I remember it isn't an actual physical law such as conservation of mass/energy. But a equation created to explain what would be needed to have an theoretical ideal gas. Either way the Waals equation is more accurate since it includes more of the variables like molecule size.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Arainach* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_And in the real world the Ideal Gas Law is broken too._

 

Hence its called "Ideal". Its not so much a law as a tendency when everything is perfect.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *ph0rk* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Are you trying to imply that I am being insincere? I really do think that human perception in the realm of the individual is imperfect - and I am not alone, as the subfield of psychology dealing with perception tends to feel the same way. Or did you meant to say that I was merely incorrect?

 There is a difference between non-mainstream and snake oil, and snake oil permeates even mainstream products (check out cosmetics).
_

 

No, I am not saying you are insincere. But, what you said has a distasteful "technocentric" ring to it as you do liken off the mainstream to lunatics.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_All the theories work completely fine. It is just other theories are not taken into consideration when applying them in real world.

 Also, what is being claimed is not within the realm of physics as we know it.

 And I for one doubt some cable makers are going to be the ones to make giant break throughs in this field. 
_

 

Reminds me of that Blind Men and the Elephant parable.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_My wife starts pushing these around I am going to start paying alot more attention to her when she tells me what to do? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 Good night.









_

 

Now that is indeed a quite impressive looking electricity-to-air-movement-transformation-aparatus.

 But whatever efforts you may put into the reproduction of your CD's (read my lips), *you cannot reproduce something that is not on the recording*.

 Edit:
 Sorry, didn't answer the image depth question:

*Depth of image* is defined mainly through the relation of levels between direct and diffused sound, and the chronological relation of them. To a smaller extend, colorations of the frequency response play a role, too.
*Image width* is defined by the proportion of the left and right signal levels. Some manipulations can be done by shifting the phase of a signal (against its un- or otherwise manipulated counterpart in the other channel).

 In short, the soundguy defines it with the controls of the reverb processor. Which can, again, only process and generate attributes known to todays science, as it's a product of science itself.
 In all probability, it isn't even connected to the mixing console with an Audioquest- or any other hocus-pocus cable.


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Also, what is being claimed is not within the realm of physics as we know it._

 

So any phenomena not specifically described through your limited knowledge of physics simply does not exist?

 ...And yes, your knowledge of physics is limited, you can not know everything, and yes, your knowledge contains bias, because you are human. Everything you know is based upon different ways of gathering information. Whether you read something, saw something, heard something, tasted something, or felt something, you have experienced some phenomena and you interpret that phenomena. It doesn't matter if that phenomena is "somebody teaching you something in a physics class" or "hearing differences when you change a cable in an audio system" you still have prior experiences of similar phenomena which create a bias. Bias is not a bad thing, tho. Bias helps keep us from repeating mistakes. It allows us, however, to jump to conclusions that may be premature, as we have not experienced *all* phenomena.


----------



## Sherwood

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_So any phenomena not specifically described through your limited knowledge of physics simply does not exist?

 ...And yes, your knowledge of physics is limited, you can not know everything, and yes, your knowledge contains bias, because you are human. Everything you know is based upon different ways of gathering information. Whether you read something, saw something, heard something, tasted something, or felt something, you have experienced some phenomena and you interpret that phenomena. It doesn't matter if that phenomena is "somebody teaching you something in a physics class" or "hearing differences when you change a cable in an audio system" you still have prior experiences of similar phenomena which create a bias. Bias is not a bad thing, tho. Bias helps keep us from repeating mistakes. It allows us, however, to jump to conclusions that may be premature, as we have not experienced *all* phenomena._

 

This is a logically untenable position. I've not jumped off of every diving board in the world, but every one I've jumped off of I have fallen back towards the Earth. I can reasonably posit, from both my own anecdotal experience and the principles of physics (which I also have not mastered every conceivable niche of) that I could jump off of ANY diving board, and I would always be pulled back towards the Earth. This isn't my bias, but absolute certainty does not require that I test every conceivably possible scenario firsthand. That's just poor philosophy masked as legitimate criticism.


----------



## viggen

I don't know too many scientists who tried to disprove gravity.

 However, what you said proves phenomena trumps sciences.


----------



## Sherwood

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_what you said proves phenomena trumps sciences._

 

I don't see it that way. Science merely explains phenomena. In the case of gravity, the phenomenon came first and the explanation later. In the case of, say, the Bose-Einstein Condensate, the science came first and the phenomena followed. If anything, the phenomena themselves are becoming less and less necessary.


----------



## recca

There's been a lot of talk about freq response which is warranted, but i believe that people are more sensitive to phase than freq. If you have speakers just try swapping the pos and neg legs on one of your speakers and try listening. Obviously that's an extreme case, but my point is that freq response measurements don't account for everything. There are other properties relevant to music reproduction which should be measured and accounted for before measurements can be taken as the holy grail. 

 I would think that the smart engineers know which properties we are really sensitive to. I'm sure those are proprietary secrets which help different companies get a leg up.


----------



## bigshot

Phase cancellation is more than just something people are sensitive to... It's sound actually getting cancelled out. The reason it's so bad is because the positive and negative are exact opposites. Slight phase deviations happen all the time in the real world. They're part of the way we discern distance and the size and shape of rooms. The same goes for time deviation.

 Frequency response is the single most important aspect of achieving great sound. There isn't a speaker made with proper response. You HAVE to adjust it. However, you are quite correct that people focus WAY too much on frequency extension. Sound that only a bat can hear isn't as important to our perception of good sound as those in the core audible spectrum. People should worry less about getting 25kHz right and focus on getting 2.5kHz balanced.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Sherwood* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_This is a logically untenable position. I've not jumped off of every diving board in the world, but every one I've jumped off of I have fallen back towards the Earth. I can reasonably posit, from both my own anecdotal experience and the principles of physics (which I also have not mastered every conceivable niche of) that I could jump off of ANY diving board, and I would always be pulled back towards the Earth. This isn't my bias, but absolute certainty does not require that I test every conceivably possible scenario firsthand. That's just poor philosophy masked as legitimate criticism._

 

You've developed a hypothesis that when you jump off something, you'll return to earth. You did this by comparing your experience of a specific phenomena to your past experiences. Logically, you've concluded that you'll return to earth if you jump off of something. You've also (likely) witnessed this happen to other people, or things. You may even *believe*, based on past experiences, if an object jumps off something, it'll return to earth no matter what the circumstances. This is all outside the "realm of science". No physics, no nothing other than a human's experience of some phenomena.

 if you were to try and explain the phenomena, in order to better isolate conditions related to that phenomena, and to allow other humans to also predict the outcome of similar phenomena, adhering to some specific guidelines, you'll be practicing science, and contributing to what some refer to as a 'body of knowledge'.

 The word 'gravity' is used to describe (as best we can) the phenomena you experience when we jump off something, and return to earth. Our well accepted theory of gravity constantly changes, however. As soon as we experience a slightly different phenomena, we apply a theory or model which seems similar in an attempt to either:

 a) confirm the completeness of the original theory

 or

 b) disprove the completeness of the original theory

 This differentiation is CRUCIAL to the practice of science, and why science can never stop...

 If you're willing to read a little more, I'd like to specifically discuss the term 'objective'. I've heard the term best explained like this:

 There are only two things that can be truly objective. Mathematics and phenomena.

 Mathematics (or more specifically, numbers) is/are a VERY specific language used to describe things without using words. It is inherently objective. For example, 2 is two is ii is .. is zwei is deux, etc... there is no subjectivity related to numbers. 2 cannot be 'maybe 3', or 'almost half-way to 4', or prefer green to yellow.

 Phenomena must also be objective. Atoms can't make choices. Gravity doesn't exhibit a preference, it doesn't like hamburgers more than hotdogs. Phenomena follow rules... our task (as scientists, or just good natured curious people) is to try and figure out those rules by watching things happen, and measuring attributes of phenomena using devices, methods and conventions we ourselves have created. This is bias. We created the languages (except numbers, of course), we created the measuring devices, we created the units (the *kinds* of numbers) and so on. In one sense, because we exhibit intent, we cannot be bias-less.

 So, by this consideration: we (since we're not numbers, and we're not really a single phenomena) are inherently subjective. we prefer things, I like black more than red, and enjoy things like music and art. some even believe that our inherent subjectivity is a survival tactic from way back when... when we lived in caves and picked things off the ground or from trees, to eat. we can certainly try to be very objective, and that's certainly a good thing. But claiming (or worse, BELIEVING) that *only* one way of understanding the world is correct, or right, or best, is just silly. They are woven together, we can't escape either, and the only way to better understand phenomena is to USE BOTH.

 So what does this have to do with "audiophile cables"? Dunno! You figure it out!


----------



## viggen

I know. He's applying deductive cable inquiry techniques using inductive reasoning. Clever but inaccurate.


----------



## eruditass

if capacitance, inductance, and impedance mattered so much, why doesn't everyone have short cables? or why isn't there a specific headphone length for each cable and headphone combo? 

 or do cable manufacturers shave off /add stuff as they change the length?


----------



## manaox2

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *DoomzDayz* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_if capacitance, inductance, and impedance mattered so much, why doesn't everyone have short cables? or why isn't there a specific headphone length for each cable and headphone combo? 

 or do cable manufacturers shave off /add stuff as they change the length?_

 

headphones and speaker systems have different lengths for practicality and convenience for specific setups. The larger headphones need longer cables for monitoring around a studio. Most portable headphones do have a reasonable length and the cable is noticeably thinner. Speaker systems can have huge long wires because they can be setup for a wide sound stage or outdoor venue. You usually choose the length of a cable before you buy for high-end setups.

 We wouldn't really have to worry about capacitance, inductance, and impedance quite as much if we could all use shorter cables.


----------



## LawnGnome

The real question is.

 If you guys beleive in cables so much, why aren't your systems hardwired?

 A hardwired system would remove 2 unsoldered connections, 4 soldered connections from each channel. 

 IF there would be an improvement, logically this would provide a much better solution, and at far less cost.

 Because if you think capacitance and inductance of cables that differ by a few pico measurements is important, look at what those RCA or 3.5mm connections add.


----------



## eruditass

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *manaox2* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_headphones and speaker systems have different lengths for practicality and convenience for specific setups. The larger headphones need longer cables for monitoring around a studio. Most portable headphones do have a reasonable length and the cable is noticeably thinner. Speaker systems can have huge long wires because they can be setup for a wide sound stage or outdoor venue. You usually choose the length of a cable before you buy for high-end setups.

 We wouldn't really have to worry about capacitance, inductance, and impedance quite as much if we could all use shorter cables._

 

oh ok, well that's good. so when i cut this HD650 cable to 1/3 or 1/4th the length, it will be like an upgrade unless my source isn't in my pocket?


----------



## manaox2

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The real question is.

 If you guys beleive in cables so much, why aren't your systems hardwired?

 A hardwired system would remove 2 unsoldered connections, 4 soldered connections from each channel. 

 IF there would be an improvement, logically this would provide a much better solution, and at far less cost.

 Because if you think capacitance and inductance of cables that differ by a few pico measurements is important, look at what those RCA or 3.5mm connections add._

 

Actually I am getting my vCap dock hardwired. I do believe in it. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 For other things like my RCA interconnects, I will take the hit the connectors make so that I can keep them as I upgrade. Replaceable parts were such a great invention.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *DoomzDayz* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_oh ok, well that's good. so when i cut this HD650 cable to 1/3 or 1/4th the length, it will be like an upgrade unless my source isn't in my pocket?_

 

It should have a slight positive effect in theory. Using a cable with better matching capacitance with source or amp that is manufactured in the right braid or weave and especially shielding would arguably add much more. Is it possible that headphones that arguably don't need a higher capacitance cable would also be more sensitive to change in it?


----------



## Vul Kuolun

If it was for the known electrical values, why don't you talk to someone who knows what he's talking about *and* hasn't an interest in telling you **** to get his hands on your money?

 If you know the in- and outputimpedances of your gear, it's a triviality for a technically trained person to calculate the influence of these values on the signal.

 Thing is, for any reasonable combination of cable and gear, you'll get values that are far, far, far out af any frequency range that might be of interest for you.

 Problem with these values is, the snake oilers tell you about the effects (which are true) without informing you about the proportions and scales you're about to throw your money at. I wouldn't give a single penny to so someone who tries to play such tricks on me.

 I mean, if the -3db point of your cable drops from 10Mhz to 8Mhz if you cut it in half, would you really care?
 (Just as a reminder: Even if you could experience a difference in this regions: There's nothing on the CD over 20KHz).

 Here's a (unfortunately german) Excel-sheet to calculate a cables properties:

File-Upload.net - Ihr kostenloser File Hoster!


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *manaox2* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_We wouldn't really have to worry about capacitance, inductance, and impedance quite as much if we could all use shorter cables._

 

With the cable lengths used in most stereo systems, none of that makes any difference at all.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


 _Why do/don't "audiophile" cables improve sound?_ 
 

You don't seriously expect a definitive answer from this forum, do you?

  Quote:


 _I'm saying if cables made a noticeable difference, we could measure it. But we can not. So they do not make a difference. Unless there is some sort of unmeasurable "magic" property to cables that breaks the laws of physics._ 
 

Different cables measure differently. They have different C, L and R and other deviations primarily resulting from the dielectric properties. But it's true: those don't reflect the characteristics some audiophiles believe to hear. However, different cables also cause signal-shape variations. They're just not accepted by EEs as a possible source of «cable sound», because they seem too tiny to be perceivable, and moreover most of them are apparently located in the ultrasonic range. 

  Quote:


 _In terms of audio reproduction, humans have it down to a pretty good science.
_ 
 

Are you sure? I think at least 90% of the cable-sound skeptics believe in audible differences between different electronics components (amps, digital players). But if you look at their data, there's no reason for most of modern amps and CDPs to show sonic differences: ruler-flat frequency responses, negligible distortion and noise... So you really can tell which measuring values are responsible for which sonic characteristics with, say, solid-state headphone amps with less than 0.2 dB drop-off at 20 Hz/20 kHz, less than 0.1% THD and IMD and less than 1 ohm output impedance? I bet you can't, and it will be hard to find an EE who can. 

  Quote:


 «Can depth and width of soundstage, and change in tone be measured? Because i have had all these changes when switching cables in my speaker system. The overall freq. response may not have changed but the presentation was a big difference.»
_Yes, those are all functions of the waveforms. People tend to give sound properties that it does not have. There is no magic to it. It is all about accurately produced waveforms._ 
 

I fully agree with this. IMO width and especially depth of soundstage are the result of accurately reproduced waveforms throughout the whole reproduction chain, facilitating the left/right localization and the perception of _distance_ of the sound sources thanks to the high detail resolution, thus the differentiation between direct and reflected sound on the recording. 
 The above experience report is a hint that cables can indeed have an impact on signal accuracy.

  Quote:


 _Accepting something to be true when it is unproven to be true is intellectual curiosity._ 
 

Bravo! Of course nobody will accept something to be true without corresponding experience. In my younger years I was a proud member of team cable-sound skeptics/deniers. But one day my «intellectual curiosity» drove me to replace the cabling of my speaker setup by some pretty looking high-end cables. The result was pretty unexpected: The sound had changed, and I didn't like the new characteristic at all. I was lucky that my dealer accepted a return, although not at full refund (not least due to the fact that my soldering at that time was less than perfect). A while later I had the idea that it might just have been the result of a mistuning of my carefully tuned setup, particularly because of the 3rd- and 4rth-order filters used in my then homegrown speakers -- which react pretty critical even to small changes in the chain.

