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#1
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
I have to wonder where all of this mythology about interconnects and speaker
cable comes from. When I first got out of college, many years ago, I went to work as an engineer at Lockheed Missiles & Space Company's Cable Laboratory where I spent three years. In the process of specifying all of the cable and connectors for the Polaris Poseidon Missile, I learned pretty much all there is to know about both cable and connectors and their application to everything from low voltage DC to UHF AC and everything in between. It turns out that both are very well understood and very well characterized areas of electronics and as theory goes, the principles are quite simple. There are no "unknowns" about designing specific cables for specific applications, there is no voodoo, no magic, and there have been no "breakthroughs" in the last 50 years to account for the kinds and prices of cable that are being marketed by audio snake-oil salesmen. I will also guarantee you that IF any breakthroughs in this area have occurred, they did not emanate from companies like Nordost, AudioQuest, Kimber, et al. The bottom line is that for DC through about 100KHz, wire is easy. Almost anything that is a decent conductor from aluminum to copper to silver will work equally well in any practical sense. Above about 10 KHz, length becomes a problem with coaxial cable and small signals. Any interconnect using coaxial cable will start attenuating frequencies above 10 Khz at some cable length. But this length is pretty long. If you have your preamp in the den, and your high-powered tube power-amps in the garage, 80 ft away, then you need to choose your interconnects for extra-low shunt capacitance and low resistance. But, if your components are located on the same shelf next to one another, or, are on different shelves of the same cabinet, where they are only a meter or two away, Any audio cable will work equally as well as any other, and none will have ANY effect whatsoever on the resultant sound. Several things are for sure, cables, whether interconnects or speaker cables, which alter the signal passing through them are not doing their job. At best they are "fixed tone controls" and at worst they are a fraud. As far as plain cables are concerned (IOW, just plain wire or coaxial cable with the proper connectors and terminations on each end), no double-blind test has EVER been able to distinguish a cheap or home made interconnect from an expensive one. Also, no double-blind listening test has ever been able to tell the difference between a properly sized (for the power being transferred) length of zip-cord and any exotic speaker cable either. My advice is to buy on build quality. Nothing is more frustrating than an RCA to RCA interconnect that has failed. Cheap, molded ones tend to be unreliable, well made ones tend to last longer. If your equipment has gold-plated female RCA connectors on it, by all means buy interconnects that have gold-plated male RCAs on them. The beauty of gold is not that it's a great conductor of electricity, it isn't. But what it is, is non-corrosive making the connection surfaces clean, thus maximizing the surface contact area. While correctly designed cables make no difference in the sound, dirty or loose connections can. Keep your connector interfaces clean by using cable cleaners and contact enhancers such as DeOxit and Stabilant* and keep your connections tight. Forget the fancy, expensive stuff (unless you have money to burn and just like the bling factor. I don't think that most expensive interconnects and speaker cable are any worse than honest, well made and inexpensive ones, they just aren't any better), buy decently made cables and enjoy your audio system. *Stabilant contact enhancer used to be sold by Dayton-Wright as "Tweek". While Tweek is no longer available, Stabilant 22A (which is what Tweek was) is available in bulk form from a number of online suppliers. Google is your friend. Believe me, this stuff is NOT mouse-milk like green-pens for CDs, it really enhances contact area on two mating surfaces by filling in the microscopic voids in the metal. Nostrums like this which sport Mil-Spec numbers, SAE part numbers, and NASA part numbers (as Stabilant does) are unlikely to be frauds. It works on several levels. Not only does it increase surface area of mating connectors, but it forms a film between them that keeps corrosion OUT, insuring a gas-tight connection. It isn't cheap, but a 15 ml bottle will last many years. |
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#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
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#4
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
everything you say matches all the theory we all learned. However, I can
report personally testing a range of cables to interconnect a preamp and a power amp and finding SIGNIFICANT differences in the resulting sound. the cable length was about 3 meters in all cases. Cables tested ranged from commercial ones (up to $$$) as well as a range of ones I made myself from different types of wires including twinax, teflon insulated TSP, CAT 5, and some others. Connectors in all cases were XLR, other components were not changed. I had no preconceived notions about which of the homebrew would sound better so you can't blame a bias. Twinax was horrible, the best was the cat 5 type cable with a very specific connection arrangement - I could actually (to my surprise) hear a difference depending on whether I connected the pairs with one half to the + the other to the -, or if I shorted pairs and used two to + and two to -. I have no idea why this should be so, but the fact of the matter is that it was (is) so, and that effect was heard clearly by others in my family that had no interest in the outcome. So, clearly there is some difference in the cables - but I don't' know what, or why it has the effect. Now that the system is set up, cables are in place, and I'm happy enough with the sound, I actually don't know that I care what the cause of the effect was, but the effect was and is certainly real. "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... I have to wonder where all of this mythology about interconnects and speaker cable comes from. When I first got out of college, many years ago, I went to work as an engineer at Lockheed Missiles & Space Company's Cable Laboratory where I spent three years. In the process of specifying all of the cable and connectors for the Polaris Poseidon Missile, I learned pretty much all there is to know about both cable and connectors and their application to everything from low voltage DC to UHF AC and everything in between. It turns out that both are very well understood and very well characterized areas of electronics and as theory goes, the principles are quite simple. There are no "unknowns" about designing specific cables for specific applications, there is no voodoo, no magic, and there have been no "breakthroughs" in the last 50 years to account for the kinds and prices of cable that are being marketed by audio snake-oil salesmen. I will also guarantee you that IF any breakthroughs in this area have occurred, they did not emanate from companies like Nordost, AudioQuest, Kimber, et al. The bottom line is that for DC through about 100KHz, wire is easy. Almost anything that is a decent conductor from aluminum to copper to silver will work equally well in any practical sense. Above about 10 KHz, length becomes a problem with coaxial cable and small signals. Any interconnect using coaxial cable will start attenuating frequencies above 10 Khz at some cable length. But this length is pretty long. If you have your preamp in the den, and your high-powered tube power-amps in the garage, 80 ft away, then you need to choose your interconnects for extra-low shunt capacitance and low resistance. But, if your components are located on the same shelf next to one another, or, are on different shelves of the same cabinet, where they are only a meter or two away, Any audio cable will work equally as well as any other, and none will have ANY effect whatsoever on the resultant sound. Several things are for sure, cables, whether interconnects or speaker cables, which alter the signal passing through them are not doing their job. At best they are "fixed tone controls" and at worst they are a fraud. As far as plain cables are concerned (IOW, just plain wire or coaxial cable with the proper connectors and terminations on each end), no double-blind test has EVER been able to distinguish a cheap or home made interconnect from an expensive one. Also, no double-blind listening test has ever been able to tell the difference between a properly sized (for the power being transferred) length of zip-cord and any exotic speaker cable either. My advice is to buy on build quality. Nothing is more frustrating than an RCA to RCA interconnect that has failed. Cheap, molded ones tend to be unreliable, well made ones tend to last longer. If your equipment has gold-plated female RCA connectors on it, by all means buy interconnects that have gold-plated male RCAs on them. The beauty of gold is not that it's a great conductor of electricity, it isn't. But what it is, is non-corrosive making the connection surfaces clean, thus maximizing the surface contact area. While correctly designed cables make no difference in the sound, dirty or loose connections can. Keep your connector interfaces clean by using cable cleaners and contact enhancers such as DeOxit and Stabilant* and keep your connections tight. Forget the fancy, expensive stuff (unless you have money to burn and just like the bling factor. I don't think that most expensive interconnects and speaker cable are any worse than honest, well made and inexpensive ones, they just aren't any better), buy decently made cables and enjoy your audio system. *Stabilant contact enhancer used to be sold by Dayton-Wright as "Tweek". While Tweek is no longer available, Stabilant 22A (which is what Tweek was) is available in bulk form from a number of online suppliers. Google is your friend. Believe me, this stuff is NOT mouse-milk like green-pens for CDs, it really enhances contact area on two mating surfaces by filling in the microscopic voids in the metal. Nostrums like this which sport Mil-Spec numbers, SAE part numbers, and NASA part numbers (as Stabilant does) are unlikely to be frauds. It works on several levels. Not only does it increase surface area of mating connectors, but it forms a film between them that keeps corrosion OUT, insuring a gas-tight connection. It isn't cheap, but a 15 ml bottle will last many years. |
