Audiophiles should learn from people who created audio

Oh thank you, defiantboomerang, for saving us again from our own stupidity. Dude, why are you trying to be everyone’s mom? You come on here and immediately start posting stuff as though the rest of us have never read anything about audio and/or are too stupid to figure it out.

How about this: you don’t hear a difference in cables? Great, go listen to music and leave us alone. I make my own cables. I hear differences with different materials, geometries and conductors. I discuss these ideas with others and we all refine our understanding. None of us go out there insisting that you should be using certain cables, we don’t post stuff telling the world how stupid people are who don’t use fancy cables.. we go about our business.

Be secure enough in your beliefs and knowledge to find contentment. If you’re so psychologically fragile that you’re triggered by those who think differently, then that is sad. And unfortunately very common in our society at the moment.

I realize that this post may come across as hypocritical, however I see it as a rebuttal to an attack. Wading into a cable discussion and calling us delusional is not. Discussing, amongst ourselves, something you don’t believe in is not an attack on you. It does not require a rebuttal.

We have cable naysayers on here who can post their thoughts respectfully and leave it be. You, however, are a proselytizing fool lately.

It seems the lawyers have a better understanding of science than the engineers around here

Omniscient!

Of course they're right. Our current scientific understanding of the universe is obviously complete and the data says 'NO!'. Listen to the data and the dogma, not the music. Don't you guys know where truth lies?

@willemj - exactly. However, I believe, in your quest to prove the irrelevance of ’fancy’ cables, you overstate what science knows and refuse to even entertain the notion that there may be aspects of human cognition relating to cables in amplified music systems that haven’t been quantified. Your position is absolute, and, in this instance, does not deserve to be. We aren’t arguing about the value of the acceleration due to gravity on Earth.
You are conflating all findings of science with established theories. And we all know that even those are also best guesses made within specific parameters based on an understanding of the data rooted within a particular time frame. As far as I know, there isn’t well funded research into the fields of acoustics and audio electronics at the level there was in the first half of the 1900s. So we’re still using those theories when the science that underlies what those theories are based on has changed. Sure they still work. But it doesn’t mean they describe everything and are complete. As a scientist, you should know that. Otherwise, what’s the point of further research? Since there are no big labs out there, exploring the subtleties of audio cables, there isn't likely to be a lot of data or grand research. It's just 'us' messing around out here with our wires.

Out of curiosity, have you tried any aftermarket cables? What do you connect your components to each other with? 

@geoffkait agreed! Ken Wilber uses the term scientism. I like that. It's the ossification of what should be a fluid and dynamic understanding of the world using science into a dogmatic structure where anything that hasn't been 'proven' by science is deemed to be nonexistent or inconsequential.
It's all underlaid by the mind's desire for certainty. Always having to figure things out is stressful and makes it difficult to maintain the illusion of an independent self operating upon the world. And that is frankly terrifying for most people. I see it almost every time I teach a yoga class or meditation session..

Indeed. And I’m guilty of the same silliness, even though I’m aware of it. I’m not at the point where the center of gravity of my consciousness is at that level. But I’ve worked enough to raise it to the point that my moments of clarity are enough to see the dogma I’m operating from, allowing me to occasionally transcend and reprogram it. It’s hard freaking work! And when it’s not even acknowledged in society, it’s not surprising most people just roll with the dogma they’ve acquired and don’t question it.

It's so much easier and automatic to identify with the contents of consciousness than with the process itself

@teo_audio - that last link is incredible! Materials science is blowing up right now!

Agreed. They've been busy lately. I've had all kinds of posts removed this past week, probably close to 10 or so. Before that, I had two posts removed in approximately 6 months.

@willemj I think we agree on things more than I initially thought. I’m a sceptic and remain sceptical until I experience any improvement myself. I would never say this is scientific. But it’s what I have to work with. As we’ve said, there isn’t a lot of research funding in the audio realm, there aren’t a lot of technical, peer reviewed papers. There’s a whole world out there to play in about discover. I know that the way I do things rubs you the wrong way, but it isn’t indicative of how I view science. It’s indicative of how I like to play and explore.

Hey, I free climb and hear differences in cables. I even feel differences in climbing shoes. Especially when listen to music on different cables. I'm an expectation-bias-loving fool.

Agreed. I find waterfall graphs incredibly useful for dealing with my room acoustics. As I’ve taken more and more measurements, it had surprised me how variable they are. There are obviously way more similarities between each measurement than differences, but there are enough differences to let me know that any differences in sound due to cabling would get lost in the noise of in-room measurements. I suppose you could do hundreds of measurements before and hundreds after, then try to average them and create a before/after waterfall plot, but, unfortunately REW doesn’t generate waterfall plots from averaged measurements.