Audiophiles should learn from people who created audio
The post linked below should be a mandatory reading for all those audiophiles who spend obscene amounts of money on wires. Can such audiophiles handle the truth?
@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?
We need to distinguish between things that are a matter of taste (do you like candle light or halogen lights, or Bach or Metallica?), and things that are a matter of emperical reality (what is the colour temperature in degrees Kelvin of candle light or halogen light?). About matters of taste one can have an opinion, but not about the emperical facts. You cannot 'prefer' gravity, or a higher speed of sound. In that sense science is not democracy. Of course, establishing the facts may be tricky, but that is not the same as that they are a subject for opinion.
Is this hobby about absolutes or about enjoying an art called music? And who has the hubris to anoint themselves an absolute authority to dictate how such an "enjoyment" must be experienced? Are we such slaves to physics, or metaphysics, that we can't abide deviation from our personal preferences?
FZ:
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
This horrible force (called music) is so dangerous to society at large that laws are being drawn up at this very moment to stop it forever. Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they won't conflict with the Constitution. Which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate the FUTURE.
I agree that the Audio industry is doing just fine. Better sounding components and reasonable prices for great equipment. My point of that article was my belief about certain components as speaker WIRE, interconnects, and the money gouging companies who sell these products st exorbitant prices. But to each his own. Just my opinion. AND THE SKY HASN'T FALLEN AS OF YET!
Geoff- I do have a cheapy loaded on to an iPad. It works with a microphone, either the one built into the iPad-questionable- or an external mic, but it is measuring output of the entire system within the room. What I was thinking about was a lab grade test that, for example, measured the frequency/timing characteristics of wire as electrical impulses- the subject of this thread was that wire is wire. I assume something like that could be hooked up--but also wonder if it is has already been done.
@itzhak1969--I'm pretty firmly rooted in the subjective camp with a healthy respect for science. Could some of the sonic attributes you mention, like brightness and perhaps even sound stage, be measured by fourier analysis? I don't know the answer, but it would seem like frequency peaks and dips, and timing in relation to frequency, should tell us something. I'm posing this as a general query-- perhaps this stuff has been measured with no demonstrable difference, although it perceived by listeners. I'm not try to fan any flames, actually trying to bridge the gap. I suppose I could grab someone in the engineering department at UT, but unless an engineer is specialized (or at least interested) in acoustic analysis, I'm not sure they could help.
It’s really beyond me how can science measure things like brightness , seperation between instruments, soundstage quality, level of details act ?
To say that all cables are the same is like saying for example that all power amplifications that share the same specifications will have identical sound, it’s nonsense of course .
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?
I had an experience the other day that is germane to this topic.
A few weeks ago I had a fellow audio-enthusiast over who was skeptical over the difference a cable can make. I was swapping out my Teo Audio Game Changer ICs with low budget cables. He left convinced. ㋛
Over the weekend I played an album and wondered what was wrong with the sound? I readjusted the cartridge. No change. I swapped out the tubes in my phono stage and then pre-amp. No change. I then checked behind my phono stage and realized that I hadn’t changed my cabling back to the GC’s.
Once I swapped in the GC’s, the sound stage I was expecting was back.
No, I don’t profess to understand the physics behind how these cables work. All I know is that in my system, they make an audible difference. And it is not subtle.
For reference, my system is:
Roksan Xerxes (modded external power supply) Tweaked RB300 (Incognito wiring, Michell technoweight, Audio Origami SOFC phono cable) London Decca Super Gold cart Croft RIAA phono stage (Shuguang Custom 12AX7 tubes) Don Sachs preamp (Shuguang Treasure 181-z and Sylvania Chrome Top 6SN7 tubes) heavily modified Golden Tube Audio SE-40 monoblocks (Shuguang 181-z and Winged "C" 6L6 GC) Esoteric DV-50S Gustard x20Pro DAC (modded) Singxer SU-1 DDC (modded) Martin Logan Spire Pierre Gabriel Model PGS - L2 speaker cables all ICs are Teo Audio GC
You have to respect Mr. Russell for having the foresight and cleverness to link to the Amazing Randi Million Dollar Challenge for blind testing super expensive cables. If any pseudo skeptics were sitting on the fence before reading all the gory details about the whole $1M Challenge and how Randi was the NOT one who blinked first, they won’t be for long. Well played, Roger!
