One for you cable fans! - Page 2

PhilS, I wouldn't go so far as to equate cables with drops, or really anything with drops, however I would say that it is the logical extension of the argument for cables. Despite no objective measurements and no blind testing ever confirming that cables make an audible difference, people still claim to hear differences between the two cables. If the "trust your ears" slogan rings true, then one would have to listen to the effects these drops have before dismissing them. If one dismisses the drops but not the cables, that person would be contradicting the "trust your ears" belief.

Of course, these "drops" along with a number of other tweaks out there are pretty exaggerated. I don't discount the possibility of this being some sort of joke played on audiophiles by a disgruntled skeptic. However, one statement you mentioned is interesting:

The key here is that what is "reasonable" depends on the person. Indeed, to most members of head-fi, the idea of spending money on cables sounds reasonable, and the theories convincing. However for myself, engineers, and tons of the non-audiophile population, theories and explanations for why cables make a difference sound just as ridiculous for us as the theories and explanations for why drops make a difference sound to you. The key is that "reasonableness" is a very flexible term (as the US Supreme Court can attest to) that varies from person to person and group to group.

Of course, this isn't only applicable to cables. The same idea is at play with the JFK assassinations - to most people the standard theory is reasonable and just fine, and for others, it's wacky and the "grassy knoll" theory sounds much more plausible to them. At the end of the day though, we can't appeal to reasonableness alone to dismiss the JFK assassination conspiracy theorists (nor, for that matter, can we appeal to bandwagon arguments, as Real Man of Genius pointed out - after all, over a million people believe that the US government planted bombs in the WTC to blow it up). Something more is needed, and I think that's why the majority of skeptics find appeals to reasonableness or common sense lacking.

Very well said RC. I wish I could have put it like that. I get all tripped up with my words and it ends up coming out wrong and pissing somebody off.

Sorry can't resist....

Just noticed something:

I haven't been through the whole PWB website but I have noticed something conspicuously missing. Glaringly so.
Could it be that our friends from England consider cables too trivial or too silly to include in their bag of tricks?
They will sell you rainbow foil, Miracle Drops, and suggest you align all of your outlet screws with the Earth and tie your power cords into square knots but cables? Don't be ridiculous!!

Sorry but that's funny.

Where can I get some of this stuff?

Me. From me. I will sell you some. My liquid is yellow instead of blue and never mind the odor.
I 100% absolutely guarantee the exact same audio results.

Sorry, I can't force myself to substantively respond to this, and to point out what I see as logical flaws (and additional veiled insults). Among other things, you and some others see everything as black and white, and are unwilling to consider anything that doesn't fit your dogmatic position.

My point was that the initial post was apparently intended to be insulting. I should have pointed that out and left it at that, instead of trying to explain the obvious.

I have to remember that I have to be careful about who I engage in a dialogue, and in what threads I engage in a dialogue. Some of these threads, and some of the participants, are just too aggravating.

Ah, good ol' Peter Belt.

If nothing else, he's done a great service over the years (he's been at this for over 20 years now) proving how trivially easy it is to get people to subjectively perceive some difference even in the absence of any actual physical difference.

One of his other tweaks? Placing photographs of yourself in your freezer.

You take a photograph of yourself taken when you were young, and another taken when you are older, and place them in your freezer.

Not only does this make your system sound better, it also makes every system you listen to sound better.

The first "tweak" I came to be aware of back in the 80s was his "polarizers." They were literally just a safety pin with several nuts and washers strung through it. When listening, you attached the polarizer to your shirt or whatever. You could also use them to polarize your drinking water and drinking this polarized water was also beneficial to the sound of your system.

k

Well at least he didn't say "blah, blah, blah" and post a picture of a parrot.

PhilS: While I'm interested in what logical flaws are in my post (if by flaws you mean fallacies, because knowing about them helps me avoid them in the future - it's easier to spot them from a reader's POV rather than the writer's), I make a point of not using ad hominems in my posts. If you're specifically reading for insults, you're going to find them everywhere you look, but there was no ill intent in my previous post (or any, for that matter).

Also, while I agree that the first post was meant as an insult, the implicit tension that the website brings up (regardless of whether or not the OP was aware of this or not) is how far the audiophile logic can take us before sounding absurd to everyone. If our ears are the only judge, how far do we go before we stop listening to what our ears tell us? When we find this point, why did we pick it as opposed to earlier down the path? These are valid questions that, I think, merit discussion. Even if it changes nobody's opinion, it leads to the clarification of ideas for both sides involved, and allows for better discussion overall.

So it's for real (at least as far as they are concerned)???
Do you think he actually believes this stuff??

There are lots of CD players that measure considerably differently and these no doubt also sound differently - especially if you compare those that are by now severly outdated and modern ones. Or just really cut-throat, asian mass produced wonders... The frequency response and distortions (and hence, sound) will rather directly depend on the digital analog conversions and filtration (if any) used, as well as how well the analog and digital parts are isolated. Oversampling and good filtration killed all of the issues and the various "analoguer" and "anti-digitalitis" products went the way of the dodo.

Now, if you want to say you can tell two modern cd players with > 105db signal/noise and less than 0.01% thd+n apart (or for that matter, apart from a sacd player playing the same cd)... now that would require rigorous proof. Because the noise signature is beoynd what has been proven to be audible.

Absolutely.

I can't say for sure. I'd like to think he doesn't, but then there are some real loonies out there.

Another of my favorites is John Bedini, maker of amplifiers as well as his CD "clarifier."

The clarifier basically just spins your CD in a magnetic field.

In his patent for the device (yes, the patent office just rubber stamps stuff anymore), he "proves" that his clarifier not only rearranges the data on the disc, but also performs data compression (though he doesn't explain how your CD player manages to decompress it in order to play it).

How does he "prove" this?

Well, he takes a Kodak PhotoCD and copies an image from it into a directory on his hard drive. He then runs the PhotoCD through his clarifier, and then copies the same file into a different directory on his hard drive.

Does he do a comparison of the files at this point?

No.

First he converts the image files to PostScript files.

He notes that the file sizes aren't the same. That the one made from the "clarified" disc is smaller, hence data compression.

He then uses a text editor to effectively do a comparison of the data in each file, and finds that the data is not the same, hence it has rearranged the data on the disc.

Of course if all you do is take an image file and save it out as a PostScript file into two different directories without having done anything else, you'll find that the file sizes are different and the data in the two files is different. This is simply the nature of the algorithm.

And don't get me started on Jack Bybee.

k

You know I have to say..... I obviously don't believe in any of this hooey but you know what? I am glad it's there. Adds color. Life would be boring without the kooks and freaks.

Yeah. Gotta have a little yang along with your yin.

k

Don't most modern CD players meet have those S/N noise ratios and THD? In other words, don't virtually all of the CD players that people talk about, and compare, on the Dedicated Source Components meet these specs?

I know I have extensive experience with the Bel Canto DAC 2 and the Electrocompanient ECD-1. Both of those DAC's easily meet those specs. They do not sound alike. Any contention that they do is silly, IMO.

However, since I can't offer "rigorous proof" of this, I guess moving from the Bel Canto to the Electrocompanient is equivalent to using Miracle Drops.