[superjawes]

prot is letting this get heated, and that is unecessary. There's no reason we can't remain civil.

Now, on the topic of dogma, opinions, etc., I will start by repeating what I have said before: there is no audible difference between "good" cables. Unless the cable is fundamentally broken, the electrical differences between the two are negligible. I will also add that many of the arguments for cables are often dogmatic, based on personal experience without controls, and subject to human error and expectation bias.

Cable properties well understood, and we have data to back it up. You can measure them to learn their properties. You can easily tell which one has lower resistance and/or capacitance, and therefore tell whether one is good or bad. You can easily predict the length at which a wire's expected behavior breaks down and starts to alter the signal going to the speaker (as opposed to just passing it through). There's no magic involved.

So I do take offense when someone calls me the "thought police" for presenting something that can be independently verified. Especially so because I work with wire harnesses for a living...

Now again, it is fair to praise cables for physical properties. A new cable can add some personality, some extra ruggedness, or convenience. These are all good reasons to replace the stock cables (which I am assuming are good to begin with). But if you take two good cables and put them in a controlled environment, the audible differences will be very small, if they even exist.

 

[prot]

Well said, I did not realize until after my post.

Says a lot really!! :wink_face:

Indeed. I also heard that the quantity of neurons is highly corelated with no of posts on head-fi. Only after 1000 posts you get the first neuron. And if you really persist, after a while you get that elusive second neuron. You can literally HEAR that one coming. Only with $1k cables of course {/sarcasm}.

Sorry, guess I kinda got carried away. But this stuff about the no of posts is low-q even by trolling standards. Hope the admins will not close the thread.

Enjoy your cables. Don't forget the music.

 

[Happy Camper]

It's the lack of impact on a signal that makes the cable improvement, not adding anything to it. In this, IMO, science has failed to identify what audiophile experience has commented on. The "expectation bias" psycho babble is just doubletalk that seems to have as much effect on both sides. Listen to a cable for a few weeks, switch it and listen to the next one for that same time. Then go back to the first and you will be able to hear differences if there is one. My last cable sample was an ear opener. Unfortunately it's on the other side of the globe but hoping it makes it's return to the States for another try. And no, there is no faulty cabling. Both play music.

 

[nigeljames]

So I do take offense when someone calls me the "thought police" for presenting something that can be independently verified. Especially so because I work with wire harnesses for a living...

 But if you take two good cables and put them in a controlled environment, the audible differences will be very small, if they even exist.

 
Being a member of the 'thought police' has nothing to do with whether you believe cables make a difference or not, it's to do with someone telling someone else what they are hearing.
I fully respect someone else's opinion (even if I don't agree) that cables have no SQ variations but I would expect the same respect for my opinion that cables DO make a difference SQ wise based on mine and many other peoples own experiences and not be ridiculed for my 1st hand experiences.
 
I always try to remain civil but when someone calls me a liar or delusional I do take offense.

 

[superjawes]

Being a member of the 'thought police' has nothing to do with whether you believe cables make a difference or not, it's to do with someone telling someone else what they are hearing.
I fully respect someone else's opinion (even if I don't agree) that cables have no SQ variations but I would expect the same respect for my opinion that cables DO make a difference SQ wise based on mine and many other peoples own experiences and not be ridiculed for my 1st hand experiences.

I always try to remain civil but when someone calls me a liar or delusional I do take offense.

I'm not necessarily saying you aren't hearing a difference. What I am saying is that the difference could be in your mind and not the cable.

The difference is that I can check the cable and tell you if there should be a difference. Of course, if I tell you anything about what you "should" hear, that will affect your perception. If you don't trust me, you are more likely to resist whatever it is I say. But you can always go back and check my claim about the electrical properties.

If this offends your sensibilities, I'm sorry, but unless you can give me something concrete that I can independently verify, I have to reason to give your opinion any weight.

It's the lack of impact on a signal that makes the cable improvement, not adding anything to it. In this, IMO, science has failed to identify what audiophile experience has commented on.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you suggesting that the science has to come up with evidence to refute an outside claim? If so, A) that's not how it works. He who makes the claim must support the claim, or else the claim can be rejected. B) "Science" has come up with an explanation, and it is that "psycho babble" which you referred to.

