USB Cable Poll: Redux
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Dowser
Learning to bodge again..
I have no idea what motivates Max, but some of us long for the times when hifi was actually rooted in proper science and engineering, top designers were publishing their ideas in magazines such as Wireless World, and a lot of readers actually understood what they were writing.
I guess technology has gotten so complex these days that people without technical knowledge just give up and go the "oooh, it must be magic" route...
But whats wrong with people making their own uninformed decisions, using their own money and listening to the results with their own ears...
I just don't get the need to save the world from, for example, expensive USB cables. Surely there are better causes out there deserving of all that policing effort?
Lamenting days gone by is fine, but for me the PFM DIY room & the help/advice/guidance of people there, taught me more than any magazine ever did or could.
Richard
onlyconnect
pfm Member
What's wrong is that the audiophile world has become a mishmash of excellent audio engineering and pointless foo such that is it exceedingly difficult for the average person to know which is which. Therefore many waste their money. They are free to do so of course; but we deserve better.
Tim
The poll just demonstrates opinion - formed by theory and practice. As far as I'm aware, amateurs and professionals alike are still permitted opinions.
USB cables 'designed differently for audio' has come from the freaky left field practically into the mainstream over the last decade. There are many reasons for this - including sinister commercial ones - but prominently they have just been found useful by buyers: better sounding.
It's not obvious why such developments trigger these furious and nostalgic responses.
USB cables 'designed differently for audio' has come from the freaky left field practically into the mainstream over the last decade. There are many reasons for this - including sinister commercial ones - but prominently they have just been found useful by buyers: better sounding.
It's not obvious why such developments trigger these furious and nostalgic responses.
You raise unrelated issues: first, by a curious inversion, “audiophile” is mainly pejorative among audiophiles. It's fairly complementary outside local cant. There is a range of Beltist voodoo rooted in esoteric/occult borderlands of science/psycho-acoustics, but USB cables aren't near that territory: since the 80s it's been understood by much of the market that there are good and not-so-good digital sources and components: it's not it 'works or it doesn't'.
Second, which “good people were driven out of business” by USB cables? There have been commercial casualties, but they either positioned themselves on the wrong side of a trend, failed to market effectively, or imploded because of mismanagement. Any of the above have more to do with success than the merit of the product: the strongest, not the best, survive.
merlin
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The true development of the reproduction of the recorded arts is about engineering, not marketing and FUD.
Sadly now the whole world appears run by marketing people and spin merchants.
If you want to know the truth about audio, ask the genuine engineers - not holistic Arthur Daly wannabes setting up shop on internet forums (not aimed specifically at you I might add.)
Fortunately there are still some genuine engineers left in the world of audio, primarily in the pro field where a great deal of FUD is not tolerated. Sound engineering. JBL Pro. ATC. Alan Shaw are just some who spring to mind. Quality products. Quality results. Ask them what they think about any type of cable.
Sadly now the whole world appears run by marketing people and spin merchants.
If you want to know the truth about audio, ask the genuine engineers - not holistic Arthur Daly wannabes setting up shop on internet forums (not aimed specifically at you I might add.)
Fortunately there are still some genuine engineers left in the world of audio, primarily in the pro field where a great deal of FUD is not tolerated. Sound engineering. JBL Pro. ATC. Alan Shaw are just some who spring to mind. Quality products. Quality results. Ask them what they think about any type of cable.
Julf
Facts are our friends
I have to disagree. Among my technically-oriented friends and colleagues, "audiophile" is definitely a pejorative, and I might have mentioned that in colloquial Finnish, "to hifi" has similar connotations as "anorak" in English...
"The poll just demonstrates opinion - formed by theory and practice."
No it doesn't. You have a non-random sample of an unknown population responding to a biased unstructured question. Statistically you can determine absolutely nothing from such surveys. They are of no value at all precisely because you have no measure of how the respondent's opinions vary to the "facts" involved.
And now some random stuff.
1. The theory of a usb cable is "if it measures correctly it's fine"
2. 99.9999999% of rational people use a decent usb cable and the audio is fine. (But I am guessing just like you)(That's probably the practise bit)
No it doesn't. You have a non-random sample of an unknown population responding to a biased unstructured question. Statistically you can determine absolutely nothing from such surveys. They are of no value at all precisely because you have no measure of how the respondent's opinions vary to the "facts" involved.
And now some random stuff.
1. The theory of a usb cable is "if it measures correctly it's fine"
2. 99.9999999% of rational people use a decent usb cable and the audio is fine. (But I am guessing just like you)(That's probably the practise bit)
Julf
Facts are our friends
Nothing as such - apart from the issue of pseudoscience and voodoo being bad for our society in general. But that is a problem that goes way beyond hifi.
The problem is when people assume their uninformed superstitions are just as valid as technically informed views, and state them as truths.
That is exactly the issue - what if you see someone giving erroneous and misleading advice? Should you just let it pass?
'Twas ever thus: this golden age when the world was ruled by wise men with slide rules and there was no advertising or peer pressure and people only made wise and technically-defensible purchases is a nostalgic fiction.
And straw man. USB audio cables are now mainstream: they are sold by literally hundreds of retailers in the UK alone - not just your Arthur Daly wannabes. There's rather a lot of 'sliding out of touch with the present' going on.
There is a cultural divide: it's taboo to discuss cables and power supplies in the pro world. And yet, digital clocking products have been squarely mainstream in the studio since the year dot. Given that most studio monitors and pro amps are noisy as all heck, perhaps there's something to learn all round . . .
