Puzzling results with ATC SCM50ASLT loudspeakers vs. previous system

[Patu]

Can you post some measurements showing the differences in power cables please.

Here's a spec sheet for quite popular Belden 83803 power cable, which is used in many audiophile power cables.

https://catalog.belden.com/techdata/EN/83803_techdata.pdf

You can find all sorts of measured values on the spec sheet, like capacitance and resistance.

Other Belden cables, like also popular 19364, may have very different values because of a completely different design.

Then it will be trivial for you ace a blind test and demonstrate this. But you won't.

Correct, I won't.

 

[onlyconnect]

Can you post some measurements showing the differences in power cables please.

All of mine are slightly different in length and circumference?

 

[chiily]

Here's a spec sheet for quite popular Belden 83803 power cable, which is used in many audiophile power cables.

https://catalog.belden.com/techdata/EN/83803_techdata.pdf

You can find all sorts of measured values on the spec sheet, like capacitance and resistance.

Other Belden cables, like also popular 19364, may have very different values because of a completely different design.



Correct, I won't.

I think Alex means measurements of the change in sound. Pointing at the cable spec is just a deflection from the discussion.

Let's see the measurements of the changes to the sound please...

 

[Patu]

Alpha-Audio has taken cable measurements quite far and have tested and measured a lot of interconnect cables (spoiler: there are measurable differences): https://www.alpha-audio.net/review/interlinks-dont-do-anything-or-do-they-32-rca-cables-analyzed/24/

Here you can see how cable shielding affects the properties of an interlink cable: https://www.alpha-audio.net/background/the-influence-of-shielding-and-insulation-on-interlinks/3/

Here's some measurements for what power conditioners do:

 

[Phyztech]

Can you post some measurements showing the differences in power cables please.

omg, again. What measurements do you ask when you go to the Michelin restaurant? It’s a fair analogue for the good sound. No, you continue to say you will do the same at the kitchen..

 

[Alex S]

Here's a spec sheet for quite popular Belden 83803 power cable, which is used in many audiophile power cables.

https://catalog.belden.com/techdata/EN/83803_techdata.pdf

You can find all sorts of measured values on the spec sheet, like capacitance and resistance.

Other Belden cables, like also popular 19364, may have very different values because of a completely different design.

Thank you. I am aware that capacitance, inductance and resistance will influence sound, dependent on length and what they’re connected to.

I presume that you would agree that a cable with the same values as the Belden would sound the same?

 

[Alex S]

omg, again. What measurements do you ask when you go to the Michelin restaurant? It’s a fair analogue for the good sound. No, you continue to say you will do the same at the kitchen..

If the restaurant claimed their food could be measured for culinary excellence I would ask to see the measurements. Patu offered that cables show measurable differences that relate to sound quality so I asked to see them.

Nonetheless, it is a very poor analogy unless you believe sound is magic and a sprinkle of this or that according to taste, instead of engineering and electricity.

 

[Patu]

Thank you. I am aware that capacitance, inductance and resistance will influence sound, dependent on length and what they’re connected to.

I presume that you would agree that a cable with the same values as the Belden would sound the same?

Probably yeah.

 

[Phyztech]

Nonetheless, it is a very poor analogy

There’s probably simply no better one

 

[Phyztech]

or that according to taste, instead of engineering and electricity.

For sure it’s a taste-based. Or you seriously claim that ATC and Audio Note system preference/difference (take Naim, Martin Logan, whatever) is not a matter of taste?

 

[onlyconnect]

For sure it’s a taste-based. Or you seriously claim that ATC and Audio Note system preference/difference is not a matter of taste?

"Let's evade the question by changing the subject"

 

[Phyztech]

"Let's evade the question by changing the subject"

No, I’m just tired to explain that frequency response ‘measurements’ tell very little about the actual performance of the system

 

[Alex S]

Yes, as an end user I express my taste, it would be perverse not to. If measurements show "very little", I presume you just go by ear? I go by ear, measurements, cost, looks, country of design and manufacture, servicing and support options. All the latter don't tell me "very little" about actual performance, but nothing at all.

Do you go to restaurants and say 'ooh, this tastes nice', or to an art gallery and say 'that's a pretty picture' without wondering why you might like them?

PS that's rhetorical, I'm going to walk my dogs.

 

[Phyztech]

I presume you just go by ear? I go by ear, measurements, cost, looks, country of design and manufacture, servicing and support options. All the latter don't tell me "very little" about actual performance, but nothing at all.

If the ear tells nothing about the performance how the heck it would be possible to select any hi-fi product at all. It’s all you need.

 

[Alex S]

You will be pleased to note that I have finished walking my dogs. In English, latter means the later stuff, so "cost, looks, country of design and manufacture, servicing and support options" tell me nothing about performance. In case I need say, one's ears and the measurements do.

We seem to be arguing because you rely solely on the fallible subjective test of using one's ears only. I rely on them too but also like to know how things measure. Stuff that people claim can't be measured at all, or isn't by the manufacturer, for whatever reason, leave me sceptical. I entirely accept that a site like ASR may be putting too great an emphasis on certain measurements but I'm equally unaccepting of the subjectivist claim that they're measuring the wrong thing, or can't measure the right thing.

The debate centres on two viewpoints (to polarise): "what I hear can't be measured so I don't put faith in measurements, I just trust my ears" and "human hearing is fallible so I trust only the measurements, don't even need to listen to know how something sounds". Both are equally ridiculous and any sane person falls in between.

 

[Filian]

Judged from the sheer persistence of objectivist "science", which is anything but, and including its constant logical and rhetorical contradictions, threads like this are exactly what smarter minds had eventually surmised. They're a kind of control instinct bordering on anger.

 

[tuga]

I presume that you would agree that a cable with the same values as the Belden would sound the same?

Probably yeah.

Measured differences do not necessarily mean audible differences.
Some parameters are more audible than others and the thresholds of audibility vary.
And listeners' tolerance to different types of distortion varies as well:

 

[Woodface]

I think most people use a combination of measurements & listening to make choices. I will never entertain fancy cables, especially of the mains variety. I’d much rather just go on nice holidays or ride a top end road bike.

I also like quality clothes & shoes.

 

[AndyU]

Here's a spec sheet for quite popular Belden 83803 power cable, which is used in many audiophile power cables.

https://catalog.belden.com/techdata/EN/83803_techdata.pdf

You can find all sorts of measured values on the spec sheet, like capacitance and resistance.

Other Belden cables, like also popular 19364, may have very different values because of a completely different design.



Correct, I won't.

If I were to change my mains cables to these Belden ones, would it be better to use 2 meters or 1 meter? Is the benefit proportional to the length, or the other way around?

 

[onlyconnect]

"human hearing is fallible so I trust only the measurements, don't even need to listen to know how something sounds"

I don’t think anyone is taking that view or anything like that view. The whole point of hifi is to sound both accurate and enjoyable. The debate, such as it is, is much more that technically surprising assertions need to be backed by blind tests as otherwise non-technical reasons for differences noted in sighted listening are more likely. Without that we are vulnerable to foo merchants.