"Michael Scarpitti" wrote in message
news:x9Ccc.78936$gA5.970093@attbi_s03...
"josko" wrote in message
...


You actually prove my point, Bruce. These are both very good
cables, I
presume. The difference between cheap cables and good ones is easy
to
tell. When I say 'I can tell the difference between cables' I
don't
mean between similar-quality products, but those of different
quality.

Isn't this a case of circular reasoning? Cheap cable -- poor
quality.
Expensive cable -- high quality. Sighted test reveals, to you, that
expensive cable sounds better than the cheap cable, on some ad-hoc
measure(s) that is/are relevant to you. Not surprising really. You
start with a hypothesis that there should be a difference in sound
between the two and then you find the evidence that this indeed is
the
case. Ah... Human nature. Isn't confirmatory hypothesis testing
wonderful? And quite a problem to overcome if one's goal is to
judge
equipment based on the sound alone.

What 'hypothesis' are you talking about?

Quoting you: "The difference between cheap cables and good ones is easy
to tell."

Or: "When I say 'I can tell the difference between cables' I don't mean
between similar-quality products, but those of different quality," which
again implies that you think that cables of different quality sound
differently. This claim of yours also implies that you can infer
quality of cables and I kinda doubt that because you keep repeating, in
one way or another, that quality and price are perfectly correlated, and
they are not. Not even close (this is actually based on some empirical
studies of various products). It seems that you use price as the key,
if not the only, proxy for quality (the other one is possibly brand
name). Hence, a $100 Monster interconnect cable sounds better to you
than a $50 Monster interconnect cable and you would be really surprised
if that is not the case.

I did not start out with any
'hypothesis' that there would be or would not be any difference,

Ahhh... so common in the exchanges that I had with other audiophiles on
the same topic on RAO and RAHE: We basically live on Mars, in perfect
isolation, we do not ever communicate with other fellow
audiophiles/friends, we never read audiophile magazines and even if we
do we are able to tune out all of that. I doubt that simply because a
person who considers himself to be an audiophile and entertains the idea
that there is something to be learned from sighted evaluation of two
basically same or very similar interconnects wouldn't really do that if,
at the very least, he doesn't expect the whole "experiment" to be a
valuable learning experience. The rest of the biased evaluation goes
like this: once you "detect" a difference you attentionally zero in on
it and then you "hear it" over and over again. "Frequency extremes are
cleaner" becomes a working hypothesis and every subseqent audition
reveals that indeed "the bass seemed tighter and the treble cleaner".
The problem is not only that you zero in attentionally on these
differences, but you probably also do not level match between listening
sessions and this lack of level matching contributes to the illuson of
cleaner frequency extremes. Also, it is common for people to use
non-diagnostic "evidence" to support the hypothesis in any judgment.
This is especially the case with quasi-experts and audiophiles are such
a group. Very often they know minute details about various products,
yet at the same time they lack basic engineering knowledge about "how
things work", not to mention that sometimes they have completely flawed
mental models about how specific pieces of equipment work (hence
infinite resolution of vinyl and stair-step soundwaves output by DAC for
example). In this context, then non-diagnostic "evidence" is price,
brand name, and differences in level from one session to another.

but I
was willing to listen and use my own judgement about what I heard (or
did not hear). I have purchased a few cables over the years, including
some that were custom-trimmed. I compared several of these cables at
one point and found no discernible differences. Then I tried a much
costlier cable (Monster brand) and it stood out from the others. The
differences were subtle, but the bass seemed tighter and the treble
cleaner. The frequency extremes, in other words, stood out from the
cheaper cable.

Those who claim that there are no differences must be using crummy
sources or transducers.

Those who claim that there are differences between a $50 Monster
interconnect and a $100 Monster interconnect should try using a test
with implemented bias controls.