What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?
Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).
For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.
As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.
If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?
If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?
The most obvious one; there are changes but we do not have the understanding or equipment to measure them. It never fails to surprise me how many “engineers” on forums are under the impression that their (lack of) understanding trumps observation. Little knowledge is dangerous. Disclaimer. While I have heard the sonic changes of new cables burning in many times, I have never been able to hear any sonic impacts from turning a cable around. I do believe it’s a real phenomenon, but I cannot attest to it.
What kind of knowledge do you have? Are you psychoacoustics specialist? Have you read any book about psychoacoustics? Do you have any knowledge of electronics or acoustics or the human brain science?
Alex, I’ll have you know that dletch2 is the smartest employee at the Ace hardware. Engineering, neuroscience, psychology, music… you name it, he knows it all. The boss doesn’t allow him to lock up at night for nothing you know. 😂🤣
Except for you. Obviously. You have no biases whatsoever, and you are immune to all that 😂😂
It always amazes that people are so arrogant that they don't even accept that they have biases, and that their sited observations are totally prone to bias and that this arrogance goes so far to extend to insulting others knowledge, even though their experience and knowledge comes down to guesses and reading a few internet forums.
It always amazes that people are so arrogant that they don’t even accept that they have biases, and that their sited observations are totally prone to bias and that this arrogance goes so far to extend to insulting others knowledge, even though their experience and knowledge comes down to guesses and reading a few internet forums
This from mr "if I don’t understand something it means it isn’t real." Hilarious.
I have no biases.
In this particular case I stated that I couldn’t observe a difference when the direction of the cables were changed. (Doh) I simply communicate that which I have observed. When I cannot explain something, I say so. Not being able to explain my observation does not make my observation invalid.
You seem to be under the impression that unless you understand something, it isn’t true. How arrogant. Well, sorry to break it to you, you’re no einstein. You’re not an engineer and you most certainly do not have any experience with electronics. You don’t know how things work not because they’re not real, you don’t know how things work because you’re ignorant. Most of all, your ignorance doesn’t negate a single thing any one observes.
Get over yourself. The OP asked a legitimate question. If you cannot engage in a constructive manner, and clearly you cant, please do us all a favor and piss off.
You seem to be under the impression that unless you understand something, it isn’t true. How arrogant.
You are about right with this claim....
BUT not with this one...
You’re not an engineer and you most certainly do not have any experience with electronics.
If you read his posts you will discover and i know it because i have discussed with him harshly some time but with excitation also, that he is one of the most competent in electronic audio here...
Then insulting is not the right way....
For sure he is arrogant but incompetent he is not, sorry...
Truth matter......
The OP asked a legitimate question.
Yes and more than legitimate because his site demonstrated a dedication and seriousness very rare...
This thread is one of the most interesting one because of the questions asked by the OP....
alas! even if our friend is more than competent he is like all of us mortals very susceptible to his own blindness spot....And more susceptible than most because precisely of his higher competences....
Things are not simple .....People are most of the times not totally bad or good, not even always totally right or totally wrong ....Someone could be right on some aspect of the same question and wrong on some other aspects...
Actually dletch2, if you can be bothered to read what you just wrote it clearly says you cannot hear. Others can, but you cannot. So you rely on your "knowledge and experience". Whereas if you could hear you would rely on that. Therefore you cannot hear. Nor reason, apparently.
Dletch2 The op asked a question. He received an answer. Unfortunately he did not like that answer. He is looking for an answer that will not now, nor ever be correct.
Neither you nor djones51 answered the question, you just expressed your humble opinion about the audibility of the wires (bias and placebo = BS). You are not asked to talk about these rather trivial things, but you are plugging your ears and repeating your bias mantra non-stop in every post.
I want to remind you that you accused me of libel and said that you proved it. I am waiting for your proof, or do you not care about your reputation?
Biases are NOT and NEVER are a trivial fact, biases are complex and they are from different sources and could be positive or negative, eliminated, learned, reinforced,conscious, unconscious, innnate or not and transmitted like disease....And this is precisely because of that they also apply to disclaimers....If it was a cable pretense on the market it will be easy to put it on test.... But here it is SOMETHING ELSE....