 Although the seed was sown, it took a while until my next cable experiment. I began to build my own cables. The more I dived into the matter, the more convinced I was that cables do indeed alter the sound in characteristic ways, depending on geometry and materials. After having made hundreds of interconnect, digital and headphone cables I now have a small collection of homegrown references. In some positions within the system I prefer them to the few commercial products I own, in others I prefer the latter. Particularly headphone cables don't seem to like my cable philosophy as much as my (clearly shorter) interconnects. 

 Actually of all sorts of cables headphone cables show the greatest sonic deviations to my ears -- I'm quite sure that even most of the dye-hard skeptics couldn't ignore them.

 Although I'm generally open to hypotheses outside the classic physics (i.e. the current state of science), I'm fairly convinced that the perceived sonic differences are finally measurable, even with today's equipment. We just have to know where to look at. Obviously the conventional measuring criteria -- THD, IMD, S/N, FR, impulse response, decay spectrum... -- fail with cables. Well, it depends on the understanding of the term «conventional». After all phase measurements are quite common. They just don't seem to make sense with cables. IMO that's the track that should be followed. This implies that I consider the skin effect relevant for the audio band. 

 I had one experience which confirms this idea: A friend of mine had a set of «GaborLinks», some metallic elements in a wooden box switched into the signal path with the purpose of manipulating the (high-frequency) phase response by means of the skin effect -- and this in the picosecond range. We had 20 or 30 different pairs to test. The astonishing result was that we were virtually unanimous in describing the characteristics with each pair of elements and had the same few favorites. The inventor (? -- at least a militant proponent; people who understand German may want to have a look at this Hi-Fi Forum thread) of the idea, Uwe Machenschalk, equates the effect with cable effects. 

 So it seems to me that microscopic phase-distortion patterns (going hand in hand with corresponding microscopic frequency-response distortions) could be the cause for the cable sound. Something the conventional electroacoustics don't care about these days, although it would be within the reach of existing measuring instruments. This theory also corresponds with my own experiences as a speaker builder, namely during my extremely pedantic crossover-network tuning which seemed to show that even tiny, barely measurable phase and FR deviations matter.

 I do understand that people with a scientific background who at the same time don't hear sonic differences with cables become convinced skeptics (or «nonbelievers», resp.). I just wish this approach wouldn't lead to the kind of sarcasm and enmity that's often to be encountered on this forum (as in others). 
.


----------



## OverlordXenu

JaZZ, did you DBT the cables to see if you actually did hear a difference, to make sure that your subconscious wasn't just making you think they made your setup sound better?


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *OverlordXenu* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_JaZZ, did you DBT the cables to see if you actually did hear a difference, to make sure that your subconscious wasn't just making you think they made your setup sound better?_

 

No -- DBTs are not allowed for Head-Fi members! (See forum rules!) But between you and me: I passed a headphone-cable blind test with two (Head-Fi) friends, my first and only one. BTW, the «cables» (which ones are you talking about?) didn't automatically make my setup sound better, just different. 
.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You don't seriously expect a definitive answer from this forum, do you?

 Different cables measure differently. They have different C, L and R and other deviations primarily resulting from the dielectric properties. But it's true: those don't reflect the characteristics some audiophiles believe to hear. However, different cables also cause signal-shape variations. They're just not accepted by EEs as a possible source of «cable sound», because they seem too tiny to be perceivable, and moreover most of them are apparently located in the ultrasonic range. 

 Are you sure? I think at least 90% of the cable-sound skeptics believe in audible differences between different electronics components (amps, digital players). But if you look at their data, there's no reason for most of modern amps and CDPs to show sonic differences: ruler-flat frequency responses, negligible distortion and noise... So you really can tell which measuring values are responsible for which sonic characteristics with, say, solid-state headphone amps with less than 0.2 dB drop-off at 20 Hz/20 kHz, less than 0.1% THD and IMD and less than 1 ohm output impedance? I bet you can't, and it will be hard to find an EE who can. 

 I fully agree with this. IMO width and especially depth of soundstage are the result of accurately reproduced waveforms throughout the whole reproduction chain, facilitating the left/right localization and the perception of distance of the sound sources thanks to the high detail resolution, thus the differentiation between direct and reflected sound on the recording. 
 The above experience report is a hint that cables can indeed have an impact on signal accuracy.

 Bravo! Of course nobody will accept something to be true without corresponding experience. In my younger years I was a proud member of team cable-sound skeptics/deniers. But one day my «intellectual curiosity» drove me to replace the cabling of my speaker setup by some pretty looking high-end cables. The result was pretty unexpected: The sound had changed, and I didn't like the new characteristic at all. I was lucky that my dealer accepted a return, although not at full refund (not least due to the fact that my soldering at that time was less than perfect). A while later I had the idea that it might just have been the result of a mistuning of my carefully tuned setup, particularly because of the 3rd- and 4rth-order filters used in my then homegrown speakers -- which react pretty critical even to small changes in the chain.

 Although the seed was sown, it took a while until my next cable experiment. I began to build my own cables. The more I dived into the matter, the more convinced I was that cables do indeed alter the sound in characteristic ways, depending on geometry and materials. After having made hundreds of interconnect, digital and headphone cables I now have a small collection of homegrown references. In some positions within the system I prefer them to the few commercial products I own, in others I prefer the latter. Particularly headphone cables don't seem to like my cable philosophy as much as my (clearly shorter) interconnects. 

 Actually of all sorts of cables headphone cables show the greatest sonic deviations to my ears -- I'm quite sure that even most of the dye-hard skeptics couldn't ignore them.

 Although I'm generally open to hypotheses outside the classic physics (i.e. the current state of science), I'm fairly convinced that the perceived sonic differences are finally measurable, even with today's equipment. We just have to know where to look at. Obviously the conventional measuring criteria -- THD, IMD, S/N, FR, impulse response, decay spectrum... -- fail with cables. Well, it depends of the understanding of the term «conventional». After all phase measurements are quite common. They just don't seem to make sense with cables. IMO that's the track that should be followed. This implies that I consider the skin effect relevant for the audio band. 

 I had one experience which confirms this idea: A friend of mine had a set of «GaborLinks», some metallic elements in a wooden box switched into the signal path with the purpose of manipulating the (high-frequency) phase response by means of the skin effect -- and this in the picosecond range. We had 20 or 30 different pairs to test. The astonishing result was that we were virtually unanimous in describing the characteristics with each pair of elements and had the same few favorites. The inventor (? -- at least a militant proponent; people who understand German may want to have a look at this Hi-Fi Forum thread) of the idea, Uwe Machenschalk, equates the effect with cable effects. 

 So it seems to me that microscopic phase-distortion patterns (going hand in hand with corresponding microscopic frequency-response distortions) could be the cause for the cable sound. Something the conventional electroacoustics don't care about these days, although it would be within the reach of existing measuring instruments. This theory also corresponds with my own experiences as a speaker builder, namely during my extremely pedantic crossover-network tuning which seemed to show that even tiny, barely measurable phase and FR deviations matter.

 I do understand that people with a scientific background who at the same time don't hear sonic differences with cables become convinced skeptics (or «nonbelievers», resp.). I just wish this approach wouldn't lead to the kind of sarcasm and enmity that's often to be encountered on this forum (as in others). 
._

 


 If all "pro cable"-posts had this level, there wouldn't be much reason for sarcasm. First reasonable pro-cable post in the whole thread (and a lot of others) although i clearely disagree on the subject. 
 What makes people (read: me) sarcastic is that the majority of discutants here doesn't have and doesn't accept any kind of technical knowledge. Argumantations are build upon pure (cheap) tactics and knockout arguments. Most of the time, not even good ones.

 Don't post if you didn't listen. Damn, your ears/gear must be bad. Ignore list this, ignore list that. Lalala, soon this will be over.

 But anyway: Whats your point on the argumentation, that, even if the cable might do something, it wouldn't be of interest anyway because of the lack of information on the source beforehand?

 Thinking it through to the end, all that the "better" cable might transfer, that the cheap one doesn't, could be artefacts of the electronic components.
 Hence, the cable with the inferior transfer characteristics (outside the audible range) would be the better one.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Are you sure? I think at least 90% of the cable-sound skeptics believe in audible differences between different electronics components (amps, digital players). But if you look at their data, there's no reason for most of modern amps and CDPs to show sonic differences: ruler-flat frequency responses, negligible distortion and noise... So you really can tell which measuring values are responsible for which sonic characteristics with, say, solid-state headphone amps with less than 0.2 dB drop-off at 20 Hz/20 kHz, less than 0.1% THD and IMD and less than 1 ohm output impedance? I bet you can't, and it will be hard to find an EE who can. 

._

 

You obviously are not very handy in EE or even DIY. (not to sound offensive)

 Because you completely forgot to mention slew rate and settling time.

 The specs provided by an amp/source producer aren't even half of the specs you need to measure to see the differences.

 Look up some actual white papers and you will quickly see what I'm talking about.


----------



## dvw

Here's a very expensive cable. Well not really a cable. The very expensive Harmonic Technology's Cyberlight.

 Here's its measurement

Stereophile: Harmonic Technology CyberLight Wave & P2A interconnects
 John Atkinson actually said this is a defective product.

 And here's the review and comment from another thread here.

_Yeah, I know about the measurements. Luckily, I don't listen to measurements. What I hear is very similar to what Mikey Fremer actually said about their sound:

 "The most fabulous sound
 ...

 If you hear what I heard, for the first time in your life you'll hear no cables whatsoever. When you switch back to any brand of metal conductors, you'll know you're hearing cables—because what's transmitted via CyberLight will be the most gloriously open, coherent, delicate, extended, transparent, pristine sound you've ever heard from your system—at least if you hear what I heard.

 There was a delicacy and purity to high-frequency transients that was immediate and unmistakable. By comparison, going back to regular cables made everything sound bright or dull or spotlit or hard, depending. The CyberLights produced an effortlessness and a pulse-like coherence that was more "musical" than anything else I've experienced while listening to recorded music. The bass was ultratight and round and "right," and the harmonic balance and overall musical decay were more natural and believable than I'd ever heard from any stereo system."_

 So this cable do sound different, it has a lot of distortion (up to 10%). However, it sounded "musical"and "gloriously open and coherent". (Don't ask me what that mean). So maybe measurement really don't matter. Distortion actually adds to musicality and a bumped up bass response gives you ultra-tight bass instead of a boomy bass.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Here's a very expensive cable. Well not really a cable. The very expensive Harmonic Technology's Cyberlight.

 Here's its measurement

Stereophile: Harmonic Technology CyberLight Wave & P2A interconnects
 John Atkinson actually said this is a defective product.

 And here's the review and comment from another thread here.

Yeah, I know about the measurements. Luckily, I don't listen to measurements. What I hear is very similar to what Mikey Fremer actually said about their sound:

 "The most fabulous sound
 ...

 If you hear what I heard, for the first time in your life you'll hear no cables whatsoever. When you switch back to any brand of metal conductors, you'll know you're hearing cables—because what's transmitted via CyberLight will be the most gloriously open, coherent, delicate, extended, transparent, pristine sound you've ever heard from your system—at least if you hear what I heard.

 There was a delicacy and purity to high-frequency transients that was immediate and unmistakable. By comparison, going back to regular cables made everything sound bright or dull or spotlit or hard, depending. The CyberLights produced an effortlessness and a pulse-like coherence that was more "musical" than anything else I've experienced while listening to recorded music. The bass was ultratight and round and "right," and the harmonic balance and overall musical decay were more natural and believable than I'd ever heard from any stereo system."

 So this cable do sound different, it has a lot of distortion (up to 10%). However, it sounded "musical"and "gloriously open and coherent". (Don't ask me what that mean). So maybe measurement really don't matter. Distortion actually adds to musicality and a bumped up bass response gives you ultra-tight bass instead of a boomy bass._

 

They throw those terms at almost any device.

 Tightened bass, better extension, smoother, more life like, better separation, etc etc. 

 They are useless terms since they are used to describe almost damn well everything.

 And who said a bass response boost tightened it? the article sure didn't.

 Also, Micheal Fremer acts like a child, and seems to have the reasoning levels of a child. Read into the million dollar challenge thread, and its links to see why.


----------



## dvw

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_
 And who said a bass response boost tightened it? the article sure didn't.
_

 

Well, I am not making this up. Look at the frequency response in the article. There is a bump from 10Hz to 50Hz. The review said "the bass is ultra tight". So the bump must have tightened the bass, right?

 There is also large distortion from 16KHz and up. That must be where the pristine sound is coming from.

 Anyway, this is the measurable difference.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You obviously are not very handy in EE or even DIY. (not to sound offensive)_

 

...of course not! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




  Quote:


 _Because you completely forgot to mention slew rate and settling time.

 The specs provided by an amp/source producer aren't even half of the specs you need to measure to see the differences._ 
 

Actually I was talking of real measuring data, not manufacturer specs. So you think you or any EE can predict the sonic characteristics of any amp by means of slew rate and settling time? -- To be honest: I doubt it.

 The German magazine _Stereoplay_ -- or more precisely the bunch of EEs in its editorial office -- has developed a method to «predict» amp sound or rather confirm the heard characteristics consisting of detailed analysis of harmonic distortion. According to their theory, it's rather the HD pattern than the HD intensity which makes for organic, natural and clean sound. (Note that we're still talking of THD values clearly below 0.1%.) They didn't lose a word about slew rate or settling time in their articles when it comes to amp sound, BTW. 
.


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Anyway, this is the measurable difference._

 

And one that people can hear (as per the claims made in the article).


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_...of course not! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Actually I was talking of real measuring data, not manufacturer specs. So you think you or any EE can predict the sonic characteristics of any amp by means of slew rate and settling time? -- To be honest: I doubt it.

 The German magazine Stereoplay -- or more precisely the bunch of EEs in its editorial office -- has developed a method to «predict» amp sound or rather confirm the heard characteristics consisting of detailed analysis of harmonic distortion. According to their theory, it's rather the HD pattern than the HD intensity which makes for organic, natural and clean sound. (Note that we're still talking of THD values clearly below 0.1%.) They didn't lose a word about slew rate or settling time in their articles when it comes to amp sound, BTW. 
._

 


 Slew rate and settling time can tell you more about sound than other specs.

 Also, in the DIY forum we use Slew rate and settling time to estimate the resolution of opamps.

 And we get it right. because faster slew rate, and lower settling time directly translates into better resolution.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_And one that people can hear (as per the claims made in the article)._

 


 In a negative way, in the way of a hum sound.

 Also, this isn't even a cable, it is some sort of active device.


----------



## hciman77

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *dvw* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_There is a bump from 10Hz to 50Hz. The review said "the bass is ultra tight". So the bump must have tightened the bass, right?_

 

That doesnt logically follow.

 The bass boost is an objective reality, it may have given the listener the _impression_ that the bass was tightened but you could also describe it technically as _exaggerated_, since listening is so subjective the listener may have _misinterpreted_ a bass boost as a tightening of the bass. 

