[deadlylover]

 
Quote:

Yeah I completely understood the post, that was what I meant when I asked the question of perceived utility v.s. actual utility. But at the end of the day you are saying that DBT is not a good thing because it can actually differentiate between products which do something and products which don't, which leaves no reason for it to be purposefully excluded from the cables forum. Whether people want to know the difference between their products is entirely up to them, but the option should be left open. And all people who buy into cables claim that there IS a difference, which is why they buy them.
 

Oh, I guess the cable forum is DBT-free just to stop any heated arguments I guess, people DBT cables here in the sound science forum all the time, and nothing is really stopping the cable guys from popping over to the sound science forum for a spot of tea.
It's probably easier this way for the cable guys as well, as they can freely discuss cables and whatnot without the hassle of being shot down every waking moment.
 

 

[Antony6555]

Quote:

And conveniently enough, all humans happen to listen to sound (for the purposes of this post).
Which is exactly why some humans go for aftermarket cables and amps, because they can hear the differences in sound.
It is also why these humans refuse to do double blind tests, because they heard such a real difference, they do not bother to challenge their own claims of these differences.
 
I think to some audio is basically like fashion. It's about having the newest, trendiest thing. Ultimately, they don't care about sound quality in an objective sense. Spending more on exclusive, "boutique" equipment (which in many cases performs worse than less exotic equipment) makes them feel special, unique.
 
 
@Willikan
Is it morally unjust to be able to bring enjoyment to someone in return for their own hard earned money?
I don't think so, because at the end of the day, it is up to the customer's judgement to decide if it is worth their money.
 
Sure, but typically snake-oil salesmen (like cablemakers) claim that it will lead to an actual difference in stimuli, not just a perceived difference. Indeed, if they claimed it only lead to a perceived difference, most people would like not believe that they heard a difference (basically the placebo affect). So, yes it is morally unjust when you consider that the seller is likely dishonest.
 

 
 

 

[deadlylover]

 
Quote:

I think to some audio is basically like fashion. It's about having the newest, trendiest thing. Ultimately, they don't care about sound quality in an objective sense. Spending more on exclusive, "boutique" equipment (which in many cases performs worse than less exotic equipment) makes them feel special, unique.
 
Sure, but typically snake-oil salesmen (like cablemakers) claim that it will lead to an actual difference in stimuli, not just a perceived difference. Indeed, if they claimed it only lead to a perceived difference, most people would like not believe that they heard a difference (basically the placebo affect). So, yes it is morally unjust when you consider that the seller is likely dishonest.

 
Yes, maybe they don't care for sound quality in an objective sense, but sound is ultimately subjective is it not?
There may be some increased enjoyment in using so called "boutique" equipment, and not only does it make them feel special and unique, but at the end of the day, this equipment just made things sound better, regardless of whether or not there was any difference at all, or perhaps even a 'worse' change in terms of sound quality in an objective sense. And the purpose of buying new equipment is to get an increase in sound quality, or enjoyment, is it not? It is not fair to label these people as idiots or anything of the sort.
 
Things do get a little iffy when we talk about cablemakers. I haven't personally read much of their advertisements, but say ALO audio's LCD-2 cable for example, they just talk about the construction and build quality on the product page.
And the thing with most(?) cable makers is, their cables often have some kind of return policy in which you can get a refund, and that seems quite cool in my point of view.
 
But lets try view this in the worst possible light, just for sake of argument.
If I tell you that my cable will increase the soundstage of your headphone somehow, either of two things will happen.
You will hear a difference in soundstage, so I was not being dishonest at all, in fact, my product did exactly what I had claimed it would do.
 
Or, you will not hear a difference, and you will probably return it for your money back.
But chances are, if you are a cable skeptic, you would already know not to waste your money on such tweaks that may not increase sound quality objectively.
And you would also take reasonable care in trying to hear the cable for yourself at a meet, or perhaps make double sure that there is a good return policy.
Because if you are going to part with your hard-earned, you'd do as much research as possible before you pull the trigger.
 
