Any prove cables make a difference? - Page 10  

Assuming you're happy with the features, ease of operation and durability of the rest of your components, and your amp is sufficient to push your speakers, you should attend to room acoustics and listen to music.

See ya
Steve

That more or less gets to my point, which is that you can construct an argument from positions taken by various "skeptics," including yourself, that if none of the components/items in the system other than the headphones/speakers make a difference in sound, when you put them all together the various systems one could construct should all sound the same (with the same set of headphones/speakers) -- but they do not.

Amazing...

This is like a religious debate--very contentious and short on conclusive evidence.

Different cables do have measurable differences. These differences are completely irrelevant to a listener unless the differences can be heard. We only measure the capacitance, inductance, AC resistance etc as a way to empirically and quantifiably measure factors that relate to the way the cables will transmit an audio signal; however, electronically measurable differences do not necessarily entail audible differences. So, the fact that high tech measurements of a cables' specs are different doesn't automatically mean that you can hear a difference. Even if you can hear a difference that doesn't mean that one is necessarily universally "better" than the other unless you can show a strong statistical preference among many people. Even then the question of "better" is potentially still open. Is Coke "better" than Pepsi? Or is it a personal preference? (I'm speaking of near threshold of detection differences here, not, say, whether a system has 1k-5k response vs 20-20k and such.)

The only thing that matters is that you can hear a difference and that you like the difference--but the human mind is easily fooled especially near threshold of detection. So, it makes sense to make sure that the audible difference is real and repeatable by testing in a manner that takes the known psychology of human judgment and perception into account.

If the difference between two cables can't be differentiated in a properly designed ABX test then the the difference doesn't exist or it is so small as to be inaudible or irrelevant. Different doesn't have to mean better or worse but inaudible is irrelevant.

People should use whatever the heck they like but they shouldn't be offended if they advocate their preference and are asked for sound reasons why. People take skepticism of their subjective opinions as a personal affront even when the skepticism is principled rather than personal.

Subjective impressions are evidence and so are anecdotes (in spite of the common phrase to the contrary), they just aren't solid or conclusive evidence. They definitely aren't proof.

The high end audio market lives on threshold of detection improvements and is ripe with known frauds. It seems entirely reasonable to wish to examine claims in a systematic manner that accounts for human factors given the **huge** amounts of money involved and the logarithmic increments of cash required for incremental sound improvements. It is up to claimants to prove their claims not the other way around. Anecdotes and personal opinions are not proof.

Cable guru Bruce Brisson (Monster Cable and MIT) said he was going to huge test in 2000 but I've not heard that this was ever done.

Not always. That is the case only if the "claimant" wants to convince somebody else about such claim, wants those other people to share the same conviction/belief. If the claimant doesn't care about other people not being convinced about their convictions, there is no obligation anywhere to "prove" any claim. Now if the claimant doesn't care about supporting/proving the claim, the challenger is free to simply ignore it. Of course, the challenger is also free to point out that an unsupported claim has been advocated. But if the challenger wants to disqualify that claim, or rather, is truly interested in its validity, given the claimant's indiference about it then it is on the challenger's shoulders to find either support for that claim (researching the matter properly and actually finding existing support/evidence), or support against the claim, counter examples to strongly disqualify or weaken it. So the challenger, if truly interested, would do a bit more than just being a lazy nail annoyingly and repeteadly asking for proof that is known not to exist, or asking for anecdotal references/opinions that are already known to exist, easily available and documented. This all imho of course

Agreed. You aren't obligated to prove something just because you have mentioned it or believe it. However, if you mention your claim and belief it can be assumed to some extent that you'd like people to believe you. And if you advocate your positive claim then it is entirely reasonable for people to ask you to justify your claim and not merely credulously accept it.

No, it is up to people who make a positive claim to prove it if they wish to advocate it. Just as in court cases and in science the burden of proof is on the positive claimant.

If your position was accurate I could say that spraying your interconnect cables with my $3000 neodymium infused quantum nano coating will increase the openness and transparency of your system. If you can't hear the difference it is because your system is inadequate, you don't have golden ears and your negative energy is causing a quantum dampening field that increases the "harshness" of the pre-amplified signal. Now, based on your contention, you must research this and find proper counter examples to disqualify the claim.

Clearly my example is absurd, but even so based on your position is that it is now your problem to disprove my claim or you have to accept it based merely on my assertion. The more reasonable position is to require me to provide proof that my "nano coating" creates not only an audible difference but an improvement and that proof should be in the form of a systematic test that compensates for the psychology of judgment and perception. I have little doubt that I could create a subjective listening test that could convince people they hear a difference between two identical set ups. There are already many psychology tests of that sort including a cable test where people were certain they heard the improvement fancy cables made even though no cables were actually changed--the testers only pretended to change them.

It makes no sense to give claims a free pass because proof is explicitly lacking!!!

"My $10,000 cables will double the frequency range of any sound system!"

"Is there any proof?"

"No!"

"Oh, well then it must be true and I shouldn't ask for proof!"