 The only way to test objectively if the bass was tightened or not would be to transmit a few isolated bass notes through conventional cables and measure the rise and fall times and then do the same for the whizzo cables. If the bass is tightened you will see it in the graphs.

  Quote:


 There is also large distortion from 16KHz and up. That must be where the pristine sound is coming from.

 Anyway, this is the measurable difference. 
 

As other have commented it seems paradoxical to suggest that sound that includes relatively massive added elements i.e distortion could be described as pristine, this seems to fall into the realm of illusion. Something that makes the sound less faithful to the source but gives the impression of improving it. 

 The Stereophile measurements show that the "cable" is physically incapable of a DR of more than 88db, this makes it worse than the humble CD. 

 In this case it does definitely alter the sound, maybe it makes it sound nicer to Mr Fremer, John Atkinson was more circumspect about it, but it does not represent a very high level of accuracy.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Slew rate and settling time can tell you more about sound than other specs.

 Also, in the DIY forum we use slew rate and settling time to estimate the resolution of opamps.

 And we get it right. because faster slew rate, and lower settling time directly translates into better resolution._

 

Maybe. But even if that's true, resolution is just one criterion among many. Amps (including op-amps) show a large palette of sonic differences up to sonic balance -- without corresponding FR deviations. So you still think you're able to predict amplifier sound by means of slew rate and settling time?
.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Maybe. But even if that's true, resolution is just one criterion among many. Amps (including op-amps) show a large palette of sonic differences up to sonic balance -- without corresponding FR deviations. So you still think you're able to predict amplifier sound by means of slew rate and settling time?
._

 


 I did not say it will predict the sound entirely. Just better than most other terms.

 Things like THD and IMD are often so low that you cannot hear the difference, which is why I said slew rate and settling time are better indicators than *some *other specs.

 However, it seems a bit to me like now your just trying to save face.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I did not say it will predict the sound entirely. Just better than most other terms._

 

Maybe. But as it stands, your statement... Quote:


 _In terms of audio reproduction, humans have it down to a pretty good science_ 
 

...is quite a bit premature. At least if it implies that there are no white spots left in audio.

  Quote:


 _Things like THD and IMD are often so low that you cannot hear the difference, which is why I said slew rate and settling time are better indicators than *some *other specs._ 
 

That's where other opinions differ from yours (among others the EEs at _stereoplay)_.

  Quote:


 _However, it seems a bit to me like now your just trying to save face._ 
 

Not at all. Also, there's no need for getting personal, is there?
.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Maybe. But as it stands, your statement......is quite a bit premature. At least if it implies that there are no white spots left in audio.

 That's where other opinions differ from yours (among others the EEs at stereoplay).

 Not at all. Also, there's no need for getting personal, is there?
._

 


 Phase distortion, slew rate, settling time, overshoot, harmonics(2nd,3rd,4th), voltage noise density, current noise density, distortion, are all things that influence the sound to make up the final sound signature, and all of these things can be easily measured.

 But in the end, if you want to accurately know how close the final sound is, to the source data. Just analyze the waveform. (but this tests a system as a whole).


 If cables DID make a difference, you could find differences in the waveform produced. Since this literally is the sound.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Phase distortion, slew rate, settling time, overshoot, harmonics(2nd,3rd,4th), voltage noise density, current noise density, distortion, are all things that influence the sound to make up the final sound signature, and all of these things can be easily measured._

 

Of course it can be «easily measured». But it's extremely hard (I say impossible to date) to interpret the data in the form of a reliable prediction of the sonic result. Because we still don't know which measuring value has which sonic impact. And remember: we're talking of modern solid-state amps with virtually «perfect» measuring data, so even your 2nd to 4th harmonics shouldn't matter in your view. BTW, _stereoplay_ measures harmonics up to 10th order. 

  Quote:


 _But in the end, if you want to accurately know how close the final sound is, to the source data. Just analyze the waveform. (but this tests a system as a whole)._ 
 

I always wanted to see the original signal (or an excerpt of it, resp.) with the one reproduced by the component (...amp...) in question side by side or projected one upon the other. I just fear that the optical resolution of the oscilloscope might not suffice to do the fine nuances justice which the human ear is able to differentiate. E.g. the low harmonic distortion products we're talking about are impossible to detect on oscilloscope waveforms.
.

  Quote:


 _If cables DID make a difference, you could find differences in the waveform produced. Since this literally is the sound._ 
 

Yes, that's what I think, too, and have posted earlier on. You just have to apply very high measuring resolution -- higher than what seems reasonable at first glance.
.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


 Dear valued Stereoplay reader,

 we're sorry to tell you that this is the last issue of our magazine. As our team of EE's found out, all of the gear we test does in fact sound the same. After (insert number of your estimation here) years of development, science has finaly managed to max out the stereo-principle, which does awfully suck anyway if you compare it to multichannel systems. Though they did not take us seriously first, we have already informed our advertising customers about this. They were really amazed about what we found out.
 We suggest you buy another magazine.

 Yours, Stereoplay 
 

If we take it as a basis that human hearing is not infinite, and some day science may eventually be able to reproduce the 20-20 000Hz that are stored on the CD without a noticeable difference: *When* do you think the article above will be printed, JaZZ?


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If we take it as a basis that human hearing is not infinite, and some day science may eventually be able to reproduce the 20-20 000Hz that are stored on the CD without a noticeable difference: *When* do you think the article above will be printed, JaZZ?_

 

Seriously? Never. The CD won't survive endlessly, so the 20-kHz limitation (which is an eye of a needle anyway) won't necessarily, too. Talking of the latter: it implicates a low-pass filter which will always have an impact on the sound depending on the indicidual implementation of the manufacturer. And the format itself doesn't do the human hearing justice (if you count audiophiles to humans). Furthermore, the market doesn't dictate sonic perfection, so there will never be a universal, science-supported urge for it. And as recources become scarce, (pure) audio technology will become a niche sector, even more than today, which will massively slow down the technical development. Add to this that the majority of audiophiles aren't even interested in a reproduction as true to the original as possible. And finally it's impossible to reproduce a live concert 100% accurately with all its nuances and 3D effects, independent of the number of channels, so why put so much effort in a 100% neutral amplifier or cable? (That's not necessarily my own standpoint, but my interpretation of the zeitgeist.)
.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Of course it can be «easily measured». But it's extremely hard (I say impossible to date) to interpret the data in the form of a reliable prediction of the sonic result. Because we still don't know which measuring value has which sonic impact. And remember: we're talking of modern solid-state amps with virtually «perfect» measuring data, so even your 2nd to 4th harmonics shouldn't matter in your view. BTW, stereoplay measures harmonics up to 10th order. 

 I always wanted to see the original signal (or an excerpt of it, resp.) with the one reproduced by the component (...amp...) in question side by side or projected one upon the other. I just fear that the optical resolution of the oscilloscope might not suffice to do the fine nuances justice which the human ear is able to differentiate. E.g. the low harmonic distortion products we're talking about are impossible to detect on oscilloscope waveforms.
.

 Yes, that's what I think, too, and have posted earlier on. You just have to apply very high measuring resolution -- higher than what seems reasonable at first glance.
._

 


 If these harmonics can't be measured, how does steroplay measure to the 10th harmonic?

 Audio is child play in the EE world.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If these harmonics can't be measured, how does steroplay measure to the 10th harmonic?_

 

Who sais that they can't be measured?

  Quote:


 _Audio is child play in the EE world._ 
 

As it seems. It's just not possible to reliably interpret measuring data of today's high-end electronics in terms of sonic impact. The infamous white spots amidst the children's playground.
.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Who sais that they can't be measured?

 As it seems. It's just not possible to reliably interpret measuring data of today's high-end electronics in terms of sonic impact. The infamous white spots amidst the children's playground.
._

 

 Quote:


 the low harmonic distortion products we're talking about are impossible to detect on oscilloscope waveforms 
 


 It can be done, and I'm sure it has been.

 However, scientists don't see much benefit in researching it further at this time. (I assume)


----------



## OverlordXenu

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If we take it as a basis that human hearing is not infinite, and some day science may eventually be able to reproduce the 20-20 000Hz that are stored on the CD without a noticeable difference: *When* do you think the article above will be printed, JaZZ?_

 

Never, Stereophile is all marketing. They don't have any EE's, anyway.


----------



## IPodPJ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Add to this that the majority of audiophiles aren't even interested in a reproduction as true to the original as possible._

 

Well then they really wouldn't be audiophiles, would they? I think most people if given a choice would prefer a more natural sounding recording. I just don't think most people out there are even aware of it. They are too preoccupied with feeding the kids, paying the bills, walking the dog... things we probably don't do.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *IPodPJ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Well then they really wouldn't be audiophiles, would they? I think most people if given a choice would prefer a more natural sounding recording. I just don't think most people out there are even aware of it. They are too preoccupied with feeding the kids, paying the bills, walking the dog... things we probably don't do. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 


 That's what I stride for, and why I go tubeless.

 I want to hear music as it was recorded, as pure as possible. No extra distortion or effects.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *IPodPJ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Well then they really wouldn't be audiophiles, would they?_

 

The term sais it all: people on an endless search for sonic improvements (count me in!). That doesn't automatically imply a love for unvarnished accuracy; many audiophiles prefer at least a small dose of euphony.

  Quote:


 _I think most people if given a choice would prefer a more natural sounding recording._ 
 

Or maybe rather something that fulfills their expectations of naturality: a sonic signature which gives them the emotional touch of a live concert, irrespective of the system colorations this implicates. Note that I don't (dis)qualify this attitude, it's absolutely understandable to search for a substitute and compensation for lost authenticity and completeness which is inevitable during the whole reproduction process from the recording up to the sound transducers -- because every component in the chain (microphone, cabling, digital format, digital transport, DAC, speaker/headphone) suffers from imperfection, not to speak of the relatively poor spatial reproduction. So a little bit of warming and enriching harmonic distortion or a midrange or mid-bass hump is often welcome. 

 I'd like to add some thoughts about cables. It has often been asked: why take so much care about cabling in a home system when most of the recordings are made with non-audiophile cables. My take on that is that the recording has to be taken as it is, whereas what audiophile cables in a home system do is in fact help with system synergy, not so much preserve neutrality (at best they preserve a great deal of the original resolution), the more so as it's impossible to tell which cable is really neutral. 
.


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That's what I stride for, and why I go tubeless.

 I want to hear music as it was recorded, as pure as possible. No extra distortion or effects._

 

So this is your bias... When you hear something that you think sounds good, it may very well measure flat (FR, L, C, R might all be hunkey-dorey by some measurement's analysis), but others may have different opinions. Others may enjoy listening to music, rather than a collection of noises with very little distortion. Others may actually ENJOY distortions caused by a cable. Some could care less about the absolute science behind why their $500 IC's sound better to them than a pair of Radio Shack jobs. And that's why audiophile cables DO make a difference.

 Just a quick question, if you'll entertain it: How long do you typically listen for during 'one' listening session? A couple songs? A full CD? A couple CD's? All day?


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That's what I stride for, and why I go tubeless.

 I want to hear music as it was recorded, as pure as possible. No extra distortion or effects._

 


 Just wondering what tube gear you have owned, that you have formed this opinion on?


----------



## hciman77

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_So this is your bias... When you hear something that you think sounds good, it may very well measure flat (FR, L, C, R might all be hunkey-dorey by some measurement's analysis), but others may have different opinions._

 

This is a rather key point, preference trumps fidelity sometimes. But here is another. Unless you have access to the master tapes how would you know that what you hear is "accurately reproducing" what was recorded anyway. You may not be able to use your experience of live concert sound as a guide since halls have different sounds and studios may be very different in a between and within sense, and of course our memories may be "coloured".

 As the stereophile article on that esoteric - cough - _cable_ shows elements that actively alter the sound may be deemed more likeable, I am a little concerned that the professional listener deemed the _cable_ realistic since by the traditional definition of high fidelity it wasnt accurate in the same way that a cable that just lets it all through unvarnished would be, but that is the difference between humans and measuring kit, humans are much more easily fooled 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





  Quote:


 Others may enjoy listening to music, rather than a collection of noises with very little distortion. Others may actually ENJOY distortions caused by a cable. Some could care less about the absolute science behind why their $500 IC's sound better to them than a pair of Radio Shack jobs. And that's why audiophile cables DO make a difference. 
 

This seems paradoxical since there is a tension here between sounds better and high fidelity. When I listen to old recordings I can often hear a lot of distortion, I have some old Electric Prunes albums on CD that have a lot of unwanted and _I think _unintended noise. I basically listen through it, it is a nuisance but it doesnt kill my enjoyment. On modern recordings I really dont want to hear anything but clean sound, maybe that is just me.


----------



## philodox

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That's what I stride for, and why I go tubeless._

 

Someone hasn't heard a good tube amp. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Just wondering what tube gear you have owned, that you have formed this opinion on?_

 

If I had to guess, I would say none... but who knows, he may surprise me. Sounds to me like he has formed his opinion after reading about even order harmonics in tube amps.


----------



## infinitesymphony

This may be presumptuous, but I don't think that LawnGnome is trying to say that tube equipment can't sound good, or better than solid-state equipment. I think his point is that, in general, tube equipment tends to add more distortion, thereby decreasing the accuracy of the signal reproduction.

 It's possible to argue that some of the better-designed tube gear can be fairly accurate and have high linearity, but it might be said that similar or higher accuracy can be achieved with solid-state equipment for the same price. (Again, speaking only of signal accuracy, not perceived sound quality.)

 The usual reason for creating tube equipment seems to be the addition of even-ordered harmonic distortion, which sounds pleasing to the ear... Otherwise, what's the point?

 I agree with LawnGnome's philosophy about playback equipment; I don't care what the recording sounded like in the mastering room in the '60s, I care that the sound is accurate, perhaps even more accurate than what the mastering engineer heard. This is the problem with having equipment that is purposefully colored. Sure, some music sounds better with this or that cable, but other music will sound worse. There is no standard to how music is mixed or mastered (now I'm paraphrasing bigshot 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




), but in my view, playback equipment shouldn't be colored to compensate for the engineers' flaws.

 That said, nothing is 100% accurate, and in some ways, coloration in one component can compensate for inaccuracy in another component, or room acoustics. So, completely YMMV.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *infinitesymphony* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_This may be presumptuous, but I don't think that LawnGnome is trying to say that tube equipment can't sound good, or better than solid-state equipment. I think his point is that, in general, tube equipment tends to add more distortion, thereby decreasing the accuracy of the signal reproduction.

 It's possible to argue that some of the better-designed tube gear can be fairly accurate and have high linearity, but it might be said that similar or higher accuracy can be achieved with solid-state equipment for the same price. (Again, speaking only of signal accuracy, not perceived sound quality.)

 The usual reason for creating tube equipment seems to be the addition of even-ordered harmonic distortion, which sounds pleasing to the ear... Otherwise, what's the point?

 I agree with LawnGnome's philosophy about playback equipment; I don't care what the recording sounded like in the mastering room in the '60s, I care that the sound is accurate, perhaps even more accurate than what the mastering engineer heard. This is the problem with having equipment that is purposefully colored. Sure, some music sounds better with this or that cable, but other music will sound worse. There is no standard to how music is mixed or mastered (now I'm paraphrasing bigshot 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




), but in my view, playback equipment shouldn't be colored to compensate for the engineers' flaws.

