Not much to do with audio topics, but it is interesting how you phrased your lucky day. Every time so far, people told me they feel "lucky" or that the day is good because they woke up. You are just more patient and careful, I guess.
Tellyawhat, seeing the level of snark being flung around here makes me EXTEMELY curious about all the replies that have been deleted.ย They musta been doozies!;)
Upsetting their own world order I guess. Neither side can tell the other that they are flat out wrong. I have my opinion and since it is outside the current realms of science it must not be true. There is no end in sight to the 50 or soย year Burn-in war.ย
I have to disappoint you. Those three deleted posts were mine and were actually only one. Something was wrong with Audiogon and it would give error message while posting it. It put it out three times with one click. I tried to delete two but all got deleted so I gave up posting.
I had a long conversation during the show with Thorsten Loesch of Abbington Musical Research and IFI. He told me a fascinating story about confirmation bias. Thatโs when you are so sure of something that even strong evidence to the contrary will not persuade you to change your mind.
Thorsten put together a blind ABX testing where he told participants it was a comparison of two power cables. But when he went behind the curtains, ostensibly to change the power cable, what he actually did was switch the speaker cables on one channel, so the system was playing out of phase. Thorsten had three different types of audiophiles take his test: subjectivists, objectivists, and those who were neither. The subjectivists and neutral listeners heard the effects of the system being thrown out of phase. The objectivists heard no differences. It was a robust test with clearly correlated results.
The fact that the objectivists in Thorstenโs test were the ones who were so set in their opinions that it blinded them to the aural facts in front of their ears is a delicious irony. Why? Because those audiophiles who embrace ABX testing with the most fervor are those who believe most strongly in effects of expectation bias, which is why sighted testing is, in their eyes, flawed. Thorstenโs test indicates a strong tendency for objectivists to listen with closed ears whether the test is blind or sighted, which isnโt very objective, is it?
Thatโs what I like to call the Backfire Effect. It can work both ways but usually occurs with skeptics who have pretty much made up their minds on a particular subject but who may create arguments that make it seem like they have an open mind. The Backfire Effect occurs when a skeptic is faced with contradictory evidence, perhaps even a barrage of contradictions. Rather than weight the evidence the skeptic holds his beliefs even more strongly. Plus theyโd rather fight than switch. ๐คผโโ๏ธ
glubson, yes, you would be interested in blah, blah but I donโt see you rolling your sleeves up yourself. Oh, I almost forgot. Youโre a member in good standing of the peanut gallery. You may continue pontificating.
Robustness testing has also been used to describe the process of verifying the robustness (i.e. correctness) of test cases in a test process. ANSI and IEEE have defined robustness as the degree to which a system or component can function correctly in the presence of invalid inputs or stressful environmental conditions. "
Which produces....
"Robust statistics are statistics with good performance for data drawn from a wide range of probability distributions, especially for distributions that are not normal. Robust statistical methods have been developed for many common problems, such as estimating location, scale, and regression parameters."
again, pleaseย - someone - anyone - please provide some fact-based explanation as to why speaker cables may require breaking in.ย I will keep an open mind, but I am unaware of why this would make any difference, or any factual attempt to measure such a difference.
Unless and until any plausible explanation is presented, I've got to call BS.ย Please prove otherwise or at least suggest a theory?
I think it is more likely one perceives a difference rather than if one really exists with speaker cables.ย
again, please - someone - anyone - please provide some fact-based
explanation as to why speaker cables may require breaking in. I will
keep an open mind, but I am unaware of why this would make any
difference, or any factual attempt to measure such a difference.
I supposed there were people back then who didn't believe the earth is round.ย They demanded someone to travel around the earth.ย Of course you didn't have to travel around the earth since there were plenty of evidences without having to actually going around the earth.ย A lot of smart people already knew that. You sound like that sort of people who were skeptical back then.
... please provide some fact-based explanation
as to why speaker cables may require breaking in. I will keep an open
mind ... until any plausible explanation is presented, I've got to call BS.
It doesn't sound like your mind is very open. If this matter interests you, why not conduct your own listening tests?
It would be a good way to do it, but around here it would be even more flammable. It could happen that, once he conducts his own test and reports results that are not in line with what was expected by others, he gets called different names and his results get dismissed as crap. That happens here. It is just a no-win situation.
No worries, I still do good things for humanity. It is just that I tried doing a few small experiments here. Like changing direction of wires or removing the cover from an amplifier. Responses, yours included, revealed more about responders than expected. Unless one strives to uncover different personality traits/flaws of others, I would not recommend posting own results of some experiments in these threads. They do not contribute to discussion about whatever is discussed.
Interesting ancedote tarras22 or is it Steve Stone? At any rate the best thing about that test is it points out whatย the objectivist admits we all have biases and can be as dogmatic as anyone else which is why the objectivist argues forย blind testing and replicability. In the case of this thread I freely admit I would probably not be a good test subject on whether a lenght of wire used for x number of hours sounds better or different than a new lenght of wire. The notion to me is preposterous.ย
glupson geoffkait, No worries, I still do good things for humanity. It is just that I tried doing a few small experiments here. Like changing direction of wires or removing the cover from an amplifier. Responses, yours included, revealed more about responders than expected. Unless one strives to uncover different personality traits/flaws of others, I would not recommend posting own results of some experiments in these threads. They do not contribute to discussion about whatever is discussed.
>>>>>Gosh, glubson, you must be the unluckiest guy in the whole wide world. A few experiments for man, one giant step backward for mankind. ๐จโ๐ Have you considered maybe getting another hobby. Macrame, perhaps, or stamp collecting.
I am not sure why some people are so hostile to cables as if the cables stole their wives :-).ย I think some here just want to say outright that cables don't even make any difference but they just didn't want to appear too radical.
I think you mistake us, and generalize. I opine cables do make a difference, but have only experience to support it, and believe the differences usually de minimis. That said, I flat out donโt believe in Kitty Katโs many, sui generis contentions. Now, whereโd I put that gunny sack....๐๐๐ฑ
In my experience, the larger the listening space, the higher end the system, the more difference cables make.ย It's not just smoother treble or deeper bass, but more of a three dimensional presentation of music spatially and audibly.
I also do not think there is a wide anti-cable conspiracy going on. Maybe a mild anti-"anti-cable" paranoia.
Does it really matter if speaker cables need burn-in? Is anyone going to buy cables and listen for a few hours only? If they do need burn-in, you will get there at some point. If they do not, you will get there sooner. Why do people care so much?
"Have you considered maybe getting another hobby. Macrame, perhaps, or stamp collecting."
You may not remember but we discussed stamp collecting before (hints: Freddie Mercury, Ron Wood, Queen Elizabeth II). You even thanked me for informing you about it. I am not a stamp collector but do own a fairly large collection of Lichtenstein stamps, along with lesser numbers of some others. Have you considered maybe getting another hobby? This audio stuff is not going well, I am afraid. Restaurant napkins? Stamp collecting? We can trade.
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