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

blumartini

What I can say is that Jay Luong's 27 Best Audiophile Power Cables has been one of the best if not the best attempt to put things somewhat into perspective in regards to the manufactures, models, and prices as well as what to expect at there particular value proposition.

Well, if you think tests done with an utter lack of rigor or controls for his own imagination are "the best..."

..then I've got some magic health crystals to sell you .  They are evaluated the same way.

blumartini, have you ever tried to blind test between audiophile cables and a "normal" competently designed cables? (E.g. correct gauge for equipment etc).  I have.  It was very enlightening.  When I knew which cable was in use I was sure the sound OBVIOUSLY changed.   But when I didn't know which was being used, funny how those OBVIOUS ANYONE COULD HEAR IT changes vanished.  Human perception and cognitive biases are pretty wild.   The stance "If I heard it then it's true and my ears can't be wrong!" is a popular one among audiophiles.   But it's up to you if you want to treat audio in essentially a form of religion or not.

If so, have fun discussing how many thousands of dollars to spend on AC cables.

blumartini,
What I wrote isn’t obvious to most on this forum. Most in the cable forum go on the "if I put it in my system and believe I hear a difference, I can trust that method to tell me the truth."

And I didn’t see anything in what you wrote that suggested it was obvious to you. As far as I can tell you don’t voice skepticism about the standard audiophile belief that changing AC cables changes sound, and you have seemingly uncritically praised the Audio Bacon "tests," which doesn’t at all suggest you take the problem of sighted bias seriously.

Maybe Jay didn’t have an exact science but it was most definitely a good starting point to something different than doing the same thing over and over and getting the same results, that is called "insanity".

I can’t parse that paragraph. It’s not like Audio Bacon did anything different. They put cables in to their system, listened, and believed everything they think they heard. What’s different or a "good starting point" about that, in terms of moving the evidence for audiophile AC cables forward. They just took the standard unreliable method and did more of it.

And in the article we find bald assertions like:

Audio Bacon: Aside from practical (and legal) considerations, there’s also the type of solder, connectors, materials, and even technique used. All of these will determine the sound of a power cord.

...with no technical evidential support whatsoever.


Not to mention this disclaimer right below that:

Audio Bacon: Blind tests are pointless for the same reason why the skeptics request them – your mind is always playing tricks on you. – Audio Bacon

Which is a statement of pure anti-scientific ignorance.



You said you don’t believe in magic crystals, yet seem to uncritically accept results based on exactly the same method, a purely subjective "If I try it and think something happened, it happened!"

Why do you seem to drop your critical thinking for AC cables and not new age healing crystals?
I dropped in the thread because it seems you wanted a discussion concerning "The Truth About Power Cords." In which case, it makes sense to ask "where is the theory (that passes muster with other engineers) and objective evidence that AC cables COULD sound different, and the tests controlling for sighted bias that they DO sound different?"

Or, if this is supposed to be a thread about "the truth" only for those who already have accepted the audiophile cable dogma? It seems that’s the case, so maybe it’s best I leave you to it.
Cheers.

@blumartini

Thanks for being a good sport.

I’m not looking to tear down the conversation you actually want to have.It’s just that occasionally I think it’s good to hear from the variety of voices among audiophiles, which includes audiophiles who are more skeptical of cable claims, and cautious about relying on pure personal anecdote to settle controversial technical claims.
Carry on...

Cheers.

mahgister,

There is some objective collective truth in sound perception, but musical perception is more complex than just sound perception and taking into account the different genetic potential of each one of us and our own different individual listening history, it is impossible and illusory to reduce this individual history to some objective collective laws of hearing...

I find your writing on these subjects to be unclear as you seem to conflate separate issues: that of musical appreciate, or personal reaction to music, vs the question of the actual *audibility* of any particular technical claim.


To take a hypothetical example, if a cable manufacturer claims they have reduced the presence of a distortion that occurs in the frequency of 25kHz which therefore produces a "better sounding cable," that's a claim that does not require all this personal musical history mumbo jumbo to investigate.  Right off the bat there is reason to be skeptical, given the well known *general* limits to human hearing.  So right off the bat it would make sense to ask for evidence we can even HEAR the problem being claimed.  


You could claim all you want to hear above 20kHz, but no appeal to your musical history will suffice to wave away a hearing test that shows you can not, in fact, reliably detect the presence of anything above 18kHz.(And such tests are of course done blind, so you are not given visual cue, or information, as to when the tones are playing...reducing those variables to concentrate only on what you are actually detecting via your hearing).

