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Cables that measure the same but (seem?) to sound different

I have been having an extended dialogue with a certain objectivist who continues to insist to me that if two wires measure the same, in a stable acoustic environment, they must sound the same.

In response, I have told him that while I am not an engineer or in audio, I have heard differences in wires while keeping the acoustic environment static. I have told him that Robert Harley, podcasters, YouTuber's such as Tarun, Duncan Hunter and Darren Myers, Hans Beekhuyzen, Paul McGowan have all testified to extensive listening experiments where differences were palpable. My interlocutor has said that either it is the placebo effect, they're shilling for gear or clicks, or they're just deluded.

I've also pointed out that to understand listening experience, we need more than a few measurement; we also need to understand the physiology and psychological of perceptual experience, as well as the interpretation involved. Until those elements are well understood, we cannot even know what, exactly, to measure for. I've also pointed out that for this many people to be shills or delusionaries is a remote chance at best.

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.?
hilde45

Showing 2 responses by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
This all reminds me of Japan trying to corner the premier wine market back in the 80's. Well they were good at everything else, it is after all just more engineering, right? They have the soil, they have the climate, they are the same latitude as all the best wine growing regions, how hard could it be?  

So they tested the crap out of the very best wines. Spectroscopy, gas chromatography, taste, smell, appearance, the works. All the very best wines, we are just gonna reverse engineer copy the crap out of em and beat em at their own game. Poured millions, hundreds of millions into it, and this is back in the 80's when a million was a big number not less than a rounding factor like today.   

Ten years later instead of leading the market they were sucking wind. Twenty years later they still had nothing to show for it but a lot of good looking numbers. Here we are now coming up on 40 years, what we call two generations and look around, it is all California, France, Spain, same old.   

They did the double blind science thing too. Turns out only people who actually have a taste for wine are fit to judge wine. Ultimately it does no good to insist on engineering and scientific testing. Either the people are buying it, or the people are not buying it. 

Far as I know they never did figure out how to test and engineer wine. Change one letter. What are the odds it will be any different with wire?
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Just for a lark I decided to reinstall some monster speaker cables I had from a few years back.

What a difference compared to my present Townshend F1 speaker cables!
I couldn’t believe how crappy the sound was! Just think, this is what we used for so many years ago and thought it was an improvement over zip cord!

I guess they would measure the same though...

ozzy

Yeah, danager was here recently and he couldn't see how a power cord could possibly matter so we pulled out one of my old freebies and then when we went back to the Supernova he gasped just to hear the lead-in groove! He is still talking about  how the difference was so great he heard it even before the music started!   



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