Dilemma: Should I not believe any reviewers who talk about cables or just ignore that section of... - Page 2

If a piece of equipment exhibits forward treble, then you say it has forward treble and leave yourself open to being proved wrong by somebody with measuring equipment.

In which case everybody knows what the criticism is and has the opportunity to judge if it's valid.

No. Fatigueing, (pardon my archaic spelling), is employed when critics (who may well be aware that the FR has no measurable anomalies) wish anyway to say something negative without leaving themselves open to contradiction.

w

@DNZ

You do see that the cable forum is marked as DBT Free, right? Its a world of magic and fairies and elves. They exist for those who "believe" in them, same for a lot of things in this world.

There are differences in cables & sometimes not so subtle but these diferences are not caused by the cables alone & some sources can be be nonresponsive to different cables whereas others can make quite a large difference. This mostly has to do with output impedance of the source. High capacitance cables on a high output impedance source or preamp can make the sound quite lifeless wheras the same cables on a lower output impedace source or preamp will show no difference at all.

A note concerning ABX testing, the ABX testing equipment can in some cases offer too low of resolution to properly test these type of perameters but can be plainly audible in direct connected setups. I have seen in some situations stereo switch gear in retail stores for hifi equipment significantly degrade sound to the point that high end great sounding amps sounded no better than some really mediocre stuff even by midfi standards when hooked to the comparator switches. You will notice that most highend shops always direct connect there higher end amps & sources. Thier lower end stuff is usually but not always hooked to these swtches to make comparisons easy but not the really highend stuff because they want this equipment to put it's best foot forward

When I was using a preamp & stand alone sources I made my own cables that were ultra low capacitance as that was the only way that I was able to get the life like sound I so craved. My curent setup is not cable sensitive at all. It has a low output impedance compared to my standalone sources & preamp did 100 ohms compared to over 600 ohms. This almost matched the characteristic impedance of most audio cables (50-75ohms). Iknow most people don't believe that that can make a difference but in some cases it can.

My current system can match the sound heard in the studio from the instruments themselves, not just the studio playback equipment but the instruments themselves. That I am very pleased with my setup. I listened to recordings made at that studio on my system & compared it to the sound that I heard from the live piano (the recording used that same piano) & the sound is practically an exact match for the tonal & dynamic charactristics of that instrument. Everthing was there in it's proper proportions.

Many times people use recording that were made poorly & many time have sounds that are clipped & think the equipment is bad because it didn't make it sound like the angels coming down from heaven. The equipment is fine in most cases. It's called garbage in, garbage out. Good equipment will reveal that wheras mediocre equipment will often times gloss over this bad sounding recordings but really bad equipment may not just reveal the problem but add it's own garbage as well or have so much of it's own garbage that  even the better portion of these recordings & even proper made recordings sound bad. Thats when you have a real problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNZGamer 

Actually, I never did notice that... Only time I went was to ask for help on how to get rid of the really annoying microphonics on my cable and looked in awe as some people purchased cables worth more than their headphones. 

You'll find buyers for anything if you can convince them. Whether you want to be that buyer is up to you. There's something in it for sure. Not quantifiable, but there's no substitute for mental satisfaction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magick Man 

It's stuff like this that drives me crazy.

I don't think anyone should concern themselves with stuff like this, thats the only way to maintain one's sanity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wakibaki 

If a piece of equipment exhibits forward treble, then you say it has forward treble and leave yourself open to being proved wrong by somebody with measuring equipment.

 

In which case everybody knows what the criticism is and has the opportunity to judge if it's valid.

 

No. Fatigueing, (pardon my archaic spelling), is employed when critics (who may well be aware that the FR has no measurable anomalies) wish anyway to say something negative without leaving themselves open to contradiction.

 

w

A fair point, but if the reviewer states that, in this example, a headphone has a forward treble and because of his sensitivity that makes his ears hurt, I still think there's a chance that it is still valid point of view. I'm trying to think of a way to put this as nicely as possible, but just because you may not have problems with [insert frequency range here], doesn't mean others too doesn't have that problem; and for them that sensitivity can be tiring. I think a lack of proper description that makes it vague. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magick Man 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgray91 

IMO "fatiguing" still counts if it's in a review. I don't know about you wakibaki, but for some that are sensitive to treble, me including, using a treble forward can tire their ears, and sometimes are painful. Maybe I should word that better to indicate only me. I am still learning a lot, and would be happy to be proved wrong in a polite manner. ;-)

No, I agree with you. I have the same issue with cans that are bass heavy. It really bothers my eardrums after a while.

