[beeman458]

Spelaeus wrote:
 
There is no distinction between "hearing" a difference and "feeling" a difference in terms of audio reproduction.
 
What, now feeling music is equivalent to hearing music?
 

 
Absolutely there's a distinction as everybody has read somebody who's written that they don't feel the music.  There's many a time that the delivery is so bad that I don't feel the music.  Now I suppose you're going write that you have a DBT which shows that even though I'm not feeling the music, I'm really feeling the music just because I'm hearing the music?
 
There is no other "magical" factor involved in the emotionality of a song or how it makes you feel.
 
Wow!  You anti-cable guys don't get it if you can write your above with a straight face.
 

 

[aimlink]

Quote:

Spelaeus wrote:
 
There is no distinction between "hearing" a difference and "feeling" a difference in terms of audio reproduction.
 
What, now feeling music is equivalent to hearing music?
 

 
Absolutely there's a distinction as everybody has read somebody who's written that they don't feel the music.  There's many a time that the delivery is so bad that I don't feel the music.  Now I suppose you're going write that you have a DBT which shows that even though I'm not feeling the music, I'm really feeling the music just because I'm hearing the music?
 
There is no other "magical" factor involved in the emotionality of a song or how it makes you feel.
 
Wow!  You anti-cable guys don't get it if you can write your above with a straight face.
 

You're making another point here that beats me.  Maybe it'll come to me sometime soon.  The anti-cable guys position seem reasonable to me on this point.  I'm not sure what you're getting at.

 

[beeman458]

Aimlink wrote:
 
I'm not sure what you're getting at.
 
Degree of emotional response to a musical piece or lack of emotional response to music.
 
You've never read somebody write, or heard somebody say, I'm just not feeling it?
 
???
 
It's quite possible to hear something and not feel it.  And it's quite possible to not hear something yet there's a certain something going on, that you feel.
 

 

[Spelaeus]

 
Quote:

Aimlink wrote:
 
I'm not sure what you're getting at.
 
Degree of emotional response to a musical piece or lack of emotional response to music.
 
You've never read somebody write, or heard somebody say, I'm just not feeling it?
 
???
 
It's quite possible to hear something and not feel it.  And it's quite possible to not hear something yet there's a certain something going on, that you feel.
 

Yes, of course music can evoke an emotional response. The point is that when people talk about audio equipment having more emotional content  or musicality than other audio equipment, they are still just talking about the sound signature of that equipment. Even if the result is an emotional response, it arises from identifiable sonic differences. So when you say that one cable has more emotional impact than another, you are still talking about hearing a difference.
 

 

[beeman458]

Spelaeus wrote:
 
Even if the result is an emotional response, it arises from identifiable sonic differences.
 
No it doesn't.
 
So when you say that one cable has more emotional impact than another, you are still talking about hearing a difference.
 
No I'm not.
 
Why I would write that?  I personally might have a positive emotional response to a change but in honesty, can't say that I'm hearing a sonic difference which I'm consciously aware of.  So if I'm not consciously "hearing" a difference, how can I say I'm hearing a difference?  What, you think you anti-cable guys wouldn't have a field-day with me if I tried to tell you I was feeling the music and if you wanted a better emotional response to the music and get your shorts all in a bunch, buy these cables here?  Oh yeah!  Is it even possible to have negative cred?
 
...or musicality...
 
FWIW, and not saying you have, nowhere have I mentioned "musicality."
 
So when you say that one cable has more emotional impact than another, you are still talking about hearing a difference.
 
No I'm not.  Responding emotionally and hearing are two different centers of the brain and you're trying to make them one.  The emotions are separately tied to all of our senses because they're a separate brain center and you're trying to make them one in the case of sound, when they're not.  Blind, deaf and dumb and you'll still have emotional responses.

 

[jageur272]

Quote:

 
Really? My friend, please go to school and learn the basics of an electric circuit. Did u even heard about the law of Kirchhoff? ( not related but i wonder what's your level of knowledge, please don't cheat with wiki.)