 That said, nothing is 100% accurate, and in some ways, coloration in one component can compensate for inaccuracy in another component, or room acoustics. So, completely YMMV. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 


 Exactly.

 Never did I say SS was better than Tube.

 All I said is I wanted to hear music as it was made, with the least amount of extra distortion/etc added to it.

 But guess I can't say that without getting attacked.


----------



## philodox

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *infinitesymphony* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I think his point is that, in general, tube equipment tends to add more distortion, thereby decreasing the accuracy of the signal reproduction._

 

That may be his point, but he would still be wrong. 

 Not all tube amps sound 'tubey'. Solid state also carries its own distortion, the difference being that it is not pleasing to the ear and can often be perceived as harshness.

 Besides the fact, even order harmonic distortion does not lower accuracy. It might change the tonality slightly, but any loss of accuracy is due to an inferior circuit, not the tubes themselves.

 To you, an accurate reproduction might include things like having an extremely clean and etched presentation... but to others that type of sound is very unnatural. Making blanket statements about one type of gear is a mistake, and that is what I took issue with in LawnGnome's post. Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_All I said is I wanted to hear music as it was made, with the least amount of extra distortion/etc added to it._

 

I've heard 5-6 different PPA's, and would characterize them as sounding very dry. In my opinion most well designed tube amps offer a closer reproduction of 'music as it was made'. I find your blanket statement about tube amps to be incorrect.

 As for being attacked... please. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 EDIT: By the way, do you have an answer for Tom's question?


----------



## infinitesymphony

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *philodox* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Besides the fact, even order harmonic distortion does not lower accuracy. It might change the tonality slightly, but any loss of accuracy is due to an inferior circuit, not the tubes themselves._

 

Hmm... That's an interesting point. It sort of begs the question, how much does harmonic distortion affect perception of accuracy? If solid-state harmonic distortion is random and tube harmonic distortion is even-ordered, perhaps 1% of tube distortion could cause less audible distortion than 0.1% solid-state distortion.

 I guess this is the grey area where it's possible that both sides are right--tube and solid-state equipment can both be accurate, but in different ways.

 If you're a tube-lover, just remember that many solid-state guys come from the guitar amplifier angle, where tube equipment is purposefully designed to sound "tubey." I was in this camp at one point.


----------



## D_Tinnitus

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *infinitesymphony* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That said, nothing is 100% accurate, and in some ways, coloration in one component can compensate for inaccuracy in another component, or room acoustics. So, completely YMMV. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

Also can add in that one's own ear canal, bone resonance, and hearing response are a serious factor in what is perceived as natural or neutral. 

 Unless you know the mastering studio, and recording engineers who made the piece, it's a best (or at least informed) guess about the "sound" they were trying to achieve. 

 In the end, it's just what you prefer the sound to be. Enjoyable or not.

 As for cables... It's what you're happy with, preferably of some basic quality. The amount of color you'd get from a 6' or less cable is absolutely negligible compared to the zillions of cables, mixers, converters, amplifiers, ..., that go into the production of the music you're listening to.


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_
 But guess I can't say that without getting attacked._

 

Likewise...

 What you've essentially said is that you have a personal preference, based on what you hear, and confirmed by science. Or is it the other way around? Based on science, and confirmed by what you hear?


----------



## bigshot

The next step is to determine the threshold of audibility and JND (just noticeable difference) of various types of harmonic distortion. When you determine that, THEN you can actually say that one type of distortion at a high level sounds just as bad as another type at a lower level.

 But from my experience, the miniscule amount of distortion present in reasonably good solid state electronics is so low, the level of distortion isn't audible, so the whole point is moot.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Exactly.

 Never did I say SS was better than Tube.

 All I said is I wanted to hear music as it was made, with the least amount of extra distortion/etc added to it.

 But guess I can't say that without getting attacked._

 

Well I would not consider asking a simple question like, what tube gear have you owned that has led you to this decision an attack. Just want to know what your experience with tube gear is. I have been buying and selling and auditioning preamps for my system over the last 1-2 years looking for the perfect pre. I have come to the realization that once you hit a certain level both SS and tube close to identical. The minor difference might be slight speed in SS and tubes being more transparent. This is on average of course. And in the lower price. buld, and overall quality of the gear the differences grow.
 So when you say you have decided to not go with tube gear I would like to know what your reference point is? So.... what tube gear have you owned to lead you to your decision?


----------



## bigshot

You don't have to own tube gear to prefer solid state. And sound might not have anything to do with it either. If you just want components that are dependable and don't heat the whole house, you might not want tubes.

 Personally, I would like to have a tube setup to play mid to late 40s 78s. But I wouldn't want to hook a CD player up to a tube amp. There is something to be said for playing a recording on the sort of equipment it was mastered on.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## JaZZ

It seems downright absurd to me to care for the (sort of) amp used for monitoring without knowing the speaker models and the exact dimensions of the studio and its acoustic properties... not to speak of the cabling! BTW, some studios use tube gear... so you would have to consult the CD booklets before each listening session -- in most cases without success.

 Personally I currently prefer solid-state amps for their clarity, control and speed, but I think tube amps can offer a similar accuracy and neutrality, with a slightly different pattern of colorations (speak dominating even-order harmonics) and a clear tendency towards organicalness.
.


----------



## tom hankins

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You don't have to own tube gear to prefer solid state. And sound might not have anything to do with it either. If you just want components that are dependable and don't heat the whole house, you might not want tubes.

 Personally, I would like to have a tube setup to play mid to late 40s 78s. But I wouldn't want to hook a CD player up to a tube amp. There is something to be said for playing a recording on the sort of equipment it was mastered on.

 See ya
 Steve_

 

he never said what he preferred. Only the reason he would not own tube gear. I was asking a simple question about what tube gear he owned so I might have reference as to where he is coming from. I dont claim either to better than the other.
 Also his reasons were involed around what he said are flaws (sonicly)when comparing the two(ss and tube) which has nothing to do with not wanting to mess with tubes because of heat or anything else. I think its a very fair question to want to know what hes basing his opinion on. its very hard to take someone serious when they throw out general info on one thing or another and they have limited to no first hand knowledge of what they are talking about. I just want to know wether I should take his quotes serious.......or not?


----------



## Pars

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You don't have to own tube gear to prefer solid state. And sound might not have anything to do with it either. If you just want components that are dependable and don't heat the whole house, you might not want tubes.

 <snipped>

 See ya
 Steve_

 

Conversely if you want something that you can get parts for, you might be better off with tubes witnessing the manufacturer discontinuance of solid state devices (2SK389/2SJ109 dual FETs come to mind; also the output FETs used in most of Counterpoint's amps are long gone, etc.).

 I just bought and auditioned an SS preamp in my system (Coda). I wound up selling it, but was surprised when I did an unscientific A/B using a switchbox with my wife how close in sound it was to my Counterpoint tube preamp... it took quite a bit of listening and going back and forth to decide a preference.

 Chris


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_BTW, some studios use tube gear._

 

Studios that actually do production work don't use tube gear. Tubes were a thing of the past when I first started in audio back in the 80s. You'd be hard pressed to find a studio that even maintains a 24 track tape deck any more. There's an electronics parts company down the street that sets old pro grade open reel decks and mag readers on the sidewalk as novelties to draw people into their store. Driving past there is like visiting an old friend. I spent a lot of hours hunched over those old machines when I was fresh out of college.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tom hankins* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_he never said what he preferred. Only the reason he would not own tube gear. I was asking a simple question about what tube gear he owned so I might have reference as to where he is coming from._

 

Come on, we all know what you're doing. You're dogging him with semantics to try to get his goat. I'm happy to plow through post after post of "Lawn Gnome, what gear have you owned to base your opinion on?" from you and your pals, but don't ask me to believe that you have any particular interest in hearing what Lawn Gnome has to say. Give it a rest and make an effort to add something to the conversation yourself.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Pars* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I just bought and auditioned an SS preamp in my system (Coda). I wound up selling it, but was surprised when I did an unscientific A/B using a switchbox with my wife how close in sound it was to my Counterpoint tube preamp... it took quite a bit of listening and going back and forth to decide a preference._

 

Ideally, a preamp shouldn't have a sound. It should just act as a clean switcher with volume and tone pots. If it's transparent, it's doing its job. For home stereo use, a good preamp shouldn't cost a lot of money.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## infinitesymphony

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Studios that actually do production work don't use tube gear. Tubes were a thing of the past when I first started in audio back in the 80s. You'd be hard pressed to find a studio that even maintains a 24 track tape deck any more._

 

Huh? That's false, in my experience... Most professional studios maintain a multi-track tape recorder, and if they don't have a multi-track, they'll at least have a two-track for printing a mix to tape. Many people print to tape straight from a ProTools mix. Some studios still have Neve, API, or SSL analog mixing desks. There's been a trend over the past few years to incorporate more analog gear into the mix.

 Most studios have tube equipment. No professional microphone collection is complete without a Telefunken M47 / Neumann U47 / or Neumann M147/M149, or an AKG C12, all of which are tube microphones. I've seen many studios with gear from Universal Audio, who currently manufacture the famous Teletronix LA-2A tube compressor/limiter, and also a lot of tube microphone preamplifiers (ex. the UA 610 / 2-610 tube mic preamps, which seem to be everywhere). Avalon, Drawmer, and Manley make popular studio tube gear, too.

 Summit's tube D.I. / instrument preamp boxes are my favorites. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Ideally, a preamp shouldn't have a sound. It should just act as a clean switcher with volume and tone pots. If it's transparent, it's doing its job. For home stereo use, a good preamp shouldn't cost a lot of money._

 

Yet, they do have different sound, which makes sense given different parts and implementations. It depends on your definition of "a lot of money" whether or not transparency is achievable on a tight budget. For example, the Mackie Big Knob ($300), a monitor and source selector, has cheap op-amps in the signal path and is well-known to degrade sound quality. Inexpensive mixers can have the same problems. So, not just any old switchbox will do...


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *infinitesymphony* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Huh? That's false, in my experience... Most professional studios maintain a multi-track tape recorder, and if they don't have a multi-track, they'll at least have a two-track for printing a mix to tape._

 

You're right... a studio will generally have one 24 track in the back that's used for dubbing to multitrack digital, and for TV they still output comp and M&E to four track (unless they use DA88). But I can't think of any places that offer recording to 24 track any more. I remember when those machines were everywhere. It's all ProTools at the places I've worked with. You're also correct that there are mikes and mike pres that use tubes. I had forgotten about those. What about 3/4 inch video? Is there any commercial application for that any more?

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## OverlordXenu

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The term sais it all: people on an endless search for sonic improvements (count me in!). That doesn't automatically imply a love for unvarnished accuracy; many audiophiles prefer at least a small dose of euphony._

 

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
 au·di·o·phile /ˈɔdiəˌfaɪl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[aw-dee-uh-fahyl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
 –noun
 a person who is especially interested in high-fidelity sound reproduction.

 high fidelity
 –noun Electronics.
 sound reproduction over the full range of audible frequencies with very little distortion of the original signal.

 No. A true audiophile just tries to reproduce the music as close as possible to how it sounded when it was recorded.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *infinitesymphony* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Yet, they do have different sound, which makes sense given different parts and implementations. It depends on your definition of "a lot of money" whether or not transparency is achievable on a tight budget. For example, the Mackie Big Knob ($300), a monitor and source selector, has cheap op-amps in the signal path and is well-known to degrade sound quality. Inexpensive mixers can have the same problems. So, not just any old switchbox will do..._

 

MASTERS ON AUDIO AND VIDEO -- Audio Archives


----------



## infinitesymphony

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_What about 3/4 inch video? Is there any commercial application for that any more?_

 

Hahah, probably not... Though some people are still using DAT machines. I hadn't heard about 3/4" video until you mentioned it, so I just learned a little bit about the U-matic format and its use in early digital recordings. Very interesting.


----------



## bigshot

The very first digital audio recorder I used was a Sony portapack. It recorded on beta tapes. The sound mixer I worked for used it on a Barry Manilow Copacabana special instead of his Nagra. I think that may have been the first program recorded digitally on TV.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## UserNotFound

For those of you debating the use of tube equipement in recording, I direct you to the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, May 1973 Volume 23 number 24 : "Tubes Versus Transistors--Is There an Audible Difference?".

 The abstract:
 "Engineers and musicians have long debated the question of tube sound versus transistor sound. Previous attempts to measure this difference have always assumed linear operation for the test amplifier. This conventional method of frequency response, distortion, and noise measurement has shown that no significant difference exists. This paper, however, points out that amplifiers are often severely overloaded by signal transients (THD 30%). Under this condition there is major difference in the harmonic distortion component of the amplified signal, with tubes, transistors, and operation amplifiers separating into distinct groups"

 It's an interesting read in the least, despite what your opinion might be, and I can scan a copy of the article if anyone is interested. (Please PM me if you do, and I will attach it here)


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Pars* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Conversely if you want something that you can get parts for, you might be better off with tubes witnessing the manufacturer discontinuance of solid state devices (2SK389/2SJ109 dual FETs come to mind; also the output FETs used in most of Counterpoint's amps are long gone, etc.).

 I just bought and auditioned an SS preamp in my system (Coda). I wound up selling it, but was surprised when I did an unscientific A/B using a switchbox with my wife how close in sound it was to my Counterpoint tube preamp... it took quite a bit of listening and going back and forth to decide a preference.

 Chris_

 

That is because they are being replaced with better parts.

 Because IC's are constantly being improved. The same can't be said for tubes, not since the 60's.


----------



## Febs

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You're right... a studio will generally have one 24 track in the back that's used for dubbing to multitrack digital, and for TV they still output comp and M&E to four track (unless they use DA88). But I can't think of any places that offer recording to 24 track any more. I remember when those machines were everywhere. It's all ProTools at the places I've worked with. You're also correct that there are mikes and mike pres that use tubes. I had forgotten about those._

 

This has been my experience as well.


----------



## JaZZ

...and don't forget the tube amps used for monitor speakers! .


----------



## philodox

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_There's an electronics parts company down the street that sets old pro grade open reel decks and mag readers on the sidewalk as novelties to draw people into their store. Driving past there is like visiting an old friend. I spent a lot of hours hunched over those old machines when I was fresh out of college._

 

That's really cool. Ever think about picking up one of those reel to reel players to mess around with? Have you looked at 
the Tape Project? It is a *little* expensive, but they are releasing reel to reel tapes that are copies of the masters. If only I was rich. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You're dogging him with semantics to try to get his goat._

 

Dogging him with semantics? I don't see why it is such a strange thing to want to know if he is making his opinion based off of what he has read or what he has actual experience with... Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Because IC's are constantly being improved. The same can't be said for tubes, not since the 60's._

 

If by IC's you mean OP Amps, directly comparing them to tubes is a bit misleading. With an OP Amp, you have most of your audio circuit on the chip and you just need to make the inputs and outputs happy. With a tube, the circuit that you put it in determines the sound and characteristics for the most part.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *philodox* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_f by IC's you mean OP Amps, directly comparing them to tubes is a bit misleading. With an OP Amp, you have most of your audio circuit on the chip and you just need to make the inputs and outputs happy. With a tube, the circuit that you put it in determines the sound and characteristics for the most part._

 

If I meant opamps particularly, I would have said opamps.