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#5
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:03:41 -0800, Bill Noble wrote
(in article ): everything you say matches all the theory we all learned. However, I can report personally testing a range of cables to interconnect a preamp and a power amp and finding SIGNIFICANT differences in the resulting sound. the cable length was about 3 meters in all cases. Cables tested ranged from commercial ones (up to $$$) as well as a range of ones I made myself from different types of wires including twinax, teflon insulated TSP, CAT 5, and some others. Connectors in all cases were XLR, other components were not changed. I had no preconceived notions about which of the homebrew would sound better so you can't blame a bias. Twinax was horrible, the best was the cat 5 type cable with a very specific connection arrangement - I could actually (to my surprise) hear a difference depending on whether I connected the pairs with one half to the + the other to the -, or if I shorted pairs and used two to + and two to -. I have no idea why this should be so, but the fact of the matter is that it was (is) so, and that effect was heard clearly by others in my family that had no interest in the outcome. Well, the obvious questions a Did you do double-blind testing? If not, then the "differences" that you heard are most likely the result of some type of "sighted bias". I do not know what type, of course, because I do not know what your biases with regard to this subject are. Nor am I trying to impugn your veracity or your integrity. I'll just repeat what I've said all along: No double blind test ever conducted (as far as I have ever heard) has ever been able to find any statistically meaningful difference between interconnects or speaker cables. The next logical question is, assuming that there are differences in these things (a big assumption) how could you possibly know whether a difference between two interconnects or speaker cables is an improvement over what you had previously, or over any other brand or type? It would be a circular argument, at best. Luckily, it's a pursuit we don't need to take because there simply are no real differences between either cables or interconnects. Now if someone can prove otherwise, I'm open to revising my "belief", but the evidence would have to be overwhelmingly conclusive and someone would have to be able to explain those differences in some objective way; either by direct measurement of some parameters or mathematically. So, clearly there is some difference in the cables - but I don't' know what, or why it has the effect. Well, anecdotal evidence is not clear evidence. You may believe that you have clearly proven the point, and that's your prerogative, your right. But it flies in the face of known science and cannot be accepted at face value. Now that the system is set up, cables are in place, and I'm happy enough with the sound, I actually don't know that I care what the cause of the effect was, but the effect was and is certainly real. Except that you don't REALLY know that. You have satisfied only your own criteria for proof, but I doubt that it would sway any engineer or physicist. |
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#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Bill Noble" wrote in message
everything you say matches all the theory we all learned. And, its what you hear if you take the trouble to do bias-controlled tests. However, I can report personally testing a range of cables to interconnect a preamp and a power amp and finding SIGNIFICANT differences in the resulting sound. the cable length was about 3 meters in all cases. Cables tested ranged from commercial ones (up to $$$) as well as a range of ones I made myself from different types of wires including twinax, teflon insulated TSP, CAT 5, and some others. Connectors in all cases were XLR, other components were not changed. I had no preconceived notions about which of the homebrew would sound better so you can't blame a bias. Twinax was horrible, the best was the cat 5 type cable with a very specific connection arrangement - I could actually (to my surprise) hear a difference depending on whether I connected the pairs with one half to the + the other to the -, or if I shorted pairs and used two to + and two to -. Unfortunately your evaluations were totally free of bias controls. By now dozens of people have done evaluatons like yours, both bias-controlled and not. Interestingly enough the evaluations that are done with bias controls agree with all of the theory we learned. When bais controls are not used, the same people and the same equipment will produce results similar to what you report. I have no idea why this should be so, but the fact of the matter is that it was (is) so, and that effect was heard clearly by others in my family that had no interest in the outcome. The idea that our family members have no interest in the outcome of our evaluations is often simply not true. If they were truely disinterested, they wouldn't waste time listening to cables and the like. Since they do take the time to listen, they obviously have some interest in the outcomes. So, clearly there is some difference in the cables - but I don't' know what, or why it has the effect. Of course there are differences among cables, and our eyes are quite willing to report them to us. However, we like to believe that sound quality is of the essence, and that is a different thing than just the appearance of the cables. Now that the system is set up, cables are in place, and I'm happy enough with the sound, I actually don't know that I care what the cause of the effect was, but the effect was and is certainly real. We might want to distinguish between real, relevant, and reliable. All of our perceptions, whether due to the state of our mind or what we have just heard, are very real to us. However, differences that are only due to the state of our mind at some time are not good guides for purchase decisions, because our state of mind can change quite quickly and for reasons that we may or may not understand. No, it is more important to know that our perceptions are primarily relevant to the immediate changes in sound quality that we may hear when we switch back and forth between different pieces of equipment, whether rapidly and for short times, or whether we listen to each alternative for extended period of times. |
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#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Feb 14, 12:03=A0am, "Bill Noble" wrote:
=A0I had no preconceived notions about which of the homebrew would sound better so you can't blame a bias. Sure you can. Bias is subconscious. You don't know whether you have any bias, or what it is. And you clearly believed that different cables would sound different, or you wouldn't have tried so many. From there on, the imagination rules. bob |
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#8
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Feb 13, 9:03=A0pm, "Bill Noble" wrote:
So, clearly there is some difference in the cables - but I don't' know wh= at, or why it has the effect. Now that the system is set up, cables are in place, and I'm happy enough with the sound, I actually don't know that I care what the cause of the effect was, but the effect was and is certainl= y real. Nothing in the events described above justifies making such a claim in any way. As to your claim not to have been biased, biases are pretty well by definition things that we are not aware of. If you are aware of a "bias" it is not a "bias" any more, it is an "attitude" or a "belief". Not being aware of biases is not evidence that you have none, and claiming not to have them amounts to a claim of having supernatural powers. Without any evidence given by you about the test being properly blinded, your claim that it was significant is completely unfounded. All in all, what you have related above appears to me to amount to an anecdote with no evidentiary value, and your apparent belief that this is somehow evidence shows what appears to me to be a lack of a basic understanding of science. |
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#9
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
Il 14/02/2010 21.37, Ed Seedhouse ha scritto:
On Feb 13, 9:03 pm, "Bill wrote: So, clearly there is some difference in the cables - but I don't' know what, or why it has the effect. Now that the system is set up, cables are in place, and I'm happy enough with the sound, I actually don't know that I care what the cause of the effect was, but the effect was and is certainly real. Nothing in the events described above justifies making such a claim in any way. As to your claim not to have been biased, biases are pretty well by definition things that we are not aware of. If you are aware of a "bias" it is not a "bias" any more, it is an "attitude" or a "belief". Not being aware of biases is not evidence that you have none, and claiming not to have them amounts to a claim of having supernatural powers. Without any evidence given by you about the test being properly blinded, your claim that it was significant is completely unfounded. All in all, what you have related above appears to me to amount to an anecdote with no evidentiary value, and your apparent belief that this is somehow evidence shows what appears to me to be a lack of a basic understanding of science. Is this kind of blind testing? Made 5 cables of the same lenght (3 m) with the same type of rca connectors. I used 5 different type of cable: Tasker low capacity ofc etc. etc. High quality low attenuation real low capacity solid video cable Mogami smallest and cheapest cable Cat5 shielded using one twisted pair Telecom cable pair loosely twisted with no shield Tried to hide differences by putting the cables in black calza (don't know how to call it in english). Handed them over to a friend who is a professional drummer. He recorded the same part of a song (only drums) from the original digital recording in his digital mixing console to a pro cd burner 5 times using the different cables. He gave that cd to me and i listened to that cd, alone. The difference was there. I wrote my evaluations on a piece of paper and then met my friend who had already listened to those recordings while making them. It turned out I was able to hear difference between 3 groups of cables. Cat5 was muddy and level was strangely lower. Tasker was muddy but correct level (was my friend playing with levels?). Mogami and high quality video were the same and very good. Telecom cable was incredibly detailed as if there was something wrong. In effect I was able to tell if someone was turning a light in the house near mine. Ah, the lack of shielding. But the sound was there and was so beautiful that I decided to make a new one and use it for a while. Another friend a few days later came to my house and brought a couple of cables made from pure silver wire from the 18th century and covered in teflon but not twisted. Oh yes they were identical to the copper pairs and now I could even hear a thunderstorm approaching from 2 miles away. That's good for weather forecasting ... not so good to listen to Jordi Savall. The only thing I was able to do was measure those cables with a capacimeter and the result was that the muddiest was the high capacity one and silver cables were almost non-capacitive. A few days ago I asked Audio Empire about the formulas used to calculate attenuations in cables knowing their phisical characteristics. I printed them but i need a little help to use them. There should be a reason for those differences and we are to find them in the most scientific way. Frank |
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#10
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Feb 14, 6:19=A0pm, Frank wrote:
Is this kind of blind testing? As described, not it isn't. Far too many uncontrolled variables. Now if you had run the CD through proper ABX software, which is available for free and easy to use, and got the same results that might be different. |
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#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
Audio Empire wrote:
I have to wonder where all of this mythology about interconnects and speaker cable comes from. It comes from the marketing department of certain less-than-above-board companies, and is repeated by salesmen who are eager to earn commission selling overpriced cables to naive customers. When an audio salesman tells you that you should spend as much money on interconnects as components, *run* do not walk away. Good post. //Walt |
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#12
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:04:32 -0800, Walt wrote
(in article ): Audio Empire wrote: I have to wonder where all of this mythology about interconnects and speaker cable comes from. It comes from the marketing department of certain less-than-above-board companies, and is repeated by salesmen who are eager to earn commission selling overpriced cables to naive customers. I have to say that I know Noel Lee (Monster Cable) George Cardas, and Ray Kimber. I feel strongly that they honestly BELIEVE that cable makes a difference. I don't think that all of these cable manufacturers are knowingly trying to bilk the public. That doesn't mean, of course, that their products aren't bogus, it just means that these men are sincere in their efforts to make the best products possible. When an audio salesman tells you that you should spend as much money on interconnects as components, *run* do not walk away. Oh, I agree. Better yet, ask him to let you borrow a bunch of different interconnects or speaker cables and try them in your home system and see what he says. A few will let you - provided you are able to leave a credit-card deposit, but most won't. Good post. Thanks. |
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#13
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
at the risk of sounding crude, bovine fecal matter - my bias when I started
was that cables did not make much if any difference. I was in fact astounded that there was an audible difference. No, I'm not going to do a double blind test, I am not interested in proving the point, I honestly don't care if you feel that I deceived myself or not. I can certainly use equations to show you that some cable will degrade sound under some circumstances. I keep a 6 inch interconnect that sounds particularly bad, I even told you what the wire was - have you who say this is purely psychological made any attempt to duplicate my results personally? right, I knew you hadn't. You guys read somewhere that if there wasn't a full double blind test in a lab setting the results were to be considered invalid. I am sure that I could sit down with a signal generator and a scope and measure differences between the worst and best interconnects. I am not going to waste my time doing it though unless someone chooses to put up a few thousand dollars to fund the testing. There is a lot of snake oil in the interconnect business, that is for sure - I am not going to defend any particular brand, but I will tell you that it is also untrue that there are no differences. It's like saying that there is no difference between fuels of different octane ratings - there are differences, and sometimes octane rating matters. the same is true of low level interconnects. "bob" wrote in message ... On Feb 14, 12:03=A0am, "Bill Noble" wrote: =A0I had no preconceived notions about which of the homebrew would sound better so you can't blame a bias. Sure you can. Bias is subconscious. You don't know whether you have any bias, or what it is. And you clearly believed that different cables would sound different, or you wouldn't have tried so many. From there on, the imagination rules. bob |
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#14
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as
religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove otherwise. There is nothing anyone could do, there is no possible test involving human subjects that will ever be found suitable to the non-believers. So, let them use the cheapest cables from the trash can with rusty connectors if it pleases their sound pallette "Ed Seedhouse" wrote in message ... On Feb 14, 6:19 pm, Frank wrote: Is this kind of blind testing? As described, not it isn't. Far too many uncontrolled variables. Now if you had run the CD through proper ABX software, which is available for free and easy to use, and got the same results that might be different. |
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#15
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On 2/21/2010 7:34 AM, Bill Noble wrote:
at the risk of sounding crude, bovine fecal matter - my bias when I started was that cables did not make much if any difference. I was in fact astounded that there was an audible difference. No, I'm not going to do a double blind test, I am not interested in proving the point, I honestly don't care if you feel that I deceived myself or not. I can certainly use equations to show you that some cable will degrade sound under some circumstances. I keep a 6 inch interconnect that sounds particularly bad, I even told you what the wire was - have you who say this is purely psychological made any attempt to duplicate my results personally? right, I knew you hadn't. You guys read somewhere that if there wasn't a full double blind test in a lab setting the results were to be considered invalid. I am sure that I could sit down with a signal generator and a scope and measure differences between the worst and best interconnects. I am not going to waste my time doing it though unless someone chooses to put up a few thousand dollars to fund the testing. First, let's limit the discussion to cables used in home audio applications, say frequencies up to 30KHz and lengths up to 100 ft. In this environment, you will not be able to either use equations or a scope to demonstrate any differences in the signal being transmitted. That has already been discussed and the math explained. Next, I cannot see how it would cost thousands of dollars to do the testing. Signal generators and scopes are widely available, even many hobbyists have them. What would you measure to demonstrate the differences? I have no problem if you want to spend the money on fancy cables. They look nice and make you proud of your system. That's fine. Just don't claim the cables make any audible difference, they don't. |
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#16
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:34:44 -0800, Bill Noble wrote