But why am I suddenly morally unjust or dishonest if my cable did not work for you?
It only seems fair that if something did not work for you, you return it for minimal loss and move on.
After all, if some people did hear my claimed differences in soundstage, did I trick them? No, in my point of view, my product performed exactly as advertised.
The act of observation will either prove that these claims exist or not (for the most part, in our current understanding, they do not).
But as the cable guys do not observe, these claims may simultaneously exist and not exist. That famous cat knows what I'm on about.
 
Many anti-cablist guys have this same preconceived aura of thought when they are judging the cable guys, it's something like this.
"You don't understand (audio)"
But no, you don't understand.
 
And that's why there is such conflict between the two sides, as they are automatically trained to think that the cable guys MUST be wrong, that's a poor attitude isn't it.

 

[BlackbeardBen]

Quote:

 
 
Yes, maybe they don't care for sound quality in an objective sense, but sound is ultimately subjective is it not?
There may be some increased enjoyment in using so called "boutique" equipment, and not only does it make them feel special and unique, but at the end of the day, this equipment just made things sound better, regardless of whether or not there was any difference at all, or perhaps even a 'worse' change in terms of sound quality in an objective sense. And the purpose of buying new equipment is to get an increase in sound quality, or enjoyment, is it not? It is not fair to label these people as idiots or anything of the sort.
 
Things do get a little iffy when we talk about cablemakers. I haven't personally read much of their advertisements, but say ALO audio's LCD-2 cable for example, they just talk about the construction and build quality on the product page.
And the thing with most(?) cable makers is, their cables often have some kind of return policy in which you can get a refund, and that seems quite cool in my point of view.
 
But lets try view this in the worst possible light, just for sake of argument.
If I tell you that my cable will increase the soundstage of your headphone somehow, either of two things will happen.
You will hear a difference in soundstage, so I was not being dishonest at all, in fact, my product did exactly what I had claimed it would do.
 
Or, you will not hear a difference, and you will probably return it for your money back.
But chances are, if you are a cable skeptic, you would already know not to waste your money on such tweaks that may not increase sound quality objectively.
And you would also take reasonable care in trying to hear the cable for yourself at a meet, or perhaps make double sure that there is a good return policy.
Because if you are going to part with your hard-earned, you'd do as much research as possible before you pull the trigger.
 
But why am I suddenly morally unjust or dishonest if my cable did not work for you?
It only seems fair that if something did not work for you, you return it for minimal loss and move on.
After all, if some people did hear my claimed differences in soundstage, did I trick them? No, in my point of view, my product performed exactly as advertised.
The act of observation will either prove that these claims exist or not (for the most part, in our current understanding, they do not).
But as the cable guys do not observe, these claims may simultaneously exist and not exist. That famous cat knows what I'm on about.
 
Many anti-cablist guys have this same preconceived aura of thought when they are judging the cable guys, it's something like this.
"You don't understand (audio)"
But no, you don't understand.
 
And that's why there is such conflict between the two sides, as they are automatically trained to think that the cable guys MUST be wrong, that's a poor attitude isn't it.

Is it ethical to sell homeopathic remedies that claim to cure erectile dysfunction, enlarge one's penis, increase one's sexual attractiveness to the opposite sex, or some other harmless effect that one could possibly experience as a placebo effect while taking the remedy?
 
Because that's no different than selling dubious audiophile tweaks that make no measurably significant impact on the sound.  What we hear is not necessarily the unadulterated sound because of the influence of our brain on the physical stimuli, but the sound is always sound waves, and in the electrical domain it is a summation of sine waves that represent the sound...
 

 

[deadlylover]

Quote:

Is it ethical to sell homeopathic remedies that claim to cure erectile dysfunction, enlarge one's penis, increase one's sexual attractiveness to the opposite sex, or some other harmless effect that one could possibly experience as a placebo effect while taking the remedy?
 
Because that's no different than selling dubious audiophile tweaks that make no measurably significant impact on the sound.  What we hear is not necessarily the unadulterated sound because of the influence of our brain on the physical stimuli, but the sound is always sound waves, and in the electrical domain it is a summation of sine waves that represent the sound...
 