[quote="Happy] The "expectation bias" psycho babble is just doubletalk that seems to have as much effect on both sides. Listen to a cable for a few weeks, switch it and listen to the next one for that same time. Then go back to the first and you will be able to hear differences if there is one. My last cable sample was an ear opener. Unfortunately it's on the other side of the globe but hoping it makes it's return to the States for another try. And no, there is no faulty cabling. Both play music.[/quote]
Indeed, expectation bias can go both ways. However, we can idependently verify whether or not the equpiment changed and whether or not it made a difference to the transmitted audio. That is how we can tell whether it was a change in the signal or in the listener's mind.

Again, if this offends your sensibilities, I'm sorry, but don't expect me to sit silent when someone is trying to sell a product using vaugue, unverifiable claims. There are good, real reasons to buy nice cables.

 

[prot]

The "expectation bias" psycho babble is just doubletalk that seems to have as much effect on both sides.

Expectation bias is not "psycho babble", it is solid science. Tested and re-tested by thousands of researchers all over the world. That's why medical experiments include placebos. And believe me, you are glad they do.
And yes it works both ways. That's why serious people use oscilloscopes and other measuring instruments: no bias! That's also exactly why any test involving humans must be conducted in a way that cannot be mentioned in this forum .

We humans do still have a *lot* to learn but electromagnetism is something we do know pretty well. As Dunlavy puts it in one of the links I posted, if you or anyone discovers an electromagnetic effect that improves the sound of wire and is not covered by the current theories, the Nobel price is waiting.
And the next Nobel winner will be "jimmy's super-cables-built-by-ear shop". Yeah sure

 

[ab initio]

Expectation bias is not "psycho babble", it is solid science. Tested and re-tested by thousands of researchers all over the world. That's why medical experiments include placebos. And believe me, you are glad they do.
And yes it works both ways. That's why serious people use oscilloscopes and other measuring instruments: no bias!

We humans do still have a *lot* to learn but electromagnetism is something we do know pretty well. As Dunlavy puts it in one of the links I posted, if you or anyone discovers an electromagnetic effect that is not covered by the current theories, the Nobel price is waiting.
And the next Nobel winner will be "jimmy's super cable shop". Yeah sure

 
You are arguing a straw man here.
 
Most of the arguments for the physical reasons why audiophile cables cause audible differences in the signal transmission do not rely on the existence of some as-of-now undiscovered electromagnetic phenomenon. Rather, the explanations often rely on currently well-understood effects that sound impressive to laypeople (e.g., transmission lines, quantum mechanics, etc.).  Usually, these effects either A) don't actually apply or B) are many orders of magnitude below the threshold of audibility.
 
 
 
Fallacious arguments are fallacious whether or not they support a valid position. Don't argue anecdotal fallacies with straw man fallacies. Refute bad arguments by showing how the argument is flawed, then provide valid evidence to support your position.
 
Cheers

 

[ab initio]

--double post removed--

 

[nick_charles]

Several years ago someone on this forum did a load of tests on different cables measuring the frequency response and noise of silver, silver coated copper, solid copper, and stranded copper cables ranging from $0.,77 to about $145 - while somewhat crude the tests suggested that measurable differences between cables were generally extremely small i.e  on the order of a few 100ths of a db at any given frequency point. It is possible to manufacture a cable with such abnormal behavior (e.g MIT or the inaccurately named Transparent) that it mangles the output and acts as an EQ but why would you bother ? A cable cannot improve the signal it is given it can only damage it by adding grunty to the signal. Residual noise from even cheap competent cables is so small as to be a non issue, the FRs of even cheap competent cables are verifiably flat - so the where exactly is improvement coming from ?

 

[Music Alchemist]

It's the lack of impact on a signal that makes the cable improvement, not adding anything to it. In this, IMO, science has failed to identify what audiophile experience has commented on. The "expectation bias" psycho babble is just doubletalk that seems to have as much effect on both sides. Listen to a cable for a few weeks, switch it and listen to the next one for that same time. Then go back to the first and you will be able to hear differences if there is one. My last cable sample was an ear opener. Unfortunately it's on the other side of the globe but hoping it makes it's return to the States for another try. And no, there is no faulty cabling. Both play music.