(in article ): you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove otherwise. What experiments would these be? I have never heard of any experiment that has been able to show the slightest difference between interconnects. I have never been party to, or heard of, any double-blind test where the results were that differences between interconnects could be detected. That's not to say, that in my own system, I haven't THOUGHT that I had heard differences in cables because I certainly have. One time, a company sent me a pre-production prototype of a new receiver that sported an on-board DAC. A friend and I wrestled it out of its box one Sunday morning (it was BIG and HEAVY) and hooked it to my system. I then ran a 1-meter length of Monster interconnect cable from the digital output of my CD player to the digital input on the receiver and we listened to the result. Then, for some reason, we decided to try an OFC "linear-crystal" video cable in place of the Monster audio interconnect for the digital link and we DID hear a difference! We looked at each other and said "here we go again" (this was in the early days of CD)! Well, quickly enough, logic brought my natural skepticism to the surface and I decided to test the two cables using my 10 MHz function generator, my dual-trace Tektronix 50 MHz oscilloscope, and my AVM. even at 10 MHz, there was no difference in frequency response, or at passing square-waves. In fact, driving both cables simultaneously and feeding each into the oscilloscope's two vertical inputs, I was able to superimpose one trace directly over the other and they matched perfectly; even when the time-base on the 'scope was expanded as far out as it would go. There was NO difference between the two. Several weeks later, I arranged a blind test with a number of my audiophile buddies. When the listeners didn't know which of several cables they were listening to, they didn't hear any difference. It was sighted bias at work, after all. My theory is that we both knew that the video cable was made of this new oxygen-free, linear-crystal copper and was designed to pass a 6 MHz video signal, so it MUST be better than a plain old AUDIO cable for passing digital data. So you aren't the only one who has fallen prey to this psychoacoustic phenomenon. 8^) There is nothing anyone could do, there is no possible test involving human subjects that will ever be found suitable to the non-believers. Belief has nothing to do with it. I don't just BELIEVE that there is no difference between cables, I KNOW it. I have electronic AC transmission theory on my side, I have measurements on my side, and I have the results of countless double and single-blind listening tests on my side to back up this knowledge. What do you have, Bill? What we have here has degenerated into a quasi-religious debate (the notion of two camps, believers and non-believers) If you made the effort, it could easily be proven to you that all properly made interconnects sound the same (or rather, have no sound), but as long as you want to believe in cable sound.... well, it's your money, isn't it? So, let them use the cheapest cables from the trash can with rusty connectors if it pleases their sound pallette Lets not go overboard. There are good reasons for buying decently made cables and go beyond the "sound" of said cables. |
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#17
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Feb 14, 6:19=A0pm, Frank wrote:
Il 14/02/2010 21.37, Ed Seedhouse ha scritto: On Feb 13, 9:03 pm, "Bill =A0wrote: So, clearly there is some difference in the cables - but I don't' know= what, or why it has the effect. Now that the system is set up, cables are in place, and I'm happy enough with the sound, I actually don't know that= I care what the cause of the effect was, but the effect was and is certa= inly real. Nothing in the events =A0described above justifies making such a claim in any way. As to your claim not to have been biased, biases are pretty well by definition things that we are not aware of. =A0If you are aware of a "bias" it is not a "bias" any more, it is an "attitude" or a "belief". =A0Not being aware of biases is not evidence that you have none, and claiming not to have them amounts to a claim of having supernatural powers. Without any evidence given by you about the test being properly blinded, your claim that it was significant is completely unfounded. All in all, what you have related above appears to me to amount to an anecdote with no evidentiary value, and your apparent belief that this is somehow evidence shows what appears to me to be a lack of a basic understanding of science. Is this kind of blind testing? Made 5 cables of the same lenght (3 m) with the same type of rca connecto= rs. I used 5 different type of cable: Tasker low capacity ofc etc. etc. High quality low attenuation real low capacity solid video cable Mogami smallest and cheapest cable Cat5 shielded using one twisted pair Telecom cable pair loosely twisted with no shield Tried to hide differences by putting the cables in black calza (don't know how to call it in english). Handed them over to a friend who is a professional drummer. He recorded the same part of a song (only drums) from the original digital recording in his digital mixing console to a pro cd burner 5 times using the different cables. He gave that cd to me and i listened to that cd, alone. The difference was there. I wrote my evaluations on a piece of paper and then met my friend who had already listened to those recordings while making them. It turned out I was able to hear difference between 3 groups of cables. Cat5 was muddy and level was strangely lower. Tasker was muddy but correct level (was my friend playing with levels?). Mogami and high quality video were the same and very good. Telecom cable was incredibly detailed as if there was something wrong. In effect I was able to tell if someone was turning a light in the house near mine. Ah, the lack of shielding. But the sound was there and was so beautiful that I decided to make a new one and use it for a while. Another friend a few days later came to my house and brought a couple of cables made from pure silver wire from the 18th century and covered in teflon but not twisted. Oh yes they were identical to the copper pairs and now I could even hear a thunderstorm approaching from 2 miles away. That's good for weather forecasting ... not so good to listen to Jordi Savall. The only thing I was able to do was measure those cables with a capacimeter and the result was that the muddiest was the high capacity one and silver cables were almost non-capacitive. A few days ago I asked Audio Empire about the formulas used to calculate attenuations in cables knowing their phisical characteristics. I printed them but i need a little help to use them. There should be a reason for those differences and we are to find them in the most scientific way. Frank- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - No it doesn't make it as a blind test. You knew that the five samples were one of each cable. Big problem there. Do the same exact test with just two cables that you are confident will sound different then have your friend do twenty random copies with cable x and cable y. If you can identify which is x and which is y 15 times you have a good argument. |
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#18
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:34:06 -0800, Bill Noble wrote
(in article ): at the risk of sounding crude, bovine fecal matter - my bias when I started was that cables did not make much if any difference. I was in fact astounded that there was an audible difference. No, I'm not going to do a double blind test, I am not interested in proving the point, I honestly don't care if you feel that I deceived myself or not. I can certainly use equations to show you that some cable will degrade sound under some circumstances. Sure, interconnects, if they're at least 20 ft long, they will most assuredly degrade sound. Speaker cables which are too long or of insufficient wire size for the length of the run or the power that they are carrying will likewise degrade the sound. But there is nothing you can do to a properly constructed, normal length of plain coax (0.5 to 2.0 meters) terminated with RCAs on each end that will affect the sound. A designer would have to WANT to degrade the sound (with added components, external to the coax itself) in order for that to be true. Now it IS just possible, for cables to be made in which one (or more) of the solder connections between cable and connector is inadvertently a cold-solder joint. This would definitely degrade the sound. I keep a 6 inch interconnect that sounds particularly bad, I even told you what the wire was - have you who say this is purely psychological made any attempt to duplicate my results personally? Not to sound sarcastic, but, I haven't tried jumping off of the roof of a barn and flapping my wings to try to fly either, but I know it wouldn't work. Simple Newtonian physics tells me so. Relatively simple electronic theory also tells me that there is no way for a properly constructed 6-inch interconnect can degrade any sound, and it could be made with coax that has 100 pf/foot of capacitance and not make any audible difference. Now, even if your cable were improperly made (for instance with the aforementioned cold-solder joint), no one would be able to replicate that either because we don't know that there is a cold solder joint in the cable which you mainyain sounds so bad. right, I knew you hadn't. You guys read somewhere that if there wasn't a full double blind test in a lab setting the results were to be considered invalid. No. I haven't JUST read it someplace, I have the experience of working with designing cabling for the aerospace industry, so I know the science behind conductors, and I have been privy to several such double-blind