@donavabdear Glad you found items that made a difference. Our Audio Hobby can be a never ending journey of different equipment and tweaks. If we could all start with stable and clean AC that would be a great start to eliminate one variable. Stand alone filters, conditioners, and regenerators all can give you good AC. AC cables, not necessarily expensive, made of quality materials and construction are important to minimize pollution of a clean AC source.
Start with clean AC and convert to stable DC in each component. However, audio remains a variable frequency and amplitude signal to process keeping unwanted noise at bay. Our home environments typically include cell phones, computers, smart TVs, Wi Fi, Bluetooth, and various convenience electronics that all contribute to EMI/RFI pollution. All that electronic noise can still cause problems with our audio equipment.
A Power Regenerator eliminated my system sounding different morning, afternoon, or evening. Prior to that several other "tweaks" made differences that were both audible and measurable. Each change was based on improving the quality of items like wire, capacitors, resistors, connectors, etc. Cost does not have to get out of control. Made my own quality shielded interconnect cables. Properly grounded everything, avoiding ground loops.
AC cables are a work in progress. Ditched the cheap manufacturer supplied cables and made one of my own and tried a couple reasonably priced "audiophile" cables. For my system different AC cables made much less difference that the Power Regenerator.
Everything matters, to a varying degree, due to many factors unique to each of our systems and environment.
Best of Luck.
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@texbychoice Thanks for the thoughtful post and the reference. To your question I bought a Boulder Preamp and that made a huge difference, and I just added 2x power filters (old Firman AC conditioners) for my Subs that are always noisy, I've been fighting with them for 4 years I love their sound and I really should know how to get rid of the hum but I have had only bits of luck here and there. Moving speakers around made a huge difference lately but honestly I don't think any of my cables really have made much difference I haven't spent a lot on cables probably just under 10k $, probably a much lower % of my system price than most here. But I do have about 18 of my speakers that are powered (the future), those speakers are super precise and have the best imaging I've ever heard (Genelec "The Ones"). Good cables are important but AC doesn't work on the audio side of quality equipment it's all run on the DC side so as you said the transformation to DC is the important part.
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Was the difference worth the cost for you? Only you can answer that question. Same for every other individual that is inclined to be frugal or go big $ with their system. Broad generalized statements that cables make a huge difference or can't possibly make a difference are worthless.
Similarly, extrapolating and extending must include all the variables involved when comparing which AC cable is used in audio versus another application. No doubt Audio Precision power supply, filtering, grounding, shielding, components, construction, etc. are designed to handle the good, bad, and ugly AC power. All Audio components are not necessarily designed to the same standards. Different AC cables may, emphasize may, make a difference in the audio realm.
Refer to the work of Galen Gaeris to learn the science involved in cable design. Reviewers and other opinions based only on R, L, and C only scratch the surface. Everyone does not need a cable designed by Galen Gaeris. Neither is it correct to say there is no difference in cable performance.
Try different cables, or not. Just don't claim what worked, or not, for you can be universally applied to every other situation. Same for reviews or measurements - no universal truth to be found there.
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@texbychoice
When you have a logic problem you extrapolate and extend the terms, you do this in math and physics all the time to see if your idea is valid logically. I'll take the extended criteria down a little. The standard piece of test equipment in the audio industry is the -Audio Precision Analyzer- it comes with a regular AC cable. If you get higher accuracy in the playback of audio equipment why doesn't a 30k $ audio tester use a fancy expensive AC cable like we use as audiophiles. Hope this is clear.
BTW I've spend about 30k $ in my listening system alone on power and power cables I feel I paid enough to have an opinion.
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@donavabdear Really? Your agenda is revealed. Paint a completely ridiculous scenario with no connection to audio so you can then justify a conclusion based on nothing factual. You want to discuss the merits of various cables used in the audio hobby, do so in a honest manner.
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@texbychoice
Ok you win fancy AC cables have nothing to do with accuracy in an electronic signal.
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@donavabdear The ASML system must be accurate and precise. There is far more complexity involved in that machine that has nothing to do with cables. Semiconductor fabrication does not hinge on cables as you want to argue. Intel production problems had nothing to do with the type of AC cable in use. Sorry, your premise is totally lacking in substance to provide any value to the audio hobby.
