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Main power cables

Oddly it is all science. I have no doubt that those that perceive a difference in the case of stuff like mains cables really do and good luck to them. The brain is a very powerful thing.

It is all science, or more specifically your understanding of science vs. say Roy Gandy’s, Dan D’Agostino’s, Rob Watts’ or whoever’s. Who should an audio discussion forum owner side with, some random bloke on the internet, or the people who have forged a life’s career at the very highest levels of audio replay equipment design? Consensus wise I think I’ll lean towards those with a proven track record in designing real cutting edge audio kit. That is not to say I won’t host any dissenting views at all, I just will not allow them to bully others. Again all this has been covered in the AUP for as long as I can remember. It is nothing new.
 
My aim right from the very start of pfm was to plant the flag in the centre ground. I do not want to moderate to either side, but crusader evangelism forces my hand. They simply will not allow people who reject their mindset to hold a conversation. I don’t accept the ‘science’ vs. ‘witchcraft’ argument either as so many exceptionally successful industry-leading audio engineers are on the ‘cables make a difference’ side of the argument. As such I view the fundamentalism as trolling. I need to host a more tolerant discussion that allows all voices space.
Moderation has a lot to commend it. Obviously it's your forum and you can run it how you like. And it is worth telling people to pipe down etc etc etc. I would not for a moment wish to suggest that you shouldn't moderate here

But, the highlighted passage, however convenient it would be if it actually were the case, just is not true in any meaningful sense. No engineer has AFAIK ever qua engineer made any credible engineering case for fancy aftermarket mains cables.
It may be true that there are people in the industry who may or may not have engineering qualifications, who make a living out of selling cables (or find it commercially useful to some form of partnerhip with those who do.) This is not the same thing. There are many people in the medical profession happy to make a buck out of homeopathy. Some may even believe it, but none of them have an expert medical opinion based on medical science that it works.

Having an intellectually coherent and honest view of this stuff is not the same as being an extremist, even if in some social contexts it is more polite to affect acceptance all sorts of stuff. This of course is not an excuse for boorishness.

I accept that this may be besides the point if one's position is that some sort of median industry/enthusiast position just has to be regarded right as such. And an enthusiasts' forum may have to reflect the views of enthusiasts. And people should try to be civil and (perhaps even more so) to avoid being dull or shouty. And yes people should have better things to do with their time.
 
It isn't possible to be neutral on the subject. On the one hand you have the informed promoting a scientific view and on the other a combination of the uninformed and those involved in profiting from the deception promoting magical thinking.

Language like that is the problem in a nutshell.
 
The problem is that by taking that line you are effectively calling the overwhelming majority of successful audio companies charlatans. I am not that arrogant. I am perfectly prepared to listen to the arguments of say Rega, Naim, Linn, Musical Fidelity, Mission, Exposure, Krell, Conrad Johnson, Nelson Pass, Chord, DPA, Audio Research, ProAc etc etc etc, all of whom either acknowledge cables make some degree of difference or actually market them for use with their products.

Most of those you list have been actively actively involved in deception in order to sell products. It is a line those that are technically/scientifically literate get to choose to cross or not. Less so on the sales side where scientific knowledge may be absent as I suspect is the case with yourself.

I am surprised to find Rega market a £100 mains cable and I expect it was something they thought carefully about before associating with their conservative brand. There are of course no claims for sonic benefits on their website which would likely have caused the same type of damage among potential conservative customers that happened to the Denon brand a few years ago with their ethernet cable.

By rejecting knowledge in favour of what you consider to be authorities you are demonstrating how the current audiophile business works and where accommodating deception leads. It is no different to other areas where doing likewise is currently having similarly unhealthy but very much more serious results. In the case of home audio one does need to have been actively involved before the audiophile phenomenon entered the mainstream to have first hand experience.

This is an audio discussion website. It was created to discuss audio equipment, and I’m always happy to host that. What I won’t host is content from a couple of rank outsiders who are arrogant enough to believe their unproven personal opinion trumps the combined knowledge and engineering experience of the companies I list and seek to shutdown discussion and bully people from starting threads. If we are taking a credibility poll I’ll side with those who have consistently proved themselves in an exceptionally tough marketplace and built products that are highly respected household names over a couple of unknown internet warriors.

