[Prog Rock Man]

Quote:

Yes, IFF (if and only if) one cable has caused a change of sufficient magnitude.  Remember, this requires the same amplifier channel used on both speakers, so that any affect on the amplifier is eliminated as a possibility, be it distortion, phase or amplitude funnies, or even oscillation or instability.  It also assumes a reasonable damping factor as well.
 
 
The fastest possible cable is one which has an impedance equal to the load, but doing so requires inductances in the 10 nH per foot  and 380 pf per foot area.  As the speaker unloads at higher frequencies, the amplifier will begin to see the capacitance of the cable so may have problems.  This is important if the amplifier open loop frequency response remains above unity gain while the speaker has unloaded...this can oscillate a "hot" amplifier.
 
Since many of these boutique cables sell themselves as matched z, or low inductance, whatever, it's important to make sure the amplifier reaction doesn't confound the test.
 
john

 
 
Thanks for bearing with me. Does this happen much in the real world of speaker cables? I have certainly never come across any previous discussion of this.
 
With regards to science, I have high school qualifications and a high regard for it. I have a career based on evidence. So whilst not always getting the science I see it as the means of providing the evidence.

 

[jnjn]

Quote:

So a bunch of quotes that state I do not personally concern myself with the science and only the practical real world differences in terms of sound as to avoid a constant debate regarding the possible existence of minute and irrelevant differences between high end cables and regular ones means that I have an aversion to science?

Why is it that you are the only one in this topic who has come to this conclusion? Again, you aren't fooling anyone. You said you would back up anything you say yet the things I specifically asked you to back up, you have completely ignored and buried under your fallacious interpretations of my posts. 

Statements such as this aren't helping your case:
 
The science on science forum is just a fallacy.
 
My first guess would be because you've decided to make up things about what I've said, you've mis-represented what I'm all about, you make up silly things like fallacious interpretations, you aren't fooling anyone, you completely ignored...
 
So I would venture a guess that nobody else wants to become the target of your venom.  But hey, that's only the content of ONE post. You're the schoolyard bully.
 
j

 

[DNZGamer]

And who have I been bullying? Your reasoning is just getting more and more ludicrous. The only person that has been ragged on around here in recent memory is Bmiami and DefQon (although it was more heated disagreement for the latter). Neither of those instances by me...
 
You are the only one making these accusations and you are still completely ignoring all the statements you made previously. The only other person who chimed in on my opinion was proton and he did not have any issues with my lack of interest in measurements and my focus on real world differences that have been observed in headphone DBTs. 
 

What were you trying to prove with the audio engineer comments and where IS the proof?
 
What am I looking for in modern recordings that proves audio engineers definitively do not like music?
 
You claim that tests are always skewed because testers and testees always look for certain results yet that says nothing to us except that you assume all tests were skewed in this manner. 
 
The only reason I mentioned to stop focusing so much on science is because a bunch of half informed science been thrown around mixed with semantics has been the only discussion that has taken place in the last few pages. Unless your privy to something that we already don't know regarding sound quality and cables and can prove it, you can get off that high horse. 

 

[jnjn]

Quote:

jnjn: Nordmark, 1972, are you referring to this? I'm quite amazed there was any result from a sub-10us difference, aside from perhaps localization, and I'd like to understand the leap from that to your claim that these delays would introduce an audible difference of any import.
.

edit:  anetode, I removed some of your statement, as it did not apply to me..hope you don't mind.
 
No.  Well, at least I don't think so.  I am speaking of Binaural time discrimination, Jan O. Nordmark, Journal  Acoustic Society of America, Vol 60, no. 4, October 1976.  Pages 870-879.
 
OOPS, I did say 1972 didn't I.  My apologies, it's been years since I've looked at this paper
 
I agree, I was amazed at the level.  Prior to that paper, I would have expected something in the 50 uSec, inverted 20 Khz at best.
 
I have not made a leap.  I have pointed out what humans have been measured to be sensitive to, and shown that a bad choice of cable and load characteristics will cause delays in partial content which are at and above the level of demonstrated human thresholds.
 
I have NOT claimed that it will always be audible.  I have however, provided a more controlled human based test which can be used to test for that.  As I said, if the first pass (one amp channel, two cables) provides a negative result, the test is over..
 
 
Quote:

 
 
Thanks for bearing with me. Does this happen much in the real world of speaker cables? I have certainly never come across any previous discussion of this.
 
With regards to science, I have high school qualifications and a high regard for it. I have a career based on evidence. So whilst not always getting the science I see it as the means of providing the evidence.

No problem, you've been very nice.
 
