Indeed, given the conviction with which many people talk about extremely high cost cables, break-in and other questionable tweaks...surely someone would step up to the plate, for a million bucks!
I can see why an editor or reviewer might not want to risk their reputation though.
However, surely the people who manufacture these amazing products would want to step up to the plate, defend their products and collect a cool million...all at the same time!!!
Perhaps manufacturers/dealers on this site, upon reading this thread, will post correspondence of their multiple attempts to set up a scientific test and secure the cool million dollar prize from Randi.
If Randi shows evidence that he is unwilling or evasive to oblige then it would at least cast doubt on his aspersions about "cable nonsense"....unchallenged Randi must be taken seriously. |
4est, I know that in my system, different cables are easily distinguished Have you contacted Randi about the Million dollars, or if not, why not (too busy like John Atkinson, for a million bucks)? |
First, he/she must have a media presence, which means having been published, written about, or known to the media in regard to his/her claimed abilities or powers Surely that suggests most reviewers and any cable manufacturer with a web site that makes claims about amazing powers or abilities of their products in relation to "Monster Cable" fare. (Monster Cable appears to be JREF chosen reference...i.e. extremely expensive wire but not "crazy extreme" prices). A million bucks is a milllion bucks! |
Bjesien,
Because your Papua New Guinea Fertility statue needs recharging from the Water Tank Tweak and so you ended up wasting time surfing the web, instead of pursuing more enjoyable activities...
Now cough up the million!
(For those reaidng this post you need to check out Bjeisen's system to understand him) |
Personally I think it would be easy to distinguish Pear Anjou from Monster in a high resolution setup (the Anjou's have ultra low inductance numbers while keeping capacitance in check). Then why do you think John Atkinson and Dave Clark do not take up the challenge? If it is "easy to distinguish" then surely the time/effort would be worth a million bucks? I mean these people do audio listening tests and measurements for a living...it should be a simple matter for a respected & highly discerning reviewer. After all, the challenge is not about "inductance" or other measurable differences - it appears to be about the ability to demonstrate being able to hear better performance; simply to support the claims, made with ease, in the reviewers articles, which are published in the media and influence a great many buyers. That is the jist of it in the way I understand it. I don't see a trick or impossible challenge as you do. I mean what is impossible about something that can be done with ease? |
Dave,
No I have not tried solid core so my experience is limited to ordinary stranded cables of several types (including extension cord cable, lamp cord, monster etc.) and none have made a wit of differece to my tin ears except that I felt much better about using thicker (higher AWG) cables for long runs (as per JBL table). I have not tried difficult load speakers or amps with high output impedance - so I have been in the situation of using gear that is likely to be only very modestly affected by a change in impedance - slight enough that it is inaudible to my tin ears. |
Dave, You may be correct. I see that Monster now sells solid core interconnects and they clearly state on their website. Ordinary cables can actually limit sound quality restricting dynamic range and frequency response. The result? You don't hear your music, dialogue and effects the way they were meant to be heard. Instead, soundstage is compressed, imaging smeared and vocals - both spoken and sung - difficult to understand. and on the solid core they claim You'll hear improved vocal reproduction, deeper, tighter bass, superior soundstage and excellent imaging...extraordinary improvements that properly designed cables can make in your sound system. After reading this and your testimonial Dave, how can one not be totally convinced that claiming the Million bucks should be an absolute breeze. If an audio reviewer says they cannot be bothered to discern "extraordinary improvements" in order to claim a million bucks then something is suspiciously wrong with the statements being issued by the audio cable industry and reviewers themselves! => Nobody seems willing to back up these claims. Are the claims actually extreme hyperbole? Perhaps my understanding of "extraordinary" is different from others. As far as I am concerned, "extraordinary" should be clearly audible...no ifs, ands or buts about it. |
Do you believe that there are no discernable sonic differences between any audio cables? I would believe if a reviewer would step up to the plate and defend their statements. In the absence of defence, I remain skeptical of statements that cables can make the kind of significant differences normally associated with acoustic treatments or changing speakers.From an engineering perspective (science) nothing I have ever read would support the kind of "extraordinary" claims being made. A small and barely audible difference is the most that could be expected, given properly matched components (components are normally designed to minimize the impact of cabling but there are some weird exceptions out there, so given the infinite possibilities out there some surprises must definitely occur!) |
LM,
Do you mean to say that because they have selected a well respected (already expensive) cable like Monster and chosen to make it go head to head with a $7,000 cable that it would be hard to tell the difference? If so, then I guess you agree with the general idea that "extraordinary" differences (the kind of claims made by many cable manufacturers and supported by reviewers) would not stand up to any serious test.
