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I know it’s all been said before but this is madness ….

In Capitalism as we have it, the price is set as high as the "market will bear" to optimise the profit oif the makers. So if they can make more profit from selling a few via advertising making it seem 'special', that's what they go for.

Some markets are also in essence, 'captured', by the 'suppliers'. Housing in the Uk is an example. The big housebuilders have openly said they only build when they can make 20% or more profit. And they 'lockstep' on this. i.e. no real competition drives down that margin by building more.

There is no magic ooofle dust. If a given cable 'costs' (sic) 1000 UKP/m and 'sounds good' the chances are that someone else could make it for sale at, say, 20 UKP/m, but would then get a lower profit to use in part for their advertising campaign. 8-]

People buy the label and the image when they splash out high amounts. KK routinely compares this with superb watches or expensive wines.

If you're happy to do it, fine. Your ears, your money. Personally, I stop worrying when moving my head half an inch or turning the level up a dB makes a bigger improvement. Having done both listening tests and measurements in the past, I now just enjoy the music, quite happy with cheap cables I got from CPC/Farnell on drums. :) YMMV if you can afford it. I use the money to buy CDs, etc.

That said, I also now use a DAP and headphones a lot. So the only cable is the one from DAP to headphones. And, yes, the cables that came with the phones *did* alter the sound. They were also too long for mobile use, and absurdly fat and heavy. So I got some simpler leads made by someone via PFM. These work fine. Measurement showed the fat fancy ones had a remarkably high end-to-end resistance due to the way they were made. Which then could be expected to interact with the headphone's frequency-dependent impedance and 'change the sound'.

Maybe people experimenting with cables could also experiment with adding small amounts of series inductance or shunt capacitcant or series resistance. Such components are cheap and may give you improvements (i.e. changes to your taste). Main snag for some may be soldering, I guess.


I'd have to suggest applying "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that" to some of that.

How does changing market share/ affecting competitors get built in and how do you value the changing profit margin profile over time, what degree of disruptive innovation and market share & margin fade rates should be assumed and are all market participants assumed to be rational players (in a capitalist sense)? It's all relevant if you want to look at that perspective and it's all really messy, but saying anything close to "Because Capitalism" may not help much.

In your cable price analogy, the market supply is elastic. A new player could spend a year's profit on an unusually high level of advertising, price at £900pm and clean up over a year or two - or until someone else did the same at £700. 'Price discovery' in a competitive market (many aren't) in its multifarious forms does eventually work. In the meantime, with forums like this existing, the company pricing at £20 might have a different audience and no control of their marketing process, but they would probably do very nicely too as soon as they make it £25.

I have over 16M runs of TQ Black 2 cables. If you can suggest a readily available cable that measures the same and is equally flexible that you are confident (a) won't damage anything and (b) will be indistinguishable to all in an extended 'as blind as we can' test, I may do a little experiment.

Otherwise, this all looks pretty sensible to me.
 
If you mean screening, maybe. But only if and to the extent that there is something to screen out.

I thought loose language had embarrassed me again, so I checked. As I understand it the key difference between 'shielding' and 'screening' cables for EMF is either (a) the Atlantic ocean or (b) they are not spelled the same. If that is wrong, correct away - we live and learn.

As for whether there could be anything from which anything else needs shielding, isn't close to (or worse) power leads and big transformers the sort of place where one can imagine there could be some possibility of interference?

I also struggle with the suggestion above that the young would be championing all this extra fidelity to the recorded original (if it existed) due to better ears. First, their high frequency hearing is known to be vastly superior - they could prove that superiority by hanging around shopping centres with those mosquito things, but choose not to. They don't 'champion' any benefits of their hearing.

More importantly I have yet to see the young in general being excited about any aspect of high fidelity, including many who doubt that anyone needs 2 speakers to hear 'everything' except perhaps when in a car, or that putting a Sonos on the wardrobe and within a foot of the ceiling could affect SQ. As with us when we were young, they also generally have no money for hi-fi or testing things when you can Google the answer for free in seconds. Some may be able to tell you that some iPhone docks sound 'a bit weird' if you ask.

