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.
A Semiotician, Roland Barthes characterized the distinction between listening and hearing."Hearing is a physiological phenomenon; listening is a psychological act." We are always hearing, most of the time subconsciously. Listening is done by choice. It is the interpretative action taken by someone in order to understand and potentially make meaning of something they hear.
A distinction is often made between "intensive listening", in which learners attempt to listen with maximum accuracy to a relatively brief sequence of speech, and "extensive listening", in which learners listen to lengthy passages for general comprehension. While intensive listening may be more effective in terms of developing specific aspects of listening ability, extensive listening is more effective in building fluency and maintaining learner motivation.
At issue is how to decide what a cable, or any other component for that matter, brings to the table. Science, and the instrumentation it uses, can do a passable job describing the hearing end of things, but when it comes to the more critical end of things, listening, it hits a bit of a brick wall because listening involves the brain, and the understanding of the brain is still a bit of mystery. And then there is the problem of folding motivation into the mix because the brain has an extraordinary ability to actively edit auditory input.
All I can say is some people get hung up on measurement and are too quick to say don't waste your money because all wire sounds the same...snake oil. I agree with those that say trust your ears...all I really care about (with-in reason) is what I hear.
Often, after spending a load on some esoteric tweak, component or cable, you shouldn't trust your ears...because your ears are connected to your brain. And the brain's expectation after such a purchase will provide you with, not what you hear, but what you want to hear.
At first the line proffered up-thread Life= life + death didn’t make much sense, I mean it had some measure of gravitas and all but it didn’t seem to even do the equatee thingee right and I thought it maybe might have something to do with lower and upper case letters, like you know, Life being bigger than just plain life and death here just making up the remainder.....so after a rigourously rigourous analysis that drew on my vast understanding of all things arithmetic ( well at least to anything up to the number 10 cause after that I have to take my socks off and trust me we don’t want to go there ) I realized it also may mean that death could/would be 0 for the equation to work...which I suppose makes some kind of deep meta religious/physical sense....and is actually pretty deep, well for this thread anyway...jeez could be the start of a arithmetically based Newer Than New Testament or something big like a killer video game...
OK, sorry for the interruption, carry on....me I’m going to have a nap, my brains hurts....
Candidate my nether regions !.....rumour has it he has 4 or 5 already. Prof got big brain eh, he read books, plays with numbers, speaks languages and everything.
I hate to judge too hastily but it appears Glubson’s “subtle” humor went right over someone’s head. Whoosh! Somebody probably needs to refamiliarize himself with the Raymond Chandler story of Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit.
Gosh only correct ? Jeez more like Shakespearean in its depth and ability to address the human condition. A genuine tour-de-force type literary thingee.
However on the logical end of things we do have some problems....to wit....how can one argue the supremacy of science and yet ascribe divine or supernatural intervention to the result by calling it miraculous. Don't know about youse guys but that kinda smacks of some level of adherence to religionositical thinking akin to blind faith. Like, definitely far away from objectivity and actually smack dab into wholesale subjectivity. Major whoopsie.
So yeah, grammatically correct, but philosophically a definite face-plant. And it was so so close, like he almost got away clean, but for those 10 unfortunate keystrokes that scuppered an entry into the literary hall of fame.
I could go on and ask which ones for decades now have been seen as gullible idiots waiting to be parted from their money?
Join the dots if you need, scratch your heads if it helps...but love, desire and passion can be dangerous impulses which all too easily can lead to an obsession.. which eventually turns out to be an expensive mirage.
Source and Load impedances also figure into the sonic equation.
As well designed as the Iconoclasts are, there are a whole range of systems extant where a group of trained listeners with similar preferences are going to react from
After reading some of the posts in this thread, it's interesting and ironic that the posts from the "subjective" camp seemed to have a better grasp of science whereas the "objective" camp was just content to regurgitate what they "read" and believed it as a religion. Life is full of irony isn't it.
These from Iconoclast website may sum it up the conflicts within this thread.