It's horses for courses: slightly different rules apply for hushed, lights-out music-worship in audiophile temples vs a typical music production environment or PA system.
My point is not to corral a relevant bunch of experts to 'my' side, or to validate my experience (Keats and Yeats are on your side but Wilde is on mine) . . . the point of the little poll is to show that opinion is divided and that - although not meaningful in itself - it probably is representative of a divide that extends throughout the industry.
Interestingly, ATC bought a £5500 Aurender computer transport from us . . . you learn what someone really thinks by following the money; at the end of the day, we vote with our ears and wallets.
Mescalito
pfm Member
Item, you do not fall into the "lunatic fringe" of the Hi Fi business.
You fall firmly into the cynical, take advantage of the customers ignorance end of things.
Chris
Like I said, apart from Keith (whose cheapest products tend to be at the level of our most expensive), all audio dealers sell cables and 90% sell both digital and analog versions: so I can't take that personally.
Historically, we have bent over backwards to find beer-money components that work as well or better than pricey or high-margin alternatives - which is why we have championed pro audio products wherever possible. So, again, you'll find such an accusation hard to make stick.
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
How very dare you Item!
Our cheapest product is advice which is absolutely free ,then the M2Tech HiFace 2 which is £140,
Keith.
Our cheapest product is advice which is absolutely free ,then the M2Tech HiFace 2 which is £140,
Keith.
merlin
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But they are not allowed to advertise the fact nor suggest they are good for you.
As for Item, his "mainstream" is "people who make a living out of selling hifi".
I can assure you that people who don't rely on making money out of gullible people do NOT share the views that he tries to suggest are acceptable.
Many many times he has been asked to demonstrate that just one of his claims is valid, by taking controlled tests and showing audibility. He repeatedly dodges the question. He was asked to explain how my MBPro was wired in a recent thread after making a claim. He dodged the question.
These are not the actions of someone I could possibly trust to offer reliable advice I'm afraid.
Julf
Facts are our friends
Ah, yes. And thousands of places sell dr dreck headphones too. I am sure it is because they are technically superior.
No taboo - it just doesn't make much sense to discuss them.
Absolutely - that clocking everything from the DAC solves all the jitter problems, and that there definitely is a "good enough" level.
Dowser
Learning to bodge again..
Agreed on the first point. On your second point I see the both sides of the fence stating facts without full context.
On the last point - no, but there is never a slag fest in the DIY room, people simple discuss things, like adults, and collective knowledge grows as a result. Now, how to achieve the same with threads in the Audio room?
Richard
darrenyeats
pfm Member
The problem with the "defenders of the scientific faith" is now credibility. Sadly symmetrical to the foo-meister's credibility problem.
1. Analogue cable are all the same.
2. S/PDIF cables use a perfect thing called digital, so they are even more the same than analogue cables. S/PDIF digital puts any doubts to bed - these cables cannot possibly make any difference whatsoever.
3. Now we have PLLs and ASRC, so the non-existent differences from 2 have been eliminated. So now these cables cannot possibly make any difference whatsoever-er.
4. Weasel word-change alert. Actually, we meant S/PDIF cables can't make an audible difference. Measurable difference yes, audible difference no. Never said otherwise! (We have revised history - ignore points 2/3, hey look at that flower!)
5. USB is computer stuff man. No more audio-centric crap. They are perfecter.
6. USB async is it. Even more perfecter no difference.
You can see the issue?
Now, even I'm on board in saying that (properly made to-spec) async USB cables probably make no difference.
But I can definitely see why the less tech-savvy punters would not take my word or anyone else's word for it! Too many statements of absolute certainty have been made in the past - which turned out to have qualifications in the real world, followed by better solutions - and now people will insist on making their own mind up by listening. This is what happens when you dumb down science to "facts" for the "benefit" of the less tech-savvy (when as a good scientist you should instead stick to "highly probable" or "evidence indicates" or "there is a total lack of evidence, despite looking for years, that") ... it's your punishment for being absolutely sure all of the time.
1. Analogue cable are all the same.
2. S/PDIF cables use a perfect thing called digital, so they are even more the same than analogue cables. S/PDIF digital puts any doubts to bed - these cables cannot possibly make any difference whatsoever.
3. Now we have PLLs and ASRC, so the non-existent differences from 2 have been eliminated. So now these cables cannot possibly make any difference whatsoever-er.
4. Weasel word-change alert. Actually, we meant S/PDIF cables can't make an audible difference. Measurable difference yes, audible difference no. Never said otherwise! (We have revised history - ignore points 2/3, hey look at that flower!)
5. USB is computer stuff man. No more audio-centric crap. They are perfecter.
6. USB async is it. Even more perfecter no difference.
You can see the issue?
Now, even I'm on board in saying that (properly made to-spec) async USB cables probably make no difference.
But I can definitely see why the less tech-savvy punters would not take my word or anyone else's word for it! Too many statements of absolute certainty have been made in the past - which turned out to have qualifications in the real world, followed by better solutions - and now people will insist on making their own mind up by listening. This is what happens when you dumb down science to "facts" for the "benefit" of the less tech-savvy (when as a good scientist you should instead stick to "highly probable" or "evidence indicates" or "there is a total lack of evidence, despite looking for years, that") ... it's your punishment for being absolutely sure all of the time.
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