tests. I am sure that I could sit down with a signal generator and a scope and measure differences between the worst and best interconnects. Then you would make history and be the first person on earth to do so. I've tried it using laboratory grade HP test equipment (oscillator, AVM, oscilloscope) and so have many, many other people. I am not going to waste my time doing it though unless someone chooses to put up a few thousand dollars to fund the testing. There is no need. The test is easy, requires a minimum of equipment, (all readily and cheaply available on E-bay)has been done many times, and the results are known. There is a lot of snake oil in the interconnect business, that is for sure - I am not going to defend any particular brand, but I will tell you that it is also untrue that there are no differences. Well, if that's your belief, you are entitled to it. I'm certainly not going to mess with somebody's belief systems. Like religion, a true believer is a true believer, there is little room in those attitudes for dissent. It's like saying that there is no difference between fuels of different octane ratings - there are differences, and sometimes octane rating matters. That's not a very good analogy. Fuel octane can be measured and simple engines will not run correctly on the wrong octane fuel and may even be damaged by them (I say simple engines, because today's electronic engine management systems with their computer variable parameters such as ignition and even valve timing can basically accommodate the wrong octane fuel without deleterious effects on either the engine of it's performance). Interconnects cannot be measured in the same way. At audio frequencies, for instance, they will all measure exactly alike . Now you can try pumping a half a MegaHertz or more through different brands and styles of, say, 1 meter-long interconnects and PROBABLY note varying degrees of attenuation between them, but that has nothing to do with audio signals. the same is true of low level interconnects. Not so that anyone can measure or so that anyone in a bias-neutral test procedure can hear. |
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#19
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
... On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:34:44 -0800, Bill Noble wrote (in article ): you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove otherwise. two points, then I will stand down on this discussion - it comes around from time to time and it will never end. 1. when doing the testing of these cables in my living room, I had swapped from one cable to another (these were all 3 meter cables, XLR connectors, from preamp to power amp), and was listening again - I had been using one set for most of the day. my daughter (about 15 at the time) had been outside, walked into the room, stopped, and said "you changed the cables again, I liked the other ones" - now she did NOT see me change the cables. Yes, this is not a fully controlled test, but it might just hint at the reality of this. 2. years ago I had a summer job as a lab tech testing cables for a cable TV company - it didn't take much to change SWR with a freq sweep - the setup was a terminated cable, and a freq sweep generator, and the usual transformer to look at reflected energy versus input energy - a small void in the insulator would cause real problems. I am pretty sure that the issue with the worst cable is reflected energy but I am not set up to test it. I can tell you for sure that a 6 inch length of it (the bad cable) made a decent CD player sound horrible, and changing it to pretty much anything else made it better. Everyone who has listened to this cable (and I've made reasonably blind tests, not perfect by any means) hears it as defficient. |
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#20
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
Not so that anyone can measure or so that anyone in a bias-neutral test
procedure can hear. one more point, for consideration - this is a very old experiment, well documented. I tried to duplicate it in the 60s but didn't make a good enough bandpass since I had no budget for parts and used what I could find. It is in many of the text books I read, certainly it can be found in peer reviewed literature.. put on a pair of headphones. feed both channels with white noise from a single white noise source. you hear "hissssss". now, add a bandpass filter and a phase inverter so that you invert the phase of the signal in the passband only, and the rest remains as it was before. If done right, you can listen to the output and hear "hissssss" - because it's still pure white noise, indistinguishable from the original one. Now, put the original white noise into one channel of the headphones, put the modified white noise into the other channel and listen. What do you hear? no, you do not hear hisssssss. you hear the hisss with a strong tone at the passband frequency. now, explain that using only measuring instruments applied to the signal sources only. My point is that if you believe that audio = 2-20Khz sine wave response only, you are just plain wrong. The human ear processes frequency (arguably via a neural equivalent of an Forier Transform) and it processes phase information. The measurements described do not account in any way for phase distortion - at least none of the ones I've heard described. |
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#21
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Bill Noble" wrote in message
at the risk of sounding crude, bovine fecal matter - my bias when I started was that cables did not make much if any difference. OK, so now we have some evidence for studying how this all comes to be. I was in fact astounded that there was an audible difference. That would be the first error. Audible differences abound. In fact just about any change you make to an audio system will result in the perception that there is an audible difference, and furthermore many of them are reliable and valid. The problem is to figure out which are, and which are not. No, I'm not going to do a double blind test, I am not interested in proving the point, This post tells a different story. Proving a point may not be the goal, but convincing others of the reasonableness of your beliefs is. Otherwise, there would be no reason to share your viewpoint. A truely self-satisified person quietly enjoys their satisfaction. I honestly don't care if you feel that I deceived myself or not. In my view, not so much self-deception as being mislead by an incomplete understanding of the true relevant facts. I can certainly use equations to show you that some cable will degrade sound under some circumstances. The problem is showing how those equations are relevant to actuality. I keep a 6 inch interconnect that sounds particularly bad, A totem? An exemplar of an oddball situation? I even told you what the wire was - have you who say this is purely psychological made any attempt to duplicate my results personally? Somehow I missed that opportunity. I didn't know that there was a test. So don't fault me for not aceing it! right, I knew you hadn't. Is this like the guy who wins stoplight drag races that nobody else knows about? You guys read somewhere that if there wasn't a full double blind test in a lab setting the results were to be considered invalid. Maybe you don't know who you are dealing with. I didn't read it, I wrote it. I didn't base what I wrote on some imaginary sequence of events. I lived them. I am sure that I could sit down with a signal generator and a scope and measure differences between the worst and best interconnects. Two problems: (1) Most comparisons between interconnects don't involve the best and the worst. They are comparisions of two adequate and blameless items. (2) Just because there is a measured difference is not proof of an audible difference. It is all about quantificaiton and relevance. I am not going to waste my time doing it though unless someone chooses to put up a few thousand dollars to fund the testing. IMO, that is a silly statement. On the scale of convincing arguments, this one is way down the list. |
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#22
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Feb 21, 7:34=A0am, "Bill Noble" wrote:
you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove otherwise. =A0 This appears to just a personal attack on people who disagree with you. It tends to convince me that you really are not rational about this. But even given that you are right, (which you aren't) you have not provided any evidence that they are wrong, nor any evidence that reasonably designed wire makes any difference. There is nothing anyone could do, there is no possible test involving human subjects that will ever be found suitable to the non-believers. =A0 This is factually incorrect and shows that you don't understand how science works. All we require to make us reconsider our beliefs is a properly conducted blind, or preferably double blind experiment that shows you (or anyone else) can reliably detect such differences to a statistically significant level. A real scientist can do such tests fairly easily. Actually they've done it many times and the results do not support your beliefs. It is also a personal attack on those who disagree with you. So, let them use the cheapest cables from the trash can with rusty connectors if it pleases their sound pallette. Now you set up a straw man, since no one has ever made such a suggestion here. Your whole argument seems to amount to "the people who disagree with me are bad, therefore I am right". Rather silly. |
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#23
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Bill Noble" wrote in message