 And if you think the surround circuitry for an opamp makes little SQ effect, you have been greatly mislead.


----------



## philodox

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If I meant opamps particularly, I would have said opamps.

 And if you think the surround circuitry for an opamp makes little SQ effect, you have been greatly mislead._

 

What I was saying is that opamps warrant improvements, while tubes basically don't NEED to be improved. When you are choosing a tube for a circuit it is all about its linearity and operating points. When you are choosing an opamp for a circuit, you are basically choosing your circuit or at least a large portion of it.

 And, sorry for the confusion, but in my DIY reading I always thought IC only meant opamp. I guess it can also be used to mean transistor or mosfet as well?


----------



## Pars

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That is because they are being replaced with better parts.

 Because IC's are constantly being improved. The same can't be said for tubes, not since the 60's._

 

There is no current equivalent of the 2SJ109/2SK389 (well actually, Linear Systems, a small specialized IC manufacturer does have an LSK389 out and is promising an LSK109). Nothing even functionally equivalent let alone better. This was a very popular dual FET used in differential front ends, etc.

 Oh wait... you're supposed to build everything using opamps now... I see 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 DACs... what happened to R2R ladder DACs? Oh yeah, too expensive to make.

 I wouldn't operate under the illusion that parts are MD'd and replaced because an improved replacement is introduced, unless your definition of improved means the financial bottom line... then I'd agree.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *philodox* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_What I was saying is that opamps warrant improvements, while tubes basically don't NEED to be improved. When you are choosing a tube for a circuit it is all about its linearity and operating points. When you are choosing an opamp for a circuit, you are basically choosing your circuit or at least a large portion of it.

 And, sorry for the confusion, but in my DIY reading I always thought IC only meant opamp. I guess it can also be used to mean transistor or mosfet as well?_

 


 Tubes need to be improved. That's the whole reason why the transistor was invented, to pick up on the tubes flaws.

 Also, only very basic(mostly portable) amps use only an opamp for the out. Most have different levels of buffers afterwards.

 Opamps are built with the precious that is impossible to be reached with discrete components.

 And IC(integrated circuit) is any device with two or more "discrete" components in one package.(transistors, diodes, etc.)


----------



## philodox

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Tubes need to be improved. That's the whole reason why the transistor was invented, to pick up on the tubes flaws._

 

You've got to be kidding me. Transistors were invented to save money. When they first came on the market they SUCKED. Anyone who knew anything stuck with tube gear until they improved.

 They don't suck now, mind you, but neither are they clearly superior. Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Also, only very basic(mostly portable) amps use only an opamp for the out. Most have different levels of buffers afterwards._

 

Yep, and you could also just stick some caps there. I didn't say there was no circuit to speak of, just that a large portion of the circuit is on the chip. Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Opamps are built with the precious that is impossible to be reached with discrete components.

 And IC(integrated circuit) is any device with two or more "discrete" components in one package.(transistors, diodes, etc.)_

 

That would be the benefit to opamps, yes.

 I thought that a transistor was a discrete component.


----------



## Pars

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Tubes need to be improved. That's the whole reason why the transistor was invented, to pick up on the tubes flaws._

 

The move to transistors was driven by
size,
heat and
power reasons,
not because tubes aren't linear... used properly, tubes have quite good linearity.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Also, only very basic(mostly portable) amps use only an opamp for the out. Most have different levels of buffers afterwards.

 Opamps are built with the *precious* that is impossible to be reached with discrete components._

 

Too much Lord of the Rings lately?
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_And IC(integrated circuit) is any device with two or more "discrete" components in one package.(transistors, diodes, etc.)_

 

Think he meant that transistors, diodes, etc. are discrete components, and are the building blocks of ICs (true).


----------



## tourmaline

Tube amps in general are easier to make good then transistor/mosfet amps.
 So, in general, a good tube amp can be as good or better then a transistor amp. Most engeneers will tell you that if the amps are build propperly, they should sound the same. fact is that in practise they don't. tube amps sound more spacious and alife in practise, transistor/mosfet amps in general have more weight and detail, but for tubes that is also very dependant on the powersupply used. the better the components ina tube amp, the better bass responce is. A tube amp, especially very expensive ones can have a low bass as any high end transistor amp.

 It is not a surprise that alot of amps that are recognized as one of the best made are in fact tube amps. Like the Audio note gauku on (the original japanese version) wich costs 50.000 dollars a piece, that is for one poweramp x 2 = 100.000 dollars for the amp, is recognized as one of the ebst tube amps ever made. I happen to know pwoplw who have heard this aand they say it sounds unbelievably real.

 For me, some transistor amps have too much detail; do i hear in real life how high or how deep a room is? NO! Fake detail. Alot of people love it but it is not real music as you hear it in a life orchestra or life performance.


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_For me, some transistor amps have too much detail; do i hear in real life how high or how deep a room is? NO! Fake detail._

 

How does a transistor add depth cues? And why is "increased soundstage" better when it's imagined coming from cables than when it's imagined coming from solid state electronics?

 See ya
 Steve

 P.S. You're SUPPOSED to hear the depth cues.


----------



## The Pieman

Thread title= *"Why do/don't "audiophile" cables improve sound?"*

 But to stay off topic. Having worked in the electronics business for 20+ years, it is a definite fact of life that component changes are about cost. Size, reliability, power and heat are other drivers only because if you fix the heat issues you don't need a heat sink or fan, hence cheaper. Smaller component, smaller enclosure, hence cheaper and so on. Does the quality improve? From a reliability point of view, most likely. 

 cheers
 Simon

 BTW. This thread is deteriorating at a great rate of knots. I was actually interested in this thread, no longer. There is too much condescension, arrogance and down right pig headed behaviour occurring. Participation becomes pointless when it is no longer a debate, but rather some people being up in an ivory tower and looking down to preach to people/plebs. Same time, same channel. Very boring.


----------



## vcoheda

^^ your first mistake was to think that this thread could be useful in any manner.

 the reason why all these quasi/fake scientific discussions about cables or really anything in audio are useless is because the vast majority of people engaging in the discussion, i highly suspect, are not really qualified to discuss the topic - yeah maybe they think or come across as knowledgeable on an Internet level - but in the real world, would probably be ridiculed by their half knowledge, if not total incompetence, on the topic. and even if there are a couple of people who do know what they are talking about, this too isn't that helpful, since they are still giving opinions.

 the only discussions or impressions i find to have any value here are those based on actual experience. everything else is a complete waste of time and band width.


----------



## viggen

Yah there's value in this thread. It's fun to see this type of debate carry out on the web. It would not be that good if it carried out in real life.


----------



## The Pieman

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *vcoheda* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_^^ your first mistake was to think that this thread could be useful in any manner.

 the reason why all these quasi/fake scientific discussions about cables or really anything in audio are useless is because the vast majority of people engaging in the discussion, i highly suspect, are not really qualified to discuss the topic - yeah maybe they think or come across as knowledgeable on an Internet level - but in the real world, would probably be ridiculed by their half knowledge, if not total incompetence, on the topic. and even if there are a couple of people who do know what they are talking about, this too isn't that helpful, since they are still giving opinions.

 the only discussions or impressions i find to have any value here are those based on actual experience. everything else is a complete waste of time and band width._

 

Yes, I believe there is truth in this comment. There appears to be a lot of supposition based around science with that other very finicky element, people, left out of the equation. The value of experience is being sold very short here.

 The only comment I would add here is that maybe some of these people may well be very qualified to comment. But when it comes to it, experience still appears to be being ignored.

 cheers
 Simon


----------



## sacd lover

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *The Pieman* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Yes, I believe there is truth in this comment. There appears to be a lot of supposition based around science with that other very finicky element, people, left out of the equation. The value of experience is being sold very short here.

 The only comment I would add here is that maybe some of these people may well be very qualified to comment. But when it comes to it, experience still appears to be being ignored.

 cheers
 Simon_

 

Amen!


----------



## systemerror909

Well then lets bring this thread back to scientifically accepted principles in cable. Two noticeable effects I think most people would agree exist are: skin effect and cable impedance. Are not both of these measurable?

 Currently I'm using Analysis plus Silver oval interconnects and oval 9 speaker cable. When I added these to my system the sound stage widened by about 50% and the bass extension improved significantly. Prior to this I was using lamp cable (bi-wired) and cheapo rca connects. Theres a lot of voodoo out there, but there is at least some high end cables that are legitimate.


----------



## dvw

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding in skin effect. What skin effect is the current density concentrates at the surface of the conductor rather than uniformly. The depth of this skin will decrease as frequency increases. So if you have a really thick cable, a hollow cable will behave like a solid core cable.

 The question is really how deep is this skin at audio frequency. I don't remember exactly but I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 9mm. And this is huge. For normal audio cable consumer can buy today, this does not come into play at all.


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *The Pieman* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I was actually interested in this thread, no longer. There is too much condescension, arrogance and down right pig headed behaviour occurring. Participation becomes pointless when it is no longer a debate, but rather some people being up in an ivory tower and looking down to preach to people/plebs. Same time, same channel. Very boring._

 

I'll make a note of your lack of interest.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## lan

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Yah there's value in this thread. It's fun to see this type of debate carry out on the web. It would not be that good if it carried out in real life._

 

On the contrary, I would rather see the believers put stuff in front of non-believers and show them. It would be most productive to mingle in the real world.


----------



## The Pieman

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I'll make a note of your lack of interest.

 See ya
 Steve_

 

I'm pleased you have taken note. I am also pleased that the thread appears to be getting back on topic. Maybe I will continue following it.

 cheers
 Simon


----------



## tourmaline

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_How does a transistor add depth cues? And why is "increased soundstage" better when it's imagined coming from cables than when it's imagined coming from solid state electronics?

 See ya
 Steve

 P.S. You're SUPPOSED to hear the depth cues._

 

Who is talking about cables? I was talking tubes versus transistor. Transistors have fake detail, nothing i hear in real life performances. period. I don't hear in a real life performance how deep an opera hall is or how far someone is sitting from eachother or how high the seeling is of a hall or recording studio.

 In real life you'll only hear a floating sound or a floating voice.

 Nice for engeneers to brag and show off their equipment, nothing in real life.

 As usual, you still don't make any sense to me.

 P.s.
 you suppose to hear differences in cables too but you don't!


----------



## Febs

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Who is talking about cables? I was talking tubes versus transistor._

 

Maybe you should take another look at the thread topic.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *systemerror909* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Well then lets bring this thread back to scientifically accepted principles in cable. Two noticeable effects I think most people would agree exist are: skin effect and cable impedance. Are not both of these measurable?_

 

Whoever told you they had an influence for your application, i'd propose to withdraw confidence immediatly if he doesn't tell you in clear and simple terms how much they will affect the band between 20Hz and 20 000Hz (which is the only waveform stored on the CD's you hear).


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Whoever told you..._

 

Please stop this kind of condescending attitude towards Head-Fiers with deviating opinions -- if ever possible! It doesn't create a friendly atmosphere which would enable a fruitful exchange.
.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Please stop this kind of condescending attitude towards Head-Fiers with deviating opinions -- if ever possible! It doesn't create a friendly atmosphere which would enable a fruitful exchange.
._

 

I can't find anything wrong with my post.
 If someone's trying to make a dollar or two by telling a head-fier he will loose highs through skin effect, i think it's an interesting complement to say that the "highs" he's actually talking about are maybe 100Khz or several Mhz, not 10 or 20Khz as implied.
 It was my impression, that this was exactly the information that systemerror909 was missing.

 My attitude is not against head-fiers with different opinions, but against scammers that tell you that the cable they are about to sell you costs 2000% more than another one, because it sounds better thanks to lesser skin effect.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I can't find anything wrong with my post._

 

The condescence lies in the way you make it look as if (in this case) _systemerror909_ didn't form his opinion by own reflection, but just repeats sales arguments. 

  Quote:


 _My attitude is not against head-fiers with different opinions, but against scammers that tell you that the cable they are about to sell you costs 2000% more than another one, because it has lesser skin effect._ 
 

So please stop this attitude as well. You don't know the people and their background you address that way. 
.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_So please stop this attitude as well. You don't know the people and their background you address that way. 
._

 

Mmm, well...no. "Suggestion" rejected.


----------



## monolith

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Who is talking about cables? I was talking tubes versus transistor. Transistors have fake detail, nothing i hear in real life performances. period. I don't hear in a real life performance how deep an opera hall is or how far someone is sitting from eachother or how high the seeling is of a hall or recording studio.

 In real life you'll only hear a floating sound or a floating voice.

 Nice for engeneers to brag and show off their equipment, nothing in real life.

 As usual, you still don't make any sense to me.

 P.s.
 you suppose to hear differences in cables too but you don't!_

 

That's just nonsense. Of course you hear room acoustics in real life. Why do you think some concert halls are prefered over others?


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_In real life you'll only hear a floating sound or a floating voice._

 

What are you smokin'?!

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Please stop this kind of condescending attitude_

 

OK. I'll restate the question nicer...

 How much does skin effect and impedance affect the sound band between 20Hz and 20 000Hz in the typical cable lengths used in home stereos?

 Do you have an answer now? If not, I'll take a crack at it.

 Thanks
 Steve


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The condescence lies in the way you make it look as if (in this case) systemerror909 didn't form his opinion by own reflection, but just repeats sales arguments._

 

I think that's pretty common in these forums, don't you?

 Are you trying to stir up trouble to get this thread closed? So far, you seem to be the only one that's angry.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_How much does skin effect and impedance affect the sound band between 20Hz and 20 000Hz in the typical cable lengths used in home stereos?_

 

The question wasn't directed to me. But if you're interested in my own theory, you'll find it a few pages above.


  Quote:


 _I think that's pretty common in these forums, don't you?_ 
 

What are you addressing?


  Quote:


 _Are you trying to stir up trouble to get this thread closed? So far, you seem to be the only one that's angry._ 
 

I'm not angry at all. _Vul Kuolun_ needed some clarification of my remark, so I provided it. I don't hope to be the cause for trouble -- I'd like this thread to stay alive. 
.


----------



## hciman77

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_OK. I'll restate the question nicer...

 How much does skin effect and impedance affect the sound band between 20Hz and 20 000Hz in the typical cable lengths used in home stereos?

 Do you have an answer now? If not, I'll take a crack at it.

 Thanks
 Steve_

 

Here is one interesting analysis of the effect of skin-effect on speaker cable for a 2 x 10ft run of 12 awg. It doesnt cover RCA interconnects.

Skin Effect Relevance in Speaker Cables &mdash; Audioholics Home Theater Reviews and News


----------



## SACD-Man

First, cable materials. Silver wire BLOWS away copper. Second Silver wire really does blow away copper and third, copper wire is inferior to silver wire because of....


 The chosen dielectric (between the signal wires and the return/earth) is PE for this has nearly the same dielectric constant (ε) as PTFE (2.26 against 2.1 [compare: vacuum = 1, PS = 2.6, PVC = 2.9, ABS = 2.8-3.8]) but it is far more easier to process during manufacturing and more flexible.