Years ago we had companies like Western Electric, Bell Labs, RCA and others that invested considerably in R & D. I know some of the high end companies are now owned by large conglomerates, but I doubt research into auditory phenomena is the same today. It seems like much of the innovation is in the hands of smaller shops, cottage industry style or scientists who have migrated from other fields into audio because of their personal interest. Separating the wheat from the chaff isn't possible based on marketing or reviews. The handful of components that are enduring is relatively small. And, interestingly, many rely on modern implementations of old technologies or are themselves old components. The notion that science stays in place is, I think, contrary to the very notion of discovery and advancing learning.
Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me - Gordon Holt
A procedure for critical evaluation; a means of determining the presence, quality, or truth of something;
IMO audio hobby is stronger than ever with companies routinely offering higher and higher price components, wider selection of quality products, to my EAR superior SQ ... This is not a sign of dying but growing
industry.
Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by
its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its
credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of
basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized
every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a
source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual
embarrassment for me - Gordon Holt
A procedure for critical evaluation; a means of
determining the presence, quality, or truth of something;
The science was never settled years ago. The limits of our measuring was settled years ago. All some need is a visual representation of an approximation that we can all agree on as a standard to make them happy. Those standards are just guideposts until better measurements come along.
Go back anywhere in history and you'll see this same, boring discussion being hashed over with the flatearthers of their time mumbling that all they needed were the measurement standards of their time to go by and anything else was wishful thinking.
I remember a heated discussion here, years ago, about vibrations and what could and couldn't be measured (so it couldn't possibly exist) and some particle theorist (or someone of that ilk) chimed in with observations he and his team had with watching something that was so dense it couldn't possibly transmit sound or vibrations "dancing around" and doing the opposite of what was conventional wisdom, because they had better measurements to go by. Yet, talk to anyone who's not in that field and they'll still tell you you're crazy to think so.
These forums are not the cutting edge, sorry to say, and are way behind the curve. No one should take well written quotes and call them "science". Hiding behind those skirts is a sad thing to do.
Laws are meant to be broken. I broke two today just messing around. Science can’t keep up with audiophiles. Science - and to a certain extent audiophiles - mostly still think quantum mechanics is just a theory. Einstein didn’t think it was even a theory. You gotta admit, that’s funny. 😀
I honestly don’t know why we continue to tirelessly argue on the merits
of cables, fuses, components and so on. In this journey, everyone has
their own taste, budget, expectations and is entitled to their own
opinions.
The most important thing in this hobby is to share
some of the joy and excitement of discovering how fundamentally
beautiful and important music is, does it matter how we get there?
I hate to judge before all the facts are in, but there is no known way to measure some things in terms of the EFFECT ON THE SOUND. You know what I’m talking about, Mpingo discs, CD treatments, magnetization of CDs and cables, isolation platforms, Clever Clock, Silver Rainbow Foil, Cream Electret, Red X Pen, directionality of interconnects. We’re not even sure we’re measuring the right thing when it comes to fuses, you know, since the differences in resistance are sooo small. And nobody can fully explain in measurments why one cone is superior to another cone in terms of sound. I know what you’re thinking, it looks good on paper.
Sure, some of those things MIGHT be measurable under certain circumstances by someone somewhere. But of course noone ever does. 😀
Note to previous poster: yes, it actually does matter HOW we get there. Because if you don't understand where you ARE and how you got there you cannot proceed to where you eventually want to be. No matter how MUCH you have in the end you could have had even MORE if you had started out with MORE.
I honestly don’t know why we continue to tirelessly argue on the merits of cables, fuses, components and so on. In this journey, everyone has their own taste, budget, expectations and is entitled to their own opinions.
The most important thing in this hobby is to share some of the joy and excitement of discovering how fundamentally beautiful and important music is, does it matter how we get there?
Because we cannot yet scientifically measure observable phenomena, does not mean such phenomena do not exist.
In other words, it is entirely possible the ear is capable of
perceiving sonic subtleties that current acoustical testing may not be
capable of measuring.
