[SHURE530]

Quote:

 as other already said, cables are last  little flavor in an expensive audio rig.    

or you could save that money and get yourself another headphone. decisions oh decisions. >_<

 

[SHURE530]

mythbusters has to get their hands on this. HONESTLY. why have they not done this?

 

[Gwarmi]

Quote:

mythbusters has to get their hands on this. HONESTLY. why have they not done this?

Because non-audio crazies think we're about as interesting to watch on TV as seeing
a documentary on paint drying out?

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Let me rephrase: What's the difference between actually hearing a difference and thinking you hear a difference? As far as the person is concerned there is a difference either way.

Again, nothing. Just one costs you money.
 
I don't have a problem with people using cables. I have a problem with them recommending cables. They're trying to sell an illusion. It's the last thing a newbie should spend on. Buy real improvements first.

 

[sailorman]

Quote:

I do not think placebo is the only cause and it may not even be the cause, it may be something else instead. But I do think the cause is with the listener and not inherantly in the cable as we have ruled out how cables are made, what they are made with and the electrical properties of cables being the cause.
 

Something else occurs to me. What properties do cables have, other than electrical and construction related, that can affect the signal transmitted to a transducer in such a way as to produce audible results? 
 
What you have essentially said here is that we can rule out the construction and electrical properties as the cause of people hearing a difference between cables. I agree, BTW.
But when people hear a difference, and you have ruled out the only properties of cables capable of making a difference, what you have left is, by definition, the placebo effect. Once you rule out the construction and electrical properties of a cable they become, in effect, inert.  If one desired to cause a cable to affect the sound of a speaker, how would it possibly be done without altering the construction or the electrical properties?  Would you paint it a different color? Would you sprinkle it with fairy dust? Would you chant incantations over it?  No!  You'd change its construction and/or electrical properties.  If you rule out construction and electrical properties as the cause of a perceived sound difference, the placebo effect is all you have left.
 
In medicine, for example, when a physiological change occurs in a patient as a result of his taking a medication, and the med. is inert or there is no known reason for the medication to produce the effect, the physiological change is attributed to the placebo effect.  This is not to say that the mechanisms of all drugs must be known. Many aren't. But in those cases, the desired effect is achieved consistently enough, as established through clinical trials, to expect a significant number of patients to respond similarly.  So, even though the exact mechanism may not be known, the results are not considered to be due to the placebo effect.
 
It seems the medical field uses a looser criteria in designating something as being caused by the placebo effect than you are willing to use for audio.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

If it's all placebo, absolutely nothing. You could take some Monoprice cables, dress them up in a spiffy new tube with new connectors, slap an audiophile brand name on them, and sell them for a grand. No one would know the difference.

This is the same argument that says that you can fill a fancy bottle with Two Buck Chuck, and sell it as a $1,000 '49 vintage. Anyone who has ever had even a small amount of wine before will see right through that.
 

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

This is the same argument that says that you can fill a fancy bottle with Two Buck Chuck, and sell it as a $1,000 '49 vintage. Anyone who has ever had even a small amount of wine before will see right through that.
 

And for what it's worth, double blind testing is routinely used in the wine tasting industry. So it's perhaps best to not make any analogies to wine.
 
se
 
 
 

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

Quote:

I do not think placebo is the only cause and it may not even be the cause, it may be something else instead. But I do think the cause is with the listener and not inherantly in the cable as we have ruled out how cables are made, what they are made with and the electrical properties of cables being the cause.
 

Something else occurs to me. What properties do cables have, other than electrical and construction related, that can affect the signal transmitted to a transducer in such a way as to produce audible results? 
 
What you have essentially said here is that we can rule out the construction and electrical properties as the cause of people hearing a difference between cables. I agree, BTW.

 
This shows an incredible ignorance about how audio components work. Electrical and construction properties don't matter? On what basis can you prove that? What do you think a cross over is made out of? Do you really a believe cross overs have ZERO impact on how a speaker sounds? What you're essentially saying is, the only thing that the effects the sound is the motor assembly physically moving the driver and thus the air, and everything behind that might as well be made out of tin foil. It's a conductor, and electrical properties and construction don't matter, right?

 

[sailorman]

 
Quote:

Some of the earlier blind tests for cables had to go through a lot of trouble to make sure the cables weren't sighted, such as having 1-2 people manage and monitor the test, have the cables hidden from sight, etc.  I think the testing methodology was written up in the full report.

What a waste of time. All they really had do do was find testers who were immune to preconceptions and bias.  You may think that such a person is a rare specimen indeed, but I know there must be lots of them out there because at least one of them is posting on this very thread!!

