[uelover]

Quote:

We know beyond all reasonable doubt that cable hype, placebo, buyer justification are very good reasons as to why people hear a difference in USB (and any other) cable.

Lol. Typical elementary school response.
 
With one set and one type of experiment, you arrived straight at a conclusion?  Even scientists need many different sets of experiment under different environment to conclude certain things.
 
This is a good example of what an affirmative bias does to cloud our thinking.
 
 
Taking a strong assumption that the test Vandaven has done is the correct and suitable test:
 
Vandaven claimed of no difference is in line with his test result. This may act as a good control showing that USB cable has no effect on his setup.
 
However, even under such an assumption, it will also be important to test on systems where claims of difference between USB cables are heard. This has not been performed.
 
 
 
Unless, as Prog Rock Man wants to believe, Vandaven is the only one that has got technical ears/brain which cannot be fooled and therefore what he heard will always be in-line with what is measured. =)

 

[justanut]

Agree with that uelover! Now its time for those who heard differences in their setups to perform a similar analysis. I'm really interested if there really are differences detectable by instruments of modern science, so that we can zoom in and try and decipher what that variable really is!
 
But I think they gotta borrow Van's "normal" USB cable to do the test with...

 

[svyr]

And I totally agree that USB cables are the answer to error correction/prevention. So what effect do they have, if any at all?

re-read what I posted lol... Bulk USB transfer mode audio devices for playback (can't do that for real-time recording/monitoring systems though) are the answer, since any errors are simply retransmitted (if they occur at all), and the cable ceases to matter. (unless you believe platinum sata and usb cables will make your hard drive go faster. In that case I suggest polishing the hard drive plates and sterilization. No wait, I can get one made for you, friend is a jeweler. We'll charge about $20000/m, with the raw material cost of about $500/m . Please buy one. I really don't want to work a day job anymore and am considering a life of a shameless fraud )

For normal isochronous (sync, async, adaptive transfer mode) USB audio devices, the max you will _possibly_ get is a lower error rate(very improbable considering the measurements we've recently seen and the consequences of dropping 1-2 samples being pretty negligible and the to-spec cable probably being design to not drop (m)any packets at all). No cable even if it's silver with diamond crust on top will ever do error correction for you for isochronous usb transfer mode devices, no matter how much you wish for it

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Quote:

Lol. Typical elementary school response.
 
With one set and one type of experiment, you arrived straight at a conclusion?  Even scientists need many different sets of experiment under different environment to conclude certain things.
 
This is a good example of what an affirmative bias does to cloud our thinking.
 
 
Taking a strong assumption that the test Vandaven has done is the correct and suitable test:
 
Vandaven claimed of no difference is in line with his test result. This may act as a good control showing that USB cable has no effect on his setup.
 
However, even under such an assumption, it will also be important to test on systems where claims of difference between USB cables are heard. This has not been performed.
 
 
 
Unless, as Prog Rock Man wants to believe, Vandaven is the only one that has got technical ears/brain which cannot be fooled and therefore what he heard will always be in-line with what is measured. =)

Not just Vandavens measurements, also the general role and affects of cables in hifi as shown by the difference between sighted, blind and ABX testing and the influence of hype.
 
So far, any measurement of a cable, whether that is by Vandaven, cable makers themselves or others who have tested them such as Nick_Charles have found very small differences. The cable makers suggest that those differences account for differences in sound quality, but cannot show a proven link to that. Vandaven and Nick_Charles present a strong case that the differences are not audible at all.
 
The link to audibility is found with sighted testing where people are affected by hype (placebo etc).

 

[uelover]

 
Quote:

But I think they gotta borrow Van's "normal" USB cable to do the test with...

Need his recording equipment as well. Seems like he is using Pro Tools for recording.
 
Any kind soul from SG who are willing to lend his/her recording equipment please raise up your hand!
 

 

[vandaven]

Quote:

Taking a strong assumption that the test Vandaven has done is the correct and suitable test:
 
Vandaven claimed of no difference is in line with his test result. This may act as a good control showing that USB cable has no effect on his setup.
 
However, even under such an assumption, it will also be important to test on systems where claims of difference between USB cables are heard. This has not been performed.
 

First off, please, we all know a discussion can get heated from time to time, no need to start being rude. 
 
The interesting thing I want to mention (and I guess I have mentioned it a long way down the discussion thread) is that me and my brother could both hear a difference between the Audioquest cable and a stock cable when I first got it.
 
Even now, I get the impression things sound better with it. And that's cool, because I want to live in that bubble of sound. That's the romantic side of my personality. The one that likes shiny equipment and geeky cables (and I still do like them because they look different). 
 
I joined this site because I wanted to get qualitative information about certain types of headphones and amplifiers, and there's plenty of such info here. These are impressions. And such impressions are important because they make us analog human beings, through our language, we are able to describe more than just a "0" or a "1", we can explain in many words why we prefer certain things.
 