 
This is exactly what I was getting at when I mentioned easily hearing differences between a normal cable and a remote cable. The extra electronics of the latter interfere with the signal, considerably reducing the sound quality.
 
To anyone who is interested, Currawong published a comparison between various HD 800 headphone cables here.

 

[superjawes]

This is exactly what I was getting at when I mentioned easily hearing differences between a normal cable and a remote cable. The extra electronics of the latter interfere with the signal, considerably reducing the sound quality.

You might have me on semantics, but this is the kind of thing I would file under "bad cable." If the inline remote causes interference, it ought to be considered a design flaw. If nothing else, it's not the kind of case that bothers me (what really bothers me is when someone claims sonic miracles when both cables are essentially idential from an electrical perspective).

 

[Music Alchemist]

 

This is exactly what I was getting at when I mentioned easily hearing differences between a normal cable and a remote cable. The extra electronics of the latter interfere with the signal, considerably reducing the sound quality.

You might have me on semantics, but this is the kind of thing I would file under "bad cable." If the inline remote causes interference, it ought to be considered a design flaw. If nothing else, it's not the kind of case that bothers me (what really bothers me is when someone claims sonic miracles when both cables are essentially idential from an electrical perspective).

 
The reason a brand new version of a two year old cable sounded better was because they are cheaply made, dangerously thin cables in the first place. The old one had deteriorated and shorted out to the point that I had to twist and hold it a certain way to get sound to both channels. As for remote cables, I don't know of any that don't interfere with the signal in some way, so yeah, I would file them under "bad cable" as well.

 

[prot]

@ab initio
Not sure I follow your point. Noone mentioned quatum theory, I was just arguing with a few testing-by-ear fans. Plus, as you said, quatum theory is not needed to explain signal transmission over wires. Electromagnetism is enough for that and people built audio devices based on ohm's law and maxwells' equations for more than a century already. Pretty good ones too.
Anyway, peace and enjoy.

 

[Chris J]

One of the first and foremost qualities of police is that they care. I don't.
And anyone who kept at least one open ear during school, cares about such cable *oppinions* just as much as the law of gravity cares about the catolic church's oppinion on the universe.

And generally, as long as it is your money and your fun, noone cares and noone has the right to comment.
You like fancy cables.... go for it and be happy.
You wanna wear $10K cables with diamonds as a status symbol... go for it and be happy.
Garden-hose speaker cables improve your orgasms... go for it and be happy.

Just don't start telling everyone that your cable magically produces better sound, cause that is either stoopid or disingenuous.. if not an outright lie. If I wanna hear utterly stoopid bulls*t I can watch TV advertising. From a specialized head-fi forum, which is supposed to be ForTheUsers, I expect better. This forum is supposed to HELP new/young/unexperienced users, not waste their time & money. Pretending that expensive wire sounds better than solid OFC/OCC copper which costs less than $5 per meter doesn't "help" anyone but snake-oil vendors. It is also disrespectuful for all those scientists and engineers who dedicated their lives to the study of math, physics, wave, electromagnetic and sound theories. The people who INVENTED your headphones and BUILD them. Through hard-work, extensive testing and studying...you know, through Science!

Anyway, that's already too long and pretty much all you need to know about cables I wrote in another post, no need to repeat here.

Enjoy your cables, enjoy your music.

Actually I am an Electrical Engineer and I do not feel that Science and Engineering are to be used as a blunt instrument to beat the masses into submission.
Thank you.

 

[dvw]

It's the lack of impact on a signal that makes the cable improvement, not adding anything to it. In this, IMO, science has failed to identify what audiophile experience has commented on. 

Without any kind of tangible measurement and theory, it makes it very difficult to design anything. Are we talking about just trial and error approach to designing cable? How do one quantify these experiences? 
Most cable companies have different grade of cables,Without ant type of "identification", how do they grade their cable? We all know the manufacturing process has variance. Without any types of measurement, how do they control the quality and grade the cable?
I am not questioning anyone's experience and certainly everyone is entitled to spend money however they pleased on their hobby. But we cannot rewrite the facts. There are lots of people believing in the Earth is only 7,000 year old. By believing does not change any fact.