you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove otherwise. Simply not true and even libelous. There is nothing anyone could do, there is no possible test involving human subjects that will ever be found suitable to the non-believers. It is not a matter of non-belief. It's a matter of failing to find something that is suitable to believe in. Dilligent efforts have been made. So, let them use the cheapest cables from the trash can with rusty connectors if it pleases their sound pallette How can someone who is sincere and honest say such a thing? |
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#24
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Feb 21, 9:55=A0am, dave a wrote:
On 2/21/2010 7:34 AM, Bill Noble wrote: I have no problem if you want to spend the money on fancy cables. =A0They look nice and make you proud of your system. =A0That's fine. =A0Just don'= t claim the cables make any audible difference, they don't. Well I have no objection to anyone making such a claim, but if they make a point of discussing it in a public opinion forum they shouldn't be surprised or upset when other people disagree with them. To get angry and say bad things about those who disagree with your beliefs is just verbal abuse, not reason. |
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#25
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
Sure, interconnects, if they're at least 20 ft long, they will most assuredly degrade sound. Simply not true. Constructing a blameless interconnect that is 20 or even 50 feet long is no a big problem. Speaker cables which are too long or of insufficient wire size for the length of the run or the power that they are carrying will likewise degrade the sound. But, there is a lot of copper in the world and forming it into a good long speaker wire is not rocket science. snip rest of post which seems just fine |
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#26
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Bill Noble" wrote in message
2. years ago I had a summer job as a lab tech testing cables for a cable TV company - it didn't take much to change SWR with a freq sweep - the setup was a terminated cable, and a freq sweep generator, and the usual transformer to look at reflected energy versus input energy - a small void in the insulator would cause real problems. I seem to recall that something like this was lab experiment number one in EGR 225 - Fields and Waves. The lecturer made it clear that transmission lines (cables) had to be several wavelengths long for our observations to be relevant. The wavelength of the high end of the cable TV band is a few inches, while the wave length of the high end of the audio band is a few dozen miles. miles... inches... which one relates to things happening in anybody's listening room? |
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#27
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
Bill Noble wrote:
one more point, for consideration - this is a very old experiment, well documented.... put on a pair of headphones. feed both channels with white noise from a single white noise source. you hear "hissssss". now, add a bandpass filter and a phase inverter so that you invert the phase of the signal in the passband only, and the rest remains as it was before. If done right, you can listen to the output and hear "hissssss" - because it's still pure white noise, indistinguishable from the original one. Now, put the original white noise into one channel of the headphones, put the modified white noise into the other channel and listen. What do you hear? no, you do not hear hisssssss. you hear the hisss with a strong tone at the passband frequency. now, explain that using only measuring instruments applied to the signal sources only. A bandpass filter affects phase response - some frequencies are delayed with respect to the others. It is sometimes difficult to hear this on it's own, but becomes readily apparent when compared to the original signal, especially if you also reverse the *polarity* (not phase, polarity - they are different concepts) But it's also easy to measure phase response of cables, and unless the cable is particularly long or deliberately constructed to have phase anomalies, the affect of the cable on phase is negligible. I'm failing to find anything relevant to the present discussion in your example. Yes, of course, if you run the signal through a filter and reverse the polarity and pump that into one ear of the headphones while leaving the other ear unmodified there will be audible effects. What this has to do with cables is a mystery to me. //Walt |
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#28
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:04:51 -0800, Bill Noble wrote
(in article ): Not so that anyone can measure or so that anyone in a bias-neutral test procedure can hear. one more point, for consideration - this is a very old experiment, well documented. I tried to duplicate it in the 60s but didn't make a good enough bandpass since I had no budget for parts and used what I could find. It is in many of the text books I read, certainly it can be found in peer reviewed literature.. put on a pair of headphones. feed both channels with white noise from a single white noise source. you hear "hissssss". now, add a bandpass filter and a phase inverter so that you invert the phase of the signal in the passband only, and the rest remains as it was before. If done right, you can listen to the output and hear "hissssss" - because it's still pure white noise, indistinguishable from the original one. Now, put the original white noise into one channel of the headphones, put the modified white noise into the other channel and listen. What do you hear? no, you do not hear hisssssss. you hear the hisss with a strong tone at the passband frequency. now, explain that using only measuring instruments applied to the signal sources only. That's easy. It's phase difference. At some point the phase of some frequency is is shifted by the bandpass filter enough so that it doesn't completely cancel out when inverted. A spectrum analyzer should be able to easily show this. My point is that if you believe that audio = 2-20Khz sine wave response only, you are just plain wrong. I don't remember anyone making that claim. Perhaps I missed something. The human ear processes frequency (arguably via a neural equivalent of an Forier Transform) and it processes phase information. The measurements described do not account in any way for phase distortion - at least none of the ones I've heard described. I agree. But something has to cause enough "phase distortion" to cross the ear's threshold of detectability (whatever that may be) and there isn't anything in a meter or so length of cable that could cause such a phase shift of even a small fraction of one degree at audio frequencies. But let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that there were enough phase shift in the audio passband caused by a cable to be audible. Wouldn't that show up in a double-blind listening test? Could you not see such a shift using square waves and an oscilloscope? |
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#29
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:06:20 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Bill Noble" wrote in message Two problems: (1) Most comparisons between interconnects don't involve the best and the worst. They are comparisions of two adequate and blameless items. (2) Just because there is a measured difference is not proof of an audible difference. It is all about quantificaiton and relevance. Boy is that statement true! In the latest issue of the British magazine, "Hi-Fi News" , there is a 'shootout' between different interconnects. For each interconnect in the survey, they list all the pertinent facts: Shunt capacitance, inductance, DC resistance, etc. The problem is, there is absolutely no correlation between these specifications and the ranking given these interconnects by the magazine. One would think that those interconnects with the lowest impedance across the audio bandpass would affect the "sound" of the cable (if any!) the least. But the results don't show that to be the case at all. |
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#30
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:03:52 -0800, Bill Noble wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message ... On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:34:44 -0800, Bill Noble wrote (in article ): you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove otherwise. two points, then I will stand down on this discussion - it comes around from time to time and it will never end. 1. when doing the testing of these cables in my living room, I had swapped from one cable to another (these were all 3 meter cables, XLR connectors, from preamp to power amp), and was listening again - I had been using one set for most of the day. my daughter (about 15 at the time) had been outside, walked into the room, stopped, and said "you changed the cables again, I liked the other ones" - now she did NOT see me change the cables. Yes, this is not a fully controlled test, but it might just hint at the reality of this. 2. years ago I had a summer job as a lab tech testing cables for a cable TV company - it didn't take much to change SWR with a freq sweep - the setup was a terminated cable, and a freq sweep generator, and the usual transformer to look at reflected energy versus input energy - a small void in the insulator would cause real problems. I am pretty sure that the issue with the worst cable is reflected energy but I am not set up to test it. I can tell you for sure that a 6 inch length of it (the bad cable) made a decent CD player sound horrible, and changing it to pretty much anything else made it better. Everyone who has listened to this cable (and I've made reasonably blind tests, not perfect by any means) hears it as defficient. I won't address the first point. It's anecdotal and who knows what the entire story is (not that you are trying to mislead us, but there are so many variables involved in a scenario such as the one above, that I cannot even attempt to second guess it). The second one is easy. Cable TV works in the VHF and UHF range. At these frequencies, even relatively short runs of coax can affect the signal enormously. You have to deal with VSWR, skin effect, signal attenuation from cable capacitance and cable inductance as well as plain old cable resistance. In addition, you have ringing, waveform distortion (for instance, square wave in, differentiated or integrated waveform out the other end). IOW, a whole slew of parameters that makes it a modern miracle that cable TV outlets can push an RF signal through miles and miles of cable and make it work AT ALL. But none of this is transferable to audio. Audio frequencies are so low that things such as cable capacitance and inductance, which are HUGE at VHF and UHF frequencies are so insignificant at audio frequencies that in the case of most domestic interconnect runs ( a meter or so), they are not even a factor. |