The same argument would probably work better comparing 45 year olds with 65 year olds to check that the latter group were vastly less interested in pursuing high fidelity and/ or upgrading anything, which might support your point. I have not tried to check, but I am not sure that that is what the evidence here shows.

On the other hand, your point about digital cables seems unarguable, unless we want to pay a remarkable sum for convenience over connectors in a some cases. I have never upgraded ethernet cables. I could try, just to check, but the likelihood of success seems to me so low that I probably never will.

I am trying a set of Witch Hat cables atm. When we spoke, they had no idea that I might be a cable sceptic, but volunteered that even in my hi-fi it was very debatable whether there could be any audible difference between their power-only cable and the Naim original if used as recommended and actively told me that they would not supply in a 'full loom' a cable to carry purely digital signal between a NAC52 and its PS - my cheap original could not be beaten. If they are simply Woo salesmen, this might suggest that they are very bad at it.
 
I'd have to suggest applying "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that" to some of that.

How does changing market share/ affecting competitors get built in and how do you value the changing profit margin profile over time, what degree of disruptive innovation and market share & margin fade rates should be assumed and are all market participants assumed to be rational players (in a capitalist sense)? It's all relevant if you want to look at that perspective and it's all really messy, but saying anything close to "Because Capitalism" may not help much.

In your cable price analogy, the market supply is elastic. A new player could spend a year's profit on an unusually high level of advertising, price at £900pm and clean up over a year or two - or until someone else did the same at £700. 'Price discovery' in a competitive market (many aren't) in its multifarious forms does eventually work. In the meantime, with forums like this existing, the company pricing at £20 might have a different audience and no control of their marketing process, but they would probably do very nicely too as soon as they make it £25.

I have over 16M runs of TQ Black 2 cables. If you can suggest a readily available cable that measures the same and is equally flexible that you are confident (a) won't damage anything and (b) will be indistinguishable to all in an extended 'as blind as we can' test, I may do a little experiment.

Otherwise, this all looks pretty sensible to me.

Yes, there are lots of complexites in terms of making and selling stuff. Including having some reviewers talk twaddle about what you design and make. e.g. factors like retail markup and being a dealer who can get the desired items when others may not, etc.

But the 'economic' basis is as I outlined.

Afraid I have no idea what conclusions you'd reach using different cables with kit I know nothing about an when you judge by what you hear. FWIW I've spent many hours "listening to" the use of different cables, components, etc, in parallel with producing results like these (mix of theory and measurements).

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables3/TakeTheLead.html

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables2/OhmAndAway.html

I concluded that I was fine with basic cables. By ear as well as by measurements to check for any unwanted snags. YMMV. As I've said, I stopped worrying about this long ago. If people decide they prefer a costly/fancy cable, its their money and their ears.

FWIW for long runs of coax between pre and power amps I happily use a sparse-weave standard low-loss UHF TV coax because it has a low capacitance per metre. (minimises HF droop.) I think the longest run is about 8m. Bought a drum of it decades ago for use when I made cables. I also bought some 'Shark' brand cable from CPC - before its price abruptly rose by a huge factor a few years ago. Same cable, but much more expensive for some reason... Nice cable as it has a low reistance and is more flexible than the UHF stuff. Also a pretty colour. :)
 
I am trying a set of Witch Hat cables atm.
I have the hat pin 18 between my 52 and PS. The only reason it is there is because the grey Burndy had split at the connector and needed replacing. On a whim I ordered the hat pin purely because they offered a money back guarantee. It’s still in place! I could have cadged a black Burndy off a dealer to compare but never felt the need. Witch hat know what they are doing but they have some more exotic versions for mega bucks which just says to me that there is a market for them.
 
