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.
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).
Science is great, but it is built up on observation, measurement, hypothesis, conclusions.
I look forward to seeing this occur more regularly in amp and cable design.
Snake oil sales men on the other hand write long, meandering pieces with claims that either cannot be tested, or have unproven applicability to the subject at hand. For instance, discussing the micro-crystaline architecture of insulators at near absolute zero, and using that to somehow conclude that electrons flow with less friction at room temperature cables.
My favorite take on this, of course, is the long long quacking, followed by not hearing a damn thing different, and then having the quacks claim it’s my ears.
So you spent half a billion dollars developing this new winding technique and only the top 0.0001% of ears can hear it? Wow. That’s a good investment. Or, just as bad, claims for major engineering or scientific breakthrough, which cannot be described in engineering terms, either by their results ( frequency, amplitude, phase, noise ) or by the characteristics ( resistance, capacitance, inductance, insulation value, common mode rejection ratio).
We need it all, Eric, to be alive and be mutable. To have a future that is not a dead thing where it is all the same.
Too much of any (thing) is deadly. Standardization saves, standardization kills.
the core problem for audio is that the ear is a similar in all..but essentially a blank self built thing in the individual. that is is possible to agree on sounds heard. But impossible to have each ear be the same as they are not the same. That hearing is a self assembled self built thing. No two are the same and no two brains analyzing the signals are wired the same.
Importantly, that engineering cannot fully apply as engineering is incomplete. It is specifically VERY incomplete in the analysis of the stuff that is important to the hearing done by the ear. The trick is to get audiophiles and the engineering analysis of such... to understand this all important simple set of data points.
I wish to avoid charlatans as well, as they pollute the pond.
In my experience there are almost no charlatans in audio.
But there is a huge level of misunderstanding of the complexities of audio and then the misapplication of dogma to this proffered complexity--as a method of sorting it out. It's the simpleton's way out.
Thinking and sussing out out is considerably more complex. But is the only truly functional way forward. Most won't commit to it... and offer up emotional responses instead, that are cloaked as being logic and reason, when in fact they are not.
The vast number of audio threads play out in this exact way.
I mixed up a bunch of rare and expensive herbs in my kitchen, and they cure the common cold in 2 weeks, guaranteed!
The idea that science or engineering block discovery is nonsense. So, make up a batch, cure a bunch of people and then find the method of effect. How and why does it work? When does it not work? How much better is it than chickens soup?
I know exactly what the hell is going on, Eric. I simply won’t discuss it.
It’s business, and in business one keeps their knowledge and lore to themselves. The downside is one is accused of being a charlatan but the alternative is giving all of it away and having no food to put on the table, all while the accolades keep coming in. Then other people eat all your meals for you. all for the sake of making Eric (and some others) happy.
Not happening today or tomorrow.
In science, it can be given freely, sometimes. But even then it is held tightly, in most cases. As good science can be big business. Sometimes ...world changing business. Hundreds of billions.
If you read it with the right clear eyes, you see that it says transmutation. And in such a scenario, all metals markets and all resource markets ......die. And that’s global politics and 10’s of trillions. It does not say this explicitly, but that’s the next phase of it - that lies beyond the scope of the article..
Be aware, that in a resource poor area of the world, in this case, Japan, Toyota and other major corporations have applied for and received ..in this area of technology...flat out plain spoken, ~proven~ real world patents, for TRANSMUTATION of elements.
As in...alchemical transmutation of one periodic element to another, in mass quantities that are useful to engineering and building things.
But there are stranger things yet, if one knows how and where to look....and you ain't gonna be doing much of that exploration with a negative proofing mindset.
There have been many different tests in audio. There is one where they used an incomplete system vs a system what could reveal all the aspects of sound. 97% did choose blind for the system that can reveal all the aspects of sound. When we let new clients hear a Tru-Fi system we never heard that they prefer their own trial&error system. Most people told that they had no idea how many aspects sound is founded on. They did choose pure by gambling. Most even cannot describe what their personal preference is. This proves how thin the line is where you are walking on when you do audio by trial&error.
This is why you need to learn audio lovers what sound is and how music sounds in real. This will make them understand audio a lot better. So they can understand it and use it for their own system. People have their own personal taste in music, But sound and music still sounds as it sounds in real. Like our emotion works rather the same way. You need audio products who come a lot closer to the way how instruments and voices sound in reality.
This is why the audio market needs a new mindset to create products which come closer to the truth. This is what people need and should be given. It will also make new people interested in audio and music who are now not interested in the trail&error systems. Due to the lack of emotion. When we demo a Tru-Fi system to children it is impressive what it does with their reaction and emotion. At the end emotion is what each human needs and wants.
Tru-Fi can easily prove and let you hear which aspects a product cannot reveal ... Tru-Fi is very complex and difficult to create. You can not even make one mistake. ... 100% nothing to do with personal taste ...
For years, you’ve claimed here that you can prove your "Tru-Fi" claims. But you never have, you're too busy dishing up your word salad.
