The Great USB cable debate poll

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by mindblanking, Feb 22, 2015.

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  1. jupiterboy

    jupiterboy Forum Residue

    Location:
    Buffalo, NY
    Well, I have indicated a situation where a manufacturer did test, but the methodology was in error although the attempt seemed sincere and was performed by a university. The same debunking discredits the basic archimago testing posted in this thread. Where is the methodology to agree on?
     
  2. 62caddy

    62caddy Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    Not necessarily.

    All they would need to show is some negligibly tiny difference on some oscilloscope tracing and since the final evaluation is purely subjective, such a case would likely to go nowhere.
     
  3. missan

    missan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Stockholm
    The testing is not the problem, it´s coming to the table and discuss the testing that is.
     
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  4. 62caddy

    62caddy Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    If somebody told you they installed some gadget on their car and it increased fuel economy by 25%, are you saying you would not want to see the math before you bought it?

    Yet, in this hobby similar claims are above being questioned, let alone subjected to comparable scrutiny - in this case, a DB ABX test.
     
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  5. jupiterboy

    jupiterboy Forum Residue

    Location:
    Buffalo, NY
    Totally agree.
     
  6. mindblanking

    mindblanking The Bourbon King Thread Starter

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    Here's the test- Buy an Audioquest Carbon from music direct with a 60 day money back guarantee. Then pick up Steve's mastering of Louis Prima "The Wildest". Go to the track "Basin Street". Horn is dead center and for much of the song the only instrument you hear. Listen to stock cable that came with unit or even go a step up to a low end upgrade like the Forest. Then swap that cable out and listen to the Carbon. Does that same horn now sound a bit more lively? A little more realistic sounding? A bit fuller? Then ask wife or a friend to swap back and forth. Now that you know what you're listening for can you pick out which is which? If you can't, return cable for maybe the cost of shipping. If you can, keep upgrade and feel satisfied with your purchase. And I did all that without test tubes and a lab coat.
     
  7. rhubarb9999

    rhubarb9999 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    Again .. assuming the 'stock' cable caused bits to drop .. corrupt data .. whatever. How does having a 'perfect' data stream manifest itself as 'a bit more lively, a little more realistic sounding, a bit fuller'

    How do the bits that were getting dropped cause the audio to be 'less lively, less realistic sounding. less full'? My understanding is that if there is not enough data to decode the digital signal, you hear clicks, pops, dropouts.

    But there is no change in the 'quality' of the audio .. its either there or it isn't.
     
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  8. Ortofun

    Ortofun Well-Known Member

    Location:
    nowhere
    If I was interested enough, i would look at the available information...........and if I were still curious I would test it for myself as I have an open mind.

    You think that the double blind studies are reliable where audio perception is involved? It is reliable in studies with pharmaceuticals and some other things where control is easy...yes, but this is very different. If you knew enough about the brain and how it behaves under testing situations, you may not have such blind faith.
     
  9. 62caddy

    62caddy Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    As with the experience I had given earlier -until my own A/B experimentation - I would have sworn a huge sonic improvement with a tube amplifier over the solid state model it was replacing - on a stack of bibles.

    Whether the owner is content to rely on his own perceptions by utilizing absurdly imperfect methods of gauging whether sonic improvements are real or imagined - rather than test whether his perceptions can indeed be verified are his own business.

    Sonic improvements cannot be reliably determined by just swapping a part out and trying to remember what everything sounded like before the swap was made. Period.

    Especially not with gradients as fine as these - no way, no how, not in a billion years.
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2015
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  10. russk

    russk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Syracuse NY
    That's funny, if you check out the cable review thread that started all this you'll see a couple of posts where I mentioned that I compared the Audioquest Pearl to the Carbon and had a friends wife make the switch and neither the owner of the carbon or myself could hear any difference. On that thread the cable proponents wrote it off to the fact that Audioquest cables all sucked.
     
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  11. Ortofun

    Ortofun Well-Known Member

    Location:
    nowhere
    And you were not attacking people when suggesting that they are imagining things.

    That thing in ya' scull! Us it for a change!

    It's your attack on others that started me on this line.
     
  12. jjjos

    jjjos Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    It's not a blanket criticism, but someone who buys rocks and tapes them to power cables and then tries to tell people that they need to "use your ears" -- that to me is blindness.
     
  13. mindblanking

    mindblanking The Bourbon King Thread Starter

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    Let's not be misleading. He said up until the Carbon I believe. And I disagreed with him.
     
  14. missan

    missan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Stockholm
    Do You have any better tests in mind when comparings small differences in audio?
     
  15. 62caddy

    62caddy Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    Be that as it may, it is still infinitely better than the alternative.

    Is no testing no verification a superior method of discerning reality from the imagined? o_O
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2015
  16. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    :laugh: C'mon man - if we worked for Radio Shack, don't you think we'd take the info that 30% of people are willing to pay $200+ for $5 worth of cable and report back to HQ our plan to save the company? Do you really think a cable seller would attempt to talk customers willing to pay more into paying less for something?
     
  17. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    They wouldn't need to do anything but have a few of their very very satisfied customers who definitely hear a difference in $1000 ethernet cables to appear in court. There's nothing that says the judge and jury have to hear the differences. After all, they probably don't even know what to listen for!
     
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  18. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    Personally, I'd like to hear exactly what the problem is with double blind testing in audio. The problem seems to be the brain can't tell which item it spent the most money on, which seems like a good problem to have.
     
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  19. russk

    russk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Syracuse NY
    Ethernet cables. Still can't believe that. Then again that might be why I never get the maximum download speeds Verizon says I should get. I need to get rid of the bandwidth hogging reflections in my Ethernet cable by finding one with silver platting. 75mbs here I come.
     
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  20. 62caddy

    62caddy Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    So would I.
     
  21. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    I'm probably going to get an AQ Carbon just for fun. Likely when I'm over in NYC next week. There's a good few tracks I can try it out on too. Hopefully the price for the .75m length will be better than the UK equivalent.
     
    mindblanking likes this.
  22. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    So much of the discussion over USB cables in this thread has centered around the USB not using error correction. But I'm not aware of anything a person can use an ethernet cable for today that isn't using TCP/IP. Videoconferencing and the like uses UDP with is similar to isochronus USB transfer, but that doesn't seem to be what it's marketed towards.
     
  23. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    Are you an artist? There's been anecdotal evidence in this thread to suggest only artists can tell a difference in cables, because they don't live the staid life of the objectivist. If you're not an artist, perhaps that's $200 that could be better spent on drab-colored clothing, shoes to help you shuffle through your meaningless existence, etc.
     
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  24. jupiterboy

    jupiterboy Forum Residue

    Location:
    Buffalo, NY
    Probably because it is phychological testing, not electronic testing.
     
  25. 62caddy

    62caddy Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    I cannot agree with that, and absolutely reject the notion that all human audio testing is somehow inherently flawed.

    But whatever narrative works to keep the sinking ship afloat...o_O
     
    russk likes this.
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