The Great USB cable debate poll

I'm pretty sure the person who said that was playing devil's advocate to the extreme, really just to say that there wouldn't be any reason to be worried about doing a double blind test if they're so sure of the outcome.

I came up with the McIntosh-to-best-by-receiver analogy originally because it was the most extreme dichotomy I could think of, FWIW.

 

Fair enough. I think I'll never understand enough about DACs and clock noise and other issues to fully sort it out for myself. I'm sure the technology will be very mature by the time I get rid of my records.

 

I'm just never going to get rid of my records personally, but by the time I'm too feeble to get up and flip records I imagine I'll have a cybernetic implant that lets me control my DAC with my mind. Hopefully with error correction and without problems caused by dirty power leaking from my brain.

 

T'mershi D - I was the one who made the reference to McIntosh and the above statement is absolutely wrong.

The relevant posts appear below.

You need to get your facts straight before opining.

 

I sort of can't believe I sold my MC2505. It was becoming kind of a money pit, and I think I preferred a more linear sound, but still, I can't believe I sold my MC2505! I guess it makes for a good story that I delivered it to an older lady in hospice care that just really wanted to own a McIntosh while she still could.

But damn, why did I sell my MC2505????

(This is a threadjack, but I don't think this thread can really be jacked anymore, because, well.)

 

I personally haven't spent any real time comparing the audio qualities of USB cables.

Kind of like I've never taken the time to compare digital clones I've made of compact discs, to see if the original CD sounds any different than the clone does.

I've also never studied my archived copies of digital photographs I've taken to see if they've faded or discolored over time.

There are just certain things in the digital realm I'm willing to accept as scientific fact (and also easily provable with simple tests like the one I posted above), and be done with it.

 

Hi Gary

All I can say is that I've never trolled a thread and then later asked for it to be closed. And for the record, the best descriptor I can offer for myself here is "free thinker".

And the "mature" members are the ones who refer to themselves as "we", as if there's a cabal of "real audiophiles" here who can whisper to the Gorts and make anything happen.

There are esteemed members of this forum that are featured on the Notable Members page who routinely use the "flat earthers" pejorative. I hope that helps.

 

Oh those "real audiophiles" exist here, dont worry about that. And they are, shall we say hyper-sensitive. I cringe badly at what some of them will get a thread closed down here for. Its very pathetic.

 

It’s kinder than Plus Sized.

 

No, I didn't take your previous post personally, but thank you. And I've said to you before in private that I believe there is an asymmetric tolerance for insults here. For example, "flat earther" is tolerated, but I suspect "deluded magical cable enthusiast" would not be. Am I wrong?

 

Came for the USB cable audio quality debate, stayed for the master class in human irritability.

 

To be honest, I don't think you need to even go that far! Sit back, listen, like it? Yes, no? It's as simple as that to me. All the other noise that's come about in this hobby doesn't serve the enthusiast at all to me. Much of the babble around some of the supposed issues are so far away from audible it's just not a consideration for users. I do think the hobby has been hijacked to some extent and it's to the detriment of the hobby's credibility.

 

Relatively civil tread overall.

For a cable thread? Top 1%.

 

I've said for long enough that the issues, or many of them, come down to our abilities to describe well enough what we hear (or lack of abilities!). Someone's "night and day" is my "slight".

 

Let´s say we take these speakers, with reasonably close frequence response. We play both pairs on a level where both works fine.

We want to find out if we can hear the difference between e.g. redbook and mp3 files made from the same CDs, using different music, the only difference will be the difference between redbook and the mp3 file.

Now we are making tests on one pair of speakers at a time, we play the redbook file and we play the mp3 file.

Will the ability to hear the differences with the files, with the different pair of speakers, favour any pair? Or will the differences we are hearing in both cases be about the same?

 

Probably neither. Someone posted a test here that was digital files of different flavors. I scored 100% in guessing which were which, and I used some pretty questionable headphones. The difference was in a certain frequency range, and I think both speakers do OK in that range.

One set I'm talking about presents mid-range detail very well, the other uses a larger driver so the crossover area is a bit more messy and the bass has less control.

 

Snob.

 

If you're one of the frogs in that kettle, then it can really get interesting! No dog in this fight though, for me either, I may be the cause of a few more bubbles and the temp going up a bit, I don't know.

I think I hear, what I think I hear. Could not care less what that measures, or even if it measures!

 

Not surprisingly I find myself in the polling minority, it just happens though, that we are right.

 

So the notions expressed, and talk about 'resolving systems' not being good enough, might not be important at all, for many systems. Anyway, that is how I see it, the systems have to be very bad if we are not able to hear small differences, just as good as we hear them on 'resolving systems'.
Anyway FWIW that was what I meant by 'logical fallacy.

 

Finally, I just wanted to point out that "flat earther" is an interesting choice of pejorative. If you have a look here, you'll see that people who believed the earth was flat were going on a mixture of subjective analysis of their environment and superstition. So those accusing others of being "flat earthers" are actually engaging in psychological projection. How incredibly ironic is that?