Parlour trick

[whatsnext]

One thing I find amusing is the people who equate mains and digital cables characteristics to analogue cables (interconnect and mains).

Manufacturers also continue that notion. Why would silver coated cable enhance sound of a mains cable or a USB cable even if it does affect interconnects.

 

[adamdea]

Ah, but *if* he had heard a difference in say a powerline cable to kettle lead, or superlumina to bellwire, well, he would have solved the science as to why. Well I like to think so anyway, the guy is my hero.

I'm really interested in what we can hear, how we can hear it, and why we think we hear the things we do. I am therefore endlessly baffled at the lack of interest shown by most enthusiasts in the available learning. I mean the real learning, not advertising copy. Of course there's only so much time.

Your hero would already have known what constitutes a controlled experiment so if (which I doubt) he was excited by the result of a sighted test he would have swiftly followed it with an unsighted one. Assuming that he has only ordinary human hearing I can't see that it would have gone much further, but if he was troubled by the disparity between the sighted and unsighted results, no doubt he would have been stimulated by his reading into perceptual science, and comforted by the ability of science to provide a complete explanation.

 

[Whaleblue]

May i ask, just to be curious,have you ever purchased a piece of hifi equipment & heard a difference from what you currently own.
...

Speakers.

If you missed it, I posted a whole thread on my recent search.

Phono stages.

Subtler changes, but I imagine AB'able.

Amps.

I've found matching amps to speakers matters. Some speakers in particular - Shahinian Obelisks spring to mind.

DACs.

Very subtle differences. Possibly worthwhile, depending on price differentials. Have AB differentiated Sonos Connect vs. Leema Pyxis in-built DAC - on a blind test, but not to statistically significant levels. Got it right 3 three times in a row and stopped.

Interconnect Cables.

Never heard a difference. Haven't tried many. I have bought decent build quality ones and suspect spent more than I needed to.

Mains cables.

Once got an audiophile one with a Superuniti I bought s/h. Needless to say, I didn't detect a difference over the standard Naim cable. Sold it on here (stating my findings in the classified).

 

[BE718]

Indeed. Had Nordost not sent the letter, and instead maintained a dignified silence, no doubt we'd be reading a thread about how Nordost were afraid to defend their position.

As I mentioned previously their best defense would have been to invite the blogger to an independently scrutinised test.

I guarantee they wont do that.

It would have been patently obvious to anyone in charge of marketing that throwing around legal threats instead of actually demonstrating the efficacy of the product and the validity of the test would lead to negative conjecture.

If the efficacy of the product is apparently easily identifiable in a hotel room at a show ie unfamiliar surroundings, acoustics, equipment and music, an independently scrutinised test should be marketing gold for them under these circumstances.

So why have they employed lawyers instead?

 

[davidsrsb]

Well, not my problem, but I'd suggest something which measures differently, and to a level which is generally accepted to be audible. A difference in level, or distortion, perhaps, of a degree which can be agreed to be audible.

Nothing wrong with that as a method, as it can be repeated independently of the tester. The trouble is that only speaker cables have significant measurable effect - too much resistance has audible effects.
It would take a very strange cable to change mains voltages much

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

There is ample evidence of levels of noise and distortion which can be detected in ABX tests. Consider the Phillips Golden-ear challenge, or the Harman course. It is established that rapid switching is necessary because audio memory is short.

And the tests you linked to did produce results for audible distortion, which is not entirely surprising in a quickfire A/B switching test.

As an aside I'm sure I've read on here that, scientifically speaking, the results are only statistically significant if they show correlation to the 95th percentile, ie 95% positive, which none of the tests you link to managed to achieve.

Nevertheless, my wider point is that there are some effects which are not so susceptible to quickfire A/B switching. My experience is that things like DAC filters, speaker cables, interconnects (and, yes, mains cables), supports, tonearms and similar affect the performance in ways which are most obviously heard in the realms of timing and dynamics. These effects are not slap-you-in-the-face obvious, and tend to lead (in my experience) to longer-term satisfaction. I doubt I'd pick them up in a rapid switching A/B dem of a short snatch of music, but I'm equally sure in my own mind that the differences are not illusory.