That is not true. In 2017, science is so advanced that it knows everything there is to possibly know. There is no more undiscovered knowledge out there.
That's just science!
Seriously though, I simply ignore the flat-earthers.
;^)
To those who blindly (or deafly) ignore the observations of a whole community of listeners, I want to paraphrase a statement I made in another thread:
Because we cannot yet scientifically measure observable phenomena, does not mean such phenomena do not exist. In other words, it is entirely possible the ear is capable of perceiving sonic subtleties that current acoustical testing may not be capable of measuring.
Hmm, I just noticed that my post was removed from the 1st page. It agreed with what @douglas_schroeder said with nary a bit of snark, malice or sarcasm, one sentence in length, and polite to boot.
Once the expression, "There are only three parameters that affect cable performance -capacitance, resistance and inductance" makes its first appearance, I'm out.
Why stop on cables ??? maybe all speakers , amplifiers, sources are the same why bother to waste money on expensive components ? Just buy stock cables and cheap hi fi system and you are all set... I didn’t read Mr. Russell artical and will not bother to do so in the near future because I am sure it’s total bulshit . All of us in this audiophile hobey knows that every component in our system is extremely important to achieve the sound we are looking for and cables are not exception and are very important part of our hi-fi system.
The ones that can’t hear difference between cables will never admit that their hearing is not sensitive enough it’s easier for them to jump to the wrong conclusion that all cables are the same.It’s like trying to explain to color blind person the difference between colors...
There is no point to argue with people that can't hear difference between cables becuse I know that they aren't really audiophiles but just impostors.
dynaquest4 OP’s referenced article by Mr. Russel is, in my opinion, a well written, well researched, fairly scientific based article. It is all about why basic cable, that meets appropriate impedance, length and connection requirements, is all you need and you can’t expect real improvements in audio quality regardless of how much you spend on "wire-bling."
>>>>No one said it wasn’t well written. So what? Lots of folks can write well. It would be a, you know, Strawman argument, to say that because an article is well written it's correct. Hel-loo! And "fairly scientific" is how it was written to appear to the casual reader. No offense intended. However, I suspect the intended audience is far from scientific OR sophisticated. Again, no offense.
But, like many of these anti-audiophile diatribes that are popping up all over the Internet, it’s not really a "scientific based article" insomuch as it wasn’t peer reviewed or publish per anywhere of any scientific importance other than the fellow’s blog. Hel-loo! But apparently it suffices to appease the insatiable appetite of the roiling natterers and naysayers and audiophile bashers.
dynaquest4 only believes and uses wire-bling if it’s given to him free, case in point Kimber speaker wires which he admitted to all of us in another thread :-)
And we all heard over and over how poorly designed our components are that requires constant band-aid fixes by using after market cables or fuses.
Statistically average and mediocre are actually about the same but cable afficionados have terribly wooley thinking and wouldn’t grasp that. These folks get up from their chair and swap cables and sit down again repetitively until they hear the divine speaking to them. It never occurs to them that something might be wrong when their components can’t reliably deliver a signal over a piece of wire and eventually to a speaker.
Instead of a focused microscope on the source signal, they think high end gear is supposed to be shoddy and unreliable so that every piece of wire and extraneous factor (power cord etc) should dramatically affect the presentation.
"I’d like to see an opposing article (not written by someone "in the business" or a reviewer paid to do it) that lays out the science of how exotic cable works and why. Bet it doesn’t exist. And for good reason...there is no science....just perception."
Here’s an idea. Why don’t you contact NASA or AES or the Journal of Acoustics or MIT or whatever and see if they'd be interested in performing an evaluation of various cables and providing a peer reviewed article with their conclusions?
Just curious, why are you so sure an opposing view doesn’t exist. Have you looked? No need to to answer, it’s a rhetorical question.
OP’s referenced article by Mr. Russel is, in my opinion, a well written, well researched, fairly scientific based article. It is all about why basic cable, that meets appropriate impedance, length and connection requirements, is all you need and you can’t expect real improvements in audio quality regardless of how much you spend on "wire-bling."
I’d like to see an opposing article (not written by someone "in the business" or a reviewer paid to do it) that lays out the science of how exotic cable works and why. Bet it doesn’t exist. And for good reason...there is no science....just perception.
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