Explaining any new experience and dismissing it on the basis of an alleged bias IS SOMETIMES trivial and cannot explain anything ESPECIALLY like in this case if the new experience was itself learned, and "blackboxed" already itself by one or many persons involved...
Then invoking trivially a bias is simply dismissing something on the spot and itself reflecting a bias, refusing to considerate anything further and excluding any further experiments and discussion which will derange a "status quo" or a belief or an acquired knowledge....
Blindtest is before being a "public" test a private one.... This is call "blackbox" experiment...Anton has already take many blackbox tests by himself and with others ....He is not alone with this experiment....
Absence of openness and arrogance are for me the only explanation of this easy dismissal attitude...
Anton has no cable to send here.... Then no public rigorous blindtest is possible before we take him seriously and stop insulting intelligence and host....
You cannot test for pitch hearing someone who never learned pitch before ......Is it not simple to understand? The bias at play here is not necessarily an "illusion" associated with a cable.....It could be a learned bias revealing something about reality.... Like the creation of a musical instrument was in ancient times....
Personally i had no opinion, except openness...Call that "credulity" but without this no new phenomenon could never be considered....I called it trust in people....
You can dismiss someone who will propose here a "new" cable with miraculous property....I will understand your skepticism... But Someone with great dedication and work behind him could not be treated like someone with nothing save pretenses about a marketted cable....It is very simple to test a cable .... Here it is another thing.... Save for those reducing anything to the only meter they own .....
djones51 It's rather amusing that you consider bias as trivial but hearing unknown signals with a sixth sense is meaningful.
Not hearing, but feeling. In my opinion, this is the only possible explanation if you definitely feel changes where they can not be according to the physics (changing a power cable, reverse a wire or fuse) . This is just logic and apparently you can't say anything sensible about this.
When i was listening to Bach "Art of the fugue" when i was young i think at first hearing that it was boring and heavy music....
I learn to hear it with my "feeling"... Feeling and playing it also help perception to increase a notch....I discover behind Bach an astonishing emotion that communicated to me the meaning behind this "boring" music and an access to his syntax...Then i listened to it and perceived it completely differently indeed...
It is my favorite work perhaps to this day..... I own many interpretations...
We dont perceive sound only by passively hearing them without emotion or sense feeling.... Sounds can have meaning in them, like the fall of many wooden cubes on the floor could create a melody... We learn to perceive pitch ....
And sound coming from tapping can reveal if 2 invisible spheres are cavernous or not with a hidden hole inside....If we add an orifice to one of these sphere the sound of the 2 spheres could not stay identical either....If we modify the size of the aperture of one of the orifice the sound will also differ....Then if we modify the shape of the aperture we will have another sonic information... If we change the material composition of the spheres it will be the same thing , the sound will inform us differently....
Then experimenting with "directed wiring" is something we must learn to do like experimenting with information linked to spheres of different size,shape, with hole,orifice, materials, etc
Sound is not for human ONLY an external purely physical acoustical phenomenon.... It is a psychoacoustical phenomenon whose meaning is testimony of the participation of the whole human being to the phenomenon...
In psychoacoustic, acoustic and physical measures are always linked and CORRELATED to the neurophysiology of perception but also to the discerning power of the will/mind/feeling of the human being and not only to a reduced modelization of the brain like a simple computer...
Pitch perception is a complex phenomenon for example always in debate and very deep ...
No artificial tool reproduction will by itself "explain" pitch perception, no more than an artificial heart explain the heart.....
Technology is linked to science but is not by itself science....
MAP IS NEVER THE TERRITORY.... But any general need only a map to make his point in a battle.... This will not prove that the general was knowing all that is important and meaningful about the territory....Claiming that the victory in the batlle was a "proof" that the general has known ALL there is to know about this territory reveal a very common bias: confusing map and territory and mingle and confuse them to make a point....
A model is only a model , it is an artefact not reality....
Or we must believe like some wanted us to do that consciousness will be reduced to A.I. and the virtual technological new world created by men will be "better" than the one with inhabit...
