Audioquest $340 Ethernet cable teardown.

Please explain how doing a test rigged for a negative result (ironically in the guise of a null test) is humoring Audioquest? That makes no sense whatsoever.

 

First of all, why do you think the test is rigged? Because Grado headphones?

Secondly, why do you feel a network cable can impact anything? Are you actually knowledgable on the subject of TCP/IP, or are you just defending any expensive cable that anybody claims will lift veils in your system?

 

No not because of the headphones. Because of the design of the test. I would hope it would be obvious how introducing the option of "I don't hear a difference" and counting it as a wrong answer in an ABX null test is rigging the test. If not I would be happy to explain in detail just how incredibly bad that is. It could be utter incompetence or it could be deliberate rigging. Either way it makes Ars and JREF look very very very bad.

Why do you feel I feel a network cable can impact anything? Have I made any comments on that subject?

 

If your passion towards denouncing the test is based solely on exacting standards of how ABX testing should be conducted, fair enough. My point is that to anybody versed in how network cables do and don't work, the entire thing is so silly criticizing folks for not conducting the test right is a stretch. It's like criticizing the methodology of a new age magazine ranking healing crystals.

 

It is.

I don't believe in the power of healing crystals. If I were designing a test to see if they work beyond a placebo effect I would go out of my way to design a fair test that overcompensates for my personal bias. If I were to design and implement a test for healing crystals that was obviously flawed and in effect rigged so that one would get bad results that test would say nothing about healing crystals. But it would say a lot about me. There is no excuse for it. Just because you think you know what the results will be does not in any way excuse doing a rigged test. That is fraud or incompetence. Either way all it does is kill the credibility of those doing the test not the product being tested.

It is inexcusable.

 

Your ethernet cable isn't resolving enough. Update your hardware profile please and then get back to me.

 

Oh I don't think that's the case at all. Far from it.

In fact, they were open, completely, from the off. They stated their methodology, identified the approach to the X element of the test (granted, not yet typical, but they were very clear about what they were going to do). They stated that the conclusions included how some in the audience questioned their approach to various aspects of the test including Hutcheson's opening talk that apparently wasn't neutral, but potentially leading. So no, I don't think we can claim they were out to pull a fast one and I don't believe that claim stands up to scrutiny.

On the other hand, here's Michael Lavorgna's piece from 2013 where he first reviews the Audioquest Vodka: http://www.audiostream.com/content/...nd-diamond-ethernet-cable#WIOqW6mSVgfcr8ya.97

Okay, so clear as day apparently.

Yet in his rebuttal to the Hutcheson piece (here: http://www.audiostream.com/content/million-dollar-cock#UIS1kipVwVBhDuAo.97), he says:-

And this is the real cock-up in my view. He's saying the "readily apparent" differences he noticed might, by inference, NOT happen to as great a degree in your system, or not at all.

So why didn't Michael Lavorgna say that?

Why did he wax lyrical - which of course he is entitled to do - but omit that tiny, but rather important detail? That surely benefits the reader as a potential consumer does it not? All he says is "your results may vary", but immediately goes on to say the changes weren't subtle or slight.

So I maybe own the entry level AQ ethernet cable and maybe I read this review and think, well hey, I'll just nip out and buy that Vodka cable and see how that goes, 'cos that Michael Lavorgna guy's just written a killer review on the whole range! $340 dollars lighter later, I'm back home with a new Ethernet cable from Audioquest and I'm not hearing the magic. Then maybe I stumble on this forum and on this thread and read Lavorgna's rebuttal and that's when I find out that there is a proviso? Really?!

I would say Lavorgna is being wholly disingenuous here. It is grossly unfair to state "foul" at Lee Hutcheson yet disregard his glaring gaffe by return.

Foul play indeed, but it's not ARS Technica who're at the ham here.

 

How does being open about doing a test that is in effect rigged make it OK? You do understand that the test is completely bogus right? You understand that there is no way it could ever give results that are of any use right?

 

However they went about it, they were open about their methodology, how right or wrong that was. What is missing the point is giving Michael Lavorgna an absolute pass.

