A non confrontational cable thread? We will see...

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by frimleygreener, May 19, 2019.

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  1. Thoughtships

    Thoughtships Forum Resident

    Location:
    Devon, UK
    Unfinished Symphony?
     
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  2. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    But Stereo Review wasn't buying it, at least back in the day:

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
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  3. Madeuthink

    Madeuthink Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Oakmont, PA
    Re: Stereo Review. Their main reviewer/tester was Julian Hirsch. It's a known fact and was even put into print more than once, that many an equipment reviewer from the more serious audio media, when they saw him at audio shows, were always tempted to take a sneak peak and look into his ear.

    Re: Bach music. There was a spacecraft called Voyager 1 that was sent off into space many decades ago. It's hoped that some day some extrteresstrial beings will intercept it floating in space and be directed toward our planet. In true time capsule fashion it has a gold playable disc with much video and audio from our planet. The disc opens with greetings in 55 different languages. The classical composer Bach, I understand is represented on the music section more than any other artist. Many people find Beach's music extremely boring. Maybe some advanced intergalactic explorers from some mind boggling advanced civilization will come upon it some year, who could have been very advantageous to Earth, and listen to the Bach selections. I hope they Don't think something like: "The planet Earth must be really boring." I know we have come 98,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 million miles, but let's just skip it".
     
  4. Dansk

    Dansk rational romantic mystic cynical idealist

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    I have several billion dollars worth of snake oil to sell you.

    All that tells me is that there are millions of gullible people with a poor understanding of physics.
     
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  5. MGW

    MGW Less travelling, more listening

    Location:
    Scotland, UK
    Or interpret them as a declaration of war!
     
  6. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    That article was written by Larry Klein, and followed a brouhaha back in 1983 when they published the article "Speaker Cables: Can you hear the difference?" (their conclusion was no), and high-end audio manufacturers responded by alleging that SR was "committed to badmouthing high-end audio" and proposing a boycott of their advertising pages:

    The Horse's Mouth (Stereo Review's 1983 cable tests)
     
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  7. elvisizer

    elvisizer Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Jose
    Who said you had to concentrate for days on end?
    You’ve got a lot of straw man arguments going on wrt to blind testing....
    All a blind test means is that you don’t know what cable is in the signal path.
     
  8. jtw

    jtw Forum Resident

    Then, are there published blind tests that merely try to detect a difference? Surely, detecting a difference shouldn't involve any of the things you mention.
     
  9. Madeuthink

    Madeuthink Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Oakmont, PA
    The sound of serious equipment takes time to get to know and evaluate. It's amazing how against the grain they will go to argue, and the most bizarre thing of all is they probably have never even spent one evening hearing music through cables that are top notch, and no, Monster Cables or much else cheap are not top notch in most serious audiophiles hierarchy, who really know cables. I am sure these people would argue with a total strangers aautobiographyhaving never met them before, throwing up what they feel are valid points. You can argue till the cows come home that the sun comes up in the west, but its simply wrong; it always comes up in the east. It doesn't matter who says what; that's the way it is. Scientists all know that its experimentation first and theories second. In this case its hard to experiment if you can't afford a good $1800 cable, but putting up such resistance based on thawed logic without hearing or experiencing what you are talking about? They wouldn't be considered a scientist for long. Actually not in the first place either. As I said people who are unwilling to experiment should not be taken seriously. I hope that someday their absolutistic attitude will change and they will actually try to hear the kind of stuff. that they are pretending to be experts on.
     
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  10. sotosound

    sotosound Forum Resident

    I heard a very clear difference when auditioning two different digital interconnects running between my Bluesound Vault 2 and my Audio Note DAC 0.1x.

    (So did my wife, who didn't know what she was comparing. She just knew that I was changing something on the stereo.)

    One cable sounded cold, hard, and a bit bright, while the other sounded warmer and more communicative, especially on vocals.

    When I listened more closely, both cables performed similarly with high and low frequencies, but the first cable was slightly sucked out in the mid-range, which is where vocals tend to lie. The second cable, on the other hand, offered a full and musically detailed mid-range.

    What would be the physics behind these differences?

    (I ended up buying the second cable since the sound was far more appealing.)
     
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  11. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    Yay!! The wife's arrived!!!
     
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  12. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    If digital actually worked that way, we'd all be screwed.
     
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  13. Dansk

    Dansk rational romantic mystic cynical idealist

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    You're asking the question of the wrong field; you want psychology, not physics.