 
If it is as you say, harmless, then why is it unethical?. It is morally wrong to do harm upon others, and whether you view "taking their money" as harm or not depends on whether you are one of the customers or not.
To me, an act of bringing enjoyment to another human being in return for one's money seems perfectly reasonable.
Let's say you paid good money to see your favourite singer's perform live, you got nothing physical in return, except a feeling of enjoyment.
Or is that unethical as well?
 
Of course it's not exactly fair to compare audio tweaks with homeopathic remedies. Music is subjective as it is an art form, health is kinda 'real', know what I mean?
 
Yes, there are plenty of audiophile tweaks that have no measurably significant impact on sound waves, but since when did this mean that they have no effect on sound?
We do not listen to sound waves, we listen to sound, and sound is whatever our brain makes it out to be. Sound listens to us.
 
You need to think outside of the box. You need to become aware of 'conscience' and processes that really take place when you "listen to music".
Do you know how many people were laughing at Feynman when he came up with his simple diagrams? Everybody was laughing at him, but he won the Nobel prize, afterwards.
That's the way it is for anyone that's ahead of their time.

 

[BlackbeardBen]

Quote:

 
If it is as you say, harmless, then why is it unethical?. It is morally wrong to do harm upon others, and whether you view "taking their money" as harm or not depends on whether you are one of the customers or not.
To me, an act of bringing enjoyment to another human being in return for one's money seems perfectly reasonable.
Let's say you paid good money to see your favourite singer's perform live, you got nothing physical in return, except a feeling of enjoyment.
Or is that unethical as well?
 
Of course it's not exactly fair to compare audio tweaks with homeopathic remedies. Music is subjective as it is an art form, health is kinda 'real', know what I mean?
 
Yes, there are plenty of audiophile tweaks that have no measurably significant impact on sound waves, but since when did this mean that they have no effect on sound?
We do not listen to sound waves, we listen to sound, and sound is whatever our brain makes it out to be. Sound listens to us.
 
You need to think outside of the box. You need to become aware of 'conscience' and processes that really take place when you "listen to music".
Do you know how many people were laughing at Feynman when he came up with his simple diagrams? Everybody was laughing at him, but he won the Nobel prize, afterwards.
That's the way it is for anyone that's ahead of their time.

 
You're purposefully attempting to obliterate the distinction between physical phenomenon and our perception of physical phenomenon; and within our perception of physical phenomenon, the contribution of our various senses to that perception.  As much as you'd like to believe, they're not one and the same.
 
We can analyze the difference - obviously, a sound way to do that is by measuring something, and also query human subjects of their perception of that something, and compare.
 
Another, different method that serves to remove mistaken cognative bias as to what is perceptually better is to have a sighted test followed by a blind test of the same subject - that shows the actual, perceptual differences. (look at Sean Olive's blog that was mentioned shortly ago).  We can remove the human bias from the testing procedure as regards to looks, price, emotion, and other effects and find out what actually does perceptually sound better.
 
 
 
You're telling me that to provide remedies/products that are known to science to have no effect on human bodies, or no audible effect on measured electrical waves, yet claim that they do, is perfectly okay and not misleading?  No cable company is saying, "Look, our cables are shown to have no audible effect on the sound, but if you believe that they can make your headphones/speakers sound better, they will make you perceive better sound even though it isn't really improved all!"  They make entirely unqualified, exaggerated and plainly misleading "sciency" sounding claims when the sum all evidence is in opposition to those claims - which serves to mislead people into thinking that valid evidence actually supports their products.  If that isn't unethical, I don't know what is.

 

[Modo]

Ockham's Razor says: DBT hurts the bottom line of the advertisers.

 

[Nightslayer]

Quote:

 
If it is as you say, harmless, then why is it unethical?. It is morally wrong to do harm upon others, and whether you view "taking their money" as harm or not depends on whether you are one of the customers or not.
To me, an act of bringing enjoyment to another human being in return for one's money seems perfectly reasonable.
Let's say you paid good money to see your favourite singer's perform live, you got nothing physical in return, except a feeling of enjoyment.
Or is that unethical as well?
 
Of course it's not exactly fair to compare audio tweaks with homeopathic remedies. Music is subjective as it is an art form, health is kinda 'real', know what I mean?
 