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What you fail to understand is that " accurate" in an acoustic perceived experience way cannot always be reduced to "accurate" in an electrical way by a limited set of electrical parameters among all possible ...
Human ears are trained by evolution to identify some qualities relating to timbre experience be it speech recognition or natural sounds, or musical one etc , This timbre experience acoustic qualities may be related in some case to the various parameters and material composition belonging or beside or near the vibrating resonant source and affecting it ...
Very simple experiment :
Put a big chunk of shungite on an amplifier...
Or try a big chunk of quartz...
Then try it many times and you will feel the difference with a music piece ...
Even if your electrical measures tool set will not detect any change in the amplifier specs you will hear a more compressed sound or a more meaty one with the shungite chunk and a more "clear" or less compressed or more high frequencies oriented sound with the quartz ...This is caused by the very different composition of these minerals affecting the playback system in such a way as impeding or improving the soundfield and timbre experience for the EARS/brain not for your measuring electrical tools... 😊
The fact that shungite work always in his way and the quartz work in his own opposite way is an OBJECTIVE fact...
If these AC cables did make the usable signal more accurate don’t you think they would use them?
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One could argue that rain is just excessive humidity, therefore an umbrella is not necessary.
Deniers can rationalize all they want that cables do not or should not matter but they do.
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@texbychoice
Nearly all electronics (not electrical) changes AC to DC. After the power is changed to DC the AC part is done, yes the transformer, rectifier and down powering circuits are important but any audiophile grade AC to DC conversion is easily done the the filtering is applied to the DC circuit.
the ASML doesn’t work on raw AC it works on DC and those engineers don’t feel that it’s important to use very expensive boutique AC cables with things like insulation bias and other such nonsense. If these AC cables did make the usable signal more accurate don’t you think they would use them? Im using this example because this is the most expensive and accurate machine in the world that is manufactured. If there were invisible advantages to audiophile AC power cables don’t you think they would be tested and used when the need for accurate is so important. Intel couldn’t make 5nm chips a few years ago and it nearly bankrupt the company, money is not in the equation of chip making only accuracy and the engineering to make it happen is and they don’t use special AC cables. Hope my argument is clear.
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#1 No logical comparison or correlation between the ASML system operation and home audio. There will be a long list of installation requirements from ASML that must be met to achieve proper performance, cable being a minor factor. Implying that ASML does not care about cable or AC quality to create a completely bogus controversy is silly.
#2 Apples to oranges premise that makes no sense.
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@mijostyn
One of the reasons I'm not a big cable guy is because good equipment should have a good power supply, and audio equipment uses DC at low voltages so I've never understood pre transformer and pre voltage regulation in the last 6 feet before the AC connection. I've got about 32k$ in power components alone not counting AC cables so I believe in clean power. I started in live sound and there are often power problems even in bigger venues, to fix power problems you need to fix or isolate the main transformers which is always expensive. I worked at a church that put in a big sound system and really did it right they spent money on isolated power transformers for the sound system, it was an analog system with about 200 channels for the orchestra. It was easy to mix but there was always more to do on every mix meaning it was so quiet that you could obsess about EQing the 2nd viola or French horn section and not ever get the mix you wanted. It's just like when we went to HD video in a the film industry when we stoped using film all of a sudden the makeup people were really extra worried about tiny little makeup details on the actors that were never seen on film cameras in the past. A blacker background is not always a good idea, makeup is a filter used in Hollywood to make homely people into beautiful movie stars.
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@donavabdear
Any piece of equipment with a well designed power supply only requires a power cable that can handle the current load. Increasing the gauge beyond that makes no difference. Dressing up the cable in a sock and adding good looking terminations and psychologically the system will sound better. Vision and hearing are hopelessly interconnected.