    As I've said many times in this thread, it is NOT POSSIBLE (bold italics underline for maximum emphasis) for a cable to make a difference in a digital signal path, provided it meets the minimum standard for the transmission of data.

    I assume restating this isn't going to change your mind, so let me try a different tack.

    If I went to China and told you that I felt like I weighed less there, and in fact I was able to leap over tall buildings because gravity seemed to be so much weaker, would you believe me?

    Of course not.

    Why? Because gravity is a function of the Earth's mass, and the mass of the Earth is the same here as it is in China. (For the truly pedantic: yes, I'm aware that there are minor differences in gravity due to inconsistencies in the Earth's shape and the composition of the core, no need to point this out.)

    If you believe in the universality of that physical law, why will you not believe in the physical law that describes the flow of electrons through copper, or light through the glass core of a fibre optic cable?

    I'm asking that in complete seriousness. What do you believe is happening when you swap cables? Do you have any theory at all to explain it?
     
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  14. swvahokie

    swvahokie Forum Resident

  15. sotosound

    sotosound Forum Resident

    So how does it work?

    I don't know the technical details of how digital works, but I do know what I heard.

    Empirically speaking, the difference between the two cables was stark. Since digital isn't analogue, I was also very surprised by what I heard.

    I also can't believe that manufacturers would all go to the trouble of creating different digital cables at different price points unless they sounded different. If they all sounded the same then it would be all over this forum.

    Moreover, most people who audition digital cables do so with the aim of getting the best sound, and if they couldn't hear a difference between different cables then the bottom would drop out of the digital cable market ever so quickly since serious audio folks normally have good ears and don't just buy based upon price or appearance.

    Personally, I'm also well past thinking that I can hear something simply because I know that, for instance, one piece of kit costs twice as much as the other. Instead, during auditions I've learned to say what I actually hear and not what I think that I should hear based upon received information.

    Therefore, if we assume that I can hear a difference (which I can), then there's something that causes this clear difference between two digital cables. Whether it's the cables themselves or some other element or interaction I don't know, but the difference is there to be heard.

    FYI, one of the cables was a Heretic Audio prototype intended for retail at around £100. The other cable was a Chord Shawline Digital priced at £200.
     
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  16. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    When you mention "digital interconnects" do you mean cables such as USB, toslink, etc? Or plain regular RCA interconnects which happen to be connected to digital-based devices such as DACs and the like?
     
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  17. elvisizer

    elvisizer Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Jose
    :magoo: Seriously? It IS all over this forum. Lol
     
  18. elvisizer

    elvisizer Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Jose
    Unfortunately the evidence doesn’t support this- we all over estimate our abilities to not be prejudiced by price or appearance and our ability to detect small differences in sound
     
  19. sotosound

    sotosound Forum Resident

    I have a science degree and I work in IT. I therefore understand what you're saying. I'm also a pedant in my own right but I've learned, however, to rein my pedantry in so that I can coexist with fellow humans. :)

    And I'm not saying that you're wrong in what you say about digital.

    However, I'm also unable to explain why the difference between those cables exists when they're being used in my system.

    When I spoke to my dealer he simply accepted that there was a difference and that I wasn't going to buy the Heretic Audio cable (which he designed). Instead, he spoke highly of Chord.

    So... it's a mystery to me.

    (And it's a shame that you're in Canada or I'd ask you to drop in and hear for yourself to hear what I hear and, perhaps, spot the missing piece of this puzzle.)
     
  20. sotosound

    sotosound Forum Resident

    Chord Shawline Digital and what is most likely a prototype of the Heretic Audio Silver Sanctuary Digital. Both are coax cables with RCA connectors.
     
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  21. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    I think he might have seen you coming...
     
  22. sotosound

    sotosound Forum Resident

    Speak for yourself. :)

    (I haven't met everyone in the world so I can never say "We all....")

    I can only speak for myself and other people that I know or have known, including dealers, recording engineers, record producers, speaker designers, musicians (including my mother and my brother) etc.

    From this small sample I can say that there are some excellent and objective pairs of ears out there, and I've learnt a lot about listening from each and every one of these people.
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2019
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  23. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Thanks for the info.

    I'm no engineer so hopefully, somebody with that background can help demystify this stuff. I thought RCAs by design could not process digital information so wouldn't there need to be some sort of conversion done? Or can RCAs accept digital info?
     
  24. sotosound

    sotosound Forum Resident

    Lol. I know that he's a businessman and that he'll operate in a way which works well for him. But I also see him as someone who is wise enough to build up the kind of trust that ensures return custom.
     
  25. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Try this

     
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