 

I don't care about Michael Lavorgna. He's just another audio reviewer with his own set of subjective opinions. But this bogus pseudoscience is a slap in the face of real skepticism, rational thought and science. That I do care about. If they had brought a ouija board would that have been an acceptable method of testing? It would be every bit as reliable as what they did. How does that not matter?

How on earth do people posing as objective scientific minded people conducting rigged tests not matter?

 

Lavrogna: Not my concern what you reckon to him.

Your last question: Are you asking me that? Can you tell me where anyone's said that in this thread?

 

I think it comes part and parcel with your post "However they went about it, they were open about their methodology, how right or wrong that was. What is missing the point is giving Michael Lavorgna an absolute pass." that looks to me like you are dismissing the fact that the tests were bogus and proved absolutely nothing. IMO that is the only thing of substance I take away from this. Ars and JREF showed they will conduct rigged tests to prove they are right and pretend they are being objective and scientific about it. That kills their credibility. Anything that follows in this case is inconsequential.

 

Clearly, you've come to an erroneous conclusion.

 

They didn't even try to set up a test that could have given a positive result, assuming that a positive result is even possible. They didn't even bother to make it look like they were trying. Plugging Grados in a laptop is such a lack of effort and just makes it all the more obvious they were rigging the test. Why? It's a test that is going to fail even in the best of conditions. There is no need to make the conditions an obvious sham.

Better conditions would be to have a high-end headphone setup and a high-end speaker setup. Do the test using both setups. Some things are audible on speakers that aren't on headphones, and vice versa. Make it look like they're trying. They'll still get the results they want.

 

A really good test, one that would be of real use to consumers is to use a range of gear, not just high end (why does it always have to be high end FFS, half of it measures like **** anyway).

Use a range of gear across a reasonable grouping of price points and then carry out a test. Then maybe do that test as an ABX and perhaps another over time. I am sceptical of the benefits of the latter as I doubt the capacity of most to judge that accurately and objectively, but no matter.

And lastly, I'd get Michael Lavorgna to answer why the hell he wrote in such glowing terms but failed to adequately state that, well y'know, this might not happen all the time, when apparently those cables were all but night and day to him.

Yeah, sure. I think I know the Vodka he'd been at...

 

Actually, if you read the contents of the link I provided in Post #83, this thread, they might not have gotten the results they wanted.

Personally I don't think true credibility is anything Ars is interested in. The superficial appearance of credibility, however, just might concern them deeply.

 

I found this analysis worthwhile:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...cable-gets-a-marginal-pass-on-the-test-bench/

 

wasn't that clear until you said so. But that is good enough for me.

 

Very good point. Thank you for making it. Why doesn't Audioquest just confirm the same? It would remove my reservations about their build quality, especially as I am a huge fan of their higher quality analogue and USB cables (at least in sonic terms).

 

This is assuming that the cable was genuine and not a fake. AQ seem to have a reputation for counterfeit gear in their name. Did the AT guy check? Was the vendor reputable? Probably but there's always that risk.

 

You forgot ",pal".

 

Can anyone show an ABX test that has EVER been accepted by "everyone" as valid? I haven't. No matter what test someone tries to do, others will find a fault with it. It could be, the wrong people were listening, or the room was square shaped, or the headphones were not good enough to show the differences. I have never seen a test conducted and accepted, particularly if the result is not what that person wanted it to be!

Personally, in my humble opinion, I do believe these companies are laughing....laughing at some of us, thinking they can make any old tat, charge extreme amounts of money and someone will buy it.

When it comes to evaluating a TV image...you can put two images next to each other, and compare directly. There is no interpretation required whether you can see the difference between a 4K image and an HD image on a 32" TV if you put the two next to each other. Either there is a difference that you can see or there isn't.

Unfortunately with sound, you can't hear two things at the same time and compare. It isn't something you can put side by side and declare there is or is not a difference as absolute irrefutable fact. Well, some do actually think they can do that by capturing the sound and analysing it on a PC. All the tests that pull in the wave forms for analysis on a PC are always discredited because they are not capturing "something" about the sound, but when we make comments about noise floor, this should be absolutely measurable! Yet nobody has even shown a waveform output with USB cable A and USB cable B and proven there is this difference in noise floor.