Engineers and audiophiles have locked horns time and again, in one long argument about the attributes of speaker and interconnect cables for high-resolution audio reproduction. Audiophile designs for wire and cable products are often strange and fanciful, and haven't earned a lot of respect in the engineering world. Audiophiles, meanwhile, find that engineers do not take their evaluations of cable products very seriously. The result often is that these two groups talk past one another, as the audiophile appeals to the realm of subjective experience and the engineer dismisses it all as nonsense.
A standard approach to any problem in audio cabling begins with some fundamental measurable attributes of wire and cable: R (resistance), L (inductance) and C (capacitance). But Galen came to believe that while these factors account for MUCH of what goes on in a cable, it is still possible for cables with the same R, L and C to have different sounds. The difference comes down to time -- that some factors which are not taken fully into account in measuring overall R, L and C do affect the relative speeds of parts of the signal as they travel down the signal path. For example, while VP (velocity of propagation) is typically stated as a constant, it actually varies, and varies substantially, with frequency within the audio band. Ideally, one wants every part of a signal to travel at the same speed, and Galen looked to ways to mitigate and balance frequency-dependent effects upon signal timing.
"Lumped parameter" is an approximation. The actual (at least as far as one can approximate) condition is distributed. One must go deeper and deeper into the reality to find final truth.
There innumerable ways to lumped L, C & R parameters. The signal responds to an infinite series of µL µC & µR. GEOMETRY is every bit as important.
"Lumped parameter" is an approximation. The actual (at least as far as one can approximate) condition is distributed. One can go deeper and deeper into the reality to find final truth.
as an aside just for the sheer annoyance factor of the easily excited on the buzzword front... molecular/atomic level fluids like the room temperature fluid metal alloys in Teo cables, are technically and in definition...to fall under quantum rules...and charged ionic systems like that of plasma (tubes) are considered to be classical.
This means.. the true fluid metal alloy in the Teo cables, while under signal loading... is constantly switching or sliding between being quantum and classical, with a indeterminate Schrodinger-like complexity, due to the high mass and atom to atom (electron orbital to electron orbital) ..where the loading is a radically discontinuous variable due to the high mass. The math is insane and very incomplete at this time in physics.
Ouch.
The tube kinda does the same but is mostly a stressed/loaded system while in-situ, so just about 100% classical, as it is, in operation, never really going to zero. One would think that the liquid metal cable is thus the same but the high mass vs that of the tube’s low mass constitution, makes the quantum connection in the metal fluid - considerably more real.
Importantly, none of this takes place with wire as the wire is in a frozen lattice form. In truth..some of it is still there but of such a minor dangling part, that it is not really ever included in any of the calculations - no point. Under certain stress and loading conditions it can be made to come to the fore, though.
It might be considered that the frozen lattice form of the structure of the ’wire’, gives rise to complex impedance, as we know it, as a set of lumped parameters. LCR is a lumped parameter, and that L, C, and R are each lumped parameters all on their own - when in full analysis.
Those lumped parameters, the LCR and the individual lumped L, C, and R, are for engineering or building. One has to go back to the theory as it is all theory when seeking solutions to complex layered problems. That is....if we can recognize the problem in the first place.
If one wishes to analyze problems in interpretation and projection into solution seeking or problems in observation vs measurement, then one should consider going down to those basics and analyze at the fundamental physics level. Otherwise one might find themselves going in circles, or arguing without understanding the actual questions at hand...
It is with mixed emotions I interject into a nice scientific cable discussion the observation that -all things being equal - a white jacketed cable or power cord whatever will sound better than one with another color jacket. As the little mice in the movie say, that’s the way things are! OK, bickering may continue.
He also said that two cables with the same "RLC" measurements could have completely different sound.
Sounds like that right there is a severely serious Class One case of bigly blasphemy. Methinks he will soon be answering to a cracked, errrr, crack team of inquisitors from the dreaded Cable Inquisition.