Yes, there are plenty of audiophile tweaks that have no measurably significant impact on sound waves, but since when did this mean that they have no effect on sound?
We do not listen to sound waves, we listen to sound, and sound is whatever our brain makes it out to be. Sound listens to us.
 
You need to think outside of the box. You need to become aware of 'conscience' and processes that really take place when you "listen to music".
Do you know how many people were laughing at Feynman when he came up with his simple diagrams? Everybody was laughing at him, but he won the Nobel prize, afterwards.
That's the way it is for anyone that's ahead of their time.

The problem there is simple. Even if placebo provides justifiable return for your money, not everyone responds with the same placebo. Not everyone who buys an aftermarket cable would necessarily respond the way you would ideally have them respond. Wouldn't it be better to tell people that such cables do not work from the start, to eliminate the woes of these one or two objective consumers who would otherwise become collateral damage, and at the same time aid the other not-as-objective consumers by advising them to spend their money elsewhere for changes which are actually tangible as opposed to intangible?
 
Note: We are still operating under the assumption that DBT works like it was meant to work. I was under the impression that it got banned from forums because the results DBT produced were considered dubious at best?
 

 

[rroseperry]

The problem there is simple. Even if placebo provides justifiable return for your money, not everyone responds with the same placebo. Not everyone who buys an aftermarket cable would necessarily respond the way you would ideally have them respond. Wouldn't it be better to tell people that such cables do not work from the start, to eliminate the woes of these one or two objective consumers who would otherwise become collateral damage, and at the same time aid the other not-as-objective consumers by advising them to spend their money elsewhere for changes which are actually tangible as opposed to intangible?
 
Note: We are still operating under the assumption that DBT works like it was meant to work. I was under the impression that it got banned from forums because the results DBT produced were considered dubious at best?
 

My understanding is that DBT discussions from most of the forums is because it leads to unproductive and abusive discussions. The published results of tests (and ProgLover has put a bunch of them together) is pretty unambiguous wrt cables.

 

[Nightslayer]

Quote:

Quote:

The problem there is simple. Even if placebo provides justifiable return for your money, not everyone responds with the same placebo. Not everyone who buys an aftermarket cable would necessarily respond the way you would ideally have them respond. Wouldn't it be better to tell people that such cables do not work from the start, to eliminate the woes of these one or two objective consumers who would otherwise become collateral damage, and at the same time aid the other not-as-objective consumers by advising them to spend their money elsewhere for changes which are actually tangible as opposed to intangible?
 
Note: We are still operating under the assumption that DBT works like it was meant to work. I was under the impression that it got banned from forums because the results DBT produced were considered dubious at best?
 

My understanding is that DBT discussions from most of the forums is because it leads to unproductive and abusive discussions. The published results of tests (and ProgLover has put a bunch of them together) is pretty unambiguous wrt cables.

Yeah I came to pretty much that same conclusion. It should be noted that DBT is not forbidden in any discussion BUT the cable/power/tweaks forum. Therefore I'd like to conclude that without the exclusion of DBT, there would not be a market for cables, etc. etc. And therefore in order to facilitate discussion DBT is thus banned from the forums as the only alternative would be to concede that cables only have an aesthetic purpose and therefore negate the purpose of having a subsection of the forum dedicated solely to discussing cable tweaks. My gripe with that is that it leads to discussions based wholly on placebo-induced beliefs (note, this is not restricted to cables but also extends to hype-induced FOTMs, though that gets quashed after a while), with people bringing in pseudo science with which they are (more often than not) unfamiliar to justify or rebut claims made wrt cables. Which IMO is just as pointless as DBT, just not as absolute (and subjective, since DBT is a completely personal test) and hence open to more discussion.
 
Just my two cents, after having seen replies. I would like to see more though, especially from people who think that DBT in its entirety is an unreliable method of testing for sonic differences. In my opinion if my above conclusion were really the case then not meaning to be shameless but it should really be concisely stated, stickied and made clear to everyone who ventures into the cable/power/tweaks forum to promote better consumer awareness of the products and reviews they are viewing.
 