I will give some examples on where I heard a difference
1) Analogue RCA cables. I can clearly hear the difference between some extremely cheap bundled RCA cables, and a mid price well constructed cable with excellent shielding and termination. Tonally I have noted differences, but of course particularly with longer lengths the lower noise floor IS audible. I have then auditioned cables up to 3000 USD and I could hear slight differences between them, but I couldn't say one was better than another....just slight differences.
2) PCM audio transferred over HDMI cables. Swapping the HDMI cable made no differences in all the tests I did. Just that comparing the CD transferred via a coax link, vs an HDMI link provided audible differences. This wasn't unexpected because PCM over HDMI has terrible jitter. I then compared DTS-HD MA over HDMI vs PCM and could hear a difference almost certainly for the same reason. DTS-HD MA is immune to the jitter because of the reassembly and decoding behaviour on the receiver.
3) Different SD cards on a Sony NW-ZX2 Walkman. The scientists will be worried now with this one...but fear not. I found that SD cards seem to radiate interference and I could hear a tut-tut-tut sound very faintly in the background with some cards and not with others. This reflects more about the Sony internals design than anything else.

I have blind tested coax digital cables before using a cheap bundled cable and an expensive one, and I could not hear a difference at all. I tried and tried, and gave up.

Jitter is the common argument for sound discrepancies in the digital domain. It is largely unproven as to the value of jitter deviation that becomes audible. But at least there are scientific measurements for this that can be proven and remedied by more exotic "clock" links between equipment, such as Denon Link. At least some "real" engineering goes into a solution like that, whether you can hear it or not.

So to clearly state, in my opinion, I think the idea that a network cable has any effect at all to be absolutely preposterous. There is a simpler test here.....what happens listening to the same track locally stored on the hard disc vs streamed? If there is a difference in favour of the hard disc, then amusingly forget streaming and have lots of hard drives in every room with all your music on it, connected with expensive USB and power cables of course. That would probably still be cheaper than a reasonable length of expensive network cable!

Audiophiles should be people who are passionate about the music they listen to and how they appreciate it. It is not meant to be a cult or a religion. Before a surgeon opens you up, you will want to know real scientific facts about the success of the surgery and the surgeon performing on you. Why would anyone spend thousands of dollars on cables when no scientific proof exists? I guess if money is no object, then why not......but I do have this image of Audioquest staff laughing everytime someone hits the Buy and Checkout buttons and it makes me both sad and angry.

NOTE: I am not posting to start a war or flame....just my humble opinions.

P.S While I trust my ears, I also know how easy it is to convince yourself of something because you "want" it to be true. I wish I could say I am not someone who can be influenced but I know I have had experiences in my life when I have been.

 

It's only 2015. Medicine and surgery is medieval compared to what it will be in a 100 years, which in turn will be medieval compared to what it will be 100 years after that. Medicine in general has evolved or completely changed direction as the scientific approaches have been refined, yet even today you can go and have surgery or diagnostic tests that in the future will be looked upon with dismay and even horror. Just as we look back in horror to some of the treatments employed even 50 years ago which were all state of art and very scientific at the time. Ask men what they think of the PSA test followed by urologist surgeon playing Kerplunk with a hollow core needle followed by a prostatectomy of what actually turns out to be either a perfectly healthy gland or a cancer that would only have caused a problem if the person had lived to 120? But that's modern science for you. I'm sure these men who now have to live with the consequences of these surgeries performed by state of the art surgeons are real fans of modern science and have great faith in the judgement of our best scientists and surgeons. Oh but wait. Last year we came up with 3 Tesla imaging which has suddenly blown 30 years of medieval urology into the rubbish bin where it belongs.

Scientific proof is often incredibly over-rated. In my opinion we should only fully rely on science in the event where it is perfect, which of course isn't the case today and possibly never will be.

 

I'd live to see how these folk that decry science would get by in the world without it.

 

Once upon a time I've met a bad USB cable. It came with a printer, I've put it between a video digitiser and a laptop and there were running "interference lines" on the digital video stream. I've changed it to a (cheap) Belkin cable, no "interference" anymore.