 This mechanical construction leads to a very natural sonically behavior of the cable and a very low capacitance. 

 Distortion of the audio signal due to interconnect cables between audio equipment is in essence the most relevant factor when looking at the different cable brands.

 The use of a rather complex balanced twisting method in the SilverCab cables results in a dramatically improved audio transfer, less distortion, widened 3D sound-stage and a quieter background. This added to the already excellent dynamic performance of the high purity silver conductors, enables the ultimate listening experience.

 Look at by eBay listing that can show you the differences!

IPOD Line Out to 3.5mm Audiophile Silvercab Connector - (eBay item 270194408894 end time Dec-16-07 06:10:19 PST)

 I would say the sound stages improves by 20 - 30% depending on your hearing sensitivity. I'm also willing to back that up!!

 SACD-Man


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_First, cable materials. Silver wire BLOWS away copper. Second Silver wire really does blow away copper and third, copper wire is inferior to silver wire because of...._

 

First, an assertion is an assertion is an assertion.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The chosen dielectric (between the signal wires and the return/earth) is PE for this has nearly the same dielectric constant (ε) as PTFE (2.26 against 2.1 [compare: vacuum = 1, PS = 2.6, PVC = 2.9, ABS = 2.8-3.8]) but it is far more easier to process during manufacturing and more flexible._

 

Consequence for the waveform?

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_This mechanical construction leads to a very natural sonically behavior of the cable and a very low capacitance._

 

Nothing but unfoundet assertions. Consequence for the waveform?
  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Distortion of the audio signal due to interconnect cables between audio equipment is in essence the most relevant factor when looking at the different cable brands._

 

What kind of distortion are you refering to? Can you show us a waverform? A measurement?
  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The use of a rather complex balanced twisting method in the SilverCab cables results in a dramatically improved audio transfer, less distortion, widened 3D sound-stage and a quieter background. This added to the already excellent dynamic performance of the high purity silver conductors, enables the ultimate listening experience._

 

Assertions, assertions, assertions.
 Consequences for the waveform?
  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Look at by eBay listing that can show you the differences!

IPOD Line Out to 3.5mm Audiophile Silvercab Connector - (eBay item 270194408894 end time Dec-16-07 06:10:19 PST)_

 

I'm sorry, but i hate guerillia marketing like that. That's poor.
  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I would say the sound stages improves by 20 - 30% depending on your hearing sensitivity. I'm also willing to back that up!!

 SACD-Man
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

Go ahead! That's what you're supposed to do when posting in this thread.


----------



## krmathis

Why? Because its all about the materials used to create the cable.
 Virgin silver in natural insulation (example cotton) sound better to my ears than copper in PCV insulation. 

 Guess it boils down to capacitance, inductance, resistance and impedance...


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *krmathis* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Guess it boils down to capacitance, inductance, resistance and impedance..._

 

Of course it does.
 Every EE can calculate the influence of these values for you. Chances are just that you may not like the answer you'll get.

 At this point, i feel it's time for ""the mother of all reasonable cable posts":

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/2813426-post91.html


----------



## bigshot

You had better quote relevant portions. I doubt if they'll click through to something they know in advance doesn't agree with their impressions.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## naamanf

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_First, cable materials. Silver wire BLOWS away copper. Second Silver wire really does blow away copper and third, copper wire is inferior to silver wire because of....


 The chosen dielectric (between the signal wires and the return/earth) is PE for this has nearly the same dielectric constant (ε) as PTFE (2.26 against 2.1 [compare: vacuum = 1, PS = 2.6, PVC = 2.9, ABS = 2.8-3.8]) but it is far more easier to process during manufacturing and more flexible.

 This mechanical construction leads to a very natural sonically behavior of the cable and a very low capacitance. 

 Distortion of the audio signal due to interconnect cables between audio equipment is in essence the most relevant factor when looking at the different cable brands.

 The use of a rather complex balanced twisting method in the SilverCab cables results in a dramatically improved audio transfer, less distortion, widened 3D sound-stage and a quieter background. This added to the already excellent dynamic performance of the high purity silver conductors, enables the ultimate listening experience.

 Look at by eBay listing that can show you the differences!

IPOD Line Out to 3.5mm Audiophile Silvercab Connector - (eBay item 270194408894 end time Dec-16-07 06:10:19 PST)

 I would say the sound stages improves by 20 - 30% depending on your hearing sensitivity. I'm also willing to back that up!!

 SACD-Man
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

I really hope this was your attempt at sarcasm. It also smells like that potted meat we love so much.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You had better quote relevant portions. I doubt if they'll click through to something they know in advance doesn't agree with their impressions.
 See ya
 Steve_

 

If someone is as ignorant as you assume, he or she isn't worth the words anyway.
 Let the doomed go down, and try to save the interested. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 But anyway, here's the essence:

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *SACD-Man* 
_I'm also willing to back that up!!_

 

 Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* 
_Go ahead!_


----------



## infinitesymphony

SACD-Man is the new U.S. reseller for Qables, hence the sales pitch. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Silver is better than copper because Qables chose to use a particular material for the dielectric? Doesn't make much sense...

 From past silver vs. copper debates, it seems that the only real difference between the two materials is that silver has higher conductivity and lower resistivity than copper. Increase the size of the copper in the cable and the benefits of silver will disappear.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *infinitesymphony* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_SACD-Man is the new U.S. reseller for Qables, hence the sales pitch. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Silver is better than copper because Qables chose to use a particular material for the dielectric? Doesn't make much sense...

 From past silver vs. copper debates, it seems that the only real difference between the two materials is that silver has higher conductivity and lower resistivity than copper. Increase the size of the copper in the cable and the benefits of silver will disappear._

 

Ah, i see. What once seemed like total gibberish does in fact make perfect sense now.


----------



## naamanf

It should be "SPAM-Man" then.


----------



## hciman77

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *infinitesymphony* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_SACD-Man is the new U.S. reseller for Qables, hence the sales pitch. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



_

 

Indeed, isnt that a breach of the terms of use as the poster is a member of the trade, both by advocating "his" products unbidden and pointing to his own sale on eBay ?


----------



## OverlordXenu

Didn't somebody disprove cable braids having any effect on SQ?


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If someone is as ignorant as you assume, he or she isn't worth the words anyway.
 Let the doomed go down, and try to save the interested._

 

In a recent thread on jitter, I learned something very interesting about the techniques that people use to continue arguing a point long after it's been disproven. It goes something like this...

 The first poster states something that is factually incorrect as his "opinion".

 Another person comes in and answers the error with information that proves him wrong. They offer supporting evidence, citations and links to sources.

 The first poster totally ignores the answer and instead of coming up with counter arguments, he uses ad hominem attacks and other argumentative techniques to divert attention away from the argument, whipping the thread into a froth in the process.

 The people with evidence to support their opinions get diverted onto defending themselves from the attacks for post after post. The thread devolves into a bunch of comments like "Sez you!" and "How dare you!"

 The first poster waits until a few pages of off topic blather build up on top of the post that proved them wrong. They wait until things quiet down and then post the exact same factual error as "opinion" again, knowing no one will plow back through all the blather to stumble across that one solitary post that nailed them dead to rights. They've effectively made the truth a needle in a haystack.

 The only way to deal with this kind of deliberate obfuscation is to keep citing the evidence and linking to the sources. Even though you may have read through every post in the thread and consider it redundant to keep pointing to the same fact over and over, these people are counting on other people not taking the time to do that. They bank on the fact that those coming into the thread a few pages in haven't seen the answer that completely blows their "opinion" out of the water.

 I probably could state this a little clearer if I took the time to reword some of this, but I think you get my point.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## Vul Kuolun

These are some nice observations and conclusions.

 I'll give my best, promised.


----------



## manaox2

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vul Kuolun* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Of course it does.
 Every EE can calculate the influence of these values for you. Chances are just that you may not like the answer you'll get.

 At this point, i feel it's time for ""the mother of all reasonable cable posts":

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/2813426-post91.html_

 

I used this first or second post. And I quoted it. Its much like Steve says. Ignored all over again.


----------



## tourmaline

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_What are you smokin'?!

 See ya
 Steve_

 


 Nothing you are smoking.....

 in real life you DON'T hear how far the walls are away of the singer or mucisian!

 Some high end amps have hyper detail wich portray an image of how deep, how high and how wide the recording room is. Never heard that in real life.


----------



## tourmaline

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_What are you smokin'?!

 See ya
 Steve_

 


 Nothing you are smoking.....

 In real life you DON'T hear how far the walls are away of the singer or mucisian!

 Some high end amps have hyper detail wich portray an image of how deep, how high and how wide the recording room is. Never heard that in real life.

 So, where is all the detail all of a sudden coming from?!


----------



## monolith

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Nothing you are smoking.....

 In real life you DON'T hear how far the walls are away of the singer or mucisian!

 Some high end amps have hyper detail wich portray an image of how deep, how high and how wide the recording room is. Never heard that in real life.

 So, where is all the detail all of a sudden coming from?!_

 

I'll say it again. This is nonsense. You're obfuscating the point a little bit by mentioning specific things like heights of ceilings and widths of rooms, but the point remains that differences in room shapes and sizes are obvious to the ear when it comes to reverberation, echoes, etc. 

 Is it your opinion that if blindfolded you couldn't tell between the same singer singing in a closet and a concert hall just from the sound?


----------



## Chu

@tourmlline

 I find the use of the word "detail" there confounding. If you can't hear it in real life, it's not going to be there on the recording either. If you're talking about audio effects that are not on the original recording, the word "detail" is highly misleading.

 I have issues with the claim on it's face though. You certainly can tell the difference between rooms based only on audio cues in real life. Our brains are tuned to make such calculations based on the arrival difference between reflected sound waves.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Chu* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_@tourmlline

 I find the use of the word "detail" there confounding. If you can't hear it in real life, it's not going to be there on the recording either. If you're talking about audio effects that are not on the original recording, the word "detail" is highly misleading.

 I have issues with the claim on it's face though. You certainly can tell the difference between rooms based only on audio cues in real life. Our brains are tuned to make such calculations based on the arrival difference between reflected sound waves._

 

Exactly, if you can't hear it in real life, why would you be able to hear it from a speaker.


----------



## JaZZ

Some people simply don't have enough fantasy and imagination, and some are even proud of it. 

 «Detail» is a subjective perception, not a measuring criterion. Modern amps offer virtually perfect measuring data, so you won't find differences revealing weaknesses in the detail reproduction. But fact is that they differ in this regard when it comes to the subjective valuation of their sonic characteristics. And there are indeed a few solid-state amps which tend to overemphasis of detail -- this characteristic is usually called «analyticalness».

 I turn (to my ears) many tube amps tend to «richer» sonic colors than typical solid-state amps (or than I consider neutral) -- particularly thanks to a richer overtone spectrum. One could also call this «too much detail» -- but that may be my personal interpretation. 

 I don't agree with _tourmaline_ on his «soundstage» statement, though. A highly accurate solid-state amp will reveal a lot of the acoustics in the recording studio/hall. Of course the vertical dimension can't be captured with two horizontally oriented channels, but width and depth absolutely can. So an amp which manages to portray as much of them as possible is the more accurate one. 

 Nonetheless, I've heard at least one headphone amp which clearly made the soundstage more opulent than I considered natural -- it obviously added some artificial space, at the expense of tonal and spatial definition. It was a hybrid amp, BTW.
.


----------



## Chu

Way off the original topic of this thread, but I hesitate to call "detail" a subjective word. When I switch to crappy $5 ibuds there are certain things that I literally cannot hear. For whatever reason it's beyond the mechanical resolution of the driver to produce. Another way I think of the word being used is in blind testing of codecs. Even though the average person will fail blind testing most of the time, you can essentially describe specific details for them to look for, and they can pass a/b testing. This is really the sense I get from the word "detail," very specific audio cues or signatures.

 "Analytic" is the word I would attribute to a subjective feeling that a certain pair of headphones overemphasized details. Lots of tricky words in that sentence too 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 It really would help audio reviews in general if some of the language could really be pinned down. Audio reviews seem to love extravagantly flowery language which filters down to us, and at times it really seems like a disservice.

 EDIT : Personally I hate the world "analytic." It's been used and abused in so many contexts that when ever I see it in a review these days it conveys no meaning.


----------



## chesebert

geez...all these talk and we end up with nothing useful! 

 Fact: audiophile cable cannot improve sound (audiophile cable may do less damage to the signal than your average cable)

 Fact: the purpose of cable is to transmit whatever signal output by the source to the amp; or from the amp to the spkr PERFECTLY (easier said than done)

 Fact: the whole purpose of the $200K audio system is to reproduce, to the best of its ability, the sound wave captured by the microphone, or synthesized in Pro Tools 

 Fact: all those 'audio properties', e.g. sound stage, height of the instrument, hall sound, 'being there', transparency, etc; are really just the artifacts of a 'almost perfect' reproduction of the sound wave captured by the mic. 

 Fact: stereo imaging is just Jedi mind trick 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Can we get some discussion on 'In what ways does the audiophile cable transmit signal (both small signal and large signal) differently than the nonaudiophile cable?' 
 (I know they do because I can hear a difference; I haven't done any research in this area, and browsing the IEEE database and recent patent app didn't come up with anything useful either)


----------



## naamanf

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *chesebert* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_
 Can we get some discussion on 'In what ways does the audiophile cable transmit signal (both small signal and large signal) differently than the nonaudiophile cable?' 
 (I know they do because I can hear a difference; I haven't done any research in this area, and browsing the IEEE database and recent patent app didn't come up with anything useful either)_

 

I think this topic has been discussed many times to great lengths. I think it comes down to a couple things.

 If you can truly hear the difference then there should be a measurable difference between the two cables/amps/sources/speakers/dampeners/magic pebbles... 

 The properties of a cable and it's make-up can be argued till your blue in the face, but if the measurable differences are in multitudes of 10s or 100s out of the range of human hearing it's a mute argument. Unless your superman with radar dish ears. 

 People will believe what they want to no matter what evidence is logically presented to them. They continue the argument with circle logic and "because I hear it" or "someone smart said it". Fine you hear it. Leave it to magic or gnomes in the cables. Don't try to say it's because of the super octal weave with cat hair di-electric and super dilithium crystal silver.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *chesebert* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_geez...all these talk and we end up with nothing useful!_

 

What were you expecting?!

 I have a few (useful?) thoughts to add. 

_hciman77_ has provided a link with measurements with respect to the skin effect. According to these, an average speaker cable of 10 feet produces a drop-off of almost 3% of loudness intensity (-0.25 dB) at 20 kHz due to the skin effect. That's actually not much and well within the bandwidth of modern electronics' variation. It's certainly nothing one could deduce a dull or underrepresented treble of. The main question is: «Is this audible at all?» My experience tells me that it most likely is. On the other hand, I don't have measuring instruments which would allow to make conclusions about the correlation between certain measuring values and heard sonic characteristics with electronics and cables. 

 Nevertheless, I have made a lot of cable experiments with the goal of minimizing the skin effect -- by means of a drastic increase of cable surface relative to cross-section surface. I achieved this by using magnet wires with (finally) extremely low diameter (down to 0.04 mm). With the clear trend: the more extreme the ratio, the more treble sparkle. Not exactly higher treble intensity, rather higher quality, clarity and detail. At the same time this design approach could also lead to overemphasized brilliance and smoothness or even sleekness, especially with bigger cable lengths, so that a conventional braided cable with its drier characteristic could offer the impression of higher accuracy and definition, despite the duller upper end. 