Most people try to gain greater transparency by upping the intensity of the light ( in cable speak upping high frequencies which has been the standard method used for decades now to try to achieve some modicum of transparency ) we just clean the window ( or in cable speak drop the noise floor )
I suppose "cleaning the window" is better than trying to "upping the intensity of the light". Galen Gareis
(Iconoclast designer) says extensively about "TIME" coherent in his cable design. Some of the reviews seem to say that his cables are very "transparent", so I guess "TIME" coherent is one of the main ingredients for being "transparent".
Anyway, as for measurement vs. listening, Galen Gareis says that he notices differences in sound between different type of copper although he readily admits that he doesn't know how to measure them. He also said that two cables with the same "RLC" measurements could have completely different sound.
In regards transparency there is a great quote from the late Charley Hansen of Ayre electronics which unfortunately I can't find but roughly paraphrased goes something like this. Most people try to gain greater transparency by upping the intensity of the light ( in cable speak upping high frequencies which has been the standard method used for decades now to try to achieve some modicum of transparency ) we just clean the window ( or in cable speak drop the noise floor ) That can be most effectively achieved in a cable assembly by simply extending the bandwidth, either by use of a cable doubling, or the way TEO Audio does it which is using a liquid metal conductor. In both cases the cable generated noise generated by wave reflections due to impedance mismatches is reduced producing a cleaner window ( the analogy would be reducing room generated reflections and producing a room that is a more acoustically transparent musical setting ). One could, of course, also apply vibration control to clean the window by reducing the effects of micro-phonics but successful solutions along this path are harder to execute because standard vibration control protocols, while producing lower noise floors numbers, also produce phase shift which is something that slurs a signal and thus diminishes any transparency gains ( and the ear brain doesn't respond well/take kindly to phase shifts ).
One thing I still don't understand is which cable parameters that are responsible for what we call "transparency"
It depends on what's stuck on the cable ends.
For example, a loudspeaker with excessive group delay and a ringy tweeter may require a cable that makes a more coherent speaker sound 'polite'. A tube amp with a puffy bottom may require a cable that makes a solid state amp sound anemic.
HiFi's great shame is too close a focus on parts and not enough on the system, iow "Not seeing the woods for the trees."
I quickly went to Iconoclast website to see how much a pair of 8ft speaker cables cost - about 1400 to 2400 depending on the material and configuration. Definitely not cheap!
My current cables is Acoustic Zen Hologram II which is $1200 at 8ft. Hmm... I initially thought Iconoclast would be some type of cable Robinhood lols. It would be very interesting if someone could compare the Iconoclast to some well known cables at similar price.
Has anyone tried Iconoclast cables? How they compared to some high end cables such as SilTech Crystal Absolute Dream that costs about $9K each?
I've read the articles from Iconoclast and it's refreshing to see someone who discussed these issues with no prejudice or preconceptions.
One thing I still don't understand is which cable parameters that are responsible for what we call "transparency"? How do we measure "transparency" in cables? I mean we measure "LCR", impedance, propagation time and so on but how can we translate all of those parameters into "transparency"? Hm... I see a bunch of black a$$ ... err I mean black art lols.
Years ago I bought some cables from Blue Jeans which I think they use Belden cables. The price is about $100 a pair which sounded pretty decent. Then after a few years I bought a pair of QED silver cables which cost a little bit more at about $150 a pair but the QED sounds much more musical and transparent compared to the Blue Jeans. The QED construction suggests a much more sophisticated technique was used compared to the Blue Jeans. My guess is the QED construction was optimized for "TIME" which was discussed extensively in the Iconolcast technical papers.
Heck, the same cable will measure differently at different times.
Ooooh that is going to get the wine or water glasses are always positioned to the left of the coffee cup, don’t you know anything, crowd into a serious wild and crazy tizzy!!!!!
Belden pursues it scientifically, in the lab and via ear, and ends up in the same price and quality range and parts choice range...as the audiophile cable companies that already exist.
So.. Belden ’confirms’ the existing science of high end cables.