As for whether there could be anything from which anything else needs shielding, isn't close to (or worse) power leads and big transformers the sort of place where one can imagine there could be some possibility of interference?
Is it possible that a non-shielded or badly shielded cable might sound different in some circumstances than a well shielded one? Yes. But assuming that you are using a properly designed coax cable designed by engineers for the transmission of line level signals, the job is done. Cost a few pounds, move on.
Or if you are really worried about it, use balanced diffential signalling like in pro audio.
If you are asking whether I think that this is what explains most reported instances of sonic differences in line level cables, the answer is no.
I also struggle with the suggestion above that the young would be championing all this extra fidelity to the recorded original (if it existed) due to better ears. First, their high frequency hearing is known to be vastly superior - they could prove that superiority by hanging around shopping centres with those mosquito things, but choose not to.
....I have not tried to check, but I am not sure that that is what the evidence here shows.
Oh contraire -have you not heard of kids using high pitched ring tones for text messages which their teachers can't hear?

My point is that this would trouble me if I thought anecdotal sound quality reports were data and I actually took seriously the idea that some people anecotally reportign signifcant sound quality differences in cables amounted to evidence . I was inviting the reader to think about what they might expect to find if the reports of sonic differences were the result of hearign minute diferences at the edge of human capabilites. Age reated hearign loss is not just about frequency range.
On the other hand, your point about digital cables seems unarguable, unless we want to pay a remarkable sum for convenience over connectors in a some cases. I have never upgraded ethernet cables. I could try, just to check, but the likelihood of success seems to me so low that I probably never will.
unarguable and yet so many reports of digtal s/pdif cables sounding so different/so much better etc etc ? (even if they are in fact the same Belden cable] Have we established the hifi equivalent of the "monkey average" which has to be deducted from the multiple choice test?
I am trying a set of Witch Hat cables atm. When we spoke, they had no idea that I might be a cable sceptic, but volunteered that even in my hi-fi it was very debatable whether there could be any audible difference between their power-only cable and the Naim original if used as recommended and actively told me that they would not supply in a 'full loom' a cable to carry purely digital signal between a NAC52 and its PS - my cheap original could not be beaten. If they are simply Woo salesmen, this might suggest that they are very bad at it.
Sorry, I'm not sure what point you are making. (I have nothign against Witch hat)
 
Yes, there are lots of complexites in terms of making and selling stuff. Including having some reviewers talk twaddle about what you design and make. e.g. factors like retail markup and being a dealer who can get the desired items when others may not, etc.

But the 'economic' basis is as I outlined.

Afraid I have no idea what conclusions you'd reach using different cables with kit I know nothing about an when you judge by what you hear. FWIW I've spent many hours "listening to" the use of different cables, components, etc, in parallel with producing results like these (mix of theory and measurements).

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables3/TakeTheLead.html

https://www.audiomisc.co.uk/HFN/Cables2/OhmAndAway.html

I concluded that I was fine with basic cables. By ear as well as by measurements to check for any unwanted snags. YMMV. As I've said, I stopped worrying about this long ago. If people decide they prefer a costly/fancy cable, its their money and their ears.

FWIW for long runs of coax between pre and power amps I happily use a sparse-weave standard low-loss UHF TV coax because it has a low capacitance per metre. (minimises HF droop.) I think the longest run is about 8m. Bought a drum of it decades ago for use when I made cables. I also bought some 'Shark' brand cable from CPC - before its price abruptly rose by a huge factor a few years ago. Same cable, but much more expensive for some reason... Nice cable as it has a low reistance and is more flexible than the UHF stuff. Also a pretty colour. :)

1. Economics - we'll have to disagree. This is not the place for a discussion of investment analysis, but long-term reality is messier than you seem to be suggesting.

2. I don't put much confidence in my guessing what other people can and can't hear either. Having someone say: "That second violin sounds a bit off" is pretty well guaranteed to get a blank look from me, even when they are saying it in front of my hi-fi. It gets less pleasing when they say my hi-fi is a waste of money because "You can hear it all that on my little box anyway; it's just a bit clearer here", but it would be odd if I just assumed (as it seems some here would do) that they were making it up.

In addition, this is not just about unusual ears/ lack of wax. As a conductor said about why I looked blank about violin 2: "Your hearing isn't the problem, it's your listening - try harder."

I am also aware that how much I hear varies for all the reasons discussed on the thread, and that there are people who hear less (and/ or mind about it less) than I do today - and that in the future I'll inevitably be joining them as ears age.