An example: last year I borrowed a better tonearm and, for a while, I found myself revisiting my vinyl collection and ignoring my CD player. When I returned the tonearm to its rightful owner and refitted my own, I played two sides of an LP, checked it was really fitted correctly, tried again and then didn't touch the turntable for about three weeks. That wasn't deliberate, I just wasn't drawn to play music on it, in the slightest. I'm equally sure that I wouldn't have been able to pick out the tonearms in a quickfire A/B dem.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

What you call direct experience might be called naive empiricisim by someone else. By far the most likely explanation for this direct experience is expectation bias - or psychological factors more generally. So far there is no evidence of anything else.

It seems pretty clear that we (all) listen differently, and have different priorities. There is a new-ish thread on here about £5k speakers. I recommended Focal 1028Bes, endorsed by a couple of other posters. The OP responded and said he'd heard them, and they weren't for him. I know Tony is not a fan, either (but has high regard for LS3/5as, which I detest with a passion). I remain of the view that I haven't heard better at the price. The recommendations the OP seemed to warm to, and others too, were often speakers I've heard, and have absolutely no interest in.

So, clearly, people often have different priorities. I expect this relates to the peculiarities of our own hearing, and what our brain finds most important in the signal it receives. Some people on here are willing to try things out, and almost always report no difference for them. Where my experience is different, I don't conclude that either of us is wrong, merely that the other person's experience is valid for him, as mine is for me, and that we are probably perceiving different things.

How do you measure and test for that in one, definitive test?

 

[hammeredklavier]

DACs.

Very subtle differences. Possibly worthwhile, depending on price differentials. Have AB differentiated Sonos Connect vs. Leema Pyxis in-built DAC - on a blind test, but not to statistically significant levels. Got it right 3 three times in a row and stopped.

Yeah, that's one of the problems with ABX testing. You have to keep listening to a short sample over and over, and eventually I think your ears just get numb to it. I used to do quite a bit of ABXing with lossy codecs, but can't face it these days! As you say, you'll get it right fairly consistently then start getting it wrong.

 

[mattgbell]

So, clearly, people often have different priorities. I expect this relates to the peculiarities of our own hearing, and what our brain finds most important in the signal it receives. Some people on here are willing to try things out, and almost always report no difference for them. Where my experience is different, I don't conclude that either of us is wrong, merely that the other person's experience is valid for him, as mine is for me, and that we are probably perceiving different things.

How do you measure and test for that in one, definitive test?

OTOH Harman have been carrying out blind tests of speakers for years and have got consistent results: people prefer speakers with a flat FR. It seems most people like the same thing.

 

[venton]

It's quite simple really. Some of us get a free drug kick from the music when it sounds good. Kettle lead = no drugs, high as a kite = cable worth it.

"If the music we hear meets or surpasses our expectations, the nucleus accumbens will release dopamine, a feel-good chemical that's generally associated with rewards like the feelings we get from good food, great sex, or drugs."

http://www.businessinsider.com/image-of-our-brain-listening-to-music-2013-6

 

[Tony L]

As I mentioned previously their best defense would have been to invite the blogger to an independently scrutinised test.

Why? Why should they pander to unsubstantiated accusations from every random bloke on the internet? Personally I'd have just ignored it entirely. The internet is rammed full of unsubstantiated opinion, slurs and accusations from all kinds of people with every agenda conceivable, so why shine a spotlight on one largely irrelevant person's opinion even if they knew he was lying (I'm not saying he is, but I'd expect Nordorst to hold that view if they were potentially gambling on a court case)? The discussion has only reached sites the size of pfm because of the C&D order, not because of the article itself. The phrase 'do not feed the energy monster' is one of the most useful to have in mind when running any internet venture.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

As an aside I'm sure I've read on here that, scientifically speaking, the results are only statistically significant if they show correlation to the 95th percentile, ie 95% positive, which none of the tests you link to managed to achieve.

That wording is a bit ambiguous so I'm not sure if you really understand the point of the statistical 'significance' test.

The aim *isn't* to get 95% of all responses 'correct'.

The aim is to get a result where there is only a 5% chance you'd have got that set of answers by 'random chance'.

So, on a long enough series of trials, you may find that just a few percent more 'correct' answers than 'wrong' ones would pass the statistical significance requirement that there was only a 5% chance of getting those results by random chance.