 
I do know quite a bit about electric circuits (EE/Physics double major), and yes, I do know Kirchoff's law .  However, can you explain to me what makes applying Kirchoff's law (the loop rule) to my example inane?
 
"Directional" cables are only made on a need to basis as a sort of band-aid for poor circuit design.  Ground loops are prevalent because many consumer lines are built with the assumption that the average consumer will not have a very large signal path.  Also, fixing grounding issues, I have found, is a very tedious task which never quite turns out the same.  Might as well shoot for the 95% of people who won't have that problem.  And most cable issues that I have run into are from amplifiers struggling to drive the hugely capacitative load that long (think 50m+) cables are.
 
Personally, I'm 100% that I can make a more applicable and equally pretty Senn cable and charge 1/4 of the DHC price and still make a profit.  However, I don't have the time nor resources to run a company.  Also, the DHC Nucleotide wire is pretty good "low price" boutique wire.
 
As far as EE's and scientists looking down on audiophilia, many of my coworkers and buddies are generally impressed (in a positive manner) when they listen to music through a genuine Hi-Fi setup (which very few people on Head-Fi have, I sure wish I did).  Although they do find spending so much money on "overspecced" (and sometimes even poorly built) cables trivial, the very best products do have a bit of engineering behind them (Linkwitz Lab anybody?)
 
EDIT:
When it comes down to it, cable talk is so ambiguous and the two sides are so unwilling to compromise that talking about cables that people lose track of what matters.  DBT doesn't prove anything with audio.  If they like it, they like it.  Remember, sound is the human PERCEPTION of air pressure waves, how you perceive it directly changes how it sounds.  Subjectivity and Objectivity aren't different when it comes to sound.

 

[Spelaeus]

 
Quote:

Spelaeus wrote:
 
Even if the result is an emotional response, it arises from identifiable sonic differences.
 
No it doesn't.
 
So when you say that one cable has more emotional impact than another, you are still talking about hearing a difference.
 
No I'm not.
 
Why I would write that?  I personally might have a positive emotional response to a change but in honesty, can't say that I'm hearing a sonic difference which I'm consciously aware of.  So if I'm not consciously "hearing" a difference, how can I say I'm hearing a difference?  What, you think you anti-cable guys wouldn't have a field-day with me if I tried to tell you I was feeling the music and if you wanted a better emotional response to the music and get your shorts all in a bunch, buy these cables here?  Oh yeah!  Is it even possible to have negative cred?
 
...or musicality...
 
FWIW, and not saying you have, nowhere have I mentioned "musicality."
 
So when you say that one cable has more emotional impact than another, you are still talking about hearing a difference.
 
No I'm not.  Responding emotionally and hearing are two different centers of the brain and you're trying to make them one.  The emotions are separately tied to all of our senses because they're a separate brain center and you're trying to make them one in the case of sound, when they're not.  Blind, deaf and dumb and you'll still have emotional responses.

One of us is certainly missing something here. I am well aware that sensory information is processed in different locations in the brain for different functions. I am also aware there there is a distinction between consciously being aware of a specific sonic nuance, being able to note and describe that nuance, and having your listening experience impacted by it. But even if you are experiencing it as emotional impact and not, say, something more definitive such as greater bass impact (purely as an example), you are still hearing it. If different equipment introduces varying emotional impact, it is a result of the sound waves hitting the apparatus of your ear, being translated into chemical and electrical messages, and interpreted by your nervous system. And it *is* a product of differences in sonic signature if it is to arise from the audio equipment at all (as you'd claim). If you believe otherwise... I'm at a loss as to how you propose to perceive music if not with your sense of hearing.

 

[beeman458]

One of us is certainly missing something here.
 
I'm sure you've been accused of missing a few bricks and you can bet my load has been accused of the same accounting disparity.  So I'll go with voting for we're both missing something here.
 

 
...you are still hearing it.
 
Not necessarily.
 
If you believe otherwise... I'm at a loss as to how you propose to perceive music if not with your sense of hearing.
 
Nobody said, via my hearing, that I wasn't perceiving the music.  Yes, I clearly hear the music.  What I'm saying is that many times, even though my emotions responds differently, good/bad, I can't say I'm hearing a difference.  So, in the end, I'd be accused of buying expensive cables that I can't hear a difference in and yes, the accuser would be correct.