So cable haters and naysayers....where’s your hater god now? Hmmm?
Have you been abandoned for knowledge, science, and reason? It appears to be the case....as the ’crazy fools and their ’high end’ cables.....were always...right.
lols there are about 15 pages so there
is no way I'll read through them all. But anyway, some
conclusions are needed.
-----------------
YES, cables do make a difference and I
think we (or most of us) would agree. If you don't agree with
this, then might as well arguing about 2+2 = 4 and basic number
theory.
YES, we can measure cables and different
cables will exhibit different "objective" set of
measurement results. You may need some sensitive and expensive
equipment from Agilent and not some cheap 24Kbit PC audio sound card running MS OS
lols.
The part where it gets tricky is how to relate what we
measure and what we hear. YES, we can get some basic
"objective" measurements to correlate with some basic
audiophile terminologies, but only up to a point since our hearing is
really too complicated to understand even with the advent of today
science (lols dark energy not withstanding). For example, if a
cable has too much capacitance, the sound will lack dynamic. Or if a
cable has too much inductance, there will be ringing so the sound
will be a bit edgy, nervous. If the cable has too much resistance,
it will also reduce dynamic (like putting a 1ohm resistor in series
to the bass driver of your speakers). And of course some basic “LCR”
can be measured so nobody will argue with this. But beyond some basic correlations between
objective measurements and hearing, it gets complicated and we don't
have any hard science to explain or at least not that I know of.
Modern science has a lot of equations but I don't know of any
equation that if you plug in your “LCR” parameters, it will tell you how
musical the cable will sound. So at the end, you have to rely on your own hearing, God forbids.
-------------- Entering a bit more
“scientific realm”.
What is a “perfect” cable? A
perfect cable is one that can deliver a signal from one end to the
other with perfect phase and amplitude relationship (that is no phase
shift or amplitude attenuation in all freq.) But since all audio cables
are transmission line in theory, there is no such thing as a perfect cable. Some freq.
(even at audio freq) will have some phase shift or attenuation with
respect to some other freq. If you solve Maxwell equation, it works
all the way down to DC so audio freqs get affected too even in theory
and not just at RF freq. So here you have three basic variables: phase shift, amp. attenuation, and freq. Since these are analog, you end up with literally infinite number of combinations that your ears have to deal with. And although all cables will only have these three basic variables, the number of permutations are infinite so there is zero chance that two cables will measure the same. And you're in a bit of a bind. And if you're an "objective" type, then you believe in theory. And just as I said above, "objectively", all cables will measure differently (remember infinite permutation). Heck, the same cable will measure differently at different times. Therefore the conclusion is all cables will sound differently due to measurement.
A lot of measurements are way too
overly simplistic. For example, I've read a lot of on-line
measurements were done on a single frequency, @1KHz. The person who
carried out this measurement and proudly proclaimed that since both
equipment have the same jitter at 1KHz, therefore they should sound
the same. The problem is these measurements were done at steady
state (not to mention at a single freq), whereas our hearing is transitory. For example, if you play a
C note on a piano, you get the fundamental frequency but also the
ovetones which decays at lower (or higher) frequencies at specific
timing interval and amplitude. If your audio cable somehow delays
(as in phase shift) a certain overtone frequency or incorrectly
attenuate an overtone amplitude with respect to the fundamental
frequency (vs real life) then it does not reproduce the C note
properly. It's very difficult to devise a test where you can measure
this on a cable. Maybe there is but it's not easy and personally I
don't know of such.
I once read The Art and Science of
Motorcycle Maintenance and the guy said gravity is not that different
from religion lols. Good thing I got some open minded head to know
what's he talking about. Anyway, as someone already brought it up,
the term “LCR” is kind of like gravity in that sense. It's just
some made-up stuffs we invented so we can solve the Maxwell equations
which are in themselves made up stuffs. And if you believe LCR is
something that ends all then you're are just as bad – hiding behind
your own misguided science.
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