 Apart from geometry, the materials also played a certain role. Silver and silver plating had a characteristic impact. As many other audiophiles have discovered, silver tends to sound bright and detailed, up to edginess in some cases. 

 As stated in an earlier post, I have occupied myself extensively and intensively with the construction of loudspeakers and thereby experienced unexpected phenomena: Even barely measurable frequency-response or (accompanying) phase-response changes can have audible consequences. So I switched a variable capacitor of (max.) 470 pF parallel to C2 -- the second component of a 4th-order high-pass filter for a tweeter with crossover at 1730 Hz -- with a total capacitance of about 14.3 microfarad. 





 [size=xx-small](See black box with knob at the right side)[/size]

 You can imagine the influence of the difference between 14.3 and 14.30047 or e.g. 14.30022 microfarad: it's barely measurable in terms of frequency or phase response, although theoretically it leads to a microscopic change of both. However, to my ears different positions on the scale revealed a multitude of «sweet spots» -- meaning adjustments which seemed like making «click», allowing the music to appear as a homogenous, coherent entity -- and an overwhelming area where this sensation was absent, although there was a constant minimal change of characteristic nonetheless. (I should add that the crossover-network components as well as the involved speaker chassis were pedantically measured beforehand and brought into exact accordance with established filter formulae.)

 Later I detected that I could get similar effects by pushing the tweeters (on the top of the cabinets) forward and backward by fractions of millimeters or even changing the position of the whole speaker by similar amounts -- also implicating a slight shift of phase between tweeter and woofer relative to my listening position. I have to admit that I certainly wouldn't be able to get such results with any unfamiliar equipment. They were just possible after many hours of intensive occupation with the characteristics of this pair of speakers. 

 Back to the 3% drop-off at 20 kHz. As said, this is not much, and most people won't be able to detect a difference of volume level in that range between two samples; add to this that 20 kHz may not be audible to adults anyway, so if we take a drop-off in the range of 0.15% at say 12 kHz into account, this seems even less likely. But in fact we don't deal with two samples of different loudness intensity, but we're talking of sonic-balance variation! It may not be possible to associate a 3% drop-off with a lack of treble, though, but as modern (headphone) amps show, they can sound clearly different despite minimal measuring variations. BTW, the main candidates (or should I say: _my_ main candidates?) for responsibility for sonic differences are harmonic distortions. This despite the fact that THD in most cases resides below 0.01%. 

 Depending on the slope characteristic, a HF drop-off may be perceived differently: once as dull and lackluster, once as accentuation of the lower treble and even as harshness or graininess. Keep in mind that a frequency response in the form of a straight line is perceived as uncoloured, even if it's slightly tilted to one or the other end. The same applies to a slightly convex or concave curve, as long as it's smooth (and of course not too extreme). But once the curve is inhomogeneous, it's perceived as colored. 

 I can't pretend if the perceived coloration in the case of minimal deviations such as 3%/0.25 dB isn't in fact a consequence of inevitable phase distortion, but since FR and phase distortion always appear parallel, it doesn't matter that much. Just one more example. I once got my Metaxas Solitaire (a power amp with extraordinary HF bandwidth) modified: The only sonically relevant modification was the removing of a small inductor coil (meant to prevent HF oscillation) right before each channel's speaker terminal with a value of 0.01 mH -- corresponding to a low-pass corner frequency of 127 kHz. After the modification, the amp sounded significantly smoother (although you would rather expect a smooth low-pass filter to create smoothness) and showed finer «grain».

 The conclusion of this long post: My theory is that minimal FR- and phase-distortion patterns in cables are responsible for the perceived sonic characteristics. 
.


----------



## tourmaline

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *monolith* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I'll say it again. This is nonsense. You're obfuscating the point a little bit by mentioning specific things like heights of ceilings and widths of rooms, but the point remains that differences in room shapes and sizes are obvious to the ear when it comes to reverberation, echoes, etc. 

 Is it your opinion that if blindfolded you couldn't tell between the same singer singing in a closet and a concert hall just from the sound?_

 

It isn't! Obviously you never heard a high end system costing over 150.000 dollars. These rigs are capable portraying a scene that you can see(hear) the walls behind the players and left and right to the players. This has nothing to do with reverberation, that's all there and natural but it is NOT natural to hear exactly how high a room is. You can actually feel(hear) how big exactly the room is and where the walls are, say 5 by 10 meters or so. I've never encountered that in a real life session. So, obviously, they portray too much detail, fake detail.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_What were you expecting?!

 I have a few (useful?) thoughts to add. 

hciman77 has provided a link with measurements with respect to the skin effect. According to these, an average speaker cable of 10 feet produces a drop-off of almost 3% of loudness intensity (-0.25 dB) at 20 kHz due to the skin effect. That's actually not much and well within the bandwidth of modern electronics' variation. It's certainly nothing one could deduce a dull or underrepresented treble of. The main question is: «Is this audible at all?» My experience tells me that it most likely is. On the other hand, I don't have measuring instruments which would allow to make conclusions about the correlation between certain measuring values and heard sonic characteristics with electronics and cables. 

 Nevertheless, I have made a lot of cable experiments with the goal of minimizing the skin effect -- by means of a drastic increase of cable surface relative to cross-section surface. I achieved this by using magnet wires with (finally) extremely low diameter (down to 0.04 mm). With the clear trend: the more extreme the ratio, the more treble sparkle. Not exactly higher treble intensity, rather higher quality, clarity and detail. At the same time this design approach could also lead to overemphasized brilliance and smoothness or even sleekness, especially with bigger cable lengths, so that a conventional braided cable with its drier characteristic could offer the impression of higher accuracy and definition, despite the duller upper end. 

 Apart from geometry, the materials also played a certain role. Silver and silver plating had a characteristic impact. As many other audiophiles have discovered, silver tends to sound bright and detailed, up to edginess in some cases. 

 As stated in an earlier post, I have occupied myself extensively and intensively with the construction of loudspeakers and thereby experienced unexpected phenomena: Even barely measurable frequency-response or (accompanying) phase-response changes can have audible consequences. So I switched a variable capacitor of (max.) 470 pF parallel to C2 -- the second component of a 4th-order high-pass filter for a tweeter with crossover at 1730 Hz -- with a total capacitance of about 14.3 microfarad. 

 You can imagine the influence of the difference between 14.3 and 14.30047 or e.g. 14.30022 microfarad: it's barely measurable in terms of frequency or phase response, although theoretically it leads to a microscopic change of both. However, to my ears different positions on the scale revealed a multitude of «sweet spots» -- meaning adjustments which seemed like making «click», allowing the music to appear as a homogenous, coherent entity -- and an overwhelming area where this sensation was absent, although there was a constant minimal change of characteristic nonetheless. (I should add that the crossover-network components as well as the involved speaker chassis were pedantically measured beforehand and brought into exact accordance with established filter formulae.)

 Later I detected that I could get similar effects by pushing the tweeters (on the top of the cabinets) forward and backward by fractions of millimeters or even changing the position of the whole speaker by similar amounts -- also implicating a slight shift of phase between tweeter and woofer relative to my listening position. I have to admit that I certainly wouldn't be able to get such results with any unfamiliar equipment. They were just possible after many hours of intensive occupation with the characteristics of this pair of speakers. 

 Back to the 3% drop-off at 20 kHz. As said, this is not much, and most people won't be able to detect a difference of volume level in that range between two samples; add to this that 20 kHz may not be audible to adults anyway, so if we take a drop-off in the range of 0.15% at say 12 kHz into account, this seems even less likely. But in fact we don't deal with two samples of different loudness intensity, but we're talking of sonic-balance variation! It may not be possible to associate a 3% drop-off with a lack of treble, though, but as modern (headphone) amps show, they can sound clearly different despite minimal measuring variations. BTW, the main candidates (or should I say: my main candidates?) for responsibility for sonic differences are harmonic distortions. This despite the fact that THD in most cases resides below 0.01%. 

 Depending on the slope characteristic, a HF drop-off may be perceived differently: once as dull and lackluster, once as accentuation of the lower treble and even as harshness or graininess. Keep in mind that a frequency response in the form of a straight line is perceived as uncoloured, even if it's slightly tilted to one or the other end. The same applies to a slightly convex or concave curve, as long as it's smooth (and of course not too extreme). But once the curve is inhomogeneous, it's perceived as colored. 

 I can't pretend if the perceived coloration in the case of minimal deviations such as 3%/0.25 dB isn't in fact a consequence of inevitable phase distortion, but since FR and phase distortion always appear parallel, it doesn't matter that much. Just one more example. I once got my Metaxas Solitaire (a power amp with extraordinary HF bandwidth) modified: The only sonically relevant modification was the removing of a small inductor coil (meant to prevent HF oscillation) right before each channel's speaker terminal with a value of 0.01 mH -- corresponding to a low-pass corner frequency of 127 kHz. After the modification, the amp sounded significantly smoother (although you would rather expect a smooth low-pass filter to create smoothness) and showed finer «grain».

 The conclusion of this long post: My theory is that minimal FR- and phase-distortion patterns in cables are responsible for the perceived sonic characteristics. 
._

 


 Except you have posted nothing to support your arguments. 

 You have taken one thing, and applied it to things illogically. To form all these false ideas.

 Headphone cable is not 12awg. IC's are not 12awg. They are often 22awg or smaller. Which raises the skin effect frequency greatly.

 Also, you say all these things affect phase and what not. (which you seemed to pull out of no where) Then it would be able to be measured.


----------



## tourmaline

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Chu* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_@tourmlline

 I find the use of the word "detail" there confounding. If you can't hear it in real life, it's not going to be there on the recording either. If you're talking about audio effects that are not on the original recording, the word "detail" is highly misleading.

 I have issues with the claim on it's face though. You certainly can tell the difference between rooms based only on audio cues in real life. Our brains are tuned to make such calculations based on the arrival difference between reflected sound waves._

 

I heard high end systems and some are soo transparent, you'll ectually hear thom size...never heard that in a real concerthall or outside concert. you'll hear reverberation in a room, that's it. Nothing detailed (or transparent) as some hyper detailed high end system portray as image. In real life you hear an instrument with reverberation, that's it, not how far it is of the wall, especially in a big room, where the sounds rather seems to float then anything near a wall.

 Some amps just don't protray a real life stage but a fake, over detailed one.

 I know there are 2 types of audio people; one that wants as much detail out of a cd and the ones that want as lifelike as possible. Two different worlds.

 I am the lifelike person and it is not natural to see/hear even how big a wall is and yes, sometimes you'll hear the sealing too, that detailed. To my ears, this IS not natural.

 I also happen to know musicians so i know a few things about how natural instruments should sound, some instruments have nowhere as inner detail as some amps portray them. I wonder where the detail is comming from, it's not in the instrument or voice!


----------



## tourmaline

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Except you have posted nothing to support your arguments. 

 You have taken one thing, and applied it to things illogically. To form all these false ideas.

 Headphone cable is not 12awg. IC's are not 12awg. They are often 22awg or smaller. Which raises the skin effect frequency greatly.

 Also, you say all these things affect phase and what not. (which you seemed to pull out of no where) Then it would be able to be measured._

 

Never heard that one: phase...only capacitance and inductance...some cable effect too like skineffect and other sorts... cable can influence damping factor of an amp if the capacitance is too high.....then you'll get frequency shifts....

 Correct. IC's are made of thicker core.


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Except you have posted nothing to support your arguments._

 

Well, I have posted my (listening) experiences. You can't expect anything more from a non-EE with non-professional measuring gear. 

  Quote:


 _You have taken one thing, and applied it to things illogically. To form all these false ideas._ 
 

The ideas are not wrong, they're just unproven. 

  Quote:


 _Headphone cable is not 12awg. IC's are not 12awg. They are often 22awg or smaller. Which raises the skin effect frequency greatly._ 
 

Really? By how much? Enough that the already tiny effects have become ultra-tiny and therefore definitely inaudible? My theory implies tininess of any grade.

  Quote:


 _Also, you say all these things affect phase and what not (which you seemed to pull out of nowhere)._ 
 

Then I recommend you to look for some white papers or even better schoolbooks to learn to know how frequency- and phase response go hand in hand.
.


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_It isn't! Obviously you never heard a high end system costing over 150.000 dollars._

 

Your point is absurd. I can hear the dimension of the room in the slapback on everything from Eddie Arnold 78s and Johnny Cash Sun Sessions to modern era classical recordings from the Musikverein in Vienna. Room ambience is an important part of mixes.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Of course the vertical dimension can't be captured with two horizontally oriented channels, but width and depth absolutely can._

 

I don't know how he achieved it, but when I sit in the sweet spot and listen to Karajan's recording of Das Rheingold, the descent from Valhalla into Nibelheim actually has vertical movement. I suspect it has something to do with the way he's balancing the arrangement of the instruments, but I'm really not sure. I've always wondered about it, because I've never heard anything like that before, and considering the content of the scene, I'm sure it's a deliberate effect of some sort.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *chesebert* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Can we get some discussion on 'In what ways does the audiophile cable transmit signal (both small signal and large signal) differently than the nonaudiophile cable?'_

 

I've been waiting for that information since I started posting in this forum a couple of years ago!

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JaZZ* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_an average speaker cable of 10 feet produces a drop-off of almost 3% of loudness intensity (-0.25 dB) at 20 kHz due to the skin effect. That's actually not much and well within the bandwidth of modern electronics' variation. It's certainly nothing one could deduce a dull or underrepresented treble of. The main question is: «Is this audible at all?» My experience tells me that it most likely is._

 

Before I read the rest of your post, I've got a couple of questions...

 Are you saying that *you* can hear -.25 dB at 20kHz or are you saying *most people* can hear it? In music or in test tones? On what do you base your experience about the audibility of slight differences like this in frequencies on the very edge of perception? Have you run tones on your own hearing or anyone else's to check?

 Because it's my experience that you could totally filter out 20kHz in music and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone capable of telling the difference. Most people require that the volume of a 20kHz tone be turned up very high to hear it; and when they do hear it, they're *feeling* it more than actually hearing it. It makes absolutely no difference to recorded music.

 Thanks
 Steve


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Before I read the rest of your post, I've got a couple of questions..._

 

I can't tell you anything more than the rest of my post will.
.


----------



## tourmaline

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Your point is absurd. I can hear the dimension of the room in the slapback on everything from Eddie Arnold 78s and Johnny Cash Sun Sessions to modern era classical recordings from the Musikverein in Vienna. Room ambience is an important part of mixes.

 See ya
 Steve_

 

Yes, that's you....you're talking about a recording super transparent, nothing in real life, wich you don't hear.

 Room abience, like reverberation is something different then hyper detail or super transparency where you can hear the dimensions of the room. Nothing in real life.

 Youre, right, you're talking mixes here, technique, just my point.


----------



## monolith

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Yes, that's you....you're talking about a recording super transparent, nothing in real life, wich you don't hear.

 Room abience, like reverberation is something different then hyper detail or super transparency where you can hear the dimensions of the room. Nothing in real life.