If you are suggesting that the challengers allow a 12 AWG wire to go up against a 30 AWG wire then no doubt the effect would be quite clearly audible (a million dollars would be quickly gone); deliberate selection of extreme cable resistance differences is bound to be audible due to the SPL drop. Similarly, if one were to select a cable with some active elements (capacitor/inductor) then the roll-off effect might become quite audible in some cases.
Dave,
Yes indeed a good start. You may be able to save me yet! What wire would you suggest for the mains? |
LM,
Good point. That is the trouble with any test...it does not prove that all cables do not make a difference....only those two tested.
However, perhaps the idea is to show that a rave review may not be as authentic as it is made out to be. |
I'm with Muralman1. I agree that these blindfolded reviewers should be able to distinguish uninhibited signals through naked cables compared to rubber or plastic or leather. I just have a hard time visualizing it. |
This ain't Randi and no million dollars at stake but kudos goes to Mike L. who bravely tested some Opus MM versus Monster and was unable to tell the difference in a fair but rather "crude" test that required several minutes to change cables each time on his stupendous system. details are here...the test says nothing more than it was difficult to hear a difference with that particular setup but it does lend credence to the idea that cable differences are subtle. |
Do you plan to conduct a blind test like Mike Lavigne?
It would be interesting to get your impression.
Or do you accept the cable manufacturers logic that 300 hours of cable break in (synergy with the other equipment etc.) is required to hear differences and that once you disconnect a cable it is back to square one for that cable (so that no A/B test can ever work)?
BTW - aren't these cyrogenically treated (you know stress relieved a la Ed Meitners' discovery that cables "resonate" with a characteristic Q) |
I am not upset but you have no idea how much a cable can contribute to the sound of a system. Switching to Synergistic Research Tesla cables was easily the single biggest and most clearly audible improvement I have ever made to a system. LM and Redwood, I believe LM might be using "Active Cables". The speaker cables need to be plugged into the wall and the shield is activated with a DC current with return on a separate ground wire. A buffer circuit is added between the Shield and ground wire. About 30 Volts DC is applied. Details are, of course, proprietary, although anyone with $3000 or so to burn could cut them open and check the circuits. Speaker cables with active power and buffer circuitry will without doubt have the potential for much greater impact to the sound than ordinary wire. No wonder it made such a big difference to LM! Far from having an ordinary brown dog or black dog, you could say LM has a white unicorn - you know something entirely different and quite rare...not even the same species as what ordinary folks would consider a dog. |
Dave Clark of Positive Feedback says of Pear Anjou Cables,
way better than anything I have heard
Simply put these are very danceable cables. Music playing through them results in the proverbial foot-tapping scene with the need or desire to get up and move. Great swing and pace these cables smack that right on the nose big time. Is this what he means by danceable cables? |
There is no blind test necessary. Loud discordant distortion is easy to verify. That is because the ones I have tried followed a pattern. I suspect that Muralman's approach dominates the conventional way of hooking up ;-) |
Brizonbiovizier's point about sighted tests is an important one.
If you take away the visual cues then much of the fanciful amazing properties of one cable versus another disappear as Mike Lavigne found out (much to his credit for doing a blind test and advancing his understanding of the true magnitude of cable differences, which is ever so small).
Those spending $1000 to $7000 or more on speaker cables would do well to conduct some blind tests and put their own convictions to the test (wife or friend can help). I assure you that many of you will be just as surprised as Mike Lavigne was.
As for those spending $50 to $200 cables it hardly seems worth the bother to go to blind tests or trying to show others that what they hear is influenced by what they see.