Do you think seriously that virtual reality could replace reality? Transhumanist believe that....They are very clever users and creators of new tools but philosophically idiots....They are in a cult....
Some very clever even think that we can recreate life evolution with a complex series of algorythm ....
To this day no man on earth understand the prime numbers distribution....Even if our most sophisticated tool in the internet are linked to coding with primes...
Just few years ago a new fact about primes was discovered and let mathematician flabbergasted....Prime has "BIASES" contrary to the statistical random hypothesis about them which our most successful tools to study them ask for to begin with....
I am sorry that people here refuse to learn even a modicum of relevant physics or engineering so that they would understand that the claims they make are easily dismissed. They would do it themselves if they possessed some relevant knowledge. That is not my problem ...
You’re the one who is sorry and it is entirely your problem.
I am sorry that people here refuse to learn even a modicum of relevant physics or engineering so that they would understand that the claims they make are easily dismissed.
Nobody refuse to learn here....
You are a master at strawman argument.....
Anton specifically acknowledged FROM THE BEGINNING that there is no detectable measuring signs of a change in the wire for in in his own experience also like you claim....Contrary to the cables marketers....
You accuse him of libel...
He wait with us for the fact you alleged and accused him....
Your only argument is accusing him of bias or hallucination.... No problem here if you would have not invade the thread claiming with absolute affirmation the absolute superiority of measures over perception which is a falsity anyway.... This confuse two definition of "accuracy" and reduce them to only one.....
Then you cannot treat him like a cable marketer because he said the same thing than you about the impossiblity to measure this change contrary to cable marketer who try to justify it by eelectronical new discoveries...... He claim only that human perception is not reducible to numbers which is a trivial fact of science.... Who is ignorant?
But your personal choice does not negate the hard cold facts of the physics that define the problem no matter how much deflection with unrelated thing Mahgister brings up.
All i said in my preceding post is related to your own bias that measuring electronical tools could detect any change in a directed wire which is undemonstrable but a supposition, is a professional habit so to speak, and the confusion of this habit with reality: audible human perception or experience, this professional habit is also a bias...By some engineering use of some known laws it is not measurable NOW....It is all you could say....Nothing more....
Psychoacoustic for example CANNOT BE REDUCED TO PHYSICAL ACOUSTIC...
By his design hubris it is usually a possible goal and dream in engineering...There is no problem with this except if the creator confuse his design with reality completely.... The fact that you can use a complex design gear to reproduce sounds does not prove that the ears/brain work like your gear.... Train dont create clouds....
Neither perception is ever reducible to measuring tool results only....Save in A.I. dream....
What you call your technical understanding of the problem is precisely the "hubris" of technology power in mingling and confusing map and reality...
After that you accused others of bias excluding yourself of any claim you made about the absoluteness of your own understanding, like pretending that pitch perception is reducible to physical frequencies.... It is not and i proved it with reflexions coming from an up to date known researcher .... Because you have called Essien, an unknown researcher a crook or a fraud or incompetent....Essien was saying the same thing: pitcp human perception is not explained by frequencies computer programming...
«The clouds in the sky are not produced by train vapor engine even if their mechanism reproduce some aspect of nature»-Anonymus Smith
Basically, you not actually making a point, you are just using about 10 logical fallacies
You make me laugh here....Sorry...And you are like the virgin pure of any of these sinsn ?
You never accused a doctorate researcher you never studied, accusing him to be incompetent even if i proved with a recent book that what he claimed was right ?
Do you realize that some people read this thread also and some can think by themselves?
By the way like i said in a preceding post i never question your competence in audio at all , i question your judgement here.... It is not the same thing.....
I will resume all i say in 2 words and suppress any arguments to the simplest one...Then all these 10 logical fallaciies you accused me of using will collapse into one argument only and more, to only a question?
Numbers are not perception and never will be....
Are you ok with that?
Yes or no ?
But beware if numbers are not equal to perceptions even if the designed tool can help to mimic perception then perhaps the claim of Anton COULD make sense...Some perception may exist without for NOW any electronical or electrical known explanations....And perhaps none at all if we appeal to only electrical tools...