Having said that I stumbled into an exception. A friend related that he heard a cable make Sound Labs speakers sound better. He brought a pair to my house and in deed the cables actually worked. I ABed myself to death and sure enough fine details were more audible. On Waltz for Debby with the stock power cords the crowd noise in the background was audible but the speech was indeterminate. With the new cords I could clearly understand most of the background talk. The cord powers the very low tech high voltage power supply to the diaphragm. The power cord has some sort of filter in it. My guess is that noise in the AC is somehow interacting with the diaphragm to lower the signal to noise ratio. The speakers are powered indefinitely and at rest they are dead silent. The filter must be removing this noise that obviously is interacting with the audio signal.
This is an exception as the AC is being converted, amplified, to 5000 volts DC by a very basic power supply which is not regulated in any way. My guess is that the DC is being modulated by the "noise" and you would only notice this when a signal is applied to the speaker.
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This thread seems very...kenjit.
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@tomic601 I read the PR. Now to read around the subject of QC. Congratulations. Impressive. #dirac
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Then he might have changed his name to JJ Cable. (sorry)
i don’t think JJ Cale had great cables…but i often wonder…. what IF he had ?…..
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as an aside those interested in magic, soul and cables..might find interest in Water Lilly recordings…..
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@noromance Hi Brian - i did retire then randomly or not joined a Quantum computing company board….. there is a probability density function associated with compensation but it’s so far not a prime number….
i don’t think JJ Cale had great cables…but i often wonder…. what IF he had ?…..
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First i am not an audiophile who buy the magic of costly tweaks...
All my tweaks were homemade at low cost...
And my system /room was created with my homemade acoustic devices with basic acoustic...My system total cost is 700 bucks and optimized is the best for the price...
If you studied logic you must already know that there is no logic explaining the prime distribution... Prime distribution is a symbolic object not explained by logic at all ...
it is not my opinion here but the opinion of the greatest mathemathicians ...
I will give you an example how mathematician are puzzled by the MAGIC of primes : The primes’ preferences about the final digits of the primes ..
Read this:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-discover-prime-conspiracy-20160313/
I could have give more complex exemple but they are not simple at all ...
The Indian scientist i just cited above use the prime distribution matrix as an invariant to analyse what we may call the universal memory cell ...he created the first non-Turing machine as a geometrical model of the brain based on the prime numbers dynamics...
Prime are like a primordial musical phenomenon observed by human when a number system is designed but primes are independant from any bases system choices ... Primes are not based on human convention as logic are based on discourse and speech rhetoric... multivalued logic dont change this fact...
I cannot go further in an audio thread... But i gave some links above...
Magic is everyday miracles... mathematic is God music ask Grothendieck who wrote a book i read called the "key of dreams" or ask Ramanujan... And Ask Alain Connes...
we don’t understand prime numbers are not magical in fact they are the very opposite of magic they are logic.
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I think it’s interesting that no one has tackled the reason why the 300M$ ASML machine that demands nearly perfect accuracy uses info cables that are not as expensive as most used in our audio systems. Everyone knows that it is incorrect to compare cables carrying higher frequency info to cables using audio frequencies, but still AC is relatively all the same and that nagging fact that very expensive test equipment don’t use audiophile AC cables to test audio equipment.
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@mahgister
I do understand what you are saying, I’m definitely not a materialist I’m a Christian that thinks God has designed logic into all of his creation from the galaxies to the orbits of atoms. I disagree about your mystical view of math and logic in general.
once in college someone asked our math professor what his doctoral thesis was on, he said you wouldn’t understand. We were taken back here we were big shots taking to highest calculus class the university offered many students pressed on and got our professor to explain so he put one of his thesis problems on the board we didn’t even know that language sure it kinda looked like math but no one had a clue, he said I told you so.
Seems to me you are using the gaps in knowledge to justify the parts we don’t understand prime numbers are not magical in fact they are the very opposite of magic they are logic. If you listen to music that moves your emotions there is an explanation it may be very personal but it’s not magic. To be blunt you seem like a mathophile that delights in linking things like the logic of math and physics to other categories like emotions by way of popular jargon with slightly mystical bridges.
Acoustics and fluid dynamics are really hard subjects there is no room for anything but hardcore logic. Back in college I took some quantum math from a professor that was a bit famous in the field I thought it would be very interesting it wasn’t it was like statistics not physics no fun at all.