Many people here insist on the fact that they hear a difference in their USB cables. "Alright, I heard the difference too", I thought to myself. But persisting on an opinion without having any proof or evidence, like many here do (and some of them with an amusing, childlike charm), doesn't work against skeptics, and would never work in any other environment. 
 
And then I run the tests, I do the measurements, and I can't find any evidence that I can show to people who are probably more skeptical than me. Because, again:
 
- there might be a difference in manufacturing and cable quality BUT
- USB audio will not benefit from that
 
Cheers!
 

 

[justanut]

Ahhh typo! I meant are NOT the answer... LOL!
 
Quote:

Quote:

And I totally agree that USB cables are the answer to error correction/prevention. So what effect do they have, if any at all?

re-read what I posted lol... Bulk USB transfer mode audio devices for playback (can't do that for real-time recording/monitoring systems though) are the answer, since any errors are simply retransmitted (if they occur at all), and the cable ceases to matter. (unless you believe platinum sata and usb cables will make your hard drive go faster. In that case I suggest polishing the hard drive plates and sterilization. No wait, I can get one made for you, friend is a jeweler. We'll charge about $20000/m, with the raw material cost of about $500/m

. Please buy one. I really don't want to work a day job anymore and am considering a life of a shameless fraud

)

For normal isochronous (sync, async, adaptive transfer mode) USB audio devices, the max you will _possibly_ get is a lower error rate(very improbable considering the measurements we've recently seen and the consequences of dropping 1-2 samples being pretty negligible and the to-spec cable probably being design to not drop (m)any packets at all). No cable even if it's silver with diamond crust on top will ever do error correction for you for isochronous usb transfer mode devices, no matter how much you wish for it

 

 

[uelover]

Quote:

First off, please, we all know a discussion can get heated from time to time, no need to start being rude.

Hmm my previous post was not meant to be rude to you please don't take it that way.
 
I mean, we may not know the appropriate test to perform for something that is so elusive.
 
For instance, is electron a wave or a particle? What is the correct test that we should perform to ascertain its nature? We may observe and conclude that electron is a particle. But then, we may missed out something because it exhibits wavelike nature under no observation. So which claim is valid? Or is there a better and more suitable test that we have yet to discover?
 
I am not suggesting that USB cables are like electrons but I am accepting the possibility of potential blindspot that we may have missed out.
 
This post is a sidetrack to the discussion.

 

[kr0gg]

Quote:

For instance, is electron a wave or a particle? What is the correct test that we should perform to ascertain its nature? We may observe and conclude that electron is a particle. But then, we may missed out something because it exhibits wavelike nature under no observation. So which claim is valid? Or is there a better and more suitable test that we have yet to discover?  

 
 
finally someone asked this question aloud

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

 
 
finally someone asked this question aloud

 
Well, with our current scientific knowledge, both claims are equally valid, and there is no reason to doubt that (not yet).

 

[kr0gg]

the point is that to truly "scientifically" research something's effect you have to fully know it's nature.
without knowing it completely we can only measure a limited range of characteristics.
finally, all these tests that were conducted told us actually ONLY possible variations in _those characteristics that we know about_
and, assuming that those tests were made in appropriate way using ideal instruments, anyway we can only say that _we didn't see any cable effect on electrical characteristics that we know and we can measure_

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

the point is that to truly "scientifically" research something's effect you have to fully know it's nature.
without knowing it completely we can only measure a limited range of characteristics.
finally, all these tests that were conducted told us actually ONLY possible variations in _those characteristics that we know about_
and, assuming that those tests were made in appropriate way using ideal instruments, anyway we can only say that _we didn't see any cable effect on electrical characteristics that we know and we can measure_

...so are you suggesting that cable companies are utilizing an electrical phenomenon unknown to modern science?

 

[uelover]

Quote:

...so are you suggesting that cable companies are utilizing an electrical phenomenon unknown to modern science?

As far as I know by looking back into history, many inventions/discoveries came before science stepped in to try to explain for them. I am not condescending science. But I need to be aware of its limitation.
 
Anyway, not suggesting something as far-fetched that cable companies are so superior to be adopting techniques unknown to modern science.
 
Looking at many of the cables line-up, most USB and Digital Coaxial cables' seem to be a mere copycat of their analogue offerings. Not sure even if the cable companies understood why those techniques seem to work well for digital cables.

 

[svyr]

...so are you suggesting that cable companies are utilizing an electrical phenomenon unknown to modern science?

we're already into ghost territory as proposed before lol. When no measurable difference is shown our friends are looking for mystical explanations

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

As far as I know by looking back into history, many inventions/discoveries came before science stepped in to try to explain for them. I am not condescending science. But I need to be aware of its limitation.
 
Anyway, not suggesting something as far-fetched that cable companies are so superior to be adopting techniques unknown to modern science.
 
Looking at many of the cables line-up, most USB and Digital Coaxial cables' seem to be a mere copycat of their analogue offerings. Not sure even if the cable companies understood why those techniques seem to work well for digital cables.

The problem is, attributing the differences cables make to new, unproven science, in order to justify an unproven idea (the idea that these cables are actually making an audible difference) is no different from the "god of the gaps" argument.