Are cable recommendations worth anything?

I wouldn’t waste my time on this anymore guys.  @ahofer is clearly dug in like an Alabama tick and no amount of evidence or experience will convince him otherwise.  His ears obviously aren’t good enough to hear differences in cables, so good for him.  He gets to live happily in ignorance.  He probably thinks there’s no difference between DACs either.  Oops, there I went and opened a whole other can o’ worms.  Heh heh.  Anyway, why bother to continue banging your bleeding heart against some mad bugger’s wall is all I’m sayin’ here.  Peace out. 

Cleeds,

That Michael Fremer article like most of what comes out of his mouth is idiotic.

Even the most staunch anti cable people know that turntable cables are highly impactful on the sound. The article proves nothing really. His comment about leveling I find ludicrous.  Funny of all is his making fun of the guy saying he measured his azimuth being off and Fremer saying that's ludicrous. While unlikely, if there is high frequency channel say at 15-20Khz that is not there are lower frequencies then that can indicate the azimuth is off.

Hey @audio2design... or @dannad, or @atdavid, or whatever... it did not take you long after they banned your most recent moniker (Dannad) to resurface again here. Why on earth keep insisting over and over and over coming back here to spread your venom and hatred to everything audio and audiophiles?? This is way beyond my understanding and imagination. Get a life.

Seems that the moderator has taken sides here and spuriously deleted multiple posts that contained no abuse, no profanity, and no personal attacks, unlike some of the responses.  They are facilitating the epistemic closure evident among some on this site. Shame on him/her, whoever they are.

Suffice it to say that the people who are “dug in” are those who a) deny that the mountain of evidence against their subjective opinions even exists and b) don’t have the guts to prove that they have the golden ears they claim.  Dissing other people’s ears (if I had a dime for every time some super-annuated snob pulled that one) while purposely holding his hands over his own.

The null hypothesis has been clobbering the faith in cable differences for decades.  

And yet, here you are: in a thread about cables. If you have concluded (in whatever way, not my business) cables are worthless, why do you worry about them? Why do you talk about cables? 

They talk and argue and insult because they cannot bear the truth: that there are indeed differences, and that learning to hear them will allow you to build a better more satisfying music system.

This they find is infinitely frustrating. Because, think about it. Imagine. Here they are spending thousands of dollars, not to mention investing who knows how many hours, all for something they cannot even begin to hear. Their system sucks, and everyone knows it- except for them! Because they haven’t learned to listen.

And since they cannot listen they don’t even have any idea how to make it better. It must feel like the kid who wants in the worst way to join the game, but insists we change all the rules just for him. Its no longer about how it sounds, its about whatever impossible to prove proof these misfits insist upon. Its the most epic fail of all time. Of course they are frustrated, angry, butt hurt beyond imagining.

Oh well.

Listen with what? 😂😂. How can possibly a good power cord make their $50 China DAC sound like a SOTA DAC? 

Some seem to have a great deal of trouble, accepting their own limitation*.               Then, it appears; "Misery loves company" becomes an agenda            (*a variable)

As you have also noticed, it does NOT make any sense and you will not hear any difference. A $50 cable is good enuf as long as properly shielded. Any similar priced phono cable will do just as well.

millercarbon is from another planet who can hear even negative frequencies. He can hear the collision of the air molecules depending on the temperature gradient. So, nobody should equate their hearing to his and feel inferior :-)

For most other humans, my first paragraph applies.

In my opinion:

In a true double blind test, nobody on this site - or any other - could identify cables based on the way a system “sounds”.

Save your $$$

There's an old saying, those who can do, those who can't whine about double-blind blah blah blah.

ahofer

Seems that the moderator has taken sides here and spuriously deleted multiple posts that contained no abuse, no profanity, and no personal attacks, unlike some of the responses.  They are facilitating the epistemic closure evident among some on this site. Shame on him/her, whoever they are.

I think the mods here do a great job.  Your posts weren't "spuriously deleted." The moderators deleted your posts because you were trying to hatch a scam, a financial hustle, the audiophile equivalent of Three-card Monte. I know you may have thought it was a clever approach, but it really wasn't and has been tried here many times before.  You'll have to find your marks somewhere else.

Beware the audio guru.

“Their system sucks, and everyone knows it- except for them! Because they haven’t learned to listen. “

It always comes back to this. “My ears are better than yours/better than thousands of others”. It’s pure nonsense, incredibly juvenile, and contains no useful or compelling idea, let alone scientific logic.

Stereo Review started debunking the cable myth in 1983, Head-if tests hundreds of people and only one can correctly identify cables from the sound, and on and on (within the links in the thread I posted above) but all you’ve got is your claimed exceptional abilities.

Look, you can argue there is a problem with blind tests (i reluctantly disagree, but ok). You can argue that all the tests done so far are flawed (large task, but at least it makes sense), but combatting science with snobbery is kid stuff.