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

And for what it's worth, double blind testing is routinely used in the wine tasting industry. So it's perhaps best to not make any analogies to wine.
 
se

You don't think it's a bit disingenuous to say that I could put some techflex and some WBT connectors on a two dollar monoprice cable, and NO ONE could tell the difference between that and a thousand dollar cable, having you know, never actually done that, or tested it. I'm just gonna say it, as if there's any factual basis to it.

 

[sailorman]

Quote:

[snip]
 
If we can get past the idea that there is something wrong with those who hear a difference in sighted testing then we can progress these debates into at least new and more interesting territory.
 
If people are adament there is an electrical property in cables that causes such differences, fine, but please start bringing testable and verifiable evidence that that is the case. Please don't dismiss the evidence that is there without having counter evidence of your own.
 

Here's the issue. Who says there's "something wrong" with those who hear a difference?  I've never heard that expressed.  Saying that someone is subject to the placebo effect is not saying there's something wrong with them.  Only people who have an unrealistically high opinion of themselves would take that as a criticism.  If someone told them that they couldn't really hear a 40Khz frequency, would they be insulted? Would they insist that they, and they alone, were "special"? Would they claim that no one had the right to say that unless they had heard 40Khz themselves?  Those are the kind of arguments that you get when you dare suggest that there is no evidence that anything other than the PE causes a perceived sound difference between two cables with otherwise adequate electrical and material characteristics.
 
As much as I'd like to think that there's more interesting territory to get into, there's no evidence that such territory exists.  What evidence is there that points to something other than the PE?
 
 

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

This is the same argument that says that you can fill a fancy bottle with Two Buck Chuck, and sell it as a $1,000 '49 vintage. Anyone who has ever had even a small amount of wine before will see right through that.

There are quantifiable and tasteable differences between wines 

 

[sailorman]

Quote:

No. Anyone could and can see a rainbow. They may not have had the correct theory to explain it but that doesn't negate its existence. This is the exact opposite of cable theory (I hope this term enters the scientific lexicon). Observable changes from different cables are not reliably repeatable (a key element of scientific method).
Man, has this thread taken a turn to the tangential.

Cable theory is not the right term. Cable hypothesis would be more accurate, but not really because, unlike rainbows, the existence of sound differences between cables has not been established beyond dispute. Theories require more evidence to be accepted as such. In the realm of science a theory is much, much more than a guess. A theory explains a set of observed phenomena or facts. Those facts, regarding cables, have not been observed with any reliability.  The "cable placebo effect theory" would be more appropriate.  When proponents of cable differences can come up with proof they really do exist, and form a hypothesis other than the PE, to account for them, and if their hypothesis can be falsified via testing, then they can call it a cable theory.

 

[sailorman]

 
Quote:

that's true. however the bottom line is: I have tried high-end cables therefore I can say something about it. none of you has. no-one.
 
let me give you an example: let’s imagine the OP question was about a place he/she was considering to go on holiday. the difference between you and us is that you’ve read some brochures about this place, a few comments here and there, but you’ve actually never been there.
 
us,  on the other hand, we’ve been there, lived there – some may few weeks, other few years - have experienced the place.
 
comprende?

By that logic, if I'm researching healing crystals, only people who have tried them should be given credence.  Only people who have paid a telephone psychic are qualified to criticize phone psychics. Only people who have spent thousands on homeopathic medicine should be listened to regarding homeopathy. Only theists are qualified to discuss the existence of God. If you've never done drugs, you've got no leg to stand on in your anti-drug crusade.
 
How much sense does that make?
 
People who have done the research and don't believe in magic cables won't buy them.  That doesn't mean they aren't fully qualified to evaluate the claims of believers.

 

[sailorman]

 
Quote:

 
This shows an incredible ignorance about how audio components work. Electrical and construction properties don't matter? On what basis can you prove that? What do you think a cross over is made out of? Do you really a believe cross overs have ZERO impact on how a speaker sounds? What you're essentially saying is, the only thing that the effects the sound is the motor assembly physically moving the driver and thus the air, and everything behind that might as well be made out of tin foil. It's a conductor, and electrical properties and construction don't matter, right?

That was exactly what I WAS saying.  Anything in the cable that changes how a speaker sounds IS electrical or construction related.  If there is no, or insignificant, electrical or construction differences between two cables then any sound difference is placebo.
 
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Head Injury
If it's all placebo, absolutely nothing. You could take some Monoprice cables, dress them up in a spiffy new tube with new connectors, slap an audiophile brand name on them, and sell them for a grand. No one would know the difference.
 
 
In fact, that's exactly what one company did a few years ago. They bought filtered power cables from a Europen company, dressed them up and sold them for outrageous prices.  No one was the wiser until one head-fi'er cut into the jacket and saw the European name still on the cable. There's a thread that mentions it around here somewhere.  I have no doubt at all that the same thing could be done with speaker and interconnect cables.  I also have no doubt that there are plenty of testimonials about the wonderful performance of those power cables.