I would suggest internet warriors are not really the issue since both sides have them. If you choose to stop deception being given a hard time on your site then discussion will almost certainly shift towards accommodating that deception as seen on other UK sites. That is a choice for you to make and I would be very interested in watching the process if you chase the warriors from one side away giving space for the opposition to re-establish themselves. The PFM balance is pretty rare at the moment.

This isn’t just my own viewpoint, it is the overwhelming majority viewpoint of pfm members as indicated in site feedback, post reports etc. If folk have a extreme objectivist agenda they wish to yell and scream about all day then please take it to Hydrogen Audio or wherever. It is not welcome here. I want to host friendly discussion where folk can discuss say a Rega mains lead without being trolled off the site.
As I mentioned at the beginning there isn't a middle ground between reality and deception. Tolerating deception while acknowledging scientific knowledge as reality is about the best you are going to get and is not far off where I would judge PFM to be at the moment. This is favouring a scientific view while not driving off a deceptive view in the manner of hydrogenaudio. Of course genuine scientific knowledge is not widely possessed but it does exist and it is quite independent of people and their personalities.
 
One error that comes up often is the assumption that if someone claims to be an objectivist that the person is in fact being scientific and credible. Conversely, it’s a mistake to think that if a person claims to be a subjectivist and evaluates using the ears that the person rejects science and embraces nonsense.

Lemme ‘splain. Some objectivist claims simply don’t hold up to critical scrutiny because the person making them may be scientifically naive or technically illiterate. If you don’t know how to use test equipment, understand how the tests were conducted, the limits or pitfalls of measurement, what the measurements mean or whether they represent what you think they do, quoting them doesn’t make you objective and scientific.

Similarly, if someone relies on senses to evaluate and has conducted proper case–control tests, the results can be scientific and hold up to critical scrutiny. If you don’t agree, best let medical researchers know because they’ve wasted billions doing just that. I doubt most hobbyists do rigorous double-blind tests, but I have participated in a few blind studies and the results were enlightening to say the least.

Joe
 
Isn't it all just another modern age divisional identity delineation ... a sort of metric to cross another [insert pejorative here] off a list to validate ourselves in this cyberclusterfukk?
 
Isn't it all just another modern age divisional identity delineation ... a sort of metric to cross another [insert pejorative here] off a list to validate ourselves in this cyberclusterfukk?

Sadly I think it largely is! The thing that annoys me the most is I really couldn’t care less what people think about audio cables! I don’t have an entrenched viewpoint on this subject, I’m very much in the live and let live camp. Anything I’ve been able to reliably hear has some obviously measurable difference from an electrical perspective (e.g. NAC A5 is very different to Kimber 8TC electrically) and my only agenda is I make my living running an audio discussion site and like it or not audio cables are a huge part of this marketplace, so I’d be dumb beyond belief to allow a small number of trolls and crusaders (some with commercial agendas) to bully people who wish to discuss available products away.

I use decent but not overly expensive cables myself, all bought second hand for what I could easily recoup if I sold them, so in real terms cheaper than using cheap Chinese tat from Asda! What’s to get so agitated about here?

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Here’s a 1m pair of vdH D103 that I bought boxed for £60, works a treat (very low capacitance so fine with my passive pre) and I could likely get £85 if I sold it. Why on earth would I want to use cheap shite?
 
Here’s a 1m pair of vdH D103 that I bought boxed for £60, works a treat (very low capacitance so fine with my passive pre) and I could likely get £85 if I sold it. Why on earth would I want to use cheap shite?

Nothing wrong with using a well-made and good-looking cable, and of course that costs money. I don't think there is any disagreement about that. The issues are more to do with the circumstances in which exotic cables change the sound. Personally I'm open to this being a possibility but take a Humean approach, the rational person is inclined to believe the most likely explanation for any particular phenomenon.

Tim
 
I use decent but not overly expensive cables myself, all bought second hand for what I could easily recoup if I sold them, so in real terms cheaper than using cheap Chinese tat from Asda! What’s to get so agitated about here?
Same here. I bought a few brand name secondhand interconnects years ago and still use them. MIT, Audioquest, etc. Nothing exotic. The most I spent was on QED speaker cables and I sold them after some A&B against standard Monoprice bulk wire. I really tried but couldn't hear a difference other than at some point I convinced myself I preferred the bulk wire. I don't own any aftermarket mains cables.
 
Jimmy,

Quote: "In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see."

Video:

Joe
 
will it take longer to argue about arguing than about cables?
I imaging that ( in 50's speak) some people just like to have the last word.
 


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