Then asking for a blindtest on the spot instead of being sincerely interested in this experiment and trusting his sincerity is just a way of dismissing it without listening at all....
Then using the mother of all the fallacies i will use the sophism....
I will give you an example of sophism...
All perception must be reduced to a measurable fact Anton claim he listen difference non measurable, Then is is impossible...His claim is an illusion or a fraud...
The problem is that the premises are false...Or impossible to demonstrate...
Why not listening him and discussing instead of saying what he say is complete gibberish?
Electrical codes are have nothing to do with our understanding of physics changing. It is more about underestimating how stupid people can be, note comments in this thread. I also don't remember anything about rats chewing through wires in my quantum mechanics class.
Not all codes are changed because of the reasons you stated above. Some are changed because our understanding has changed.
You’re not an engineer and you most certainly do not have any experience with electronics.
If you read his posts you will discover and i know it because i have discussed with him harshly some time but with excitation also, that he is one of the most competent in electronic audio here...
Now that is funny.
I actually have read
(some of)
his posts. That's why I chose to not read any more of his posts.
In one post, he actually made the a claim that to implement feedback in a tube amplifier, you need to add "more tubes". If you have knowledge with electronic circuits nothing more needs be said.
If you don't have, I understand that sometimes folks without subject matter expertise can be swayed by BS. So no condemnation from me. If you consider mr bullwinkle here competent, that's your choice and none of my business.
But please refrain from sharing your belief in his competence with me. I have a real concern I may rupture my spleen from laughter. I'm sure there is a lot we can share w/o including our resident "engineer" no?
Ace hardware sells only GFCI that have met certification, you know they have been measured and tested so pick the one that fits your panel box if looking for a breaker.
And find a SS DAC that can do some of the things that arent measurable that make a tube DAC often sound better. Compare the number of tube DACs to the number of pure S.S. DACs. Compare what a single tube can do and then compare this with the amount of SS circuitry required to do the same thing. Increasingly, I think, this hobby is starting to understand the limits of measurement. How many years have speaker manufacturers made their designs low impedance to satisfy the consumers desire for more power only to find that low impedance loads dont sound nearly as good with 99% of amplification.
Tube dac/ versus S.S. dac, an already old war.... 😁
Why not defining good sound not by analog/digital war, or tube/S.S. ridiculous war, but by acoustical principles and experience in listening real natural timbre, beginning with the human voice ?
Why the result of Anton in reproduction of old 78 Rpm vinyls are so good?
Why are we together able to recognise this fact?
Because who are "programmed" by history, habit and evolution to recognize voice timbre...
Think about it...
THEN we must forget analog tube/digital S.S. wars....Different implementations are different precisely.... And acoustic control could overpower anything if we bought a good tube amplifier or a good S.S. amplifier, or a good turntable or a good dac to begin with....
ACOUSTIC in neuro-acoustic science and in room acoustic is the key to audio....
Even for " our friend" who worked precisely in this field or near it but who erroneously think that human hearing could be reduced to a tool minus the consciousness.... Or perhaps even not minus consciousness via A.I.
The linearity of DAC doesn’t depend from output buffer tube of solid state. It depends from chip used in the DAC or digital to analogue conversion method. Triode tubes are much more linear vs any type of transistors as amplification element. All good number achieved by transistor equipment are done used deep feedback that cause other even worse problems.
Well …. It looks like DLetch2 is gone. Whether banned or just quit on his own, I have no idea.
Honestly I am not surprised, following the previous patterns of this guy, most recently posting as Audio2Design, before that as AtDavid, Roberttdid, Dannad, and perhaps other names I lost track of.
One thing I guarantee is he will be back. Guaranteed. It will be easy to spot. Again.
Well …. It looks like DLetch2 is gone. Whether banned or just quit on his own, I have no idea.
Honestly I am not surprised, following the previous patterns of this guy, most recently posting as Audio2Design, before that as AtDavid, Roberttdid, Dannad, and perhaps other names I lost track of.
One thing I guarantee is he will be back. Guaranteed. It will be easy to spot. Again.
