The Myth of Cables?
- Thread starter mercalia
- Start date
Blah blah blah...
I guess LFD should be burned at the stake, Professor Malcolm Hawksford is a quack, and Dr. Richard Bews is hallucinating.
...but they are very serious, leading audio engineers, not voodoo peddlers.
Why not have a read of: http://www.stereophile.com/reference/1095cable/index.html#tPWtwe4coJ5Xmk9A.97 to get away from the ultra-simplistic "LCR is all that matters" argument.
I do find it interesting that people are generally happy to say that tonearm cables make a difference, but then rubbish everything else.
I guess LFD should be burned at the stake, Professor Malcolm Hawksford is a quack, and Dr. Richard Bews is hallucinating.
...but they are very serious, leading audio engineers, not voodoo peddlers.
Why not have a read of: http://www.stereophile.com/reference/1095cable/index.html#tPWtwe4coJ5Xmk9A.97 to get away from the ultra-simplistic "LCR is all that matters" argument.
I do find it interesting that people are generally happy to say that tonearm cables make a difference, but then rubbish everything else.
radamel
Music Fiend
The thing is cable sceptics often suffer from confirmation bias and the Dunning-Kruger effect so they'll just probably dismiss the link you've posted.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
FWIW many years ago I read one of the old "Essex Echo" articles by Hawksford in HFN. This claimed to have determined a particular consequence of 'skin effect' along with an analysis and a photo presented as evideince of the results.
Reading it as a physicist and measurement engineer I realised that it showed a misunderstanding of how EM fields propagate in metals. And that the photo was simply not the result you'd get from the claimed behaviour, but from a flaw in the measurement system.
I wrote to the editor and got a letter back accepting the mistakes. But nothing about it appeared in the magazine.
Some years later another pair of articles appeared in HFN which claimed a different 'effect' that seemed to clash with basic physics. (This time, written by Duncan and Harrison.) Again, they published a circuit diagram of the test setup. And again, I realised the results weren't due to a 'new effect' but a flaw in their measurement process.
In that case I did write an item for the JAES on it. But they didn't publish it. (Probably a co-incidence that Hawksford was on their list of Journal associates at the time.) In this case I put the analysis on the web. But nothing appeared in HFN to acknowledge this. Nor any mention in the JAES.
Make of that what you will. But for me this isn't a matter of people 'hallucinating' or peddling twaddle. It is simply that it is easy for people to make honest mistakes, so you have to view with an eye for them.
Reading it as a physicist and measurement engineer I realised that it showed a misunderstanding of how EM fields propagate in metals. And that the photo was simply not the result you'd get from the claimed behaviour, but from a flaw in the measurement system.
I wrote to the editor and got a letter back accepting the mistakes. But nothing about it appeared in the magazine.
Some years later another pair of articles appeared in HFN which claimed a different 'effect' that seemed to clash with basic physics. (This time, written by Duncan and Harrison.) Again, they published a circuit diagram of the test setup. And again, I realised the results weren't due to a 'new effect' but a flaw in their measurement process.
In that case I did write an item for the JAES on it. But they didn't publish it. (Probably a co-incidence that Hawksford was on their list of Journal associates at the time.) In this case I put the analysis on the web. But nothing appeared in HFN to acknowledge this. Nor any mention in the JAES.
Make of that what you will. But for me this isn't a matter of people 'hallucinating' or peddling twaddle. It is simply that it is easy for people to make honest mistakes, so you have to view with an eye for them.
whatsnext
Naimless
Well said Jim.
I suggest that the futher a listeners mind set is from understanding the physics and engineering. Far removed from making things that do something rather than consuming a product of someone elses efforts. The greater the creative and imaginative mind the more the matter of cables is a matter they must tell others about.
We don't have any accepted measure of HOW different something sounds to a person or even a group of souls either in each others company or ideally totally unconnected. Like we have deciBels, volts, watts. Just words
It is just I can hear a difference, I cannot or mine sometimes there is a difference but not worth making a fuss about it.
Having been "open minded", guilible, going against my better judgement I explored the world of USB cables, different makes, wiring structures, lengths. Gladly I heard not a jot of 'diffference' in fact I got quite pissed of with those whi insisted I would. Nearly entered the same trail with Mains cable, messed with optical from Maplins cheapest to finest glass.
If you can hear "difference" with any of those you have my sympathy.
Enjoy your yabbering
I suggest that the futher a listeners mind set is from understanding the physics and engineering. Far removed from making things that do something rather than consuming a product of someone elses efforts. The greater the creative and imaginative mind the more the matter of cables is a matter they must tell others about.