You will not find previous discussions on this site, but the have been many good ones on other forums. (other than my posts and graphs and equations. 
The primary reasons this is not generally discussed by most being:
 
1. I find very very few audio engineers have even applied (or even studied) lateralization or localization to what humans receive via two or more channels of audio reproduction to produce images.  David Greisinger is a very notable exception, the work of his I've read is top notch. (well, except where he labelled figure 6 as figure 5)...go figure..
 
2. He (David) makes a living doing this stuff.  If I were in that position, I would also not give the ship away..
 
3. Transmission line theory is terribly misunderstood by the electrical engineering people in general.  Several reasons..first, getting the ele people to remain awake in that particular class...second, we were taught engineering approximations as well as the full blown theory and equations, so guess what we choose to use???  Humans are a lazy sort, ele engineers being no exception (me too).  One of those approximations is that once the wavelength is greater than the cable length, go lumped element.  Well, that works just fine if you're not worried about delays in the tens of microseconds.  Unfortunately, humans discern at that level.
 
edit:ah, forgot #4..
 
4.  In the mixdown, there is no use of the interchannel delay to move the sound image from one side to the other.  The pan pot is amplitude only based.  When I asked jj johnson why this was so, he stated that it was because of the compatibility with monophonic reproduction.  If interchannel delays are used, the mono summation will be chock full of comb filter like effects. Called phasing/flanging, it is a neat sound effect I've used in my dj days back in '79, using two copies of a song simultaneous, using my hand to timeshift one relative to the other.  I believe Inna Gotta Da Vita uses it in the drum solo.  So my feeling is that interchannel time delay (ITD) is the orphan child when it comes to stereo reproduction, and it has been completely forgotten.
 
 
A science degree is not necessary to engage in a pleasant discussion, as you clearly show. 
 
j

 

[jnjn]

Quote:

And who have I been bullying? Your reasoning is just getting more and more ludicrous. The only person that has been ragged on around here in recent memory is Bmiami and DefQon (although it was more heated disagreement for the latter). Neither of those instances by me...
 
You are the only one making these accusations and you are still completely ignoring all the statements you made previously. The only other person who chimed in on my opinion was proton and he did not have any issues with my lack of interest in measurements and my focus on real world differences that have been observed in headphone DBTs. 
 

What were you trying to prove with the audio engineer comments and where IS the proof?
 
What am I looking for in modern recordings that proves audio engineers definitively do not like music?
 
You claim that tests are always skewed because testers and testees always look for certain results yet that says nothing to us except that you assume all tests were skewed in this manner. 
 
The only reason I mentioned to stop focusing so much on science is because a bunch of half informed science been thrown around mixed with semantics has been the only discussion that has taken place in the last few pages. Unless your privy to something that we already don't know regarding sound quality and cables and can prove it, you can get off that high horse. 

I believe you are confusing me with another.  What audio engineer comment?  And what comment about audio engineers do not like music??
 
I believe you would be best served by going back and re-reading the thread. I suspect you will continue to shoot yourself in the foot as long as you attribute to me the statements of others.
 
j

 

[jnjn]

DNZgamer:  this is my first post in this thread.  You only have to read from this point on to review what I actually stated.
 
Cheers, John
Quote:

You got that right.
While there is some good content there, it is still important to consider what is the underlying reason for the article and even the website.  Going from the measurements to conclusions may not be really supported scientifically.  The same applies to IC's  and PC's used in an unbalanced system
 
j

 

[arcticears]

@jnjn
 
You make a good point and make it well.  Thanks for making me think.  You rightly point out that it is in the realm of  possibility for speaker cables to sound different. 

 

[jnjn]

Quote:

@jnjn
 
You make a good point and make it well.  Thanks for making me think.  You rightly point out that it is in the realm of  possibility for speaker cables to sound different. 

No problem.  The exact same relations occur with headphones of course, but it is important to consider the impedances involved.  For me, I consider the best wire to be one in the middle of the impedance range of the load.  And, perform the listening test I described.  If it doesn't show up with only one cable swapped, it just isn't going to make a difference.  And pay attemtion only to L, R, C of the cable and the frequency dependent load impedance.  Nothing else matters, not silver, not fancy dielectric, not grain boundaries, sheesh..
 
The vast majority of my listening is via headphones, so I'm always taking the sound apart, testing what I hear... 
 
I must reiterate...I see no need for expensive cables, either for speakers or headphones.  And, I recommend all who read some of that shall we say, "interesting" marketing verbage of the vendors, take it with a grain of salt.  A lot of the writings and white papers I see are pure garbage. 
 
j

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jnjn /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
And pay attemtion only to L, R, C of the cable and the frequency dependent load impedance.  Nothing else matters, not silver, not fancy dielectric, not grain boundaries, sheesh..
 