———————-
This is why audiophiles are so subject to snake oil and 700$ fuses 80k$ speaker cables they are smart and choose to live between the technical and emotional boundaries of knowledge. Some of the more experienced people on this forum just say -enjoy the music- and don’t bother.
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@tomic601 I thought you had retired? Or are you in an unreimbursed collective? 😃
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The ASML machine is producing chips, not music. End of story. People don't sit around listening to it print do they? A $62M rocket stage is "accurate enough" in what it does using "regular" cables, but nope, it isn't creating music either.
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The next step in A.I. will be A.C. artificial consciousness and it will be based on Non- Turing machine...
These non-Turing machines are grounded in the prime numbers distribution, which distribution is a meaning transcending any universe, any actual machine or any matrix...
Then claiming as in the nineteen century that matter exist and consciousness is an unecessary random derivatives is beyond ridicule and only reveal complete ignorance about the last century discoveries in maths and physics and in philosophy ...
Dont believe me read the links in my post above ... Anirban video will be hard to grasp but go in his book or articles...
Anirban is a genius the next one in the brain understanding , not in A. I. now outclassed by a deeper mathematical research, but in A. C. artificial consciousness machines...
The fact that i am a ferocious opponent of transhumanism technocratic materialism does not means that i dont understand the " limited science" behind it and behind the limited actual A. I. ....
😁
By the way via time crystals chains, for Anirban all the universe is a musical "machine" and music is not material but meanings embodied by rythms (numbers not mere physical waves) ... Matter dont exist in the absolute meaning of the word "exist" , music exist as prime numbers exist as absolute reality for any consciousness even for God ...
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Thanks for your kind appreciation and for the discussion ...
Magic and miracles are everyday life....Remember your childhood or read poetry... Spirit and consciousness does not disappear because we are able to discover physical laws... The fact that it takes sensible traces or writings dont transform the prime numbers distribution in a material fact...Music is not the written melody ,it is more... It is a meanings purely observed when some evolutive condition are reached but these evolutive conditions dont create meanings at all ...These numbers meanings transcend matter and precede it eternally even if this meaning can be embodied in a sensible form...
This embodiement is not his negation as a transcendant fact but his manifestation his revelation as meaning not randomness or meaninglessness ...You go beside my point completely not even grasping it... How could you deny its value ?😊
I spoke about MEANINGS given to a consciousness... For sure this meanings which is immaterial is associated to a material written word or letters or musical tonal chords... But the poetic, or prosaic meanings or the melody cannot be explained by the material embodiment of the meanings or by his material reproduction... The fact that Beethoven remembered music and used his hands to sense vibration and then "hear" music anew dont negate the transcendant content of the meanings toward which his quartet content strive ......Music is not sound waves but with and through sound waves as fire is not air but with air as his medium... Consciousness must exist to perceive meanings as a transcendant order over randomness and distinguishing the two states as revealed and to distinguish between wood, air and fire as distinct phases.....
Materialism is the dogmatic claims that meanings are related first to "matter" not to consciousness which is for materialism a secondary almost unnecessary by chance product ...I suggest you listen to the physicist and mathematician Wolfgang Smith or read his books about quantum mechanics ... ...Or the physicist Henri Bortoft about science method in Goethe...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M_uFQNDlvI
If you dont like the fact that Smith is a christian then pick agnostic Penrose or the french mathematician Alain Connes about the meanings of prime numbers distribution ..
or try Anirban bandyopadhyay the genius who designe actually the mathematics of the first artificial brain .. Read his book and be ready to stumble from your chair as i did... 😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SDcUA84Nlw
Think about the distribution of prime numbers which is the ground of arithmetic, this distribution cannot exist without a consciousness to OBSERVE IT because this distribution not only has a MEANING but is meaning itself manifested and not because it is written on a sheet of paper but because it takes a consciousness to perceive it in the suprasensible sky so to speak ... This distribution exist out and without this universe for any POSSIBLE consciousness ... This distribution is a given meaning to be observed even for any possible god...No god can nullify this meaning or decide it will loose his meanings... It is an absolute immaterial fact as the value of Pi is....We dont need a material SPECIFIC cosmos to observe these mathematical facts but we need a consciousness... They are the grounding of any universe possible into POTENTIAL and ACTUAL meanings...
