My cable test enterprise - Page 18

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Edited by jon743 - 9/17/11 at 12:25pm

Wait, so was there any attempt made to actually have real people listen to the actual cables used? to replicate the actual listening process in addition to measurements?

If I read correctly, nick basically digitized the 'sound' of his cables, then cleaned them up (more digital processing) to make them identical, and then people burned a cd (another step) and listened through their main system (most of which of course use...cables). I'm generalizing of course, but this is the gist right?

So anyone who listened to your samples has a number of variables into the mix now: digitized version, then DAC from the sample, X factor of whatever *cables* the listener is using and/or op-amps, components, from there, etc. to speakers. Right?

But they are huge variables. And you chose not to test those variables. Or to even try and control them by making suggestions as how people should do the listening. You've made the assumption that all the elements in the chain between the digitization to listening to samples will have no effect on what is being heard. So you're saying the differences should be clear despite the crappy DAC in someone's sound card (it seems for all we know most people have been judging the samples just sitting at the computer), despite the quality of their speakers (whose harmonic distortion could be low or high, *greatly* affecting what is audible), or even the cd burner, if anyone actually went that far. Or the op-amps, dac in their cd player (if they went that far), on and on. There is no way that what you digitized will sound the same after going through all that. Any opinion after that process is compromised. Just the harmonic distortion alone of a pair of speakers can easily cover low-level information or information period.

This should be more accurately called 'judging the differences between digitized cable measurements and assessing audibility at the end of the audio chain'. Which is not a diss, it's what it is. If this is to have any validity you have to have tests that involve the actual cables used, replicating the typical 2-channel listening experience. This is as far away as possible from that. The people who tend to listen to music using the chain you set up are rarely audiophiles, more than likely mp3, etc. users. So it's not as though you can even say well this is how supposed audiophiles judge their components.

No effort was given to actually simulate the experience under which subjective statements regarding component audibility are made. Perhaps I'm slow, so maybe that was the point.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents.

yeah well, the captain was known to be both stubborn, single-minded. and wrong. The pic looks like one of the three to me.

Interesting. That was helpful. Gives me a better understanding of where you are coming from. Thank you.

Many thanks to Nick for the effort (and cash outlay) to perform this testing! By far one of the most informative threads I have ever read on any forum. I read nearly every post in the 18 page thread, with the main exception being that I ignored all of the posts from the banned members.

Why isn't this a sticky? Could be moved to the Sound Science forum and made a sticky if it's too "technical" to be made as a sticky in the current forum.

Of course there will be disagreement from some people on your methods. And of course there are going to be ways to improve upon your testing equipment. I don't think these are valid reasons to not make the thread a sticky, however.

By making it a sticky it is not proclaiming that this test is the "end-all, be-all" test to prove/disprove anything. It is a set of data points, as you have described. IMHO it should be a sticky because it is an extremely useful set of data on the testing of cables. More useful than I have found anywhere else on this whole wide World Wide Web, in fact!

I registered here specifically so I could post this comment. I read all 18 pages of this thread assuming that at some point the guy comparing all the cables would eventually listen to them. If he heard no difference, fine. If he did, he could have just said, "Take it with a grain of salt." I was shocked when I reached the end of the thread and this guy didn't even seem to have listened to the cables he was analyzing. At least, he posted no observations. Instead, when asked about it by another poster, he says, "I am wholly unintersted in subjective qualitative statements here, my only interest is a simple difference/no difference." Anybody on an audio forum who does not bother to listen WITH HIS EARS should be strung up on a flag pole. What a waste of time this stupid thread was!