3. The articles look worth a read - thanks. From my initial glance, when you say for example "Figure 3 shows typical results', is that a typical actual result, an average of some valid results or a simplified mock-up that shows more clearly what all the individual results looked like? Also, are we assuming a simple and constant signal to make each dot? If I should know from having finished reading before asking, my apologies.
 
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@adamdea - I wasn't suggesting you had a vendetta, honest.

My only point was that the usual comment from you, me and almost anyone to advertisers/ makers' claims is (a la Mandy Rice-Davies): "They would say that, wouldn't they?" If WH didn't actually believe any of their cables 'worked' and were just collecting the money, it would seem surprising that they will sell gullible me one cable but not the other.

Now, if I can just borrow someone's burned-in WH N2 burndy to compare to the Morgana downstairs (soon to be ready for comparisons), things may get interesting.
 
@adamdea - I wasn't suggesting you had a vendetta, honest.

My only point was that the usual comment from you, me and almost anyone to advertisers/ makers' claims is (a la Mandy Rice-Davies): "They would say that, wouldn't they?" If WH didn't actually believe any of their cables 'worked' and were just collecting the money, it would seem surprising that they will sell gullible me one cable but not the other.
No. Actually I imagine that most people in the industry are sincere even if they are in some/many cases or respects wrong.
 
Oh it is, it was intended that way. These types of threads always are intentional as the content and subsequent outcome is always the same. When OP's back out of their threads very quickly it is a sign of that intent.
Maybe so, as regards intent. But the outcome has been surprising. Once again I've encountered a quality discourse on subjects that are pertinent to the issue of listening. Apart from from some conversational breathlessness and a touch of angst, this PF discourse services the subject very well.
 
Maybe so, as regards intent. But the outcome has been surprising. Once again I've encountered a quality discourse on subjects that are pertinent to the issue of listening. Apart from from some conversational breathlessness and a touch of angst, this PF discourse services the subject very well.
I'm not 100% sure why any of this would be surprising (there's a load of missing premises).
But anyway the next step might be to elicit from them exactly what they regard as being the appropriate use case for the item in question- when and to what extent it might make a material difference.
 
One last thing before I exile myself for a bit. If anyone is interested in this idea of comparing the actual output of a device playing actual music with and without a DUT....

I think there is an example today of all days on ASR. I think this illustrates a number of points including what might be thought of as the baseline of "no difference" in practical terms. In this case there was a correslated null of 109dB and a difference which appears basically to be very low level noise. The process involves an extra A/D stage, in this case using the RME adi pro and I would guess that this is close to the limits of that A/D (it might be useful to compare with the run to run differences in the output of the same DAC with the device in and the equivalent run to run differences without.)

I would say this is somewhere near to the best you might get and for my own part think that it puts to bed the hypothesis that the device will behave radically differently with a "complex musical signal" (I'm assumign that;s what Amir means by "my reference tracks".

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/chord-groundaray-review-noise-filter.36256/
 
I have a lot of sympathy with your gist here, but still have a couple of quibbles.

I think that comparatively few of the more objectivist here object to other people spending/ wasting money in ways that please them. However, they are a good deal less happy to see people misled by claims of utility or relevant superiority, which is how many of them see the situation. If you choose to buy a gold bath, they can be confident that you know what you are doing.

Second, you are opening up the topics of sustainable margins and their decay in luxury branded good businesses versus technology businesses, though I doubt that you intend to are that anyone but me is interested in them. Can we just apply the Goldacre caveat “It’s a bit more complicated than that”?

If I were thinking of buying a Lamborghini, someone pointing out that I can get the same performance from the same V10 in an R8 with fewer ‘issues’ and for less money might be very handy. At least if I then look again at the Ksmmbi and buy it anyway, I know what it is that I sm buying and why.

I don’t think either changes your basic point, mind you.
I must have made my point badly, apologies!

I didn’t mean to suggest anything relevant to your second paragraph and the rights of people to spend their money as they see fit. I was merely pushing back at any suggestion that value for money is or should be based on input costs whether materials, marketing, labour, R&D or whatever. Input costs take no account of actual performance (in technical terms) nor of subjective desirability. Simply put, the “value proposition” is far more complex than input-costs-plus-a-bit-of-a-profit and has been for decades. The value proposition of the Audi will always be very different from the value proposition of the Lambo, each appealing to different buyers for different reasons.
 
