Too good a post to waste

40 + years, and not one, yup not one that I can find, demonstration by a cable vendor that definitively shows an audible difference, let alone an improvement between good wire (low resistance, reasonably low capacitance/inductance), and their uber-expensive wire.

40+ years, and not one vendor willing to put their money where their mouth is and show, in perfect for them conditions, that they can reliably pick out their uber expensive wire from run of the mill wire.

40+ years, and still no proper blind demonstrations at a trade-show that illustrates the clear, claimed "night and day" difference between their uber expensive cables and good cables (good resistance/capacitance/inductance, and shielding for interconnects).

Thing is, I do know that some of those uber-expensive low capacitance wires are more likely to lead to amplifier instability (audible), than less expensive wires (as Pass and Polk found out). I can find it on a scope in seconds, and fix it in not many more (for pennies), and most good amplifier vendors have already addressed this issue. I know I can vary resistance enough between cables to create a statistically audible difference. I know I can build in enough capacitance to create a statistically audible difference (for some people, most younger than this group). I know that to reduce those differences to statistically 0, it does not require a lot of money.


The ops statement is really nothing but an ad populum argument. Everyone is doing it (well really they aren't), so it must be right. The vitamin and supplement industry is > $75 billion worldwide, and much of that is near useless (and many of us, me included over the years), fall for it.  There are a plethora of things people buy or believe in, vast numbers of people, for which there is little or no evidence, if not evidence of harm.


Having been around acoustics and psychoacoustics, academically, professionally, and in assistance of research, I know how to tweak for a desired outcome, and to be exceedingly skeptical of claims, knowing that in properly controlled comparisons, all those night and day claims, magically disappear. You would be amazed that blind, a lot of audiophiles can't even pick their own speakers out of a lineup of similar sounding speakers reliably ... and yes, you may be curious how I know that.

Now if only there was a way to put this argument away once and for all .. but for the life of me, I can't think what that way would be .....

25+ years in high end professional acoustics, and no one uses terms like micro-dynamics or timbral harmonics w.r.t. a sound reproduction system, probably because "micro-dynamics", isn't a function of sound reproduction, it is a function of recording and mastering, and timbral harmonics is essentially a tautology, since the timbre already means the combination of harmonics that compose tone. Having made up words that sound erudite but essentially carry no meaning does not give one superiority the person who hears the same thing but describes in just as distinct, but non "technical sounding" jargon.

I blame the audio "press" most of whom possess no technical background, from either an educational standpoint or practical standpoint in audio or audio sciences. They make stuff up, and other people just pick up on it cause it sounds good. Mainly, it just causes confusion and people calling each other names on audio forums.

You realize that in under 100 characters, you just admitted you have reading comprehension issues as I clearly stated that resistance, capacitance, inductive and stability issues could create audible differences in cables .....

You do realize you just admitted that in 40 years you have never been able to hear any difference between any cables.

Oh, I have tried many things as well, including recreating the effects of Pass and Polk (and no doubt many others) on amplifier stability, not to mention having access research grade acoustic lab environments, and trained and untrained biased and unbiased testers. Hence why I made the statement that wire can make an audible difference, and why I differentiate between crap, "good enough", and uber-expensive.

Still, many of us tried. Thin wire, thick wire, stranded wire, solid core wire, cheap wire, expensive wire, fancy plugs, bare wire, reversing the wires etc.

But hey, I seem to have triggered the rath of the Pet Audio Rock dude, so I must be doing something right?

And this is why we still have millions and millions of people who believe the Earth is flat, because the "measurements" don't line up with what they think they perceive.

Not if you care about accurate repeatable results. You have already jumped to the conclusion that you have hearing abilities that are not being measured. In the audiophile world, that rarely means you isolated the test to your hearing, and nothing else. Unfortunate, but true.

If one can't find any studies of measurements not lining up with hearing ability, the logical explanation is the measuring is not up to the level of one's hearing.

You know he lists his Linkedin profile as doing work for them? No doubt an exit strategy for him as he gets older, and an easy opportunity to increase margin and exposure for them. More power to them. I stopped feeling guilty about taking advantage of people wilfully uninformed ages ago.

Isn't Galen now doing work for Blue Jeans? ..... just sayin.

With the exception of the ground wire, I am going to go out on a limb and say that pretty much none (or very close to it), can even communicate why a larger gauge would be better for low power noise sensitive equipment like a phono-pre, a pre-amp, streamer, etc.

Better yet, what advantage would there be to "better", i.e. low inductance, low capacitance, power cords for these products at all?

Now present the exact same argument for a power amplifier that is not hitting its limits.

I mean all those people out there extolling the virtue of big gauge AC wire, fancy geometries for AC, etc. must know why it makes things better right? Right?

Shocking that you never considered it wasn't the $1,200 interconnect, but perhaps you, or maybe just the act of wiping dirty contacts, or the other interconnect was faulty.