Hence given many repeate trials you can spot quite subtle distinctions. This is why 'Cochrane' meta-data analysis has been so useful in the health area. They collect and correlate all the findings published on a specific question and combine them to be able to detect quite small tendencies.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

TBH My own view is that I tend to find changes in the perceived sound all the time - even when *nothing* has changed in the equipment so far as I know and I'm playing the same source at the same level, etc.

For me the real questions are wrt the *reasons* people then assert as being the 'cause' of the difference they heard. All too easy in my experience to jump on the wrong reason. You may well have heard a difference, but it could easily be down to something else than the 'reason' you think.

Getting to the bottom of that would be interesting *and* it would allow more people to get better results - probably at lower cost and more quickly.

 

[Purité Audio]

It seems pretty clear that we (all) listen differently, and have different priorities. There is a new-ish thread on here about £5k speakers. I recommended Focal 1028Bes, endorsed by a couple of other posters. The OP responded and said he'd heard them, and they weren't for him. I know Tony is not a fan, either (but has high regard for LS3/5as, which I detest with a passion). I remain of the view that I haven't heard better at the price. The recommendations the OP seemed to warm to, and others too, were often speakers I've heard, and have absolutely no interest in.

So, clearly, people often have different priorities. I expect this relates to the peculiarities of our own hearing, and what our brain finds most important in the signal it receives. Some people on here are willing to try things out, and almost always report no difference for them. Where my experience is different, I don't conclude that either of us is wrong, merely that the other person's experience is valid for him, as mine is for me, and that we are probably perceiving different things.

How do you measure and test for that in one, definitive test?

In this instance the unsighted comparison isn't about what you prefer , it is merely to determine if there is any difference whatsoever.
Keith

 

[Lee T]

Speakers.

If you missed it, I posted a whole thread on my recent search.

Phono stages.

Subtler changes, but I imagine AB'able.

Amps.

I've found matching amps to speakers matters. Some speakers in particular - Shahinian Obelisks spring to mind.

DACs.

Very subtle differences. Possibly worthwhile, depending on price differentials. Have AB differentiated Sonos Connect vs. Leema Pyxis in-built DAC - on a blind test, but not to statistically significant levels. Got it right 3 three times in a row and stopped.

Interconnect Cables.

Never heard a difference. Haven't tried many. I have bought decent build quality ones and suspect spent more than I needed to.

Mains cables.

Once got an audiophile one with a Superuniti I bought s/h. Needless to say, I didn't detect a difference over the standard Naim cable. Sold it on here (stating my findings in the classified).

What i find odd is (and this is not nessecarily aimed at you) is why i read regularly on here that some hear very little difference in pretty much anything, yet pay thousands for gear, my whole main system cost me £340 including cables & i hear differences in everything, quite large differences on occasion, doesn't add up why you would pay thousands on something when a few hundred would obviously do the job as the audible differences would be so small as to be insignificant,
either some are telling porkies or thay don't really believe what they post & say this to keep in with the norm on pfm, which equates to, as a general rule of thumb, from what i read regularly, all cables sound pretty much the same, mains cables make no difference whatsoever, amps are much of a muchness, cd players all sound the same & speakers are about the the only thing to change if you want to improve your system.

It's an odd place & considering the obvious intelligence here, makes no sense. How would any inteligent person pay thousands on hifi equipment if they hear very little difference between components, it's a silly waste of money & something i would equate to someone with very little intelligence or someone who is drawn in by nice shiny objects or marketing spiel.

I often get accused of such things which is odd considering what i own compared to many here who regularly claim such indifference to different compenents. Obviously, for some , it's all about the equipment rather than the music.

 

[davidsrsb]

An example: last year I borrowed a better tonearm and, for a while, I found myself revisiting my vinyl collection and ignoring my CD player. When I returned the tonearm to its rightful owner and refitted my own, I played two sides of an LP, checked it was really fitted correctly, tried again and then didn't touch the turntable for about three weeks. That wasn't deliberate, I just wasn't drawn to play music on it, in the slightest. I'm equally sure that I wouldn't have been able to pick out the tonearms in a quickfire A/B dem.

