The Science of Cables


It seems to me that there is too little scientific, objective evidence for why cables sound the way they do. When I see discussions on cables, physical attributes are discussed; things like shielding, gauge, material, geometry, etc. and rarely are things like resistance, impedance, inductance, capacitance, etc. Why is this? Why aren’t cables discussed in terms of physical measurements very often?

Seems to me like that would increase the customer base. I know several “objectivist” that won’t accept any of your claims unless you have measurements and blind tests. If there were measurements that correlated to what you hear, I think more people would be interested in cables. 

I know cables are often system dependent but there are still many generalizations that can be made.
128x128mkgus
mkug, then all these people would have nothing to talk about. I'm with you. You pick the cable for the job at hand paying attention to those properties you mentioned. Constructing your own is the best because you have more control over cable length. 

Excuse Me Schmelzerbrend, I was at an OZ Noy, Dave Weckyl consert in a small jazz bar last week and there was a wonderful sound stage. Not every concert is a stadium concert. Every classical concert I ever went to also displayed its sound stage.
schmelzerbrend1 posts

There is no clear soundstage at a live concert.

That depends on the venue, where in the venue the listener sits and - to some extent - the presentation and orchestration of the music itself.  It is hardly a universal truth that there is no soundstage at a live concert.


mijostyn

You are absolutely right.
The big and small hall are different soundstage.
Of course
But I wanted to say little another.

For live music this is less like a "soundstage" and more like “soundspace” :)

It is 3D and in a rather “soft” form.
Especially at big hall concerts, I can’t show absolutely exactly the musical instrument playing now.
Maybe my hearing is already so bad of course. :(


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I love finding stuff I do not know. I search for it ceaselessly, like a shark. I never sleep, always moving. When I stop, I know I’m dead, my mind is dying or dead. Never stop moving. Never sleep. Never get comfortable. Never stop exploring the unknowns.

I look forward to not knowing and fighting to figure something out. I know I’ll never get it right and when I figure something out I know I’ve still got some or all of it wrong.

But I ’get off’ on figuring out the new. My high is emergent understanding.

Not the high of negative proofing by dismissal and rejection, which is how most of humanity is wired. This is the fundamental of staying alive in our bodily origins, so it is a fundamental origin of the body issue. Dogma of self, is core.

Engineering is designed around the people who feel safe when they know. The biblical/dogma wiring end of the gene selection and wiring/design pool. This is the bulk of the herd.

Science is designed around the explorer who knows it is all wrong and will always be wrong. Being the type who gets the endorphin high from the exploration and the figuring out of the new and the unexplored.

To win through risk and finding the new (Science), not to win by finding the false and keeping to the norms (engineering).

Science is 100% ~NOT~ engineering. Never conflate the two.

As soon as one touches the new or walks in to an unknown and tries to explore it, engineering and dogma takes a huge back seat. Required!

Once it is figured out,and normed... then engineering and the engineering mindset can dogmatize it for the rest of humanity.

Intelligence and emotional intelligence (that forms mind in act and flow) as an individual variation, can make a ridiculous mess of this complex scenario. and does so in about 99.95% of all the threads on this and all audio forums. Or in almost 100% of all other technological or whatever conversations on the net.

How is your brain wired, dear reader of this post?

Are you a negative proofer (engineering) or a fearless explorer (science!)?

Engineers live by facts and dogmatic texts on all those facts. Science understands that there is no such thing as a fact. That the only fact known to exist is that no facts exist. If a 'scientist' says that facts exist, walk away, they were probably trained as an engineer and are a a poseur, and are not the real thing. No real scientific training school (university that trains and accredits scientists) will ever commit to teaching such foolishness.

Eg, an engineer has a ruler, and they measure with it, inches, centimeters and so on.

The scientist ~KNOWS~ (and is trained/educated in this!).... that we don’t really know what an inch or centimeter is, we can’t nail down what the core item is --- in how we come to making either of them.

That down at the bottom of a length measurement, the reality is all slippery and indeterminate, so we can NEVER define what an inch or centimeter is. Even if we can use them all day to do things and make things (engineering) ... we still don’t know what each of them really truly are. That at the limit of definition (as we skip down into the layers of what each is) in all known reality ---- it is still turtles all the way down (science).