"Bruce Abrams" wrote in message
news:Mx_ac.156391$Cb.1611810@attbi_s51...
"Michael Scarpitti" wrote in message
...
(Nousaine) wrote in message
...
lcw999 wrote:

I still wonder why some amp/cable manufacturer with nominally
competent
electrical performance can't produce a bias controlled listening test
that
shows their products have any sound of their own?

It's a quandry. So many want me to "believe" but when I say "OK show
me
...
when you don't know the answers in advance" --- no one can. I'm not
thinking
that 'unmeasurable but real' differences fit into the equation in a
meaningful
way.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that top-tier products like
cables have little 'sound' of their own, and that it's the cheaper
stuff that does.

Actually, it should come as a great surprise to those who are willing to
spend mega-bucks on cables every so often, and even more of a surprise to
the reviewers who wax poetic over the incredible difference one megabuck
cable makes over another.

Ergo, the better the quality, the more closely
perfection is approached, and the subtler the differences. Comparisons
between two brands of high-end cables are less likely to show
differences than comparisons between cheap cables and high-end cables.

Perhaps you could explain the reasoning in the above statement. What is
it
that a "high-end cable" does better than the "cheaper stuff" that would
make
it sound different? You suggest a measure of quality. Can we define
"quality" in this context? If two pieces of wire measurable pass a signal
equally well and are sonically indistinguishable under controlled
conditions, what other qualitative measure would you apply? Does it make
a
difference if one is 12 guage Home Depot speaker wire and one is Kimber
Black Pearl? You stated that, "...the better the quality, the more
closely
perfection is approached, and the subtler the differences." What if the
quality of the "cheaper stuff" was already adequate to be functionally
perfect for the application?

Here's an example of what I mean: 802.11B runs at 11 megabit, while
802.11G
runs at 22 megabit, so G must be better/faster, right? Well if the only
thing I use my wireless network for is internet access and my internet
bandwidth is 5 megabit, is G better? Only in technical sense, as I will
perceive no benefit.


If you will lay your prejudices aside, The Absolute Sound has run a survey
of speaker cables in the last two issues (Feb/Mar, Apr/May just out).
Previously they did a survey of interconnects. Both surveys done by Paul
Seydor and Neil Gader. To quote part of Paul's summary: "... Let me also
emphasize that our capsule descriptions have for the most part *really
magnified* the differences among these cables. The reality is that it
typically required keen, rather exhausting, and decidedly *not* enjoyable
concentration to ferret out most of the individual characteristics we've
attempted to describe. Could we tell which cable was connected up, say, a
few hours after a session or the next morning, if we didn't know? Maybe
with the cables that fell to either extreme of the tonal-balance spectrum,
but, as in our interconnect survey, I'd not want to place my hard-earned
money on it...." (TAS, *Loudspeaker Cable Survey, Part Two*, April/May 2004
pp 63-64). BTW they included a 14gauge Home Depot cable derived from an
outside power cord in the survey and it did pretty well.

This group's objectivists might want to consider that they have continued to
attack their own fantasia, while the audio world has moved on.