Arm tube resonances measure very differently when checked with an accelerometer and that is before we start taking arm mass cartridge compliance resonance into account. I don't think anyone would say all arms sound the same - should be a fairly easy ABX test

 

[Purité Audio]

You 'believe' you hear differences in everything .
Keith

 

[Alan Sircom]

Why? Why should they pander to unsubstantiated accusations from every random bloke on the internet? Personally I'd have just ignored it entirely. The internet is rammed full of unsubstantiated opinion, slurs and accusations from all kinds of people with many agendas, so why shine a spotlight on one largely irrelevant person's opinion even if they knew he was lying (I'm not saying he is, but I'd expect Nordorst to hold that view if they were potentially gambling on a court case)? The discussion has only reached sites the size of pfm because of the C&D order, not because of the article itself. The phrase 'do not feed the energy monster' is one of the most useful to have in mind when running any internet venture.

A fair point, as I think the reporting by the original author is possibly defamatory, although giving him the benefit of the doubt probably unintentional and thereby missing the whole 'malicious falsehood' thing.

Here's why. If you look at images of Nordost's AXPONA room, the company is using a Hegel preamp at roughly eye level for seated listeners. Far from having a tiny volume level display that could only be seen by eagle-eyed youth, the Hegel amps have an inch-high, bright and bright blue numerical LED volume read-out. Moreover, Nordost's past demonstrations over the years have featured similarly large volume level displays, most notably Moon amps, to show that they are not tampering with the volume (a well known underhand trick in the audio business).

By the standards of the audio business, altering the volume level during a comparison would be considered underhand actions on Nordost's part. However, changing the volume level between comparisons is considered perfectly acceptable (because, say, the track used to compare cables A and B is quieter than the track used to compare cables B and C). If the reporting of a Nordost demonstration blurs the lines between changing the level 'during' a demonstration and 'between' a demonstration, it also blurs to lines between what is considered 'good' and 'sharp' practice among Nordost's peers.

As defamation is defined by the potential for undermining a reputation among peers, and Nordost could call upon many, many witnesses who could attest to their not changing the volume level during a specific comparison, the veracity of the statements made must be called into question.

On a more trivial level, why would Nordost actively choose an amplifier that broadcast the volume level to the audience in inch-high numbers if it were trying to hide raising the volume level? Nordost could have access to any amp, including those that don't have a large volume display.

I suspect that sometimes in the rush to burn a witch, the mob forgets to check if she weighs more than a duck.

 

[cooky1257]

No, and to me that is the problem.
In fact, the root of the problem of discussions here.
My perception that there are no papers, is an affirmation that science isn't currently up to date.
Your perception, dare I say, is that the research is invalid because there are no peer reviewed papers.
We will never agree, the argument cannot be logically argued.
I can't see any reason why a grant would be given for a scientific study of human hifi perception. More likely, this research will be carried out for commercial reasons to get an edge on the competition. Which is what Rob Watts is doing. I recommend the head-fi Dave forum to read some of his posts - he is very knowledgeable indeed. If you so wished you could ask him some questions on there- he seems to be very happy to oblige.

I was thinking more papers in the field of Psychoacoustics rather than Audio tbh.
I'm not saying the research is invalid but there are processes in place whereby research can be validated.
By all accounts the Hugo is a splendidly good dac.

 

[whatsnext]

What i find odd is (and this is not nessecarily aimed at you) is why i read regularly on here that some hear very little difference in pretty much anything, yet pay thousands for gear, my whole main system cost me £340 including cables & i hear differences in everything, quite large differences on occasion, doesn't add up why you would pay thousands on something when a few hundred would obviously do the job as the audible differences would be so small as to be insignificant,
either some are telling porkies or thay don't really believe what they post & say this to keep in with the norm on pfm, which equates to, as a general rule of thumb, from what i read regularly, all cables sound pretty much the same, mains cables make no difference whatsoever, amps are much of a muchness, cd players all sound the same & speakers are about the the only thing to change if you want to improve your system.

It's an odd place & considering the obvious intelligence here, makes no sense. How would any inteligent person pay thousands on hifi equipment if they hear very little difference between components, it's a silly wast of money & something i would equate to someone quite uninteligent or drawn in by nice shiny objects.

I venture to suggest you still have much to learn about human beings. Perhaps then you might either understand or treat them with a greater tolerance and resist the urge to judge them.

Some people hear differences in cables that are worth mentioning, others (the majority of the human race) don't.

Want to talk about why cables sound different?