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#31
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:15:12 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Bill Noble" wrote in message you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove otherwise. Simply not true and even libelous. There is nothing anyone could do, there is no possible test involving human subjects that will ever be found suitable to the non-believers. It is not a matter of non-belief. It's a matter of failing to find something that is suitable to believe in. Dilligent efforts have been made. So, let them use the cheapest cables from the trash can with rusty connectors if it pleases their sound pallette How can someone who is sincere and honest say such a thing? This is a science vs religion thing; I.E., those who wish to "believe" that cable effects are audible vs those who have mountains of theoretical and scientific testing knowledge who say that there is no statistically verifiable or mathematical evidence to support the proposition that "cable sound" is any more than the result of sighted and/or expectational bias. Reminds me of Creationists vs "Darwinians"; a very similar adversarial relationship. |
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#32
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Bill Noble" wrote in message
Not so that anyone can measure or so that anyone in a bias-neutral test procedure can hear. one more point, for consideration - this is a very old experiment, well documented. I tried to duplicate it in the 60s but didn't make a good enough bandpass since I had no budget for parts and used what I could find. It is in many of the text books I read, certainly it can be found in peer reviewed literature.. put on a pair of headphones. feed both channels with white noise from a single white noise source. you hear "hissssss". now, add a bandpass filter and a phase inverter so that you invert the phase of the signal in the passband only, and the rest remains as it was before. If done right, you can listen to the output and hear "hissssss" - because it's still pure white noise, indistinguishable from the original one. Now, put the original white noise into one channel of the headphones, put the modified white noise into the other channel and listen. What do you hear? no, you do not hear hisssssss. you hear the hisss with a strong tone at the passband frequency. Which you would no doubt would measure. now, explain that using only measuring instruments applied to the signal sources only. False challenge. If you prohibit using well-known knowlege about human perception, you can always make science look stupid. My point is that if you believe that audio = 2-20Khz sine wave response only, you are just plain wrong. Next time, I'd like to see one that did not presume an abject lack of current scientific knowlege. However, one of the oft-observed audiophile fallacies says that music is not sine waves, when in fact all music is enveloped concurrent sine waves. IOW, its sine waves. *every* musical instrument is a tone generator followed by some bandpass filtering. The human ear processes frequency (arguably via a neural equivalent of an Forier Transform The human ear is a cascade of bandpass filters followed by something that is like a bank half-wave rectifiers driving something like a voltage-to-repetition frequency impulse generator. The auditory nerves pass impulses, one set for every bandpass filter AKA "critical band". Now that is highly simplified, but it is closer to what really happens then Fourier. The relationship with Fourier is that you can model the bandpass filters using the Fourier transform plus convolution in the frequency domain. ) and it processes phase information. Only below 1,000 Hz or so. The measurements described do not account in any way for phase distortion - at least none of the ones I've heard described. Bottom line is that if you artificially limit the discussion to a small subset of what is currently known by science, a lot of things that are currrently well-understood seem to be mysteries. Knowlege is the key and I've already provided this forum with enough pretty readible references to avoid these kinds of confusions. |
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#33
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:15:18 -0800, Ed Seedhouse wrote
(in article ): On Feb 21, 9:55=A0am, dave a wrote: On 2/21/2010 7:34 AM, Bill Noble wrote: I have no problem if you want to spend the money on fancy cables. =A0They look nice and make you proud of your system. =A0That's fine. =A0Just don'= t claim the cables make any audible difference, they don't. Well I have no objection to anyone making such a claim, but if they make a point of discussing it in a public opinion forum they shouldn't be surprised or upset when other people disagree with them. First of all, Ed, it's not a "claim", it's a PROVEN fact. If I said that I can fly like Superman, that's a claim, If I said that the earth was flat, that's a claim. If you say that you can audition 10 different pairs of 1 meter interconnects, ranging in price from $0.99 to $4000 and they all "sound different from one another", THAT too is a claim. But when Arny, or I or someone else tells you that every controlled listening test ever published where said interconnects were pitted against each other, came to the unambiguous conclusion that that there was no discernable sonic difference between any of them, and show you electrical transmission theory that proves that these different interconnects can have NO audible effect on any waveform in the audio passband, that is not a claim but a fact. To get angry and say bad things about those who disagree with your beliefs is just verbal abuse, not reason. Well, now, with that I agree. Sometimes different ones among us might be mistaken, or we might not agree with another's opinion on a certain subject, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't respect another's right to have those opinions. We can try to show others where they are in error, or try to defend our points of view, but there is no reason to not remain civil about it. |
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#34
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:15:24 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message Sure, interconnects, if they're at least 20 ft long, they will most assuredly degrade sound. Simply not true. Constructing a blameless interconnect that is 20 or even 50 feet long is no a big problem. So, a 20 ft or a 50 ft long interconnect will NOT attenuate frequencies above 10 KHz at all? Speaker cables which are too long or of insufficient wire size for the length of the run or the power that they are carrying will likewise degrade the sound. But, there is a lot of copper in the world and forming it into a good long speaker wire is not rocket science. That's not my point. My point is that while it is possible to construct scenarios where interconnects or speaker cables MIGHT alter the waveform being passed through them in some way, if cable is selected for it's suitability to the task, these scenarios are unlikely in the average circumstances. |
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#35
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:15:09 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ): "Bill Noble" wrote in message 2. years ago I had a summer job as a lab tech testing cables for a cable TV company - it didn't take much to change SWR with a freq sweep - the setup was a terminated cable, and a freq sweep generator, and the usual transformer to look at reflected energy versus input energy - a small void in the insulator would cause real problems. I seem to recall that something like this was lab experiment number one in EGR 225 - Fields and Waves. The lecturer made it clear that transmission lines (cables) had to be several wavelengths long for our observations to be relevant. The wavelength of the high end of the cable TV band is a few inches, while the wave length of the high end of the audio band is a few dozen miles. Yes that is fairly accurate. Using the formula: Wavelength = c/f where c = Speed of light (~ 300,000 Meters/sec) and f = frequency in Hz. using a frequency of 20 Khz, we get a wavelength of slightly more than 14 Kilometers or NINE MILES. Talk about longwave! miles... inches... which one relates to things happening in anybody's listening room? Exactly. |
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#36
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Audio Empire" wrote in message ...