And I enjoy the hell out of my system, especially as I’ve learned where applying money actually makes a lasting difference for me, instead of a temporary placebo hit that inevitably fades and keeps you on the hedonic audio jewelry treadmill.

The Archimago link within the text above is a great place to start on how to actually think about finding truly audible differences, as well as the story of a fellow audio junkie’s search for an audible difference in any kind of cable (power, interconnect, digital, etc.).

I always get a kick out of this slide in Floyd’s presentation. Start watching at this time location:

https://youtu.be/zrpUDuUtxPM?t=3220

It will of course be noted that "Audio Reviewers" did poorly. Retail audio sales, better, but not great. Selected and trained did by far the best. Selected mainly by good hearing (which I suspect many here no longer have), and trained to listen for specific defects for loudspeakers.

Listen very closely to what he says at 56:38.

Before you try to refute someone who has forgot more about audio and sound than most of us will ever remember, he said the two most important things for a speaker are flat on-axis performance and smooth off axis performance.  Someone in this very thread appears to be presently having a love affair with a speaker that for whatever other faults it may have, its on axis is quite flat, and its off axis is very smooth.

This cable stuff is tiring and really seems to bring out the worst in people.  Why can't people share their listening experiences and make their cable recommendations without it turning into a competition and argument? 

Is is so hard to simply try the cables, listen for yourself, and then buy/keep what you like best, without the perpetual arguments between science and hearing, good ears and bad ears, resolving systems and boom boxes, expensive and cheap cables, and the contribution a cable makes to the overall sound of a system?  Why care if somebody else has a different opinion? 

ahofer,

From what I understand, anything that looks like a "bet" is frowned upon here. Period. This is a commercial site. I can see why they avoid any potential to appear to be facilitating something like that. They don't have Facebook's lawyers. It is easier and safer just to discourage it. Whether what you suggested was good, valid or otherwise is not the point. Best to just let this one go.

ahofer

... These things happen all the time and are quite legal. The double blind host gets compensated for his time. I pay him if I lose, but I ask that you do so if you can’t tell the difference. There is no DA on earth who would call it a scam.

You’re pursuing a scam.
Beware the audio guru.

No one serious about exploring valid double-blind tests would taint them by introducing elements of financial loss or gain. Remember, you want to avoid as many variables and outside influences as possible. That’s the whole point of doing a scientific test.

Nothing here has convinced me that you are anything but petrified to face reality on this point.

Still casting bait, eh? It’s best to give it a rest.

As I have said before, such arguments are a waste of life. 

If people think I know how to establish superior audio systems, they will listen to my recommendations. If people think someone else has the best methods, they will listen to them. 

I used to care about people with poor sound. I used to try hard to convince them they could have better. It was nothing but contention, argument. No need for that. So, I quit it. 

Have fun waging your war, people.   :) 

In my experience, cables do have a sound of themselves when connected to the same components...although they may very well sound different connected to different componets.  In ,my system, Purist made the system sound much like tubes with  sweet rolled off highs...but with a texture.  Cardas closed in and flattened the sound, Audioquest Sky seemed perfect, but their WmFLowe top of the line was awful for me. Blue Jean's told me they are in the cable business, not in the Audiophile business.  Try them all and choose the one you like.

@audio2design,

'It will of course be noted that "Audio Reviewers" did poorly. Retail audio sales, better, but not great. Selected and trained did by far the best. Selected mainly by good hearing (which I suspect many here no longer have), and trained to listen for specific defects for loudspeakers.'



This could be a major problem with all of our opinions, learned and experienced as they might be. Just how good is our hearing? Can you imagine how skewed our impressions might be if we were to have one or two dips at various frequencies?

Perhaps it's high time someone put out a comprehensive online listening test measuring both our ability to hear not only comparitive loudness but different frequencies. 

I mean where would it leave the opinions of someone whose hearing becomes irregular above 8kHz? You'd think it would be mandatory for reviewers (and anyone working in pro audio) to have thorough hearing tests, but apparently it is not.

Floyd Toole's work might not get us all to the audio promised land, but nevertheless it remains a valuable map for anyone attempting to navigate their way to sonic excellence.

It's not really too surprising that in addition to the importance of a flat on-axis performance and smooth off axis performance, listeners also gave bass a 30% weighting when assessing overall performance, is it?

@thyname 

Hey @audio2design... or @dannad, or @atdavid, or whatever... it did not take you long after they banned your most recent moniker (Dannad) to resurface again here. Why on earth keep insisting over and over and over coming back here to spread your venom and hatred to everything audio and audiophiles?? This is way beyond my understanding and imagination. Get a life.

yep...  new username... same b.s.

12g zip cord and keep the money in your pocket. On the other hand if someone insists maybe I can cook something up and apply lots of flowery words and a big price tag and since you will spend lots of money that alone means it is superior.