[Czilla9000]

I have never understood the mystery over why cables make a difference or if they make a difference to begin with.


Shouldn't it be easy to test?



For instance - HeadRoom's Tyll measured the HD600/650s with the Cardas Headphone Cable.........why not simply measure the headphones with the stock cable and see if there is a difference? You could do the same with interconnects. Why hasn't it been settled once and for all?

I know I must be missing something or someone would do the tests I am preposing.


Thank you!

 

[Jasper994]

yeah get two different cables, an amp that does mono by sending both signals to both channels, and identical speakers... place the speakers right next to eachother move back to a proper listening position and have somebody swing the balance from one to the other and see if you can hear the big difference.

to make sure that it isn't a variance in the speakers themselves, switch the speakers and test again. this test should be a blind test for the listener...

 

[Czilla9000]

Jasper..............that is an interesting idea.........but the test I was preposing takes the ears and placebo effect out of the equation.



Basically, all I am preposing is taking to identical headphones and measuring there freq. response and see if there is a deviation with different cables.



That would put it to test once and for all.

 

[Ctn]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper994 yeah get two different cables, an amp that does mono by sending both signals to both channels, and identical speakers... place the speakers right next to eachother move back to a proper listening position and have somebody swing the balance from one to the other and see if you can hear the big difference. to make sure that it isn't a variance in the speakers themselves, switch the speakers and test again. this test should be a blind test for the listener...

I use this technique too. My preamp has a switch to output mono signals. People will just say your eq is not good enough to reveal the differences, which is a load of bs.

Quote:

Basically, all I am preposing is taking to identical headphones and measuring there freq. response and see if there is a deviation with different cables.

It would be pretty much identical if the build quality is the same. (I'm guessing).

 

[Jasper994]

Quote:

Originally posted by Czilla9000 Basically, all I am preposing is taking to identical headphones and measuring there freq. response and see if there is a deviation with different cables.

Okay but then one should test a variety of cables...

 

[dd3mon]

We have no tests for 'detail retrieval' or 'soundstaging ability' and even the frequency response tests we have now aren't nearly as detailed as our own ears. The vast majority of hi-end gear (sources and amps) measure 100% flat through the audio band, yet I don't think anyone is gonna argue that they all sound identical.

-dd3mon

 

[Jasper994]

I agree so do both tests...

 

[Joe Bloggs]

You'd never see any difference that way unless your connnection were broken.

 

[Jasper994]

sure you would, if there really is a difference between cables then you would know when one was playing and not the other... that's the point of using the balance and mono

 

[AnsBjork]

The problem with measurement is that you need to know what to look for in order to measure it properly.

It is my guess that the basic frequency response measuring we usually see in comparative test might not to reveal much difference between the cables. But still we sometime hear a big difference... I believe that the difference may lies elsewhere and can only be revealed by more sophisticated tests.

Reality is complex and we sometime miss part of the truth because our assumptions are simplistic. Being pseudo scientific by using a scientific approach but omitting important facts and disregarding the limit of our hypothesis, may make you believe in something utterly false in the end.

That's why it is important to do listening tests even if they are suggestive. The end result is to please your ears: even if the difference is "only in your head"... At least it is where it counts!

Do not let a graph say otherwise!

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper994 sure you would, if there really is a difference between cables then you would know when one was playing and not the other... that's the point of using the balance and mono

Having the sound for one cable come out from one speaker and the sound for the other cable come out from the other speaker would mean that:

1. Room interactions will affect the results
2. The test is not blind

Back to what I was saying, I was saying that measuring the frequency response of cables, (which, if you have to do it, is best done by attaching one end of the cable to the amp and the other end directly to a scope) you'd be lucky to find a 0.1dB difference at any frequency for any two cables. The effects of cables are much more subtle than anything that would come up on an FR graph, I've been led to believe

 

[Ebonyks]

Guys, quit guessing, dd3mon's got it pretty much right. Our equiptment simply is not senstive enough to test every aspect of an audio system. On the headroom website, you'll notice that no frequency response charts for headroom amps exist. Why? Because tyll himself has said that on the graphs, the differences are insignificant. If equiptment can't capture differences in amps, there's no way in hell they're gonna get cables

 

[Tom M]

So in theory,there should not be any audible differences in cables?

 

[SunByrne]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tom M So in theory,there should not be any audible differences in cables?

You'd think that, but it's easy to find people who violently disagree and spend hundreds (thousands?) of dollars PER FOOT on speaker cables, and they're quite certain it makes a difference. Perhaps we should try to find one of those folks and let them speak.

 

[Magic77]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tom M So in theory,there should not be any audible differences in cables?

For some, Yes, for others, No. Like we were talking about in the "Monster Cable" Thread; What is it in an Audio system that really makes the "Difference"?

Is it the Cables, Capacitors, Resistors, Connectors, Headphones, Op-Amps/Transistors/Tubes, Power Supply etc......

I would imagine everything has an effect on something. That's what I think gets confusing for a lot of us. Just by changing one thing or even two things may or may not make a difference.