castleofargh
Sound Science Forum Moderator
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
all the deal about cables is IMO explained in that wiki link.
-some people will think they heard a difference when nothing changed, placebo is what it is. people rejecting it are delusioned. I don't even see the point of discussing it, it's a fact and is demonstrated all the time in everything a human does.
so I expect those testimonies to be removed from the equation.
-some will notice differences that are nothing more than a volume lever change. a simple impedance change in the cable could be responsible and could lead people listening to the cables to notice differences, but perceive the differences as better bass, better soundstage ... instead of "louder music".
obviously those should also be removed from the equation if we really want to ascertain audio differences that are more than pushing the sound to 11. volume matching is step one of audio testing if it wasn't done, the result is meaningless.
-then there are the countless cases of people who tried different cables with multidriver IEMs and there was a difference, I still don't expect them to have volume matched the cables or used a system with an instant switch so their opinion is meaningless for our search. but we could accept that they at least really heard a difference, because the impedance change in the cable made for a frequency response change due to the crossovers in the IEM. we would need a case by case look to tell if we should expect changes to be audible or not with specific cables and specific IEMs, but at least that's possible and can be explained easily. so we're out of the placebo universe at long last!!!!!!!! \o/ woot!!!!!
still the one changing sound is more the IEM than the cable, in the sense that a flat impedance over frequencies 300ohm headphone wouldn't exhibit those changes. so it's not the cable, but the cable acting on the IEM and that should stay clear in the head of people.
but of course as most audiophiles don't understand the impact of source impedance on widely changing impedance IEMs, when they experience a change, they will blame the cable for the change. that's where my apophenia stuff kicks in once more. the guy doesn't have enough information on what's happening, but it doesn't stop him from making conclusion based on 1 weird very circumstantial experience that will lead him to say idiotic stuff like "silver cable open the trebles, improve the soundstage...". when in fact all of his experience is one cable on one IEM and I can get him another IEM where the same cable actually roll off the trebles. but of course he doesn't know that, and went for the easy false conclusion.
-then there are all the messed up cables of course, from the cheap one with a bad contact and a piece of wire touching the ground or whatever, to the very expensive one with messed up impedance or capacitance values that are way out of what a cable should ever be. those are just bad stuff where a dude will try to make an alteration pass for improvement thanks to voodoo marketing. the result, just like very colored and distorted tube amps, is up to the listener to decide if a loss in fidelity ends up sounding better to his ears. some will find those cables great, if only because they paid 1000$ for them and that would be a serious blow to even imagine them measuring actually worst than a 10$ cable.
all in all, cables have optimal parameters determined depending on what they are conducting, a coax cable is best in the 60/75ohm zone I think to go with matched impedance of the input and output devices using coax. a headphone cable of 75ohm would be plain stupid in general. sure you can find the ER4 turning into ER4S with such a cable, but that's one specific IEM with an impedance response that justifies such a use to EQ the IEM a little brighter. doing it on most other multidriver IEMs would make most of them to sound like crap.
in conclusion, while nobody is denying that cables under certain circumstances will change sound, even audibly so. the claim that a certain cable will improve the sound audibly so on any and all headphones, that's one obvious giant BS.
as even cheap cables are relatively close to ideal specs for a given cable use, you would need to go out of your way to make something really better than what is already pretty well optimized(in a cost effective way). so expect most very obvious changes to be bad ones as far as signal fidelity goes.
all the deal about cables is IMO explained in that wiki link.
-some people will think they heard a difference when nothing changed, placebo is what it is. people rejecting it are delusioned. I don't even see the point of discussing it, it's a fact and is demonstrated all the time in everything a human does.
so I expect those testimonies to be removed from the equation.
-some will notice differences that are nothing more than a volume lever change. a simple impedance change in the cable could be responsible and could lead people listening to the cables to notice differences, but perceive the differences as better bass, better soundstage ... instead of "louder music".
obviously those should also be removed from the equation if we really want to ascertain audio differences that are more than pushing the sound to 11. volume matching is step one of audio testing if it wasn't done, the result is meaningless.
-then there are the countless cases of people who tried different cables with multidriver IEMs and there was a difference, I still don't expect them to have volume matched the cables or used a system with an instant switch so their opinion is meaningless for our search. but we could accept that they at least really heard a difference, because the impedance change in the cable made for a frequency response change due to the crossovers in the IEM. we would need a case by case look to tell if we should expect changes to be audible or not with specific cables and specific IEMs, but at least that's possible and can be explained easily. so we're out of the placebo universe at long last!!!!!!!! \o/ woot!!!!!
still the one changing sound is more the IEM than the cable, in the sense that a flat impedance over frequencies 300ohm headphone wouldn't exhibit those changes. so it's not the cable, but the cable acting on the IEM and that should stay clear in the head of people.
but of course as most audiophiles don't understand the impact of source impedance on widely changing impedance IEMs, when they experience a change, they will blame the cable for the change. that's where my apophenia stuff kicks in once more. the guy doesn't have enough information on what's happening, but it doesn't stop him from making conclusion based on 1 weird very circumstantial experience that will lead him to say idiotic stuff like "silver cable open the trebles, improve the soundstage...". when in fact all of his experience is one cable on one IEM and I can get him another IEM where the same cable actually roll off the trebles. but of course he doesn't know that, and went for the easy false conclusion.
-then there are all the messed up cables of course, from the cheap one with a bad contact and a piece of wire touching the ground or whatever, to the very expensive one with messed up impedance or capacitance values that are way out of what a cable should ever be. those are just bad stuff where a dude will try to make an alteration pass for improvement thanks to voodoo marketing. the result, just like very colored and distorted tube amps, is up to the listener to decide if a loss in fidelity ends up sounding better to his ears. some will find those cables great, if only because they paid 1000$ for them and that would be a serious blow to even imagine them measuring actually worst than a 10$ cable.
all in all, cables have optimal parameters determined depending on what they are conducting, a coax cable is best in the 60/75ohm zone I think to go with matched impedance of the input and output devices using coax. a headphone cable of 75ohm would be plain stupid in general. sure you can find the ER4 turning into ER4S with such a cable, but that's one specific IEM with an impedance response that justifies such a use to EQ the IEM a little brighter. doing it on most other multidriver IEMs would make most of them to sound like crap.
in conclusion, while nobody is denying that cables under certain circumstances will change sound, even audibly so. the claim that a certain cable will improve the sound audibly so on any and all headphones, that's one obvious giant BS.
as even cheap cables are relatively close to ideal specs for a given cable use, you would need to go out of your way to make something really better than what is already pretty well optimized(in a cost effective way). so expect most very obvious changes to be bad ones as far as signal fidelity goes.