Keep doing you Miller. If something sounds markedly different when I change an interconnect, then it was always because something was wrong. Usually of course it happens just from moving it. It is not unusual to loose the ground on just one of the interconnects, and everything will still work.

I was talking about Miller claiming his $1,200 bargain system was magically transformed by $1,200 interconnects which is ... which the nicest I can put is questionable.   If you have left right interconnects, RCA, and the ground breaks on one of those cables (workmanship, rough use), the system will still work just fine, but perhaps not optimum. This was just one of many things (like dirty contacts), that was a far more likely reason for a big change in sound by changing interconnects.

This may be a difficult concept, but if the wire sounds the same on every system, then you are essentially saying wire doesn't matter. 

millercarbon OP5,046 posts07-02-2020 9:07pmActually no, they sound the same regardless of what they're plugged into.

Either that or the wire somehow magically knows what its plugged into and is able to change accordingly.

Just one more bit of nonsense everyone believes without evidence and keeps repeating simply because someone else did.

Never has one person made so many posts that have so little useful information in them and so rarely contribute to the conversation. I really have to applaud the enthusiasm you apply to your inanity. I must say I do appreciate the hypocrisy of those that go gaga over contact enhancer while dismissing dirty contacts. I must be extra special going through life without ever experiencing self reflection.

Someone keeps forgetting to type "I think" before "does".

Well played Uber.

Nope, I knew from reading exactly what you have said, and hence I knew, based on your ego, that if I posted the right thing, you would say exactly what I wanted you to say.

geoffkait 23,324 posts
07-07-2020 5:17pm

I never said any such thing, this is just another case of Robberrttddidd forgetting who said what and what thread he’s on.

Sorry Pebbles, but it does, because there are numerous industry papers out there that show that first and second level error correction will fix every single data error on almost every CD, and if you read the data well enough to fix the errors, and you can buffer the data (really inexpensively), to fix the jitter, then you have no argument left. Only those blinded by scattered light that does will try to ingore that fact. Call me all the names you want, ad-hom glupson to the cows come home, and kick and scream, but YOU, yes you just debunked yourself.

geoffkait23,325 posts07-07-2020 5:24pmYou still don’t get - better go back and find the original discussion. Buffering doesn’t eliminate the problems with scattered laser light or vibration, only shock. Stay in school!

They did implement buffers in expensive CD players a long time ago. Oh my did you not know this? All this time you were telling people about problems that didn’t exist at least in this community. Oh my my my ... egg on the face. Ouch. Before I got bored of electronics in the early 90's I even worked on one. It wasn't even by today's standards very high end. tsk tsk, so out of date with your information.

However, to Glupson's point, if they can build a CD player good enough to isolate a car, rather inexpensively, makes one wonder about all the claims sellers of tweaks make huh?

The ESP (Extended Skip Protection) if I remember correctly was about a $8-10 solution at OEM quantities when it first came out. We spent about $25 but had a lot more budget to play with and did some other things in a low end DSP.

Sorry Mr. Pebbles, but what you have stated is an out and out lie. That is right. You are lying.  This is a really easy test, as many PC based readers will give you the C1 and C2 and uncorrectable C2 error rate. If there are no uncorrected C2 errors, then all you blathering and rambling is meaningless. Typical manufactured CDs have only a couple uncorrectable C2 errors on the CD, and it takes larger scratches to create more.

All your mumblings about scattered light, wobble, is just meaningless deflection in the face of real data, i.e. uncorrectable C2 errors. You claim to be a scientist, or physicist or something. Show us your data.

No data, very easily collected to support your hypothesis Mr. Pebbles.  Very much noted yet again. Your silence is louder than any hypothesis you may preach.

Any evidence on a good quality audiophile transport that your "devices" result in a reduction in uncorrectable C2 errors.  Heck, you could start with a basic computer CD ripper (1x speed of course). It is rather shocking you don't have this already. Ideally the tests would be done by a 3rd party. It is not like you have the most trustworthy reputation.

geoffkait23,349 posts07-08-2020 8:50amAn innocent question: what evidence can change the mind of a Pseudo Skeptic? Answer at 11.

 I think this is the business model.

"But most of the scattered light - around 75% - is INVISIBLE and not amenable to absorption by ANY color, including green, turquoise, or even black."

It seems this is an advertisement for a product that claims to do what advertisement says it cannot do. What the heck?

Unfortunately, or is that fortunately, the statement is either wilfully or ignorantly incorrect. While orange may be the new black on TV, black is still black, and the most common black pigment is carbon black, which absorbs just fine, great actually at 780nm (and what would be used for the typically black plastic interiors).

Do you just make these things up? Laser Diodes are highly monochromatic. Cheap diodes in a CD player will have all their spectrum +/- 3nm.  These are not LEDs (which are still more monochromatic). 

The laser is not monochromatic but has an effective wavelength range of around 650-850 nm.