The same goes for the fundamental question "Does cable A actually 'sound' delectably different from cable B?"

So, take a possible blind test one could conduct between an audiophile AC cable and a standard "came with the device" audio cable.  Let's say we want to investigate the AUDIBILITY (forget preference...lets first establish if A and B are even delectably different!) of an audiophile cable on a DAC.


And let's say this audiophile cable - the "audiophileWOW cable" was purported by others to obviously improve the sound of a well known DAC.  Maybe you have even "heard" it do exactly that, with that DAC.

How to test this more rigorously? (*caveat: a double-blind set up would be even better, but even a single-blind test goes far further to reducing variables than the average "stick it in my system and listen" version used to anecdotally vet claims in hi-end audio).


You could have two samples of the same DAC, both outputting to a switcher (pre-amp, whatever), so you can switch between the signal coming out of either DAC.  First you do a blind test (e.g. someone else switching in a way you, the subject, can not know which DAC you are hearing), to first determine if you can reliably detect any difference between the two DAC units (again, the same DAC model), using this switching method.  Presuming you can not, the inference being they sound alike to you as one would expect, you can move on to introducing the audiophile AC cable in the test.  Just have one DAC unit using the supplied AC cable it came with, the other is now using the audiophileWOW AC cable.

Now, repeat that same blind test.

Can you even DETECT a difference between them to a statistically reliable degree?

If not, if the results mirror a similar randomness as when they each had the same stock AC cable, then you've failed to show any positive correlation of sonic changes brought to the table by the audiophileWOW AC cable.   Which is suggests that you really can't hear a difference.  (Do enough of these tests, and you can establish ever more confidence that you can not hear a difference.  Do it with enough people, and you gain ever more confidence that there is no audible contribution made by the audiophileWOW cable.


None of this has to do with "personal musical history," it's about investigating the question of audibility, just like we do with hearing tests.


But once components are established to actually sound different, then preference can play a plausible role, and it makes sense to talk about "which sonic presentation you like more" and for what reasons, how it effects your reaction to the music, etc.

Reducing that to an A/B/X test

Which is a strawman.  No one suggests that we simply reduce music listening to A/B/X tests.   It's just a more concise tool for investigating whether sonic differences are detectable or not.  It can be expanded to preference-testing, if you like.   But it's just conflating issues to mix up all this "personal musical history" stuff with a much narrower goal.You are making the typical audiophile exception for your hobby, as if the lessons of science, useful in most other areas, just don't apply to audio.It's special pleading.

geoffkait,
Are you having trouble processing the word "hypothetical" today? ;-)

marqmike

We all have bias’s. That’s why we like things a little different from each other. That is ok isn’t it.

Of course. Have you actually seen anyone saying otherwise? (Certainly not me).
The type of "bias" I have referenced are things like sighted bias, the type of things it’s reasonable to control for, when trying to investigate claims about audibility. This is different from the biases that influence what we like, in our everyday enjoyment of the hobby. I’m full of those biases, like you, and happily embrace it.

What is a sad is some here don’t want to discuss a subject, but rather dig their feet in and make fun of or argue their position.

In other words, even though a range of opinions exist among audiophiles, apparently you only want to hear from one type of opinion - the one that falls in line with a dogma that AC cables all sound different? Do you really think keeping in an ideological bubble is that great an idea? When people in forums like this start the type of complaint "it’s sad that..." it typically plays out as "it’s sad that I have to look at anyone’s opinion that significantly differs from my own. Especially if they provide reasons/arguments justifying their opinion."


How about this: How about we audiophiles actually grow thicker skins, and not consider alternative viewpoints - say, someone else who isn’t so sure as you are about the claims made for cables - as some existential threat to your enjoyment of hi end audio. Other people have different viewpoints. Relax. No biggie.

nonoise,
Ok, I can see your point of view in your follow-up post.  Thanks.

nonoise,

Thank you for dropping in to supply a judgemental and disparaging description of the people in this thread. That always contributes to the tone of a forum.  It's nice to get the view from "on high."

You have quite an imagination in what you manage to "see" in this thread.

In any case: You can rest easy knowing you have now been seen. ;-)

mahgister

Ok, thanks for clarifying that for me.  I have no desire to ridicule your system. No one needs to turn in to a scientist in this hobby.  I certainly can't "objectively verify" the performance of everything in my system, and I'm fine with that.    I'm glad you are having fun! 

mahgister,

It's often hard to tell on the internet so I have to ask:  Was your last post a joke, or do you really make/use the tweaks you described?