This is interesting. I assume that it would be the air moved that's causing such discomfort from bass.

Again, maybe my lack of knowledge and experience is in play here, and that's why I stay on this side of the fence; to learn. ;-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by germanium 

There are differences in cables & sometimes not so subtle but these diferences are not caused by the cables alone & some sources can be be nonresponsive to different cables whereas others *snip*

There is so much wrong with this entire post, that I almost despair. 

Cables IMO should not make any difference unless you're talking about a VERY long (over 100m), badly constructed cable.
If you look at this from a electronics POV, any decent cable will have negligible impedance compared the the PCB traces in your audio equipments them selfs. So if cables DO distort the signal, it would've been distorted long ago inside your equipment, not to mention all the components your signal passes through.

Incase you're using a very long badly constructed cable, things like EMI pickup would've been the biggest problem compared to the cable's impedance (as in cable acting as a capacitor to the ground and inductance from coiling the cable.).

Relevant quote (Click to show)

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgray91 

Quote:

Originally Posted by wakibaki 

If a piece of equipment exhibits forward treble, then you say it has forward treble and leave yourself open to being proved wrong by somebody with measuring equipment.

 

In which case everybody knows what the criticism is and has the opportunity to judge if it's valid.

 

No. Fatigueing, (pardon my archaic spelling), is employed when critics (who may well be aware that the FR has no measurable anomalies) wish anyway to say something negative without leaving themselves open to contradiction.

 

w

 

A fair point, but if the reviewer states that, in this example, a headphone has a forward treble and because of his sensitivity that makes his ears hurt, I still think there's a chance that it is still valid point of view. I'm trying to think of a way to put this as nicely as possible, but just because you may not have problems with [insert frequency range here], doesn't mean others too doesn't have that problem; and for them that sensitivity can be tiring. I think a lack of proper description that makes it vague. 

 

 

Again, maybe my lack of knowledge and experience is in play here, and that's why I stay on this side of the fence; to learn. ;-)

 

 

 

So Tilpo found out this to say about listening fatigue. I just thought I should share it with people here also. I'm open to more opinion on this one though. Thanks Tilpo.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tilpo 

I fount the following quote after a bit of googling:

(source)

Quote:

"Listener" or "Listening Fatigue" is within the realm of Psychoacoustics. It can be caused by *any* form of distortion artifacts where the cause is in the equipment chain, speakers, or (more commonly), poor room acoustics. Indeed, listener fatigue can be demonstrated in meeting rooms, lecture halls (aka University lecture rooms), or even overly reverberant "lofts", or other spaces.

The simplified answer is found in the fact that we ponies have a very vast experience with respect to (1) how things should really sound; and, (2) listening to the pony voice. In case one, our listening mechanisms (brain) will work overtime to filter out distortions from our experience base and allow us to perceive a distorted sound as not being distorted. In case two, we are doing whatever we can to understand speech and dialog. In a poor audio reproduction environment, poorly designed meeting room, or even in a "too loud" restaurant those hearing mechanisms will do their best such that we can understand the dialog. It is these events which lead to listener fatigue (and students falling asleep in lectures ).

Comment on overly bright speakers. I will grant some speakers are horribly designed; however, in the vast majority of cases where a speaker is described as overly bright (room environment not withstanding), the fault does not lie with the speaker ... it is found in the inappropriate use of that speaker. Since high frequencies will roll off much faster in air, speaker designers will increase HF output of the speaker based upon what the designer (or marketing department) determines will be the average distance between the speaker and the listener. If that is a longer distance and listener is sitting closer to the speaker than the design distance, that speaker will be said to be overly bright. It is only overly bright within that specific environment and the real problem the speaker is being used within a context for which the speaker was not designed to accommodate.

 

Of course this is more to do with speakers than with headphones, but I thought some of the points in there seems relevant to headphones too.