 

[Spelaeus]

 
Quote:

One of us is certainly missing something here.
 
I'm sure you've been accused of missing a few bricks and you can bet my load has been accused of the same accounting disparity.  So I'll go with voting for we're both missing something here.
 

 
...you are still hearing it.
 
Not necessarily.
 
If you believe otherwise... I'm at a loss as to how you propose to perceive music if not with your sense of hearing.
 
Nobody said, via my hearing, that I wasn't perceiving the music.  Yes, I clearly hear the music.  What I'm saying is that many times, even though my emotions responds differently, good/bad, I can't say I'm hearing a difference.  So, in the end, I'd be accused of buying expensive cables that I can't hear a difference in and yes, the accuser would be correct.

So... what exactly are you arguing, then?
 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Beeman, do you mean that blind testing can only measure whether or not you can hear a difference, but it cannot measure whether or not you get a different emotional response, with different cables?

 

[beeman458]

Spelaeus wrote:
 
So... what exactly are you arguing, then?
 
That the method used to evaluate the information gathered in DBT's is designed to guarantee fail because the methodology doesn't take into consideration the analogue nature of the human sensory system.
 
The tangent probably came about because sometimes I have to rely on my emotions to tell a difference because in truth, I can't consciously hear a sonic difference but I do have a different emotional response (good/bad) to the introduction of another cable.  I brought this point up as no mention had been made about emotional response to music as opposed to simply hearing a difference.  I also suggested that a more accurate test would be to remove the human element altogether by using brain scanning technology as opposed to a testee's personal opinion and see what lights up in the brain.
 
In the end, I submit that scanning the emotional centers of the brain would be a far more accurate testing methodology in this whole DBT question.
 

 
Prog Rock Man wrote:
 
Beeman, do you mean that blind testing can only measure whether or not you can hear a difference, but it cannot measure whether or not you get a different emotional response, with different cables?
 
No.  I'm saying that the discussion of hearing a difference and feeling a difference have not been discussed and the subject of emotional response to music hasn't been explored in regard to DBT.  Well, it hasn't been in the some twenty odd years that I've been following the debate.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

I cannot separate hearing from feeling like you can Beeman. To feel the music I need to hear it first. The only exception I can think to that is when an annoying tune gets trapped in your head, or you sing/humm along to yourself. But blind testing, hifi and sound quality have no bearing on that.
 
If you mean that mood can influence blind testing results, you are right I am sure. Which is why multiple tests with different equipment, people and places are needed to find a true result. I have found enough different tests to convince me that blind testing shows claims of an actual sound difference (as opposed to a perceived difference) does not exist.
 

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

I also suggested that a more accurate test would be to remove the human element altogether by using brain scanning technology as opposed to a testee's personal opinion and see what lights up in the brain.
 
In the end, I submit that scanning the emotional centers of the brain would be a far more accurate testing methodology in this whole DBT question.
 

It's been done, sort of, at least with frequency cut-offs. Oohashi et al 2000.
 

 

[beeman458]

Googled your above and didn't find anything.  Maybe you can provide a link for my edification.  That would be kind.
 
I'm writing about MRI scanning (or what ever the current brain scanning technology is) to see live, the changes taking place in the emotional centers of the brain.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Googled your above and didn't find anything.  Maybe you can provide a link for my edification.  That would be kind.
 
I'm writing about MRI scanning (or what ever the current brain scanning technology is) to see live, the changes taking place in the emotional centers of the brain.

 
The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 83 No. 6 June 2000, pp. 3548-3558
Inaudible High-Frequency Sounds Affect Brain Activity: Hypersonic Effect
Tsutomu Oohashi, Emi Nishina, Manabu Honda, Yoshiharu Yonekura, Yoshitaka Fuwamoto, Norie Kawai, Tadao Maekawa, Satoshi Nakamura, Hidenao Fukuyama, and Hiroshi Shibasaki

 
 
PDf at http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/reprint/83/6/3548