Again this can easily be proved by sound and shootout
If your claims were so easily proved, you would have proved it here years ago. Instead, you persist with word salad, which is fine. But you’ve lost a lot of your credibility along the way.
A "shootout" is the absolute worst way to judge an audio component, imo.
The link I provided earlier at Forbes magazine, was cut by Forbes.
Some corporations do that. why would they break links when it brings readers to their website? Odd, but they do it all the time.
Although, I find it happens a lot with cutting edge technological revelations.
And yes, bulk material transmutation of elements is now (openly) possible, a very hot area of research, it is. (see my prior post and do the legwork...find it....)
When you judge the new AudioQuest cables on a technique they made a huge step. I have done tests with many different kinds of cables in over 20 years of time. I never auditioned any brand what made these big steps compared to their former series.
Garth should be blessed by Audioquest to give them this level in performance and quality. It started with the power cables. They are not even comparable with the former models they created. They are from another planet. And now with the new loudspeaker cables. Again it blows you away of how good they really are.
So the question is: Where their former cables not that good?
I have compared many different brands since 2010 with the former Audioquest cables. And in any shootout, I did win from each other brand. I always got a deal from the client. But now I think their competitors have a huge problem. Even when you want to come close to this level you need to make huge steps compared to your former cables.
The magic part is that they have less compression than others.
Quick interrupt! It shouldn’t be too much of a mystery why Audioquest cables and power cords sound so good. After all, Audioquest is very forthright when describing the physical and electrical characteristics of their cables and cords. You know, characteristics like solid long grain copper conductors, control of directionality, cold weld terminations, dielectric biasing, highly polished conductor surfaces, etc. and those are the ones they tell you about. Does Audioquest cryogenically treat their cables and cords? I wouldn’t be surprised, I mean, who doesn’t?
The materials AudioQuest uses are still the same as the former series. The way of welding etc. But.....the used technique is a lot different. There are brands who sell their cables burned in, but AudioQuest does not have this service. For the more expensive cables, I think they should have this option.
The differences in dynamic range are huge. It not only goes deeper, but it is also much faster. When I did swop from the Redwood to the Firebird (in single bi-wire Zero+Bass configuration) even after a few seconds it was already superior to the Redwood. My stage is already huge and plays extremely deep behind the loudspeakers. But from the start, the stage depth grew with more than 1 meter of extra depth. The width grew as well.
Today I received my Gryphon Antileon Signature and it will create an even bigger and deeper stage that the Pass Labs does. The individual focus of voices and instruments went to a level in realism and palpable focus I never auditioned before thanks to the Firebird. My modified Lumin X1 is one of the best digital sources at this moment available regardless of money. With the modified Lumin L1 and 2 additional modified power supplies, it creates new standards in digital audio. It is even superior in all aspects compared to the Aurender W20 together with the DCS DAC and upsampler.
In my system, I use for over 100.000 euro in AudioQuest cables. This is even excluded from the 19000 euros in Purist Audio LE power cables. The problem in audio is the lack of knowledge and insight regarding all kinds of different cables. Most can’t read the cables at all. The most common fault at this moment is the use of single wire cables with bridges for bi-wire loudspeakers. I compared single wire loudspeaker cables vs single bi-wire loudspeaker cables a lot. So I understand the benefit of it. But most people in audio have no F. idea of why it is that important.
In the Tru-Fi world where we have full access of all the aspects of sound, single bi-wire loudspeaker cables make an even bigger difference in the end result compared to single wire loudspeaker cables. In the trial&error world, you have no access to all the aspects the AudioQuest loudspeaker can reveal. This is why trial&error people have a totally different truth of AudioQuest cables compared to Tru-Fi owners.
When you have full access to all the different aspects AudioQuest cables can give you, they work so much more efficient and have a much bigger influence on the end result of any system.
Well, their previous power cords were not controlled for directionality. So, there’s that. Plus they might be not forthcoming regarding proprietary information. So, there’s that, too.
Teo and Bo sound a bit off...as in slightly psychotic maybe? Working through their rambling manifesto’s was unsettling. Anyone else concerned for these two out patients? Reminds me of the alien abduction stories or Mandela effect/deep state conspiracy videos on YouTube !
dave_b"Teo and Bo sound a bit off...as in slightly psychotic maybe?"
I am a former customer of Bo's and can tell you that he has ego, identity, and intelligence issues he is full of conviction that He and He alone can specify, design, and assemble a true "Tru-Fi" high end Music Reproduction System but when showed that he had overlooked ICSS distortion he flew in to a fit of nearly blind rage and drifted into another state that was ugly, threatening, and violent I would never stop into his shop again but he is worthy of our pity he is upset, disturbed, and in need of serious help as is evident from his rambling, incoherent, senseless posts he is probably a schizophrenic.
The Audioquest Redwood uses about 30% silver. And the Wild even uses 50% silver. The William Tell only uses pure copper. So most people would assume that the Wild and Redwood will created more details in the high frequencies.