The above example isn't meant to be entirely flippant but is an argument by example. The example shows more clearly than I could explain by other means that lack of proof is not sufficient reason to stop questioning a positive claim. That being said, that doesn't mean I necessarily support beating one's own head against a brick wall.

Wrong SoundEdit, precisely because of what you are mentioning: this forum is neither a court, nor a scientific journal where claims have to be rigurously supported to be accepted for publication. Online forums are also places were people share thoughts, impressions, non-rigurously supported claims, and also completely unsupported claims

Also wrong. It is not your problem unless you want it to be your problem. As I said, you can simply ignore the claim, or statement of belief, whatever you want to call it. You don't have to accept an unsupported claim. Some people actually choose to reject even well supported claims after all


Well, I must say this again: wrong. Saying after the no "It must be true and I shouldn't ask for proof" is what you are choosing to say only if you want. That's not the only option. After the "No" you could also choose to say, "Ok, I will put on hold that claim as unsupported", or also "Ok, I definitely won't trust this claim because it contradicts some of the beliefs/knowledge I already have", or also ... etc. etc. etc.

Yes, it is a hobbyist's forum -- a place to have fun and commune with others who enjoy audio and headphone related stuff -- notwithstanding the fact that some folks seem hell bent to take a lot of the fun out of the hobby.

Look for the results of Edwood's blind cable test. It was admittedly a single blind test and most people didn't do a good job of determining which cable was which. BUT, one person did. The person with the best gear of the participants, ayt999. The problem with looking for proof about something like cables is that it'd be a really difficult study to perform, because you'd have so many variables and it would be a logistical nightmare to do a good double blind study. It's much harder than running an abx program on a computer, for example.

I'm not trying to say discussions are wrong or that you need to prove everything you say. But in the "I'm right" and "You're wrong" "*it-for-tat" discussion in this thread people are making positive claims. Nobody is going to get anywhere close to the truth if they deliberately avoid methods for finding it. This may not be a court of law but if people are really interested in actual phenomena and actually wish to separate what is true from what appears to be true then it is up to people making positive claims to prove their position. You seem to be arguing the contrary because you have a position you strongly believe in but can't prove. The claims seem to be of an almost religious nature in the sense that nobody thinks their position should be questioned or contradicted even though they are making a positive, testable ("falsifyable") claim.

You may be right. You may be wrong. Wether an discernible audio phenomena exists or not is a testable fact. Whether it is true or not is and the desire to put that to the test is not an attack on any individual as a person.

Given the fact that most people have a limited amount of time and cash I have a hard time understanding why people would object so vociferously to using the best method of separating what appears to be from what is--the scientific method.

There is just too much cash at stake to have credulity as the default position.

This is a DBT-free forum.

I'm not arguing the contrary to anything. Really my last posts have little to do about audio or cables. I'm only trying to clarify things about argumentation itself.

granted room acoustics count for speakers yes and I have addressed my room acoustics. The amp question is actualy kind of funny as there are countless implementations of amps, multiple variations of tube amps, very different SS designs, so maybe you could clarify what you mean. There are clearly differences in cdps IMHO, even if all dacs were created equal (and they're not) there is the output stage?

Of course speakers are vastly different from each other I don't think there is a person here who does not think the greatest variance in sound comes from speakers/headphones. After you have identified the speaker/headphone source and amp still loom large with cables able to create differences.
I can respect those that say they can not identify a difference in cables, amps and cdps that's cool, take your 50 watt panasonic rack systems from 1988 and rock out with your bad self but please don't tell others what they do and do not hear.

First, it is primarily the skeptics who are obsessed with proving what is true and not true. The rest of us are listening, sharing what we've heard, asking others about what they've heard, etc. These lengthy debates typically only start because (1) someone with an agenda starts a thread with an apparently sincere question about whether cables make a difference, but it is basically designed to start and argument, or (2) someone asks a question about a particular cable and a "skeptic" pipes in about cables being "snake oil," etc., and off we go. So to say those who are having fun listening to their cables need to prove something really misses the context of this debate. We wouldn't even have these debates if certain people would just leave us alone.

Second, undertaking postive proof in a manner that would satisfy you and other "skeptics" (assuming it could be done) is really not within the scope of this forum, given the forum rules.

It all depends on what part of the hobby is fun for you. I like to spend my money reasonably wisely. I like to be able to separate reality from hokum and to get good gear at fair price. To get the stuff that matters and skip the cr*p that doesn't. For me, that is fun. That is part of the hobby.

I also, frankly, like debates with smart people. I'll put up a strong fight based on what knowledge I have and maybe I'll learn something. I already have learned some things from this thread especially from some of the links. I expect people who strongly advocate claims to be willing to support their position. I try to be respectful and fact-based but I don't claim to be infallible or to know everything--and I can be wrong and not know it. But we all have different ways of "knowing." Many people are very intuitive and their subjective impressions are everything to them. My style is more empirical.

What I don't find fun is getting ripped off, paying money for things that don't make a factual difference. That's why I'm here, to learn--but I want to learn more facts than hokum and I want to try and separate the two.

never mind