We don't have any accepted measure of HOW different something sounds to a person or even a group of souls either in each others company or ideally totally unconnected. Like we have deciBels, volts, watts. Just words
It is just I can hear a difference, I cannot or mine sometimes there is a difference but not worth making a fuss about it.
Having been "open minded", guilible, going against my better judgement I explored the world of USB cables, different makes, wiring structures, lengths. Gladly I heard not a jot of 'diffference' in fact I got quite pissed of with those whi insisted I would. Nearly entered the same trail with Mains cable, messed with optical from Maplins cheapest to finest glass.
If you can hear "difference" with any of those you have my sympathy.
Enjoy your yabbering
Lee T
pfm Member
You have said in the past, if memory serves me right, dacs sound pretty much of a muchness, need i say more.
Something else i dissagree with from experience.
I do agree with you though, spending money on something that makes no improvement is a waste of money.
I have rarely come across a cable that actually improves matters in my circumstances, most have had an impact on sound in one way or another, it has happened & why i settled on my Chord combination, price has no determination on matters in my experience.
Spending hundreds on cables isn't cost effective, neither is spending thousands on a dac as far as i'm concerned.
From my experience, the only place where more money should spent is on both amps & speakers & only on amps where extra power is needed, a good quality front end can be had for peanuts these days.
Why some spend thousands on hifi equipment puzzles me, i have tried so much stuff over the years & have come to the conclusion, the high end is for suckers, i'm yet to hear a system costing 30 grand sound better than one costing £1000, hasn't happened yet.
I think a lot of the problem around cables is when people use superlatives such as 'wow these transformed my system' and 'huge difference when I switched cables.' This really fuels the fire. I think that they are either a) an electrical requirement such as low capacitance for certain amps to stop them oscillating / blowing up or b) the icing on the cake.
Someone who says cables are all the same don't have, for the most part, an open mind and, from what I've witnessed along the years, they don't even have one real experience to confirm what they preach.
I understand someone who thinks that for themselves any cable will fit the purpose, what I don't understand is why some people who advocates that, feel the need to teach the TRUTH to others as if it's the only absolute true. I could care less, though. (Often these are the same people who thinks all the dacs are the same, so...
)
However, whatever makes anyone happy and enjoying the music is good to me.
In the end it's all that matters.
I understand someone who thinks that for themselves any cable will fit the purpose, what I don't understand is why some people who advocates that, feel the need to teach the TRUTH to others as if it's the only absolute true. I could care less, though. (Often these are the same people who thinks all the dacs are the same, so...
)However, whatever makes anyone happy and enjoying the music is good to me.
In the end it's all that matters.
Lee T
pfm Member
I agree, though if it has improved matters to this extent to the individual then who really cares, it may be true in their circumstances, who is anyone to judge.
For example, i own a vann damme interconnect cable & studio blue series speaker cable, taken in isolation, the sound is, "fit for purpose" & quite acceptable, once the chord cables ar introduced, the sound, does indeed, make a leap forward in my circumstances.
In the case of the Naim system i own, switching out the van damme & replacing with the naim grey was very revealing, the van damme removed the swagger & life from the sound, sounded restrained by comparison, i suppose this is what some mean when they say the sound was transformed, probably due to someone getting a little over excited by the improvement.
Having my music in a small room does show up differences quite easily, due to the fact i have no need for loud volume, once the system is playing at concert hall levels, i doubt anyone would hear a difference with pretty much any piece of equipment.
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
'Every crowd has a silver lining'.
Keith
Keith
radamel
Music Fiend
And as I often say a man's subtle difference may be another man's night and day difference.
radamel
Music Fiend
radamel
Music Fiend
Right...
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
'There's a sucker born every minute',
Keith
Keith
Julf
Facts are our friends
Indeed, it what they say is "all cables are the same". But I haven't come across too many who would say that.
What I hear people saying (and agree with) is that in some cases (very small signals and very high or low impedances, as with turntable pickups or some tube amp inputs) excessive cable capacitance makes a difference, as does using speaker cables with too much resistance/impedance. With reasonable runs between competently designed gear, normal interconnects don't make a difference, and digital cables don't make a difference to the signal (as long as it isn't so bad that you drop data), but with signalling such as USB that is not fully isolated (unlike ethernet), you might still get ground noise.
In any case, I am definitely open to claims of audible differences as soon as it can be shown that they are not caused by the by far most common mechanism - expectation bias.
Lee T
pfm Member
Silence is golden
radamel
Music Fiend
That's another quote misattributed to PT Barnum.
Hope you don't take it to heart.
Here's another genuine one for you:
"Be polite and kind to your customers".
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
Cable shakers?
Keith
Keith