By the way, it is not consciousness which is an unattainable format , it is "matter" as conceived before quantum dynamics which does not exist as independant of consciousness, consciousness is the ultimate reality...
Music is meanings for a consciousness through waves which are organized sounds given to a consciousness which organize matter in a way to make matter the conveyor of this immaterial meanings...
But meanings can be perceived through matter in the morphogenesis of all mammals bodies variations for example if we by creative imaginative perception relate all details of the forms to the metabolic dynamics under the appearance...But this does not makes meanings a trivial material facts...We need a consciousness to make the RELATION manifested as meaningful...
https://www.amazon.com/Threefoldness-Humans-Mammals-Toward-Biology/dp/0932776647/ref=sr_1_4?qid=1697982946&refinements=p_27%3AWolfgang+Schad&s=books&sr=1-4
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
― Max Planck
@mahgister
i understand and appreciate your thought. Using consciousness as an unattainable format doesn’t help it’s not magic whatever it is we know it’s not magic because it is within everyone. I’m being very literal here and I understand that just because the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on my signal cables in my playback system don’t mean that just because those cables measure sometimes worse than regular cables the difference is magic. Take out the waves in sound and you don’t have music Beethoven remembered his experience when he could hear and he did use his hands to feel the waves of the music, even if he wouldn’t have he still used a mechanical instrument to achieve his goal not a magical one the harpsichord or his experience .
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All this talk about music and souls yet not a single mention of Sam & Dave!
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I haven't been this mad since my cable supports failed and my speaker wires touched the floor!!!!! grrrrr :/
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@mahgister
i understand and appreciate your thought. Using consciousness as an unattainable format doesn't help it's not magic whatever it is we know it's not magic because it is within everyone. I'm being very literal here and I understand that just because the thousands of dollars I've spent on my signal cables in my playback system don't mean that just because those cables measure sometimes worse than regular cables the difference is magic. Take out the waves in sound and you don't have music Beethoven remembered his experience when he could hear and he did use his hands to feel the waves of the music, even if he wouldn't have he still used a mechanical instrument to achieve his goal not a magical one the harpsichord or his experience .
@tomic601
The day you make your breakthrough and quantum computing for the masses comes in will be the day we do understand acoustics and do develop a format that can hold music properly and someday understand consciousness when we can define it at least. AI needs quantum computing to be effective the big printer is getting down to the size of a molecule and won't be able to jump that hurdle very soon. It's not magic it's a matter of stuffing 10 pounds of information into a 2 pound bag as we try to do now.
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Your last statement couldn’t be more right @tomic601.
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I work in Quantum computing… our aim is to profoundly obsolete that printer….
people loved music long before Edison…..
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When Beethoven wrote his last quartets completely deaf, i doubt that he would have been convinced by this sentence :
Music is not magic it’s talented people making nice pressure waves in the the air and electronically stored in 1s and 0s or waves and magnetic fields.
Sound waves need an ears/brain to be interpreted or created as meaningful sound by the listener... Sound must be LEARNED...
But meaning is suprasensible phenomenon given to a consciousness or created by it , meaning while often perceived through material arrangement is not reducible to material arrangement in any way ...
For example the drawing of an undulated line can be interpreted as a "wave" by a sailor, a vibration by a physicist, or the curve indicating to the Sculptor Michel-Angelo the way to sculpt his Madona folding robe, or it can be a passing cloud in the dream of a poet... It can be anything because it is a symbolic form also not a mere material arrangement in analog or digital form and it is a symbolic form offered to our interpretation as any natural phenomena are ...
Meanings are not only mere facts, nor sensible manifested forms, they are FELT modification of our consciousness...
Then Beethoven wrote with his soul a music which was written by a deaf man to be understood as a soul event , a meaning, and not only heard by the ears in playback or live...
Then our soul was ignited in fire way before Edison... Technology does not ignite our soul , meanings did...
We mastered our tools till yesterday... Never before our tools has been proposed to became our masters before A. I. and our corporate powers domination ...
Technology is useful , nothing more; our freedom and meanings are completely out of the technology domain... It is our creativity and search for meanings and our freedom who stole the fire not A.I. ...