BTW- Absolutely Nobody is immune from visual cues or rave reviews that predilect our thinking...we ALL suffer from this. I suffer from it with ATC speakers...I read about all those mastering engineers, grammys and prestigious studios and I am predilected to think ATC must be something special. They do sound nice no doubt. A bit too forward sounding for some and I respect those who feel that way because there are so many great speakers out there. I know for sure that I am influenced by their user list and AES participation and AES papers with regard to my respect for their quality - it ain't purely what I hear. This is why all serious medical research involves placebos. |
Wire geometry will most affect highs. As you increase the spacing of wires you increase the inductance and therefore it will increase the "roll-off" of highs. This may make it sound perceptively warmer. So dangling wires with a large space between +ve and -ve conductors with large runs can indeed produce an audible difference....however, so can the treble tone control. |
You can't have it both ways. Either you believe all cables sound the same or not. Take your pick. *sigh* yes some people think that way...that it has to be a choice that there is no gray area. It helps to understand that small differences exist but that these differences are just simply too small to be relevant in the vast majority of cases. Extreme geometries can roll off the highs slightly (separating +/- wires by great distances such as one foot such as in a loose dangling ribbon or wires...of course long runs are needed to make the effect audible) |
If you can't hear a difference between various cable designs, you probably shouldn't be in audio, just as people who are color-blind probably shouldn't be artists or traffic light designers
We ALL know this is true, that no two different cable designs sound exactly alike (if they do, the system you're listening to is very, very low rez --apparently like Randi's! A Kenner "Close-'N'-Play", perhaps?) The story of the "emperors new clothes" comes to mind...if you can't hear the difference then you have a lousy system and you are probably deaf too. We have all heard this one before. Well Winston, I think you might do well to investigate about a certain high end user on Agon with well over 1000's posts on his system and with the kind of SOTA gear and room design that everyone dreams about. Recently, this Gentleman underwent a Blind test and was unable to discern between two cables in his own system that he selected himself. (The reason he selected the cables was that he was utterly convinced he could hear a difference when conducting sighted tests and said so with such great conviction that a Blind test was a no brainer test he could pass with ease!) |
Details are hereIt was hardly a rigorous test but rigor is not necessary when Winston and others insist that differences are so easy to hear that they are completely obvious unless you are tin ear deaf or own a crap Kenner system... My viewpoint is that differences exist but are extremely small and subtle - very rarely audible unless you go to extremes in geometry or add active elements to the circuit (L C or R elements) |
I stand by what I said: most of this anti-high end stuff is jealousy, pure and simple.
So, I've got around $25k in my system, over a nearly 20 year period. And it's annihilating NEW systems ten times the price? I guess you could say I shun high priced gear and go for quality, quality, quality on the cheap, then modify the snot out of it. THAT'S how to get great sound relatively inexpensively (well, very 'relatively'.) As long as you can hear the difference, that is Winston, I don't disagree with your approach. I don't doubt that you have achieved far superior sound than a new $250 K system. However, ordinary folks like me do not always hear these obvious Pear Anjou versus Monster differences and I tend to think of these differences as either extremely subtle or simply not audible. So I think we agree. I also agree that if the "well-heeled" can afford an extremely expensive cable then good for them. They will have no fear of any lack of quality with a $7000 speaker cable and that may be such a small amount of $ to them that even the peace of mind is worth it. I am not at all for jealously attacking these well to do people. However, I often see people with more invested in cables than major components such as speakers. It is these people that may stand to lose from "cable hyperbole" rather than the well-healed who will no doubt have every SOTA item. On another note you appear to be one of those who could easily beat Randi's blind test and clearly you believe that you are not unique. We ALL know this is true, that no two different cable designs sound exactly alike Therefore it begs the question why Fremer and others do not step up to the plate and collect a million dollars. David, I bought the mega-dollar cables after "sighted" tests, and I sold the cables after "blinded" tests. Placebo is a strong sales agent. I think it takes courage and integrity to admit to being a mere mortal audiophile. I think Mike deserves tremendous kudos too for his forthright manner during his experiment. When you have invested a significant amount of your own money on something, it is surely so much harder to accept that the magnitude of the benefits might be so small as to be negligible. Your experience matches mine in some ways, but in others it is different, as you have tremendous SOTA sources/amplifiers in your system and I don't. |
