Yes, cables do make a difference -- regardless of price...

laoman

335 posts

02-07-2024 at 03:42pm

@lordrootman

 

"OP can you pass a honest A and B test?" Did you read the op? Is this not exactly

what he did?

No, @laoman , OP did not do a controlled A/B test (based on OP’s wording). He and his better half were probably role playing, and someone might have played the horse: read up on Clever Hans - it’ll be a shortcut to understanding how pervasive and subtle bias can be via the simplest of cues, and has been widely acknowledged for roughly a century. Doesn’t mean the differences assumed (between cables) were necessarily absent, it just means they’re being assumed without verifying something besides bias.

Bias as a word is similar to “theory” - many folks don’t understand what it actually is or how it applies in science, so as a word it often “lands” on ears/eyes differently than it probably should.

@soix funny aside - “flat earther” denotes someone who disregards all scientific evidence for the earth in fact being spherical, while demanding no scientific evidence to support the belief earth is flat. In the absence of empirical evidence for cables differing audibly (be it either measurements or rigorous preference studies), I think you might not be using that phrasal poke as deftly as you seem to assume? 😅

Studies are easy to do; they’re quite complicated to do correctly without proper understanding of the discipline(s) involved. Conversely, it seems surprisingly natural for folks to state anecdotal perception as broadly applicable fact. It’s a conundrum that extends well beyond unverified perceptions in home audio. Sigh.

The baseline purpose of making comparisons (the cable swapping exercise) that gave rise to this thread was: get good sound for recording audio books. It seems like that end was achieved, so it’s not of consequence that the road travelled was not an experimentally valid one. I’m glad the recordings worked out well and don’t see that as grounds for fussing over anything. 😁

@crozbo based on your last comment: Was your wife reading the track live for each cable, or were you re-recording the same pre-recorded reading by her for each cable? I know the latter sounds incessantly redundant, but, if you recorded a different live reading for each cable, you were comparing your wife’s live takes, not cables. In that scenario, using different cables was a confounding factor to assessing the quality of your wife’s reading, not the other way around, again - if it was multiple (different) live takes.

laoman

336 posts

02-08-2024 at 07:48am

@benanders

"Listening through headphones via the Scarlett 2i2, it was super easy to hear distinct differences in these cables. The differences were not small and very apparent."

This does not sound like role playing to me. You actually sound like one of the minions on the ASR site.

@laoman My role play comment was tongue-in-cheek to point out an experimenter effect would be plausible given OP stated he’d already perceived audible variation among cables in his stereo system. In lieu of a minion-hunt or any other expression of “home team vs. visitor” mentality, how ‘bout we continue to heed the OP’s last remark?

Imagine peace everyone.

Well this thread sure ran longer than a few mic cables 😅

Main discrepancy is revealed by the term belief. Belief is best applied to things that can’t be experimentally assessed. While it’s obvious for some pursuits, it doesn’t need to apply to comparing electronic playthings in lieu of properly controlled analyses.

If a person declines applicability of scientific methodology over an assemblage of anecdotal opinions based on invisible perceptions, and that person is an adult, a change of mindset might be less likely. This in no way is limited to audio stuff.

There seems to be high correlation between folks who think audible difference between cables is predictable and folks who do not prioritize properly controlled assessment to demonstrate said predictability being reality. Those folks may think they have a firm grasp on the scientific method, however, which can be a complication for level exchange of ideas moving forward.

There also seems to be correlation between folks who understand scientific methodology, and folks who get flustered over the aforementioned mindset saying audible differences in cables is definitely predictable.

Adults can be challenging to educate (convert?) on the scientific method (including experimental design and statistical analysis; never mind the psychology element behind preference studies…) if they already… believe… they have a firm grasp on how it is supposed to work.

That is the process - not just the pattern - why cables and all other discrepancies about predictable difference in audible sound - can’t be sorted in one short exchange of thread back-and-forth’s. It really should be that easy, and that neutral.* 😬

*neutral in the emotional denotation of the word, and not the array of ways in which it’s applied to audiophilia 😜