USB Cable Poll: Redux

[Alan Sircom]

Alan, the only thing a decent mains cable might do is eradicate a clearly audible hum that was present while using a faulty one.

That's not too far from the observations. Of course, you have to blame the listener, the product the cable is connected to, the fridge, even sunspots first.

Anything but the cable, because that can't be contributing anything.

 

[Joe]

I leave you to your furious little crusade,

Doesn't strike me as 'furious' nor a crusade.

I'll reiterate the simple observation: the Japanese market is more evolved than the UK with respect to all aspects of digital audio - including USB cables. The plethora of flourishing specialist publications is indicative.

'Evolved" is a subjective statement and quoting a "plethora of flourishing publications" does not make you case an immutable fact.

Ponder, if you will, that possible the Japanese are more gullible, or just more willing to believe (faith not facts ) ,or just want to keep buying the latest and most expensive thing and the magazines give them the guidance they seek to pursue that end. Doesn't make claims any more credible just because people believe.

Didn't I read somewhere that 20% of Americans claim to have seen aliens or have been abducted by aliens or some such?

Millions of people on this planet believe God made the world in 6 days.

Belief is a funny thing.

 

[merlin]

Between the three different strains of Clear, probably not. Between the appropriate Clear for the device and kettle flex, again probably. It depends on how much close-listening you've done at the time. I know people who spend their lives listening to capacitors and can hear things you are supposedly unable to hear, but do it consistently and reliably. Make them take a week's holiday and they lose that skill for several days upon their return.

Interesting response Alan - not quite what I would have expected in light of your prose in front of me but possibly more realistic.

FWIW, whenever I've been to the IFA in Tokyo, the engineers held in really high esteem there tend to be the likes of Greg Timbers and other Western dignitaries. I don't think I've ever seen a cable company displaying at the main show, indeed even at the side show across the road it's mainly guys selling DIY tube amps and wonderful horn based speaker systems.

When we were lucky enough to visit Shindo san, he didn't appear to have any fancy cabling or supports in place. Just good old fashioned engineering.

 

[Robert]

Between the three different strains of Clear, probably not. Between the appropriate Clear for the device and kettle flex, again probably. It depends on how much close-listening you've done at the time. I know people who spend their lives listening to capacitors and can hear things you are supposedly unable to hear, but do it consistently and reliably. Make them take a week's holiday and they lose that skill for several days upon their return.

It's why the Japanese are so hard-core in this. They take it really seriously and do spend hours and hours and hours just listening back and forth as an endless series of AB tests. Which is why they command so much respect, I guess.

Do this kind of listening test cold and you are unlikely to hear the difference between anything. Even loudspeakers if you have been away from critical listening for long enough. Spend eight hours a day for a week doing critical listening for amplifier differences and you get pretty good at it. Same with cables.

It's also utterly ridiculous.
If you have to train experts to spend hours spotting the tiniest of difference with any degree of statistical validity then efforts would be better spent using those skills in a discipline where such testing matters. If you can only spot a difference (when trained) under such conditions it bears no relevance whatsoever to how people buy audio equipment or listen to it in their homes.
It also means that the average audiophile joe visiting his dealer hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of spotting these tiny difference under the sort of demo conditions he'll encounter.
So what exactly are they hearing, and doing so with such apparent ease?

It signifies a complete lack of perspective.

 

[Mescalito]

It's also utterly ridiculous.
If you have to train experts to spend hours spotting the tiniest of difference with any degree of statistical validity then efforts would be better spent using those skills in a discipline where such testing matters. If you can only spot a difference (when trained) under such conditions it bears no relevance whatsoever to how people buy audio equipment or listen to it in their homes.
It also means that the average audiophile joe visiting his dealer hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of spotting these tiny difference under the sort of demo conditions he'll encounter.
So what exactly are they hearing, and doing so with such apparent ease?

It signifies a complete lack of perspective.

I'm also fairly certain I don't believe it. I'd have to see a lot of statistically sound evidence before I believed it.

Chris

 

[Alan Sircom]

The rogue:nutter ratio for those that review audiophile snake oil is rarely clear. When challenged with the science nutters tend to walk into things which rogues avoid but this is not a particularly strong test. If the reviewer is found to have cut a long review cable into short lengths and flogged them it is a bit clearer.


If someone is comparing a few cables then most will be sent back.


To answer this question requires a close look at what is going on.