By the way on a pure scientific standpoint, music is not only magic as meanings but may stay magic as a sensible phenomenon for long ; because not only is it a transcendant meaning over and through the sensible wold, but we have not understood yet the psycho-acoustics behind hearing musical and speech sound... We have yet many hearing competing theories in science ...This science as other science investigate an open field not a closed garden yet... The cosmos is a mystery, not yet mere things waiting to be sold or patented as the corporate technocratic power wanted it to be...
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@tomic601
I think your note is more profound than you may think. I think in a way it can, given this fancy printer makes semiconductors which make our music it does in a way set our souls on fire. Music is not magic it's talented people making nice pressure waves in the the air and electronically stored in 1s and 0s or waves and magnetic fields. It's sorta like saying Edisons invention made it possible to ignite our soul on fire, I think that's true.
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i doubt the fancy printer can duplicate the soul….. especially that set on fire by music…
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@tvrgeek
outstanding post.
I feel like I'm always putting down audiophiles but I'm really trying to stick up for them because I have a long background in all kinds of sound reproduction. It is clear to me that audiophiles really have a hugely inflated view of the production of recording and live sound it is very far from even being close to perfect.
I just bought a more expensive preamp and it really sounds so much better, the difference was between tube 8k$ and a 28k$ SS the tube sounded really buttery and wonderful but noisy and the SS sounded more sterile accurate and quiet. The SS (Boulder) won even though it doesn't sound as wonderful as the tube preamp.
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Excellent post...
But i differ a bit about these three "goals"...
Using measurements specs of a single component even verified to determined if the sound experience will be good, is an "objectivist" beliefs which some want to impose on all audiophiles, this tactic is from some kind of misplaced attitude in electrical design which cannot replace anyway psycho-acoustic goals and methods ... The last revolution in listening come from psycho-acoustics not from electronic design of components even if a new DSP will come from this knowledge ( See Edgar Choueiri BACCH )
"Subjectivists" use their "tasting" ears only to define with most of the time highly costlier components as upgrades and imposing this through marketing and forums as true audiophile experience some branded names, this is a marketing tactic not psycho-acoustic goals and methods ...They forgot that hearing must be trained in acoustics not by listening amplifier or dac tasting...
Measures must includes acoustics and psycho-acoustics measures , not mere specs of each component; and ears must be trained by acoustic concepts and experiments including music basics...These are the ONLY goal....And we dont need new word, the basis of audiophile experience is determined by psycho-acoustics... The word psycho-acoustics exist already and the science connected to it... Audiophiles then love sound and experiment and use psycho-acoustics basic to determine for themselves a good sound experience... they are neither subjectivist nor objectivist... The subject cannot be separated once for all from the object in psycho-acoustics save for specific controlled experiments ...
I will add my personal experience with mechanical, electrical and acoustical system embeddings controls which matter as much as mere specs of separate component if synergy is there to begin with, then measured specs are insufficient, and embeddings controls matter more than costlier upgrades which are often unnecessary anyway...
For A. I. we have a long road to go, and i concur with tvrgeek , but this long road will be travel in a shorter time than we think.... I absolutely reject all transhumanists thinking ideology not because they are delusional about artificial intelligence, they are, but not as much and not in the way most people think... And anyway the beginning of Artificial consciousness with a mathematic way over the statistical tool used in neural network is already here... i pointed out by whom and which maths in a post above...
Transhumanism is way more erroneous and delusional and dangerous, and actually in dominance everywhere, it is for sure a more lethal ideology than audiophiles sectarism and ignorance of psycho-acoustics which is hilarious...😁
I dont think though that A.I. is hilarious now.... because it is a spiritual battle... ( i am not religious at all here)
I think we need a new terms in our hobby for three different goals. "Audiophile" is not a good word. Once upon a time, maybe we could say it was someone who appreciates music reproduction enough to sit and listen, and the hobby that represents. Not sure we are still there.
