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Experiment over/Sanity resumed

lrt1367

pfm Member
Before I write this I know exactly what the responses are going to be but to be honest I couldn't give a toss but after feeling brainwashed by some on this site my sanity has finally been resumed, thank the lord.

Around 2 months ago I felt compelled to try what most here suggest, all cables make very little improvement, be it interconnects, speaker cables & mains leads.

My system has been set up this way for a while so are very used to what I like about it.

I decided to try this out for myself

I replaced my interconnects with the cheap bellwire crap that was given with the player, same went for speaker cable, cheap average bellwire 79 strand rubbish from maplins, out went my home made mains leads replaced with the giveaway leads supplied.

I have been listening to my system this way for 2 months & have thoroughly got used to it, I have been reasonably happy but I felt the involvement I usually feel had disappeared & noticed over this time that I was listening less & less to each track & some days didn't even feel compelled to listen at all as the feeling I usually get of wanting to play music had got less & less as the time went on.

I am an avid listener of music & this feeling was quite depressing considering I usually love the sound of my system.

The 2 month experiment was over last evening, in went my Chord interconnect, Chord speaker cable & home made mains leads

Thankfully my music was back & so was my enthusiasm to play track after track, involvement had returned, rhythm, pace, timing & musicality, the stuff I now take for granted with my system but had sadly been missing for 2 months.

I will never listen to another word on this site regarding this subject, I did my own thing, made my own mind up in the context of my system, in my room with my music & thank god I did. Sanity resumed.
 
I'm afraid your experiment is invalid, as it was not a double-blind ABX test. You are obviously suffering from the placebo effect, or expectation bias. Electrons don't know what cable they are running through, for heaven's sake! Next thing you'll be saying that turntables make a difference, when all they have to do is rotate at a fixed speed.

cont'd p.94.....
 
I can easily see that the speaker bell wire would make a difference. It would be interesting to see if changing the mains lead and interconnects made a difference if the Chord speaker cable was retained.
 
Gosh ! So much suffering in the name of experiment. B.t.w., I'd hardly call 79 strand 'bell-wire' !

I'm shortly to do a similar test with I/Cs from CDP to pre., as I lashed out a couple of months back on a TQ to replace my Chord Sig. Am shortly having a bake-off involving valve pre (instead of my s/s pre.), DIY valve DAC (instead of my valve DAC !!!!) and SUT + valve m/m stage instead of my s/s m/coil stage. Only over a few hours, though, but with an audience of younger ears.
 
Already did everything suggested here including the double blind test & retaining the speaker cable whilst changing everything else, I have tried everything in advance as I new what comments would be posted regarding placebo nonsense etc..

My sister (who has no idea or interest about anything hifi) changed things over for me while I listened later not knowing what had been changed & yes all cables were hidden including speaker cables, all that was visible was my system, I was bang on every time & had no idea if it was interconnect, one mains cable or 2, speaker cable on it's own, nothing at all.

I have a very discerning ear by the looks of things though I did think I may get one or two wrong but no, so I'm afraid the nonsense usually written here about hope & placebo & the usual nonsense will no longer be valid for me as I said in the op.

I knew it was all bullshit, just a matter of proving it to myself which I have done under very strict conditions having not known what was changed if anything, I suppose the question has to be if I could hear if one cable had been changed & which one it was, how can this be placebo, once or twice maybe but not on many separate occasions, I could not guess right every time which cable had been changed if it did indeed, as most suggest, would make no difference.

I think I will go & play some music & leave you to it, be fun reading the usual.
 
Most of the 'usual nonsense' you seem to be referring to is valid scientific/statistics based sense.

I suspect you're not entirely accurate with your suggestion you carried out 'double blind' testing, but that aside, the fact you gave blind testing a shot is all credit to you, and you have a much better idea now of what matters to you, with your ears, with your system and listening environment.
 
Already did everything suggested here including the double blind test & retaining the speaker cable whilst changing everything else, I have tried everything in advance as I new what comments would be posted regarding placebo nonsense etc..

