Dilemma: Should I not believe any reviewers who talk about cables or just ignore that section of... - Page 8

 

What do you want to improve in the sound? I can't say silver cable will have the exact effect it did on my IE80s but it did add more treble sparkle and emphasis. Mid bass decreased and sub bass increased. The mid range was moved more forward. The sound stage slightly increased. Going back between a stock pair of IE80s I'm left underwhelmed and not impressed. When switching back to the IE80 with the cable things sound just right lol.

Edited by lee730 - 5/7/12 at 11:57pm

Ignoring for a moment what probably is or isn't audible, just for some realistic perspective...

 

the kinds of differences we're talking about between cables are much much less than the differences between the R and L sides of most good headphones.  This suggests that the truly dedicated tweakers are better off spending a lot more time matching drivers, modding headphones, and so on (not to mention tweaks in software), compared to stuff that makes much less difference.

Why? This is the Sound Science forum and we're discussing cables, as per the OP's request. This isn't off topic at all.

 

Agree. Only if you know what you're doing, and what to expect.

Edited by proton007 - 5/8/12 at 12:05am

 

Well I've been hearing a lot of good things about Picolino cable. But it is super expensive. If you can get the actual cable yourself and DIY you could save a lot of money. I bet it's still exorbitant in cost regardless. I would think silver cable (not silver plated) would be your best bet and if you can get wire where you DIY you'd save a lot of money.

 

Yeah, there are some fairies and elves in audio, talking about distant lands far away in their $1000 optical cables!

 

 

 

So along comes the Knighthood of Charlemagne, to restore scientific rigour and justice!

 

 

I don't think either side can find any common platform and tell the truth...

 

solution: need more scientific fairies!

Not off topic, no, but not making much progress either.


Anyway, back to the actual OP;
I personally hate it when people are talking about cables in reviews of headphones/other equipment. Same goes for stuff like letting it burn in for hours before even listening to it once.
When I read stuff like that the reviewer at least in my opinion loses quite a bit of credibility. Doesn't mean I stop reading right there, but it does give me tendency to skip entire paragraphs and take the rest of what he wrote with an extra grain of salt. And with an extra grain of salt I mean that I'm very careful in any case due to the highly subjective nature of reviews. I can make conclusions on reviews by drawing reasonable correlations between them.

Too many people underestimate the psychological factors far too much. Expectation bias is a very real thing, and has extraordinarily large effects. It doesn't just affect what we hear; it can also measurably improve a medical condition. I don't see how people can think they are immune to it, when it actually affects everything everyone does.


If you ask me, what you ate for lunch probably has a bigger effect what we hear than changes in cables.
Or rather, what would have an even bigger effect is whether or not we even ate lunch.
Edited by Tilpo - 5/8/12 at 12:17am

Try something fiber optic. You won't hear anything at all, but that is a big difference.


Seriously fellas, if you'd seen the DBT tests I've seen and read the same studies on the limitations of human hearing, you'd all be cable agnostic too. I wish I lived in a world where they do make a difference, and I could change cables to tweak things and change the way music sounds. That would be incredibly cool. It just isn't objectively true.
Edited by Magick Man - 5/8/12 at 12:13am

 

 

 

Response timing?  I'm talking about the perceptibilty of latency / input-lag which is typically averages 33ms on LCD monitors and is around 1ms on a CRT.

 

Refresh rate is another one, yeah.

 

 

@DNZGamer - As far as science is concerned with cables there is a lot of debate but impedance is clearly the most audible and will differ from cable to cable, there is also the possibility of making useless cables i.e. out of lead so they sound worse and cost $200 so they're perceived as better, get it?

Give me $100 and I'll put a resistor (hm or maybe a capacitor) in the make you a cable that sounds different. With some more effort, you could achieve the desired effect with the correct cable geometry, without actually putting inside a resistor or something like that.

Exactly lol. I wouldn't spend that kinda money either. Of course I would love to hear what a difference it could bring but in no way in hell would I pay that premium lol. I hear you could acquire the wire yourself and save a lot of money but I'm not sure how you would go about getting just the actual wire in bulk.

 

That is why I said silver cable (pure not silver plated). I'm not sure where you would buy this in bulk but it would be much cheaper than buying from these vendors...

 

The link below may help. I'm not 100% sure though...

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Edited by lee730 - 5/8/12 at 12:22am

 

You can get an amazing difference for $25, read my posts lol.  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Etymotic-Headphones-ER4P-ER4S-75-Ohm-Convertor-Cable-/280732730536

 

Exactly, that's more audible than metal conductivity.

 

p.s. No use to buy a silver cable unless the 3.5mm jack is silver too, imho.