The Truth About Power Cords and there "Real" Price to Performance

zug

... you can often improve by defeating the ground of any power cord. In other words, use one of those cheater plugs or yank out the ground prong. It works ...  yes, you are taking a chance with shocks ...

Defeating a power cord ground can be a useful diagnostic tool to troubleshoot ground loops, but it's not a solution. If your system sounds better with the ground defeated, the solution is to get all the grounds at the same potential.

jagjag

... Acrolink 4030 power cable from breaker to socket, and from socket to device does it for me.

That cable doesn't appear to be rated or intended for in-wall use. Do you know otherwise?

atdavid

I am sure it is not just me that questions the agenda of someone that actively tries to suppress people learning.

I don’t see any indication that anyone here "tries to suppress" learning. That’s just a silly claim. In fact, there are many users who visit here regularly and share their experiences along with asking questions and responding to the questions of others. So there seems to be quite an appetite for learning here, notwithstanding the noisy minority that thinks it has all the answers.

One doesn’t need to do "tedious" testing processes in ones own home.

Exactly. One can simply listen for pleasure, and make observations accordingly.

One just needs a friend that switches cables (or lies and tells you that he did), so you don’t know what you are listening to. No huge study design, no exhaustive testing procedures, and the perfect testing system and environment .. your system, your room.

What you describe isn’t double-blind and has no control for the tester’s bias. So the results would be essentially useless, and certainly not scientific.

Anyone who tells you there is no value in doing a test this way is lying to you.

There’s no more value to the test you described than there is to the sort of fully sighted tests that you repeatedly assail so passionately.

I’ve participated in a few scientifically controlled listening tests. The trials were conducted by real researchers, not self-appointed audio forum experts. They were tedious - something the organizers cautioned about at the start of the undertaking - and it explains why not all of the subjects who started the test were willing to complete them. Proper, scientifically-controlled listening tests are a time-consuming, laborious undertaking for pretty much everyone involved. Those who claim such tests are simple, fun and easy to conduct have obviously never been responsible for any such test.

mahgister

When i buy a piece of gear, or evaluate my room, or judge the impact of some modification in my audio system, i dont claim for a universal validity, but i claim and vouch from my own experience and personal history of listening, in my particular room with my particular gear... Reducing that to an A/B/X test is pointless ...

Exactly.

Reducing that complex and very individual and personal history with ABX tests ... is perhaps good for marketting, or engineering technology ...

Exactly. And ABX may have particular value in the engineering and development of a component, where the test is most likely to be conducted in accordance with accepted protocols. But properly organizing and conducting such tests is a tricky business. It's also a tedious and time consuming pursuit that usually doesn't yield much benefit to the audiophile.

delkal

Get some reliable witnesses and do a scientific blinded test. Show how you can instantly hear the slightest change in your cables.   Then post it on all of the forums that it can be done.   You will finally put to rest the countless arguments on this subject and you would be famous!

You seem to be among the noisy minority here that places such faith in these tests, so please feel free to conduct your own blind listening tests and share the results here. Please be sure to tell us how the test was conducted.

Most audiophiles don't have much interest in such tests. After all, they're tedious, time consuming, and sometimes yield puzzling results. It's more fun to listen to music.
I've particpated in a few such DBTs. I'd never go to the trouble of actually organizing such a test, though. Provided that you truly want useful results, there's actually much more work to conducting such tests than meets the eye of the casual observer. And the results are useless if the test is not properly conducted.

atdavid

If You claim that you can hear a difference on Your system, all I have to do is show that You cannot reliably detect the difference on Your system.

Perhaps. But to insist that you can base any assertion on the results of a single test or trial is simply absurd. That's why scientific tests rely on more than one test, more than one trial and - typically - more than one subject.

Of course, if you prefer to believe in certain things because of the results of a single test, that's perfectly fine. But in doing so you abandon any claim you may have to being scientific or objective.

atdavid

Many tests are not needed to disprove a claim, just one ...

That's completely mistaken, and the claim reflects the blind faith some have in these tests. The simple truth is this: No single test or trial proves anything at all. Only multliple tests - preferably with multiple subjects - are likely to produce meaningful results.

vinylguy2016

As a mature engineer, vintage component lover, and a recent member of Audiogon - I am very skeptical about the actual benefits of the host of fancy, expensive power and speaker cords out there ... Don’t we need more hard "scientific" data explaining what actually makes these "fancy" cables sound "better"? I personally, will stick by the recommendations of Mr. Smith and Mr. Sequerra!