When that happens, let Tammy know. Report his posts, state in the reason his other names so she can suspend right away.
Another one Johnnyaudiogoon, same thing. Tammy asked for help spotting him.
Nor me. But one thing keeping the Hateful 18 list has taught me, some of these very disturbed people do come back again and again. You have spotted them doing it. Others have spotted them doing it. Not asking anything extra. Just when you spot them, report them. Wave the troll alert flag, let everyone know, when enough are saying yeah this is the same troll different name then Tammy can suspend them, a lot faster than this last one.
My recommendation is everyone new has their posts auto-reviewed for something like the first month/50 posts, something like that. They will still appear but not right away, only after being reviewed. Same as some others do it. This strongly discourages trolls since they are all very simple minded creatures barely able to think five seconds ahead, they are all here for the instant gratification and attention. So deny them the instant gratification and attention.
If measurements are the be all end all, then why do the top audio designers all do listening tests?
No serious designer in audio trust ONLY measurements and nothing else...They trust their ears at the end ...
The opposite impression is a stupid idea communicated by some technocultists or Skeptic club pseudo-scientist who are not also artist and craftsman...
"Most" audio designers or engineers are also artist that listen to test their creation....They love music not "accurate sound by the numbers on a dial"...
Good ones use both. They go back and forth. Some design for a certain sound they know it won’t measure great others strive for great sound and measurements.
As for me, I certainly expect the manufacturers to use instrumentation and measurements. Dah! Just as I expect them to use ears. Be it themselves, or “golden ears”, professionals who they can hire. At the end of the day, what they can come up with as a final product, can either be good, period, or tailored to their preferences in sound, whatever that is. That’s why trying for ourselves, in our own room preferably, is of paramount importance
A general response on how to answer this question, not personal to any of the commenters:
Most people want digested explanations presented to them and want to put in 0% effort to prove or disprove claims with their own effort. (Take all, give nothing.)To get a meaningful answer to any question in audio we need to put in effort and legwork. ;
Interestingly, the changes in the sound associated with the replacement and orientation of the wires can be recorded and played back. After digitizing, the difference will not be heard as clearly as in live, but the nature of several consecutive changes will already be recognizable and based on the recordings, you can track how much you have progressed in setting up your system or, conversely, how much you have been led away somewhere. The recording allows you to repeatedly return to the evaluation of the results and eliminates the influence of momentary deviations in perception related to mood, health, fatigue, etc.
Serious changes in the recording system, when you orient every wire, including the mains wiring in the room and select every detail of the system by ear, lead to a fairly noticeable difference in sound. For example, the violin, the most sensitive instrument to recording and playback errors, becomes more flexible, begins to SING more expressively, and the intelligibility of the individual instruments in the group improves. Here I can give a lot of examples, for instance, Grappelli's violin in its usual form sounds sharp, Django's guitar is lost in its background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-zSlE5ZgOA The 78 record gives us a completely different impression - the violin sings and at the same time does not obscure the guitar, which, as it turns out, can also sing if it is in the brilliant hands of Django. https://www.backtomusic.ru/19652 The frequency response in the recordings is quite different and this is the first thing that catches your ears. If you listen to the recording for at least 30 seconds, this difference ceases to interfere with the evaluation of the musical properties of the recordings.
When tuning up a system for digitization, almost always subjectively positive changes in the sound occur against the background of deterioration in technical characteristics caused by the rejection of the negative feedback, the use of imperfect homemade radio components (capacitors, resistors and coils), ancient triodes, and so on. As a result, we have a completely illogical situation: the most important moments for the perception of music are improved, while the technical characteristics of the system are deteriorated.
A question I've been asking myself for years - how can this be, if the technical (electrical) characteristics determine everything?
As a result, we have a completely illogical situation: the most important moments for the perception of music are improved, while the technical characteristics of the system are deteriorated.
A question I’ve been asking myself for years - how can this be, if the technical (electrical) characteristics determine everything?
The comparison of Grappelli and Django is stunning...
And like i already said this is the one of more important thread i ever read in audiogon....
The questions asked after Anton experiments and the comparison we can make listening his transfer of 78 Rpm says a lot....
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