3. The articles look worth a read - thanks. From my initial glance, when you say for example "Figure 3 shows typical results', is that a typical actual result, an average of some valid results or a simplified mock-up that shows more clearly what all the individual results looked like? Also, are we assuming a simple and constant signal to make each dot? If I should know from having finished reading before asking, my apologies.

Not certain which article you mean. But one page illustrates what the theory of transmission lines (cables) would expect for the given cable values. (C/m, etc). The main thing there to note is the wild varitions with frequency due to the cable's characteristic impedance not matching the load. The experimental page then shows the results you'd get for the specific cables when loaded in various ways.
 
As a conductor said about why I looked bank about violin 2: "Your hearing isn't the problem, it's your listening - try harder."

Just shows that some conductors aren't as capable of dealing with an orchestra than others. For me, good conductors are like Barbirolli, they lead/supprot/encourage and bring out the talent in their players to get good results. Bad ones are like Gergiev - or some of the US conductors who bully, rant, or demand some players are fired to intimidate the rest into 'folliowing orders.

The first type get musical results. The second 'impressive' results.
 
2. I don't put much confidence in my guessing what other people can and can't hear either. Having someone say: "That second violin sounds a bit off" is pretty well guaranteed to get a blank look from me, even when they are saying it in front of my hi-fi. It gets less pleasing when they say my hi-fi is a waste of money because "You can hear it all that on my little box anyway; it's just a bit clearer here", but it would be odd if I just assumed (as it seems some here would do) that they were making it up.
If the second violin is a bit off, there isn't a cable on this earth that will fix it.
 
Just shows that some conductors aren't as capable of dealing with an orchestra than others. For me, good conductors are like Barbirolli, they lead/supprot/encourage and bring out the talent in their players to get good results. Bad ones are like Gergiev - or some of the US conductors who bully, rant, or demand some players are fired to intimidate the rest into 'folliowing orders.

The first type get musical results. The second 'impressive' results.

I think it shows that some people of my age hear much better than I do, and more than one is confident that it's training and work mostly that makes the difference, not my complete lack of any discernible musical ability or bad ears.

That doesn't prove that (say) 5 Naim boxes beat one decent all-in-one player in 'real' SQ of course. However, just because I don't hear a difference between A & B and can't show the mechanism that produces, it still doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist - those who say they can may be right. Of course, if I never will, I may or may not care.

Things are complicated by the fact that I have on a few occasions over 30 years formed a quick impression of No Audible Difference, only to find that (a) 2 other people in the room immediately disagreed but didn't want to mention, and (b) a couple of weeks later I hadn't relaxed and was doubting my previous decision. As I say, I know I am not a good reviewer.

As to your comment on composers, I couldn't agree more! We are up to prom 6, and have been near enough to watch closely a few times again in recent weeks.
 
We are up to prom 6, and have been near enough to watch closely a few times again in recent weeks.

Jealous! I've not been able to actually go to Prom for decades. Have to rely on R3 and BBC Four. Alas, BBC Four HD is currently AWOL on Terrestrial TV, and it isn't clear when it may return. Thank heavens for the iPlayer, albeit poorer for BBC Four than it used to be. But R3 still excellent.
 
R3 is a great comfort - great music, very little commentary except for sensible-sounding bits and sound quality good enough that I can enjoy without the annoying sense of missing out.

Mind you, I like RAH now, but the actual SQ on R3 is still a good deal better than 'really being there' if 'there' means any of a large swathe of seats when things get lively. I am glad we weren't in 'the Gods' for the Rite Of Spring. However, I am not so hi-fi or SQ-obessive that I would rather listen at home.

I am very lucky that it is only 20-30 minutes from home on 2 wheels. My hi-fi spends almost all its life playing non-claissical (can I call it all 'vernacular) music because I get large chunk of annual fix in a couple of months and live. I can't do that with most of the rest.
 


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