@denverfred "Maybe best to look outside the usual fields of study on this question."
Exactly my thinking.
@kijanki "How do you measure quality of interconnects shielding? When you hear a difference between cables it means they must be different (measure different, different construction etc.)
Great question and as for "measure different" that's true, if we know what to measure *for.* Which artemus was getting at, too.
Good start to this thread. Hoping Ralph/atmasphere chimes in. |
@p05129 Glad you've landed on such firm opinions. Fist pump! Doesn't answer my OP in the slightest, but hey, free country. |
@avitacom vitacom "Measurements, e.g., resistance, inductance, capacitance, are, these days, easily made , recorded and compared but are gross and crude compared to the kinds of phenomena which may be discerned by the human ear and brain such as, say, timbre. The simple measurements aren’t going to help us predict how a device (cable) will contribute to SQ." Well said. FWIW: British Audiophile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Opv0Zx6Mc&t=929s&ab_channel=ABritishAudiophileAudio Excellence: https://youtu.be/SPBlWgNqK_g?t=620 @dynamiclinearity arity you don't know if some factor is missing from your measurements until you discover all the measurements. We usually discover new measurements when our observations are no longer predictable by our current measurements. Exactly. The history of science is (when successful) and expanding discovery of what exists. Science presents hypotheses -- this theory is the best explanation (so far) of the phenomena in question (so far) for the purposes defined (so far). @sdl4 -- Thank you -- I will! |
Good posts. For an issue which many consider either fruitless or settled, its ability to endure is amazing. Listened to this podcast from just a couple days ago: https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2021/09/09/what-are-meta-materials-do-expensive-cables-matter-the-occ...They discuss the profit margin of cables, the different ways to listen to hear differences, the physics involved, the continued financial success for the industry despite the unending "snake oil" claims, and more. Possibly of interest. I'm gratified to see the example of umami mentioned. It's appropriate, I think. Many people hear differences; many companies are experimenting with designs and materials resulting in further differences heard. To my mind, there's a very good chance that scientific explanations are lagging behind; that's the history of science, right? The unexplained rises up in our experience and then we try to devise tools and measurements to measure, predict, and control experience. But even if that's not the case — let's say that we cannot find a tool & measurement approach to explain why differences are heard. Let's say we discover that, like currency, this is all a huge social construction — people inventing a symbol system with no basis in physical reality. Last I checked, language and money, sports and religions, are all considered real enough by most people. Anyone who considers socially constructed realities as fake is hereby invited to send me their money. (Friends and Family on Paypal is fine.) |
@snilf Spot on. The terms "objectivity" and "subjectivity" and the hard dualism dividing mind and world are the root of a lot of mistakes in audio and other areas, but it's no simple matter to unpack and defuse those mistaken summations of what exists. The simplest way for me is to think of everything as process, involved in an interactive (or ecological) system. This way of thinking doesn't get rid of categories like "mind" or "matter" but it converts them into rough placeholders, sticky notes for present purposes but discardable as soon as the purposes of inquiry change. |
A little while ago I received this direct message from a user who no longer wishes to post on the forum. I wanted to add it to the thread (despite the fact that it paints my question as borne of ignorance -- see: "If the test was not blind it did not happen. Period. Until you are willing to accept this, you are just wasting your and other people's time asking this question.") He approved of me quoting his direct communication with me. Here it is. QUESTION: Who would you name as among the most learned people in audio, psychoacoustics, engineering, and psychology who argue for the real differences made by interconnects, etc.?
Literally none who claim that similar measuring speaker cables sound the same are "learned". Anyone with a modicum of real technical knowledge who has also done actual experiments, not the crap that are called experiments, know that two cable that measure the same will sound the same.
If the test was not blind it did not happen. Period. Until you are willing to accept this, you are just wasting your and other people's time asking this question. Let Miller and OregonPapa and others have their delusions.
NO CABLE VENDOR HAS DONE A PUBLIC BLIND TEST EVER WITH SUPER EXPENSIVE WIRE AND COMPETENT WIRE.
NEVER. NOT EVEN ONCE.
If that does not tell you all you need to know, I don't know what will….