Kind of like the early computer days. "Hacker" was someone who dug into the OS and figured how it worked, made it better and learned. I was a proud hacker in disassembling the BIOS and changing the CAS/RAS timing to run a Z80B in my Kaypro. I wrote a Greek character PROM to match a Diablo daisy wheel. That was hacking. Then it became a bad word for people doing bad things to other peoples computers. The term "cracker" never took off. We do have a problem with words being stolen. Female dog, Person in a happy mood, etc. Context seems to not matter, just the word.
One term would be for the pure measurement objective only who thinks traditional static measurements are perfect and everyone else is wrong. All DACs are the same. All amps the same as they are below the "scientific .1% level. Their pursuit is for some level of perfection if it passes by our limited set of measurements, it must be right. And yes, ALL cables, analog and digital, are the same.
The opposite far end are the ones with unlimited funds and who believe in magic if it costs enough. To them, any system not costing as much as a house is "not resolving enough" and science is wrong. Somehow a power plug can unmask spatial details that were not recorded in the first place and believe only their hearing is 100% objective and if they hear it it must be real as they are immune to the placebo effect.
Then the rest who just want the best musical experience we can afford. Objective measures are only one data point as we understand they are limited. We also use our hearing. It is not objective, but it is what we think and our experience is what matters. Price is a matter of if it is worth it, some having a higher threshold than others, not what our friends think or a justification for being right because you paid more. It’s about if the music is enjoyable to us. Even if we fall for placebo effects.
Three different goals.
Computer Science comment: AI is based on data sets making an average assumption based on history training. Then newest technologies are "learning systems" in that good and bad guesses continually get logged to improve the data set. By the current technology, it may mimic a population, but not an individual. I prefer Turner to Rembrandt, Picasso to Warhol. What would some AI engine think? AI is a bad phrase. The earlier pre-press coined to be dramatic for headlines catch phrase" is "Expert System" and that is a far more accurate term. If anyone thinks AI is super advanced, they should look into the effort Kodak did to determine which way was up in a digital photograph. Hilarious actually.
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I think we need a new terms in our hobby for three different goals. "Audiophile" is not a good word.
It's a fine word. Audiophiles apparently make you uncomfortable, and so the word makes you uncomfortable, too.
The opposite far end are the ones with unlimited funds and who believe in magic if it costs enough. To them, any system not costing as much as a house is "not resolving enough" and science is wrong.
Logical fallacy, straw man argument. It's odd that you work so hard to portray yourself as a person of science and reason, but then resort to such lazy and and sloppy arguments.
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I think we need a new terms in our hobby for three different goals. "Audiophile" is not a good word. Once upon a time, maybe we could say it was someone who appreciates music reproduction enough to sit and listen, and the hobby that represents. Not sure we are still there.
Kind of like the early computer days. "Hacker" was someone who dug into the OS and figured how it worked, made it better and learned. I was a proud hacker in disassembling the BIOS and changing the CAS/RAS timing to run a Z80B in my Kaypro. I wrote a Greek character PROM to match a Diablo daisy wheel. That was hacking. Then it became a bad word for people doing bad things to other peoples computers. The term "cracker" never took off. We do have a problem with words being stolen. Female dog, Person in a happy mood, etc. Context seems to not matter, just the word.
One term would be for the pure measurement objective only who thinks traditional static measurements are perfect and everyone else is wrong. All DACs are the same. All amps the same as they are below the "scientific .1% level. Their pursuit is for some level of perfection if it passes by our limited set of measurements, it must be right. And yes, ALL cables, analog and digital, are the same.
The opposite far end are the ones with unlimited funds and who believe in magic if it costs enough. To them, any system not costing as much as a house is "not resolving enough" and science is wrong. Somehow a power plug can unmask spatial details that were not recorded in the first place and believe only their hearing is 100% objective and if they hear it it must be real as they are immune to the placebo effect.
Then the rest who just want the best musical experience we can afford. Objective measures are only one data point as we understand they are limited. We also use our hearing. It is not objective, but it is what we think and our experience is what matters. Price is a matter of if it is worth it, some having a higher threshold than others, not what our friends think or a justification for being right because you paid more. It's about if the music is enjoyable to us. Even if we fall for placebo effects.
Three different goals.