Yes discussion such as this is permitted in the sound science sub-topic, but its name alone is enough to deter more than (perhaps) 75% of the people in this forum, who would probably want to stay away from technical aspects of their hobby. And considering its huge amount of pertinence to the same sub-forum it happens to be banned from..
 

 

[svyr]

lol, all eager contributors to this thread will be quietly banned . It's a troll-harvest-with-hunt operation by head-fi .... Didn't realize telling people to DBT or GTF@ is a crime here...
I generally either tell them to do that, or to show some RMAA measurements with before/after or GTFO ... Seems to help for people particularly eager to come to an amp|dac thread and off-top for days comparing how it sounds on two $500 power or USB cables .

 

[Nightslayer]

Quote:

lol, all eager contributors to this thread will be quietly banned

. It's a troll-harvest

operation by head-fi .... Didn't realize telling people to DBT or GTF@ is a crime here...
I generally either tell them to do that, or to show some RMAA measurements with before/after or GTFO

... Seems to help for people particularly eager to come to an amp|dac thread and spend days comparing how it sounds on two $500 power or USB cables

.

You can tell them to DBT? And anyway this isn't trolling in the least, I am genuinely interested in hearing opinions and finding out the reason why DBT is banned from the forums.
 

 

[jackmccabe]

For me I found blind testing a very enlightening experience, after doing several blind test I discovered the ridiculous exaggerations people make and I felt a bit stupid for ever believing these people.

 

[deadlylover]

 
Quote:

You're purposefully attempting to obliterate the distinction between physical phenomenon and our perception of physical phenomenon; and within our perception of physical phenomenon, the contribution of our various senses to that perception.  As much as you'd like to believe, they're not one and the same.
 
We can analyze the difference - obviously, a sound way to do that is by measuring something, and also query human subjects of their perception of that something, and compare.
 
Another, different method that serves to remove mistaken cognative bias as to what is perceptually better is to have a sighted test followed by a blind test of the same subject - that shows the actual, perceptual differences. (look at Sean Olive's blog that was mentioned shortly ago).  We can remove the human bias from the testing procedure as regards to looks, price, emotion, and other effects and find out what actually does perceptually sound better.
 
You're telling me that to provide remedies/products that are known to science to have no effect on human bodies, or no audible effect on measured electrical waves, yet claim that they do, is perfectly okay and not misleading?  No cable company is saying, "Look, our cables are shown to have no audible effect on the sound, but if you believe that they can make your headphones/speakers sound better, they will make you perceive better sound even though it isn't really improved all!"  They make entirely unqualified, exaggerated and plainly misleading "sciency" sounding claims when the sum all evidence is in opposition to those claims - which serves to mislead people into thinking that valid evidence actually supports their products.  If that isn't unethical, I don't know what is.

 
 
The testing you are talking about is simply another way of discerning any differences in stimuli. Because the end result of that test is one where the listener will either find an audible difference or not.
It does not, and it cannot actually find a difference in 'enjoyment'. You need to look at the results for what they are.
 
I'm trying to tell you that enjoyment has nothing to do with the physical aspects of sound, but for some reason, because you guys are all sciency (=P), you feel that differences in enjoyment can only come from changes in sound, physically.
Again, you need to look at the testimonials of various cables for what they are, "This cable made so and so more awesome than the stock cable", what that actually reads is "I enjoy this more than the stock one".
You can't expect that person to actually MEAN that the soundstage increased, or the bass had more control. This person felt a higher level of enjoyment, and his perception of sound changed along with it, which is why that person said those things. Because obviously, in our current understanding of the physical world, the cable made absolutely no flippin' difference to the sound! (physically of course)
 
Look, to be fair here, I apologize in not looking very far indeed at all the cable companies and whatnot, I just took a quick glance at whiplash and ALO, which seem to be some of the more popular choices around here, and they just seem to advertise about cable construction and materials.
I will concede to your point for the companies out there that use fancy marketing pizazz to intentionally deceive customers, it's still the customer's fault of course, but even I will see that as being very low.
In audio, very rarely does this deception become harmful (physically, in terms of health and such), which is why I held my previous stance about it not being unethical and whatnot.
I was only trying to understand why you thought it was unethical, since at the end of the day, it depends on an individuals perspective. I'm sorry if it looked like I was trying to change your views or anything silly like that.
 