I lack the information to say. I will say that you are giving an impression of being dishonest if you are claiming to have identified USB cables in blind tests. Can you please clarify this? There is no problem hearing differences in blind tests but there is in being able to identify which cable is which. If you believe you can identify USB cables blind then your status as a magazine editor is likely to get you accepted for the JREF million dollar challenge. Should be enough to make up for that missed payola and fix the shed.

Sure:

We submitted six USB cables to a blind test before the whole USB cable thing gained traction, to see if this was a category that justified investigation. We do this whenever a new audio category emerges to see if it's an undifferentiated product category (such as portable blocks like the Beats Pill - there are minor differences between the models - but not so significant to warrant further investigation). We don't report much on such tests, apart from possibly in a column. I'm not giving specific names because I do not think it right to promote specific brands, but there was a distinct and repeatable pecking order. In fact, two distinct and repeatable pecking orders; two listeners preferring a more 'hi-fi' sound that placed emphasis on stage width and depth, and four preferring a more cohesive overall presentation. Tests were performed A-B, but slowly because of the difficulty of re-establishing connection with the DAC. Cables were presented in a random selection and repeats were run through the day. One of the cables was a freebie to act as benchmark.

This was performed as a panel test, rather than a series of solo tests. One particularly strong listener managed to correctly identify brands (despite not knowing which brands were submitted) in three cases, due to them having what he considered to be a 'house' sound of the relevant brands.

We concluded from this that USB cables did have suitable differences in performance to warrant continued reviews, as and when the need arises.

I'd love to take the JREF challenge. No company will go along with this, however, because they feel it's a suicide mission whatever happens. Pear lost a lot of distributors and retailers just from signing up to the test.

 

[Alan Sircom]

It's also utterly ridiculous.
If you have to train experts to spend hours spotting the tiniest of difference with any degree of statistical validity then efforts would be better spent using those skills in a discipline where such testing matters. If you can only spot a difference (when trained) under such conditions it bears no relevance whatsoever to how people buy audio equipment or listen to it in their homes.
It also means that the average audiophile joe visiting his dealer hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of spotting these tiny difference under the sort of demo conditions he'll encounter.
So what exactly are they hearing, and doing so with such apparent ease?

It signifies a complete lack of perspective.

I agree, but that's what Japanese audio companies expect from their workers. It's also what some audiophiles expect from their reviewers.

 

[whatsnext]

And if the sound quality differences some folks believe they can hear are not heard by others then they don't exist for the (much larger group of) others.

If those who can hear want respecting and accepting then perhaps they should respect the not hearing's group rather than indicating how wrong those people are.

I really don't want to strain my hearing when I want to listen to music.

 

[darrenyeats]

I mean without being aware of which cable is being used. That's all

That sounds extremely stressful

And if he got it right, wouldn't you put it down to dumb luck? Hence the excessive repetition in statistically valid blind tests - a significant change to the listening regime other than just "sightedness".

This is why I say I like blind testing, but just for putting my sighted perceptions into perspective (and that's very useful!) The kind that tries to prove something objectively (statistically) has several issues I think.

 

[Alan Sircom]

And if the sound quality differences some folks believe they can hear are not heard by others then they don't exist for the (much larger group of) others.

If those who can hear want respecting and accepting then perhaps they should respect the not hearing's group rather than indicating how wrong those people are.

I really don't want to strain my hearing when I want to listen to music.

The idea is that if the engineers do all the hardcore listening work to ensure everything is as good as it can be, it's all done for you. You just buy it and enjoy it.

It's taking kaizen strategies into R&D.

These people aren't from loopy left-field audio brands - these were guys from the audio division of Matsushita. People who spend their whole careers listening to different compounds in feet or different types of capacitor.

 

[Alan Sircom]

Interesting response Alan - not quite what I would have expected in light of your prose in front of me but possibly more realistic.

FWIW, whenever I've been to the IFA in Tokyo, the engineers held in really high esteem there tend to be the likes of Greg Timbers and other Western dignitaries. I don't think I've ever seen a cable company displaying at the main show, indeed even at the side show across the road it's mainly guys selling DIY tube amps and wonderful horn based speaker systems.

When we were lucky enough to visit Shindo san, he didn't appear to have any fancy cabling or supports in place. Just good old fashioned engineering.

Er... not even Furukawa Electric? That's surprising.

 

[h.g.]