I have extensive academic and real world expertise in electronics, signal processing and psychoacoustics. I have many colleagues who are similar. None of the people making these claims are "learned". Paul McGowan is not "learned". Even Nelson Pass is limited to a fairly a narrow area of electronics and his analysis of cables was w.r.t. where significant differences existed in cable parameters. He stays away from the topic for a reason, just like his says competent amps don't need expensive fuses. |
@djones51 A good reply and, as usual, I’m learning from your posts. One thing which trips me up on this topic is the presumption that we know completely what to measure *for*. The flaws in human perception, bias, subjective attention, etc. are all really strong indications that the "subjective" assessment is less than perfect. But I cannot see how we can have a proof that the "objective" measurement side can be confident that every thing which can and should be measured is known. We cannot have closure on the objective side because it’s attempting to measure attributes which connect to a subjective-psychological side about which our knowledge is incomplete -- indeed, might never be complete. In this regard, measurement is like map-making. No map is ever complete, because maps are tools meant to serve purposes, and since purposes change and become more complex, maps, too, change. |
@decooney After all the attempted measuring is exhausted, Taste wine, Listen to cable changes.
In the end its up to you what is good. I think the opposite side would re-phrase your saying this way: "After all the attempted measuring is exhausted, save your money safe in the knowledge that there are no cables worth the money you would have spent because there are no differences to be heard. Realize how good it is to know that there was nothing there and that it's better to hear differences where they really exist then to hear them where they do not exist." The side that argues there are no differences in cables could go further and say that if you save money and time not chasing cable differences, you can spend that money and time on things that do matter, not least music, speakers, etc. I suspect that most people who hear cable differences know this -- thus, they are conscious of the risk of opportunity cost they take when they chase cable sounds. Why do they take this risk? They'd argue that it's because they actually hear a difference. If they didn't, the rational thing to do would be to cut their losses, sell their cables and get some money back, and then move on to more fecund strategies for better sound. |
@sdl4 I hear definite differences in cables; of course, I don't have the tools to measure the competing cables I'm measuring, so I cannot presume to weigh in on the more general issue at stake.
I did for cables what I did for all my gear; after some research and consultation with audiophiles I trust, I went for cables that were not exorbitant but good enough to be sure that there could be some appreciable improvement. I started with lower cost Analysis Plus interconnects and speaker cable and after waiting patiently and haggling a bit online, got the Crystal series for my IC's and speaker wires. The sonic improvement is clear and I'm done upgrading there. |
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@snilf Brilliant post! If neuroscience is one day able to "map" the neural connections that objectively correspond to the experience of tasting a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, that neurological correlate will capture nothing at all of the experience of tasting that fine wine. We do indeed have two different "systems" here; even if there's some one-to-one correspondence that can be mapped, they are not ontologically identical, they belong to different categories of being.
That's exactly right. although I can't have a pain in your tooth, if we are to discuss our preferences—which are strictly incommunicable, as they are grounded in our private subjective experiences—then we need some kind of common language. That's what science, and "measurements," purport to provide. Partially agree. Science and engineering measurements have very specific goals, much narrower than the goals of the taster or hearer. That's why we read film critics to understand or assess a movie and we don't particularly ask for a count of the number of frames, e.g. In other words, we communicate about sound using the language of the experience of sound, which is more akin to the language of wine experts and movie critics than to audio engineers. (Ironically, it's the audio engineers who have to figure out the "subjective" stuff so they can design for *it.* Those who put objectivity first get the cart ass-backwards. In the last analysis, "objectivity" is really only universal subjectivity: what is "true for everyone" is merely that which everyone will experience in relevantly similar ways.
Right -- even what everyone "would" experience if the right conditions obtained. while we don't all experience Mozart (or Black Sabbath) in relevantly similar ways, we do all experience sound waves according to the laws of acoustics and auditory perception. This is why many audiophiles insist that all music will sound better on a better system.
Agree again. And we *all* experience this (or mostly all) because we are really so much more similar than we like to admit. As Wittgenstein pointed out, the very idea of a private language is impossible. The same is true of a private audio language. |
@snilf Yes, we'll leave Wittgenstein aside for now (until someone accidentally yells 'slab.') I'm a pragmatist by training, so the Kantian account of subjectivism is helpful for me, but only to a point. (Another topic to run off the road, here.)
@sdl4 Most most most! appreciative of that link, which I've not had time to look at yet. |
@decooney We agree, above all, that we're willing to try things first before ruling them out. It's one thing to be a realist about how much one has to spend and say, "Can't go the cable route because it would compromise other more important things." It's another thing to suppose a difference cannot, in principle, be heard in order to save oneself the cheddar. As they say in poker games, "Put up or shut up." |