My sister (who has no idea or interest about anything hifi) changed things over for me while I listened later not knowing what had been changed & yes all cables were hidden including speaker cables, all that was visible was my system, I was bang on every time & had no idea if it was interconnect, one mains cable or 2, speaker cable on it's own, nothing at all.

I have a very discerning ear by the looks of things though I did think I may get one or two wrong but no, so I'm afraid the nonsense usually written here about hope & placebo & the usual nonsense will no longer be valid for me as I said in the op.
I think I will go & play some music
.

I am very happy you found a difference , it concurs with my finding , though i would have used something better than chord :p

however there is a logical fallacy to your post . Your experience is your experience , it does not mean that you can generalise to state that people who dont hear differenes in thier systems are talking nonsense .

it works for me , so it must work for everybody is of course a nonesense . You should respect other peoples different opinions vis-a-vis the efficacy of cables in the same way you expect yours to be .
 
I couldn't be arsed with all that swapping about with cables just to prove a point to myself or to discredit others' opinions (which is all they are). But if you're happy, I'm happy for you.
 
This is a complicated topic IMO.

I'm a believer in tweaks but at the same time I advise doing blind testing when practical, for an additional perspective.
 
Could be down to the quality of the plugs/phonos/rcas/soldering on different interconnects etc rather than the wire.
 
Could be down to the quality of the plugs/phonos/rcas/soldering on different interconnects etc rather than the wire.

Almost certainly; AND the wire. What I can't understand is that the nay-sayers (usually with a technical text-book in hand) always approach the subject from a p.o.v. of 'differences are impossible; prove they exist'.

Why not come from the premise that 'of course they must make a difference; prove that they don't'?

I do belong to the latter camp, having heard SO MANY differences in presentation, s.q., you-name-it by changing speaker leads, I/C cables, supports, mains stuff ad nauseam.

Of course these changes only affect MY system in MY environment, but I've had quite a few of each of these over a couple of decades; hasn't affected my judgement one iota.
 
Could be down to the quality of the plugs/phonos/rcas/soldering on different interconnects etc rather than the wire.

The music doesn't know the "quality" of the plugs it just sees the capacitance inductance and the tiny resistance of the interconnect, and soldering is soldering unless its done very very badly it won't make the slightest difference.

Pete
 
The music doesn't know the "quality" of the plugs it just sees the capacitance inductance and the tiny resistance of the interconnect, and soldering is soldering unless its done very very badly it won't make the slightest difference.

Pete

This would be true if we knew what "the music" was .

Is there list as to what precisely and totally constitutes the "musical signal" ?
 
Its the varying voltage and current applied to the interconnect, do try and keep up.

Pete
 
What surprised me most of all was that my sister preferred the sound of the system with the usual cables in place, she, as far as I know has never heard my system or any hifi system apart from music in her car as she as no interest in such things but does insist on good sound quality so for her to comment on how the sound had improved was quite interesting also.
 
What surprised me most of all was that my sister preferred the sound of the system with the usual cables in place, she, as far as I know has never heard my system or any hifi system apart from music in her car as she as no interest in such things but does insist on good sound quality so for her to comment on how the sound had improved was quite interesting also.

Not during your blind listening though?
 
Not during your blind listening though?
Before

I simply asked "listen to my system then a second listen & a 3rd time", she does think I have lost it but agreed, first time chord cables etc, 2nd & 3rd were the giveaway cables.

She had no idea what she was listening to, I asked which she preferred & why, she said how it sounded originally (with chord cables etc.. in place), in her non hifi explanation she said, it sounds clearer, more intense as though the sound is coming out more & filling the room, I think this was a very good explanation as to what I heard also.

Believe me, mention the word interconnect & she will look at you blank.

All bases have been covered.
 
There are few things more satisfying than proving to yourself that you are right and it seems telling others. Do you think you would be equally happy if you kept silent on the matter?
 
The music doesn't know the "quality" of the plugs it just sees the capacitance inductance and the tiny resistance of the interconnect, and soldering is soldering unless its done very very badly it won't make the slightest difference.

Pete

But the audio elves KNOW!

And they like big, chunky plugs with lots of shiny, 'cos audio elves like shiny and chunky, so it means they carry the music better!

They told me so.
 


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