I'd love to take the JREF challenge. No company will go along with this, however, because they feel it's a suicide mission whatever happens. Pear lost a lot of distributors and retailers just from signing up to the test.

You claim to be confident in distinguishing USB cables in blind tests but for the price of a day or twos effort you do not want a million dollars plus all the excellent world wide publicity that would follow. Instead the poor publicity that would follow failure is the dominant factor. This is the sort of information that helps with that rogue/nutter question.

I would be interested in how you obtained the results you claim for your USB cable blind tests but there are no details available?

 

[maxflinn]

And if he got it right, wouldn't you put it down to dumb luck? Hence the excessive repetition in statistically valid blind tests - a significant change to the listening regime other than just "sightedness".

I'd be stunned, but, if he got it right say, ten times in a row, then would that not strongly suggest there really were audible differences?

The kind that tries to prove something objectively (statistically) has several issues I think.

I don't know how many times something would need to be correctly differentiated to actually prove something, but I don't see what issues there may be? If one can identify something as mentioned above, even ten times in a row, then while nothing is definitively proven, it strongly suggests audible differences.

If not and the test procedure is well controlled, then I think it strongly suggests no audible differences.

That's mostly irrelevant anyway as nobody ever has reliably differentiated between things that science dictates do not differ, under controlled conditions, so why not just trust the science in the first place?

 

[Alan Sircom]

You claim to be confident in distinguishing USB cables in blind tests but for the price of a day or twos effort you do not want a million dollars plus all the excellent world wide publicity that would follow. Instead the poor publicity that would follow failure is the dominant factor. This is the sort of information that helps with that rogue/nutter question.

I would be interested in how you obtained the results you claim for your USB cable blind tests but there are no details available?

Try reading what I said instead of reading what you think I said.

I would not take the test without the approval of a manufacturer and those I've approached said the fall-out from Pear's brush with JREF make it a hiding to nothing. Pear was damned by distributors and dealers for even signing up for the test - the Chinese distributor couldn't differentiate between 'magician' and 'trickster' and thought Randii's challenge smoke and mirrors. That has stuck fast.

I have given you the details of the test I conducted.

 

[darrenyeats]

Max, where measurable differences have been searched for diligently and not been found, there is less reason for blind tests I reckon.

However, there are plenty of areas where measurable differences are definitely real so the question is about audibility, for example: output of DACs, amplifiers, codecs, preamps, S/PDIF cables etc.

 

[maxflinn]

However, there are plenty of areas where measurable differences are definitely real so the question is about audibility, for example: output of DACs, amplifiers, codecs, preamps, S/PDIF cables etc.

Indeed, but when measuring these things it is not difficult to establish whether or not measured differences will be audible.

Item constantly rambles on about jitter, but there is an audible threshold for jitter that to my knowledge is not reached these days and has not been reached for years in all but the very worst designed products.

We wouldn't be having this conversation and threads like this wouldn't exist were it not for the fact that for commercial reasons, scaremongering and misinformation is rife.

It's all about the money, outside of the labs!

 

[maxflinn]

Darren, you might find this video interesting. I certainly did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvireu2SGZM

 

[h.g.]

Try reading what I said instead of reading what you think I said.

You said company which I took to be your employer hence the business about publicity for your magazine when you passed. The fact you meant cable companies and the importance you seem to place on this relationship is rather telling. Whatever, it is good to have input from people such as yourself on forums like this. I am off for my dinner.

 

[merlin]

Try reading what I said instead of reading what you think I said.

I would not take the test without the approval of a manufacturer and those I've approached said the fall-out from Pear's brush with JREF make it a hiding to nothing. Pear was damned by distributors and dealers for even signing up for the test - the Chinese distributor couldn't differentiate between 'magician' and 'trickster' and thought Randii's challenge smoke and mirrors. That has stuck fast.

I have given you the details of the test I conducted.

So you tested cables that you cannot name along with fellows that you also cannot name, and you have no documentation or interested spectators to reassure us that the results were in any way meaningful.

With all due respect, why on earth would you think people were stupid enough to accept that?

As for only taking a challenge (that could make you $1M) only with the agreement of the companies that refuse to provide you with the means to repair your shed, again, there's a credibility issue there for me I'm afraid.

 

[merlin]

And if he got it right, wouldn't you put it down to dumb luck?
.

Of course not Darren. Why would you think that? I'm not hardcore. I am open to any possibilities. I do not however like to be taken for a fool.