But.....the thing is that the William Tell is even beter in resolution. I never auditioned any copper cable from Audioquest what could reveal more resolution in the high frequencies. So a new technique can even make huge steps in resolution even when only copper is being used.
bo1972"Clearthink wanted to copy our ideas, has never been a client from us. He thinks and believes that he can reach the same by trial&error. At the end it is all about facts."
As Americans would say "You lie like a rug" I am a former customer of yours. Since you claim to know that I never purchased from you, which is a lie, then you must know my real name. Post it here I give you permission but of course you won’t because you can’t because you lie. I revealed to you the oustanding, fatal, tragic flaw in your "Tru-Fi" scheme was it’s failure, inability, and flaw in not being able to accomodate, account, and correct for ICSS and when I showed this to you you flew into a fit of violent rage because you obviously have issues with control as fully demonstrated, revealed, and shown in this forum.
So as you say "Bo" "You see that he truth is always different" than the lies, deception and fraud you promote, perpetrate, and promulgate here!
Ah yes, the Truth! Who’s truth would that be then? The sound in the recording space? The producers feed at the mixing counsel? The fully mixed version on analog tape or the one digitally encoded on a hard drive? The master transfer to vinyl or CD ? Do we sum the truths over the number of possibilities and use an audio constant to correct for variability in the recording/mastering chain? Do tell us great sage, oh bringer of Truth!
Each recording owns details and different aspects of sound. This is why you need to understand first all these different parts. This has nothing to do with personal preferences, they are just facts.
This is why I said: you first need to understand sound and music before you could be able to understand audio at all. Like you need to understand the influences of the acoustic, electro-smog, magnetism and high-frequent noise on the sound and stage.
Most people have no idea how much these different aspects influence the end result of your system. Due to the fact that they just have no idea. It is insane not to adapt anything to these limitations. The things you never tested you will never understand what their influences are.
When you think and believe your loudspeakers, cables, conditioner, amp, and a source will solve it all, you are a dreamer. Ask people what they can tell about sound in general and how voices and instruments are being formed in space and how they sound. Most cannot even answer these questions.
Trial&error proves that it gives you no insight into the aspects of sound and the influences on sound and stage. I did ask it to many manufacturers and they all agreed. When you cannot relate anything in audio it becomes just one big gamble. This has 100% nothing to do with a personal opinion. Most loudspeakers only can create an almost flat stage even with most recordings. When you think that this is caused by the recording you just don’t understand.
I spend thousands of hours in comparing loudspeakers, sources, amps, pre-amps, cables, conditioner and a lot more. You get insight and knowledge by doing research and tests over and over again. Insight and knowledge you cannot buy. You need to find things out to create insight and understanding about differences.
The audio industry wanted us to believe that by trial&error you can create your own personal audio system. But that is just not true. The sound, stage, and facts prove that these systems cannot reveal all the aspects of sound and stage. When you demo an audio system that is able to reveal all the different aspects of sound people directly describe it as more intense and emotional. This proves that when you can reveal all aspects of sound the level in emotion increases.
... they are just facts ... Most people have no idea how much
these different aspects influence the end result of your system ... they just have no F.idea ... you will
never understand ... you are a dreamer ... Most cannot even answer these questions ... it gives you no F. insight into the aspects of sound and
the influences on sound and stage ... it becomes
just one big F. gamble ... you just don’t F. understand.
What's your point here, Bo? Does it have anything at all to do with this thread??
@dave_b : You are right! Audiophiles can believe the stupidest things (copper vs. silver, rhodium-plated outlets, power cables, magic fuses, directionality, wire burn-in ...). Quackery is profitable, unfortunately!
roberjerman2,190 posts04-18-2019 10:26am@dave_b : You are right! Audiophiles can believe the stupidest things (copper vs. silver, rhodium-plated outlets, power cables, magic fuses, directionality, wire burn-in ...). Quackery is profitable, unfortunately!
>>>>Whoa! Hold your horses! I believe all of those points are valid and true. Yet I do not profit from any of them. Skepticism taken to its extreme is what, stupidity?
A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from quackery.
Truth is individual, not absolute. The individual can find this point of understanding. A crowd cannot.
And individual can move forward, as the individual does not consult the crowd for it’s search in clarity.
And individual can be intelligent. A crowd is as dumb as a bag of hammers.
This is a discussion in a crowd type atmosphere, ergo....
Likened to driving down a single lane road, one is only allowed (due to projected violence from the crowd's lowest common denominators) to be as good as the slowest car in the group.
Absolute truth, and only as good as the slowest car on the road.
None of the above responses, sans agreement, counters anything I said. I mentioned zero products! What is thee brick wall filter, is the recording chain to a fairly large degree. Ergo, the Truth is unobtainable in any absolute sense. One can only estimate a variance of the original truth and then reverse engineer a system to accommodate ones personal preferences.
BTW.....sometimes Quackery is just Quackery dressed up in sufficiently advanced clothing!
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