 Youre, right, you're talking mixes here, technique, just my point.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

You failed to answer my original post. My point was that you can easily tell room sizes through sound cues in real life. Is it your point that you couldn't tell between a singer singing in a closet and a concert hall?


----------



## JaZZ

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I don't know how he achieved it, but when I sit in the sweet spot and listen to Karajan's recording of Das Rheingold, the descent from Valhalla into Nibelheim actually has vertical movement. I suspect it has something to do with the way he's balancing the arrangement of the instruments, but I'm really not sure. I've always wondered about it, because I've never heard anything like that before, and considering the content of the scene, I'm sure it's a deliberate effect of some sort._

 

Funny -- I can't remember similar experiences. But now and then I get a hint of in-front localization, something that's apparently very hard to achieve with headphones, even with binaural recordings (at least to my ears). 
.


----------



## tourmaline

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *monolith* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You failed to answer my original post. My point was that you can easily tell room sizes through sound cues in real life. Is it your point that you couldn't tell between a singer singing in a closet and a concert hall?_

 

You failed to get my point. On some rigs you can tell(almost see) where the walls are, not in real life.period. Most high end rigs emphesize on technique, not on real life performance. Most people are wowed by the overwhelming detail, wich just isn't there if you care to listen really well to live, original instruments in real life situations.


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You failed to get my point. On some rigs you can tell(almost see) where the walls are, not in real life.period. Most high end rigs emphesize on technique, not on real life performance. Most people are wowed by the overwhelming detail, wich just isn't there if you care to listen really well to live, original instruments in real life situations._

 

And once again, if your ears aren't sensitive enough to hear the details in live venue, why are they sensitive enough to hear it from phones?

 Or are you trying to say that some rigs can intelligently select certain details to raise the volume of, so that they can be heard.


----------



## monolith

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You failed to get my point. On some rigs you can tell(almost see) where the walls are, not in real life.period. Most high end rigs emphesize on technique, not on real life performance. Most people are wowed by the overwhelming detail, wich just isn't there if you care to listen really well to live, original instruments in real life situations._

 

You're getting into semantics. If you were hanging from a rope directly above an orchestra the way the mics used to record it were, you'd hear all that stuff. The overwhelming detail you hear from a good rig is there in real life. By definition. _At best_, the recording, played back through an amazing rig in a perfectly treated room, will have as much detail as the live performance.

 You have to keep in mind that when listening to something like an orchestra live, you're being inundated with the sounds of hundreds of other people coughing and shuffling around, you're spending a lot of time watching the players, observing the conductor and other people, etc. All the detail you're talking about is there, just past all those distractions.

 Even with all of that interference, it's still easy to hear room characteristics. Imagine how easy it must be when the orchestra is recorded professionally, with no moving people to mess with acoustics.


----------



## hciman77

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Or are you trying to say that some rigs can intelligently select certain details to raise the volume of, so that they can be heard.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

I think the implication is that some HiFi rigs add the illusion of spatial positioning that is not in the recording, these would technically be bad HiFi rigs as they would add stuff that shouldnt be there, I think you can do this to some extent by adding delays and slight phase changes but it would be a con job and not necessarily accurate.


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tourmaline* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Youre, right, you're talking mixes here, technique, just my point.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

I think there's a language problem here. I'm afraid I can't discern your point. Are you talking about synthesized ambiences in a 5:1 system?

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## LawnGnome

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *hciman77* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I think the implication is that some HiFi rigs add the illusion of spatial positioning that is not in the recording, these would technically be bad HiFi rigs as they would add stuff that shouldnt be there, I think you can do this to some extent by adding delays and slight phase changes but it would be a con job and not necessarily accurate._

 

Such things would one, be measurable, and two, be done intelligently to only certain parts of the waveform, AND at a particular time.

 Otherwise the sound would just sound very noticeably wrong.


----------



## Vul Kuolun

I'm not too sure if "tourmaline" is aware of the fact that 99.9% of his recordings don't even contain natural/ unprocessed informations about room size and positioning at all, and that this would be the only recordings making sense to compare to a real life event.

 Uh, plus that the recordings he's trying to compare are to the same percentage mixed to be played on speaker systems. Therefore, the things he's hearing through his headphones are a outcome of almost pure coincidence.


----------



## viggen

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *lan* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_On the contrary, I would rather see the believers put stuff in front of non-believers and show them. It would be most productive to mingle in the real world._

 

Why don't the non-believers show themselves instead of reciting scientific truisms that approximate reality in trying to prove reality to be fiction?


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *LawnGnome* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_
 Otherwise the sound would just sound very noticeably wrong._

 

Could you provide a little more objective term than "wrong"? Or explain how "sound" can "sound" "wrong"??? Measurements would be helpful, I should think...
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 jeebus... You are a trip!!!


----------



## bigshot

"wrong" = "inaccurate"

 He's talking about the effects of synthesized ambiences using digital delays.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## slwiser

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I don't know how he achieved it, but when I sit in the sweet spot and listen to Karajan's recording of Das Rheingold, the descent from Valhalla into Nibelheim actually has vertical movement. I suspect it has something to do with the way he's balancing the arrangement of the instruments, but I'm really not sure. I've always wondered about it, because I've never heard anything like that before, and considering the content of the scene, I'm sure it's a deliberate effect of some sort.

 See ya
 Steve_

 

I just re-visited this thread again this morning. I have read where a certain frequencies (higher) can get be clued as having height to a sound presentation. Is it possible that the shifting vertical nature of the sound that you were hearing is more a relationship of the sound frequency over time changing? Some higher frequencies tend to be resolved in the mind as physically higher in location from what I have read. 

 Just a thought.


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_"wrong" = "inaccurate"

 He's talking about the effects of synthesized ambiences using digital delays.

 See ya
 Steve_

 

Ok. "inaccurate" with regards to what? The "original" signal? Using the original mic feed as the reference? Or the masters? Or the production CD with it's inherent limitations in absolute resolution, i.e. sampling rate, bit length?

 Or are we talking about a "reference" 1khz sine wave? at what level?

 And at what point is something "wrong"? Is it within +/- 1db (or 3db? .5db?) accurate over what frequency range?

 The further you guys try and "run around your back hand," the more your posts entertain me... keep on tryin!


----------



## naamanf

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *slwiser* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I just re-visited this thread again this morning. I have read where a certain frequencies (higher) can get be clued as having height to a sound presentation. Is it possible that the shifting vertical nature of the sound that you were hearing is more a relationship of the sound frequency over time changing? Some higher frequencies tend to be resolved in the mind as physically higher in location from what I have read. 

 Just a thought._

 

That's pretty much what it is. In the real world it's the outer ear that varies the freq of received sounds and provides cues for the vertical plane. This same effect can be recreated and trick the brain into hearing things on the vertical plane.


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *slwiser* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I have read where a certain frequencies (higher) can get be clued as having height to a sound presentation. Is it possible that the shifting vertical nature of the sound that you were hearing is more a relationship of the sound frequency over time changing? Some higher frequencies tend to be resolved in the mind as physically higher in location from what I have read_

 

That could be it... The passage where it occurs is the descent into Nibelheim in Wagner's Das Rheingold. The orchestra is doing a circular, short staccato bit while percussionists hammer on tuned anvils, simulating the dwarfs pounding on the gold in their caves. It could be that the orchestra is holding in the same spot, while the anvils get brighter as they trail off. There also might be some sort of subtle phase shift in part of the sound too. It's eerie!

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Ok. "inaccurate" with regards to what? The "original" signal? Using the original mic feed as the reference? Or the masters? Or the production CD with it's inherent limitations in absolute resolution, i.e. sampling rate, bit length?_

 

All of the above.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Or are we talking about a "reference" 1khz sine wave? at what level? And at what point is something "wrong"? Is it within +/- 1db (or 3db? .5db?) accurate over what frequency range?_

 

It isn't a frequency or dynamic change... it's a time shift. On 5:1 A/V receivers you'll often find synthesized room ambiences (concert hall, stadium, etc.) They're created by shifting phase and adding digital delay reverberation to certain channels. Obviously, that sort of change is inaccurate compared to whatever reference you use.

 The discussion was about how certain equipment added extra sound cues to emphasize the size and shape of the room. The only way I know to do that is through some sort of synthesized delay like this. I think most audiophiles would consider that sort of presentation to be "inaccurate".

 Is that clearer?

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_All of the above.



 It isn't a frequency or dynamic change... it's a time shift. On 5:1 A/V receivers you'll often find synthesized room ambiences (concert hall, stadium, etc.) They're created by shifting phase and adding digital delay reverberation to certain channels. Obviously, that sort of change is inaccurate compared to whatever reference you use.

 The discussion was about how certain equipment added extra sound cues to emphasize the size and shape of the room. The only way I know to do that is through some sort of synthesized delay like this. I think most audiophiles would consider that sort of presentation to be "inaccurate".

 Is that clearer?

 See ya
 Steve_

 

But none of that silly-business is on the actual recording unless a recording engineer put it there. Those recording engineers think they know everything!

 So getting back to the topic:

 Is phase shift a result of the cable carrying the audio signal plausible or even possible?

 Is it possible to subjectively interpret the audible spatial cues you claim to have heard (e.g. "ambience," "vertical soundstaging") as "increased detail" (that is, lower noise floor allowing for low level audio signal to be now "audible"? Further, is this lowered noise floor related to the shielding (or any other measurable attribute) of a signal cable?


----------



## bigshot

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_But none of that silly-business is on the actual recording unless a recording engineer put it there._

 

Uh... yeah. That's what they were saying.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *yotacowboy* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is phase shift a result of the cable carrying the audio signal plausible or even possible?_

 

Sure. If one cable is defective, or perhaps if one channel's cable is two miles long and the other is six feet. Phase is relative, so one channel's cable would have to shift differently than the other channel's cable. It would sound weird though. It wouldn't "widen the soundstage" or anything like that.

 Depth cues can be pretty tiny. It is possible that a lower noise floor would reveal them better. But it's unlikely that the cable would have as much to do with that than tape hiss or a really noisy amp. Unless they aren't functioning properly, cables don't affect the signal to noise.

 See ya
 Steve


----------



## Vul Kuolun

Quote:


 That could be it... The passage where it occurs is the descent into Nibelheim in Wagner's Das Rheingold. The orchestra is doing a circular, short staccato bit while percussionists hammer on tuned anvils, simulating the dwarfs pounding on the gold in their caves. It could be that the orchestra is holding in the same spot, while the anvils get brighter as they trail off. There also might be some sort of subtle phase shift in part of the sound too. It's eerie! 
 

Bingo. The guy who described this phenomenon first was a person called "Jens Blauert". The frequencies with a critical influence on the felt direction of the sound are called "Blauert'sche Bänder" in german.
 There's an interesting entry in wikipedia, unfortunately in german:

Blauertsche BÃ¤nder - Wikipedia

 The graph tells the likeliness of a perception of a certain direction in % for an emphasis(x) in a specific frequency range (y). Green means "front", red "back", yellow equals "height".

 BTW, the effect is known at least since 1970, as the publication linked in the wiki from Jens Blauert on the subject bears this date.


----------



## hempcamp

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Why don't the non-believers show themselves instead of reciting scientific truisms that approximate reality in trying to prove reality to be fiction?_

 

Because those of us who believe in the scientific method are explicitly prohibited from posting honestly and openly in this forum as per the thread title, "no DBT." So instead of settling these debates through a process by which statistical trial can prove beyond reasonable doubt what scientific "truisms" already suggest, we have to couch the debate in foggy, theoretical explanations. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Happy arguing.

 --Chris


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## yotacowboy

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *hempcamp* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Because those of us who believe in the scientific method are explicitly prohibited from posting honestly and openly in this forum as per the thread title, "no DBT." So instead of settling these debates through a process by which statistical trial can prove beyond reasonable doubt what scientific "truisms" already suggest, we have to couch the debate in foggy, theoretical explanations. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Happy arguing.

 --Chris_

 

I enjoy that you can clearly and concisely explain your position - I applaud you. Too bad that the majority of "those who believe" rely on rhetorical rationalization devices such as "horse sense"... "believers" who post here wouldn't know a proper statistical trial if it bit them in the *****.

 Bitter, grumpy closed-mindedness is largely confused with honest experience 'round these parts, I'm afraid.


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## bigshot

Some people actually know what they're talking about and share their knowledge; and others resort to passive aggressive swipes as a substitute for discourse. Such is life.

 See ya
 Steve


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## viggen

Are you sure the scientific method is properly applied such as in the manner in which it is during this discourse? 

 Just saying you believe in scientific methodology doesn't mean you are are partaking in such nor does it mean you are applying it correctly.

 Also, statistcs is numeric data that measures relevancy of two events. Both events are true with the relevancy being hypothetical. With no clear knowledge of testing procedures and METHODOLOGY of testing, it's useless to bring up statistics such as DBT. It's neither here nor there.


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## hempcamp

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Also, statistcs is numeric data that measures relevancy of two events. Both events are true with the relevancy being hypothetical. With no clear knowledge of testing procedures and METHODOLOGY of testing, it's useless to bring up statistics such as DBT. It's neither here nor there._

 

Sorry, I'm prohibited from responding to your nonsense.







 --Chris


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## bigshot

It's my understanding that you can discuss the results of objective testing, just not the methodology.

 See ya
 Steve


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## hempcamp

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *bigshot* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_It's my understanding that you can discuss the results of objective testing, just not the methodology._

 

That's the problem! The minute one reports objective results from a test, someone else questions the methodology and one wouldn't be able to defend the methodology.

 It's OK though, I'm not bitter, I'm amused. You and I know well that the entire physics, engineering, and psychology faculties of MIT could stand behind said methodology and many people around here would still cry foul, question the results, and (as in the other thread related to this issue) question knowledge itself just to "prove" what they can hear.

 --Chris


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## viggen

That's the biggest load of sock I've read in a long time. 

 Science is about being proven wrong when methodologies ill designed is brought to light. You guys are just hiding behind your high school text books blathering on and on about measurements this and parameters that.

 If you have anything objective to say, that is anything based on reality, empiricism, and not regurgitated Bill Nye science, then spew it out.


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## hempcamp

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That's the biggest load of sock I've read in a long time. 

 Science is about being proven wrong when methodologies ill designed is brought to light. You guys are just hiding behind your high school text books blathering on and on about measurements this and parameters that.

 If you have anything objective to say, that is anything based on reality, empiricism, and not regurgitated Bill Nye science, then spew it out._

 

This is a very incoherent post. I have no idea about what or to whom you are talking?

 --Chris


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## monolith

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *viggen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That's the biggest load of sock I've read in a long time. 

 Science is about being proven wrong when methodologies ill designed is brought to light. You guys are just hiding behind your high school text books blathering on and on about measurements this and parameters that.

 If you have anything objective to say, that is anything based on reality, empiricism, and not regurgitated Bill Nye science, then spew it out._

 

I have to agree with the previous poster. Most of that seems to be nonsense.


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## Vul Kuolun

Don't bother.

 He's just trying to get the thread closed.


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## bigshot

I think the title of the thread is the reason some folks want to see it closed. It's a shame too, because there's some interesting stuff here.

 See ya
 Steve


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