Computer Science comment: AI is based on data sets making an average assumption based on history training. Then newest technologies are "learning systems" in that good and bad guesses continually get logged to improve the data set. By the current technology, it may mimic a population, but not an individual. I prefer Turner to Rembrandt, Picasso to Warhol. What would some AI engine think? AI is a bad phrase. The earlier pre-press coined to be dramatic for headlines catch phrase" is "Expert System" and that is a far more accurate term. If anyone thinks AI is super advanced, they should look into the effort Kodak did to determine which way was up in a digital photograph. Hilarious actually.
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My friend designs on very sensitive sonar equipment and says that interconnects matter.
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@mahgister ....It...'They'....whatever....might mess with the lyrics in some fashion, for one....
"...'scuse me, while I eat this fly..."
Classical fiascos....Rap Country...Alt Choral....the mind would reel, the ears burn....
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To perceive a sound as meaningful the brain must interpret it , A.I. will be designed mathematically to interpret it as our brain does, not in the same manner and ways but designed to give results that will fool us...
Music is a meaningful sound which is way more than just linear Fourier acoustic maps because the brain dont work linearly and work in his own time domain but A. I. will emulate it... The problem is human creativity is expressive in an esthetical and spiritual sense , this will be trade for the easier indifferent and neutral creativity of the machine and humans will lose something...
Then we will used by conditioning to gave ourself to the machine...Nothing absolutely bad with that , but we will lose something and we will be in the obligation to compensate for this lost part of the soul in education ..
If not A. I. will cause as in medieval times an immuration of the soul....
I don’t see how AI will impact how we hear music?
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@bigtwin Your not ignorant at all, your note reminds me of the old saying, "your most important sexual organ is your brain".
@wolf_garcia I have miked and gone direct, put guitar amps in caskets, put them on stage behind the vocals, put them on the side of stage as the string section, and mixed them with every mic ever made (good old SM 57 works great). But I don't know why there is such a difference between the sound of an amp and the sound of an amp on a recording.
A friend of mine went to an electronics store with Eddie Van Hallen he bought an expensive amp and literally took it apart in the parking lot and threw everything away except for a single tube he wanted.
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@mahgister @donavabdear With my limited understanding in many fields, I think what we perceive as sound is the result of the change in pressure (vibration) created by the speaker and bouncing through our ear canals and ear drums (simplified explanation of our complex ears). So unless you are physically changing the function of our ears, or possibly creating a hearing aid like device to improve our ears, I don't see how AI will impact how we hear music? Maybe I'm just showing off my ignorance but..........
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Question one: 🍎 and 🚗. Not even close.
Question two: 🍎 and 🍅. Do you want your rig to sound like you are sitting outside the venue?
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I am of the same opinion as you...
But there is also a price to pay for A.I. domination as tool becoming more than a tool...
We will see soon ...
@mahgister
Thanks for your note, I had a feeling you'd have some interesting thoughts. I think A I will change everything in sound one of the interesting things that will change soon will be the meaningless ideas that we pay so much for today that will be totally missing from future systems. A I won't understand fluff or aesthetics or marketing hype. A I may finally give the end user a standard for acoustics then after that we can modify the sound to suit our taste. A I will need quantum computers to really change things but that is just around the corner as well.
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You'll have to try harder if your intentions are to make us mad.
I was going to suggest that if you are seeking the true sound of a piano, you should simply buy one but I see you already have one, so maybe you should just enjoy your music.
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I'm not mad.
#1. Don't know.
#2. Don't care.
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I can stand on the streets of Savannah and listen to live musicians and imagine that I am in front of my stereo. I can sit in front of my stereo and imagine that I am at a live concert. I think it is all due to my special cables- or I’m too old and decrepit to no longer know the difference...
Thomas Edison started marketing his new phonograph in 1916 by having a live singer stand next to his phonograph on stage. He would task the audience with guessing if the singing was live or the recording. (No mention if he used special cables.) Over a hundred years later and we are still trying to find that magic.
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There's a basic lack of understanding here about guitar amps, and I'm too lazy to address it. However, I generally plug my TWINSCAN NXE:3600D into a wall socket and let it rip...it still doesn't sound very good but...meh...I understand psycho acoustics as the sound reflected off of a shower stall as recorded by Alfred Hitchcock.
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