 
@Nightslayer
If the cable companies say that the cables are up to placebo, and we assume that no human being want's to be treated like a fool, then nobody will actually buy the cable of course! So perhaps in this case, no enjoyment will be 'given' to anybody, and there will be no "winning" in this situation.
But if you look at it from a more...."positive" point of view, it's because the companies don't say that, there are some who may find greater enjoyment from their cables, and there's nothing wrong with that now is there? ahaahahah
I'm sure all the cable guys know about DBT already, they just don't give a damn eh? So there's no need to invade their home hehe.
 
 
I think we're forgetting the bigger picture here, everything we do here is nothing but an attempt at trying to increase our enjoyment from music. The science does not actually matter. Let people go at it in different ways, the destination is still the same, all is well in the world. Ahhhhhh...... if only =P.

 

[Nightslayer]

Quote:

 
The testing you are talking about is simply another way of discerning any differences in stimuli. Because the end result of that test is one where the listener will either find an audible difference or not.
It does not, and it cannot actually find a difference in 'enjoyment'. You need to look at the results for what they are.
 
I'm trying to tell you that enjoyment has nothing to do with the physical aspects of sound, but for some reason, because you guys are all sciency (=P), you feel that differences in enjoyment can only come from changes in sound, physically.
Again, you need to look at the testimonials of various cables for what they are, "This cable made so and so more awesome than the stock cable", what that actually reads is "I enjoy this more than the stock one".
You can't expect that person to actually MEAN that the soundstage increased, or the bass had more control. This person felt a higher level of enjoyment, and his perception of sound changed along with it, which is why that person said those things. Because obviously, in our current understanding of the physical world, the cable made absolutely no flippin' difference to the sound! (physically of course)
 
Look, to be fair here, I apologize in not looking very far indeed at all the cable companies and whatnot, I just took a quick glance at whiplash and ALO, which seem to be some of the more popular choices around here, and they just seem to advertise about cable construction and materials.
I will concede to your point for the companies out there that use fancy marketing pizazz to intentionally deceive customers, it's still the customer's fault of course, but even I will see that as being very low.
In audio, very rarely does this deception become harmful (physically, in terms of health and such), which is why I held my previous stance about it not being unethical and whatnot.
I was only trying to understand why you thought it was unethical, since at the end of the day, it depends on an individuals perspective. I'm sorry if it looked like I was trying to change your views or anything silly like that.
 
 
@Nightslayer
If the cable companies say that the cables are up to placebo, and we assume that no human being want's to be treated like a fool, then nobody will actually buy the cable of course! So perhaps in this case, no enjoyment will be 'given' to anybody, and there will be no "winning" in this situation.
But if you look at it from a more...."positive" point of view, it's because the companies don't say that, there are some who may find greater enjoyment from their cables, and there's nothing wrong with that now is there? ahaahahah
I'm sure all the cable guys know about DBT already, they just don't give a damn eh? So there's no need to invade their home hehe.
 
 
I think we're forgetting the bigger picture here, everything we do here is nothing but an attempt at trying to increase our enjoyment from music. The science does not actually matter. Let people go at it in different ways, the destination is still the same, all is well in the world. Ahhhhhh...... if only =P.

The main point I see is in protecting potential consumers who have yet to make a choice on their purchase. If people purchase cables and find it decent, sure let them have it their way, I have no gripes with that. If they go onto forums and start promoting those improvements as actual ones expecting everybody else to hear the same (read: countless reviews and discussion threads pertaining to aftermarket cables), that is where the problem lies. Who wants to be the consumer who buys a hundred-dollar LOD based on recommendations from this highly-regarded forum only to listen to it against his Fiio one and realize, hey I think I spent my money needlessly? The market fails because of a lack of information transfer, and I believe head-fi as a discussion forum is meant as a repository and medium to promote this information transfer (among other things) to ensure that the readers are as well-informed as possible before making purchasing decisions. If and only if my above assertions are true, why then is this information transfer restricted with regards to DBT, an important technique which would make a tremendous amount of difference towards most audiophiles' mentalities?