 
THANK YOU!

 

[arcticears]

@jnjn
 
Yes, L, R, C are the important factors in a speaker or headphone cable and as long they are kept within reasonable limits the cable should work fine.  It is possible to make a cable which sounds different if you screw things up enough, you have to try hard though.  A good link on speaker cables and effects of L, R, C on them can be found at http://sound.westhost.com/cable-z.htm. 

 

[anetode]

I have not made a leap.  I have pointed out what humans have been measured to be sensitive to, and shown that a bad choice of cable and load characteristics will cause delays in partial content [COLOR=FF0000]which are at and above the level of demonstrated human thresholds[/COLOR].

[COLOR=FF00AA]OK[/COLOR]. I'd argue that discernible and audible are two different things in this case, being that I'm not sure in what qualifiable way this effect changes the sound itself or what variations in delay are seen as acceptable in common comparison testing. I'm also curious to find out whether this discernment is the result of neural processing of interaural differences. Looking forward to reading Nordmark's work.

 

[germanium]

Quote:

No problem.  The exact same relations occur with headphones of course, but it is important to consider the impedances involved.  For me, I consider the best wire to be one in the middle of the impedance range of the load.  And, perform the listening test I described.  If it doesn't show up with only one cable swapped, it just isn't going to make a difference.  And pay attemtion only to L, R, C of the cable and the frequency dependent load impedance.  Nothing else matters, not silver, not fancy dielectric, not grain boundaries, sheesh..
 
The vast majority of my listening is via headphones, so I'm always taking the sound apart, testing what I hear... 
 
I must reiterate...I see no need for expensive cables, either for speakers or headphones.  And, I recommend all who read some of that shall we say, "interesting" marketing verbage of the vendors, take it with a grain of salt.  A lot of the writings and white papers I see are pure garbage. 
 
j

 
Yes I agree with the L C R componant making a difference & largely only that making the difference though in one case though unfortunately I didn't have the equipment to test the capacitance of the cable at the time but that was one cable that I'm not sure why but it sounded absolutely horrible. It went by the wayside in less than a day it sounded so bad. None of the other cable I tried sounded remotely that horrible. I have never head even high capacitance cables sound that bad. I do believe it was the properties of the dielectric in this case. Perhaps a really bad batch of it. Do to the L C R properties of commercially available cables being not as low as I needed when I was running a passive preamp I made my own cable that were super low in capactance (about 75pf for  meter with ends) 7 these cable were superior sonding to the commercial cable in my aplication. I continue to make my own cable for high output impedance devices as my cable just couldn't be beat in that application. In low output impedance or matched output impedance to the cable characteristic impedance I found there to be no difference as there shouldn't be.
 
By the way my cable are very very cheap to make. The costliest part of them are the ends which I get for around 20 dollars for the ends sufficient for one stereo pair of cables so you see I don't elieve in expensive cable either.

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

I didn't have the equipment to test the capacitance of the cable at the time but that was one cable that I'm not sure why but it sounded absolutely horrible....I do believe it was the properties of the dielectric in this case. Perhaps a really bad batch of it.

 
It is much more likely that it was a problem in manufacture - bad soldering, or something. I cannot imagine how the dielectric would affect the conductors, unless it was so bad thy were touching and causing a short. But perhaps I'm missing some hidden property here. 

 

[proton007]

Quote:

@jnjn
 
Yes, L, R, C are the important factors in a speaker or headphone cable and as long they are kept within reasonable limits the cable should work fine.  It is possible to make a cable which sounds different if you screw things up enough, you have to try hard though.  A good link on speaker cables and effects of L, R, C on them can be found at http://sound.westhost.com/cable-z.htm. 

+1.
Most cables from $20 to $2000 fall within 'reasonable limits', and it is perfectly possible to screw up the signal and it will affect the sound. Just that the $20 cable won't sound that different from the $2000 one if they are not screwing up.

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

It is much more likely that it was a problem in manufacture - bad soldering, or something. I cannot imagine how the dielectric would affect the conductors, unless it was so bad thy were touching and causing a short. But perhaps I'm missing some hidden property here. 

 
Different dielectrics have different permittivity which is pretty important in determining the capacitance of the finished cable.
 
That said you actually have to try pretty hard to cram enough capacitance into a short cable to bother a decent amplifier.  Of course there are some amps out there that are already borderline unstable and might actually sound different with varying, but reasonable to expect, amounts of cable capacitance.