A great many audiophiles rely on their own listening tests to make decisions about things such as cables, so I don’t think "we" require more scientific data. Of course it’s fine if your preference is to review data before listening.

Have you ever auditioned what you call "fancy" cables? You’d be a good test subject; because of your skepticism, you wouldn’t suffer from positive confirmation bias.

Many adopters of better cables started as a skeptic, just like yourself.

delkal

... it appears there is no way to set up a "scientific" test test that will make everyone happy ...

I don’t think that’s true. The protocols for a controlled, scientific, double-blind listening test have already been established. They can be cumbersome, so some seek a shortcut to the protocols, which is fine, of course. The only issue is when they also proclaim that their compromised test is as valid as a properly controlled test. That’s a truly odd claim, but there are only one or two people here asserting it.

What is subject to debate is the actual value of a proper controlled, scientific, double-blind listening test. That debate will continue as long as audiophiles inhabit the planet.

... what about doing something simpler? Just prove to yourself which cable is best for your system (blinded). Have a friend swap the cables for you and you listen and decide ... If you tend to like one over the other that is the cable to use.

I think that’s exactly what some audiophiles do. Some make it even simpler and omit the blind cable swap altogether.

atdavid

... a blind test is not a sighted test ...

Agreed! They are two different things. In a true blind test, neither those conducting the test nor the subject of the test know exactly what is under evaluation at any given moment.

But if anyone involved in the test actually knows what is under evaluation at any given time - and they know this because they can "see" - then it isn’t a true proper blinded test:

blind/blīnd/adjective ...

1. 1. unable to see because of injury, disease, or a congenital condition."he was blind in one eye" ... Opposite: sighted ...
   
   
2. 2. lacking perception, awareness, or discernment.

Anyone who has any experience running tests with subjective results has used single blind testing ...

I don’t know whether that claim is true or not, but you make a fair point. The results of a "single blind" test are subjective, not objective, because the test doesn’t even try to control for all the known variables. That doesn’t mean the test has no value, so there’s no need for you to feel such hurt over this. But its value is limited to about the same extent as other sighted tests. Perhaps that limitation is not nearly so severe as some believe.

It’s confounding to me why you refuse to acknowledge the difference between "blind" and "sighted." Perhaps you simply seek to continue argumentation.

atdavid

Single blind testing is used regularly where tester bias is deemed to have overall limited impact on the results.

What you’re saying is that your sighted test is better than other sighted tests. That’s just nonsense.

If you want to conduct a scientific test - of any sort - you need to eliminate as many potential sources of bias as possible. That’s a fundamental scientific principle, whether it suits your belief system or not.

atdavid

While ideally the test would be double blind, that is not always a viable thing to do.

Quite so! Conducting a controlled test with the goal that it will be scientifically valid is a tricky business. It’s time-consuming, tedious and cumbersome, so not likely to be fun for most audiophiles. I’m sure that’s one reason such tests are uncommon in our community.

There are two biases, subject bias and observation bias. Single blind removes subject bias, which is usually the dominant bias. While double blind is the "gold standard", single bias is still used as it eliminate subject bias, and provides significantly more statistically relevant results. To suggest this is no more valuable than sighted tests shows a gross ignorance w.r.t. this type of testing.

Sorry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t allow potential bias to creep into a test, and then excuse the bias by proclaiming that isn’t the "dominant" bias, whatever that is. The test you describe is a sighted test, and subject to whatever flaws such tests might include.

That’s especially so in this instance, where you’ve acknowledged that the tester will have to "lie" to the subject about whether he might be hearing the A or B component. The tester’s bias - or even his personality traits - can poison the test. For example, the tester may reveal a "tell" (as a poker player would call it) that could be even unconsciously detected by the test subject, thereby influencing his responses. And that’s why I said that your partially-sighted test has no advantage over a fully sighted test - bias can affect results either way.

If you want to conduct a scientific test, you have to control for as many variables as possible. This is science 101; there’s no disputing this basic stuff. I think it’s rather odd that some of those who clamor most loudly for scientific listening tests have such poor understanding of what’s involved. Perhaps that’s why they are so confounded that controlled tests are so rare: They think such testing is simple and straightforward, while nothing could be further from the truth.