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Psychoacoustics... where does it start and stop, what’s the proof?

Cereal Killer

Cereal Killer

432
Just wonder how much of this game/hobby/neurosis is based on psychoacoustics...

I've just bought a cheap'as'chips USB cable from't ebay, this one: http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/710-5...0001&campid=5338728743&icep_item=271025364205
When i got my DAC, the UK retailer, Unilet, sent me a 1m LAT International USB2 to try out. This one: http://www.latinternational.com/index.php/wire and cables/usb 2 cable.html

After exchanging it for the Lindy cable mentioned above, i find myself much preferring the new 0.5m lead. What gives... maybe the shorter the USB cable the better?

But then again, it’s all bull-shit, right ;)
 
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Do you know why you prefer it? If you "can't put your finger on it" it is more likely to be a placebo effect.
 
Chances are that the Lindy is the better cable, designed to a tight engineering specification and the LAT is just any piece of crap with a bit of printing and a fancy jacket. Silverfuse conductors, I wonder if they are even copper, or just steel?

I have the Weiss approved firewire cable from Oyade, it's no better/different to my Monoprice .5m which was a tenner.
 
I prefer it because I 'think' it sounds better! But I haven't a clue why or anyway of proving the fact, other than its half the length and 2000% cheaper. Also the LAT cable uses some special 'Alloyed' fused silver/copper proprietary conductor. Then again the differences are so subtle maybe I'm just in a 'better zone' than I was this morning; which I find more plausible than any other possibility.

I also tried the cable that came with the DAC, which is 2m long and couldn't hear any difference between it and the LAT, which needless to say will be going back to the retailer...
 
You have described the improvement, therefore an improvement has been measured and found to be real. Evidently this is more money well spent in the land of hifi.

I can't use silver cables either, I have found them to sound shrill and bright. Which of course they don't. I am just being a thundering buffoon.
 
Get someone to change cables for you and see if you can identify which is which with anything better than a random rate. If you succeed, then you know you're on to something.
 
sonddek said:
Get someone to change cables for you and see if you can identify which is which with anything better than a random rate. If you succeed, then you know you're on to something.
Click to expand...

and if you don't you can always say it was the 'stress' or blame the phase of the moon etc.
 
sonddek said:
Get someone to change cables for you and see if you can identify which is which with anything better than a random rate. If you succeed, then you know you're on to something.
Click to expand...

That i find to be unnecessary and also doesn't work in practical terms, the time between the two would be too long. I have a clear preference, which is the Lindy. But USB cables don't have a sound, right ;)
 
Having built my own silver cables I thought the did sound shrill and bright. That went away after while and may years later I still use them and still prefer them to the Naim cables.

Of course they may not have 'broken in', I may have simply got used to them so that they became the normal.

Steve
 
My understanding of Psychoacoustics is that it is the study of the brain/ear interfaces response to measurable phenomenon.

Whilst i'd agree that not enough thought is given to this by many people on Internet forums, I'm not sure perceived cable differences can be attributed to it.

A mate dropped over an Audioquest USB last night to use with a NAD dac. The Dac kept dropping out. Replacing it with a bog standard one reduced the drop outs considerably. I don't think I could notice any difference blind but there's clearly complex interactions with USB interfaces when good dacs suffer drop outs.
 
A shrinking industry excavating the last few pennies out of a disappearing demographic.

It's a victimless crime though, as the buyer is at fault for being such a colossal shitwit, and remains none the wiser; happily listening to his collection of test records.
 
merlin said:
My understanding of Psychoacoustics is that it is the study of the brain/ear interfaces response to measurable phenomenon.

Whilst i'd agree that not enough thought is given to this by many people on Internet forums, I'm not sure perceived cable differences can be attributed to it.

A mate dropped over an Audioquest USB last night to use with a NAD dac. The Dac kept dropping out. Replacing it with a bog standard one reduced the drop outs considerably. I don't think I could notice any difference blind but there's clearly complex interactions with USB interfaces when good dacs suffer drop outs.
Click to expand...

Explaining clearly that not all USB cables perform exactly the same.
 
I had pretty long post about my test of two cables, with the methodology and stuff, but the entire thread the post was in got deleted, so I can't link it.

However the tests I performed were small and even given the limited precautions I was able to take care of to keep the tests as accurate as possible, the results seem to still indicate that there's a huge placebo effect going on in the audio world. And most people are too stubborn to admit it. It sound better to them, so it's true by their definition.

There are several reasons why two USB different cables achieve the same thing (given short ranges) if both endpoints have proper USB protocol implementation (ie. error detection / checksum verification). Some expensive cables might have an inbuilt isolator, which is a whole another story, though.

Do yourself a favor - make another person (preferably someone, who does what he/she is told, without knowing what's going on) randomly switch the cables behind your back in a random pattern and try to identify which is which.
 
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