First of all, Ed, it's not a "claim", it's a PROVEN fact. If I said that I can fly like Superman, that's a claim, If I said that the earth was flat, that's a claim. If you say that you can audition 10 different pairs of 1 meter interconnects, ranging in price from $0.99 to $4000 and they all "sound different from one another", THAT too is a claim. But when Arny, or I or someone else tells you that every controlled listening test ever published where said interconnects were pitted against each other, came to the unambiguous conclusion that that there was no discernable sonic difference between any of them, and show you electrical transmission theory that proves that these different interconnects can have NO audible effect on any waveform in the audio passband, that is not a claim but a fact. .... I have a question ... " every controlled listening test ever published " Since you & Arny "claim" to know or have data about all of them ... .... How many humans partipated in the actual listening part of it? I want a total (live bodies) in all the tests .... a breakdown of males & females would be helpful ... |
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#37
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Feb 22, 4:56=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:15:18 -0800, Ed Seedhouse wrote (in article ): On Feb 21, 9:55=3DA0am, dave a wrote: On 2/21/2010 7:34 AM, Bill Noble wrote: I have no problem if you want to spend the money on fancy cables. =3DA= 0They look nice and make you proud of your system. =3DA0That's fine. =3DA0Ju= st don'=3D t claim the cables make any audible difference, they don't. Well I have no objection to anyone making such a claim, but if they make a point of discussing it in a public opinion forum they shouldn't be surprised or upset when other people disagree with them. First of all, Ed, it's not a "claim", it's a PROVEN fact. Um, please read the discussion quoted above again, more carefully. You seem to think that the essentially proven fact that cables don't make a difference is what I was referring to with the word "claim", but actually I was referring to the claim that cables make any obvious difference. I have re-read it myself and it seems clear enough to me. |
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#38
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
"Audio Empire" wrote in message
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:15:24 -0800, Arny Krueger wrote (in article ): "Audio Empire" wrote in message Sure, interconnects, if they're at least 20 ft long, they will most assuredly degrade sound. Simply not true. Constructing a blameless interconnect that is 20 or even 50 feet long is no a big problem. So, a 20 ft or a 50 ft long interconnect will NOT attenuate frequencies above 10 KHz at all? No audible attentuation by a 20-50 foot cable constructed by typical, ordinary means, driven by a typical SS line level source. Do the math. typical shielded cable has 35 pf/Ft. 50 feet is like a parallel capacitance of 1750 pF. For a 10 Kohm load, the series inductance is negligable. For a 100 ohm source impedance, the equvialent RC circuit is 3 dB down at over 900 KHz, 1 dB down at about 450 KHz, and less than 0.1 dB down at 50 KHz. Speaker cables which are too long or of insufficient wire size for the length of the run or the power that they are carrying will likewise degrade the sound. But, there is a lot of copper in the world and forming it into a good long speaker wire is not rocket science. That's not my point. My point is that while it is possible to construct scenarios where interconnects or speaker cables MIGHT alter the waveform being passed through them in some way, if cable is selected for it's suitability to the task, these scenarios are unlikely in the average circumstances. Then we agree that it is unlikely that even 20-50' cables will have negligable audiboe effects if used reasonably. |
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#39
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:58:07 -0800, Dick Pierce wrote
(in article ): Audio Empire wrote: Cable TV works in the VHF and UHF range. At these frequencies, even relatively short runs of coax can affect the signal enormously. You have to deal with VSWR, skin effect, signal attenuation from cable capacitance and cable inductance as well as plain old cable resistance. In addition, you have ringing, waveform distortion (for instance, square wave in, differentiated or integrated waveform out the other end). IOW, a whole slew of parameters that makes it a modern miracle that cable TV outlets can push an RF signal through miles and miles of cable and make it work AT ALL. But none of this is transferable to audio. Actually, the cool thing is, ALL of it is tranferable to audio. And when you do, you find out that though exactly the same physics are at work, the vast differences in frequency render many factors that are of vital importance in one region of the spectrum largely or wholely irrelevant in another. I think that you are confusing the issue. I understand what you are saying, and yes, on a purely theoretical level, everything that is happening at UHF and VHF frequencies also happens at audio frequencies, an would affect those frequencies IF the impedance factors of the audio cable are magnified enough to be deleterious at audio passband frequencies. But they aren't. I'm sure that you would agree that the average 1 meter interconnect (for instance) would need to have Xc and Xl factors at 20 or even 50 KHz that are many orders of magnitude larger than are probable with ~30 inches of coaxial cable. In fact, I would venture to say that in order to act as a single pole low pass or peaking filter in that portion of the audio passband below 10 KHz (where it is most likely to be heard) would require that the cable manufacturer add external resistors, capacitors and inductors, meaning that there is unlikely to be any way that the cable itself could provide enough reactance to be audible. I'm trying to simplify this discussion so that people here with less theoretical understanding of the factors involved can understand why interconnects and speaker cables don't, and indeed can't, have any "sound" or impart any sonic change to the signal passing through them. Audio frequencies are so low that things such as cable capacitance and inductance, which are HUGE at VHF and UHF frequencies are so insignificant at audio frequencies that in the case of most domestic interconnect runs ( a meter or so), they are not even a factor. I shan't say "they are not even a factor," rather their magnitude can render them insignificant. Semantics, again. What are we trying to do here, Dick, explain why cables aren't sonically significant to a general audience, or show-off how much we know? Consider my little reflection gedanken in another part of this thread: a signal reflecting back and forth over 100 times MIGHT be fatal to a high-frequency signal in the hundreds of megahertz, but at audio frequency range, it's gone within 50 billionths of a second. Even if we look at the "phase shift" of the final echo at -100dB, at 1 kHz, it corresponds to a phase shift of less than 2 millidegrees. Again, moving your head the distance corresponding to the thickness of a single sheet of paper will generate phase shifts many times greater than that. Yes, of course, but again, I have to wonder how helpful that is to those posting here and asking these questions about interconnect and speaker cable "sound". |
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#40
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speaker Wire and interconnect mythology
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:23:52 -0800, Ed Seedhouse wrote
(in article ): On Feb 22, 4:56=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote: On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:15:18 -0800, Ed Seedhouse wrote (in article ): On Feb 21, 9:55=3DA0am, dave a wrote: On 2/21/2010 7:34 AM, Bill Noble wrote: I have no problem if you want to spend the money on fancy cables. =3DA= 0They look nice and make you proud of your system. =3DA0That's fine. =3DA0Ju= st don'=3D t claim the cables make any audible difference, they don't. Well I have no objection to anyone making such a claim, but if they make a point of discussing it in a public opinion forum they shouldn't be surprised or upset when other people disagree with them. First of all, Ed, it's not a "claim", it's a PROVEN fact. Um, please read the discussion quoted above again, more carefully. You seem to think that the essentially proven fact that cables don't make a difference is what I was referring to with the word "claim", but actually I was referring to the claim that cables make any obvious difference. I have re-read it myself and it seems clear enough to me. OK. mea culpa. It wasn't clear to me. For instance: "Well I have no objection to anyone making such a claim". What claim? |
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