[bigshot]

"NOT EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE MEASURED COUNTS, AND NOT EVERYTHING THAT COUNTS CAN BE MEASURED."
- ALBERT EINSTEIN.

Oh THIS troll is back!

 

[KPzypher]

Isn't it funny how aftermarket cables always seem to enhance things that need improvement?

"Oh it took the edge off the harshness...."
"The bass is so much more impactful...."
"The treble extension is unbelievable....."
"I can hear things I wasn't able to before..."
"It's so much more smoother now..."
"It completely lifted the veil...."
These are some of the more popular claims among others.

Like aftermarket cables somehow understand the shortcomings in your system.

It's just hilarious.

Anyways, why feed the trolls? If they want to throw money down the drain, let them. There are plenty of other snake oils out there and aftermarket cable is just one of the fish in a pond. No amount of convincing will change their mind. Audiophile is 99% uninformed amateurs that think they have the golden ears, including myself.

When you're in a business that revolves around subjective preference without widely accepted objective parameters, it is so easy to fool people.
In particular, audiophiles with their giant ego.

 

[megabigeye]

I'll be happy when we are off the home page

It doesn't work that way. It's the little lightning icon on the menu bar, next to your notifications, etc. Click on that and you'll see all of the newest posts in every sub-forum on Head-Fi. Every time a new post is added to a thread, the thread moves to the top of the list until another thread gets a newer post. Once you've clicked on a thread, it disappears from the list that you see until another post has been made in the thread. The only way the thread stops being in the new posts list is if nobody posts in it.
I'm sure it's a great feature for building hype for gear, but it's kind of unfortunate for thoughtful conversation. A couple months ago, there was a thread about a bad customer service experience, it quickly grew to more than 10 pages, got really heated, spun completely out of control, comments were deleted, and the thread was locked. Too bad because it seemed like some of the posters were actually pretty intelligent/insightful.

Anyway. To keep the post semi-on-topic (and directed at the thread at large): I find it a little disappointing that so little of this thread is dedicated to discussing how to successfully convince people of things that are demonstrably true. Instead, it seems mostly like believers and non-believers lobbing stones at each other. I'd love to learn how to promote truth while preventing truthiness.

 

[bigshot]

The thread should be titled, how do you convince people who desperately don't want to know?

 

[jambaj0e]

Any certified USB cable should be fine. You can run video through USB and that is a MUCH bigger stream of data to pass than audio. I've heard there are uncertified Chinese USB cables that are funky, but I've never seen any of them. I just use Amazon basics. It works perfect. If a USB cable is bad, it isn't subtle. You know it.

It's not whether the cable will work or not since all of mine worked on the Qutest and all but the Morrow Audio worked on the Hugo TT2. It's about which cable sounds the same and by far and away, the Sablon 2020 Panatela Reserva Elite USB cable sounds far better than the rest (Kimber AG, AudioQuest Cinnamon, Analysis plus purple). Very noticeable difference on my highly resolving system and on the Chord DAVE at TheSourceAv

 

[bigshot]

It's not whether the cable will work or not since all of mine worked on the Qutest and all but the Morrow Audio worked on the Hugo TT2. It's about which cable sounds the same and by far and away, the Sablon 2020 Panatela Reserva Elite USB cable sounds far better than the rest (Kimber AG, AudioQuest Cinnamon, Analysis plus purple). Very noticeable difference on my highly resolving system and on the Chord DAVE at TheSourceAv

A controlled test or I get to call it as placebo! Even a casual controlled test would be fine. This ain't Kansas. You're in Sound Science now. Just saying, "night and day" and "even my wife can hear the difference" won't cut it around here.

USB is digital. It can't have veils or wider soundstage. It either transmits the data cleanly or it is riddled with dropouts or artifacts. If you are hearing veils and soundstage, you are hearing 100% USDA prime expectation bias.

 

[jambaj0e]

But numbers and information say otherwise. Also human limits as well.

You assume all the measurements are even looking at the right thing or everything that can make a difference.

And personally, in the end, I don't care what the numbers say or don't say, or if we're even looking at the right set of data in the first place. If I can detect a noticeable improvement, I keep the cable. If I don't I return it thanks to the return policy.

I have no need to prove to any of you because you're not here to listen to my system to make that judgment firsthand, so it doesn't matter really.

 

[jambaj0e]

The thresholds of human hearing are the specs that most audiophiles are clueless about. They know the noise floor of every piece of equipment they own, and buy components capable of reproducing super audible frequencies, but they don’t understand how those numbers translate into audible sound. They assume that if the numbers are different, they can hear a difference. But that isn’t how thresholds work.

Exactly, look people forget it's the brain that makes the interpretation of what we hear & there's no machine made yet to detect everything our brain can detect from a sound signal

 

[bigshot]

Not caring about how sound reproduction works and depending on subjective bias is the perfect way to feed placebo. If that makes you happy, great. But the thing about placebo and bias is that it only works for you. Someone else who isn't already convinced might not have the same experience you have. That is why they call it subjective.

I don't need to hear with your brain. I prefer my own brain thank you very much! And I'll pay attention to the physics of sound and how it is reproduced with high fidelity. I don't need to make stuff up to convince myself I have superhuman hearing. I can listen to Mozart with my decidedly human ears.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Edit:

 

[jambaj0e]

Well, they're differences, in the 0.0x dB order of magnitude. That's great if you can hear that, maybe cables make a difference to you .

You see that's also your problem. You look at one data. You ever run into two headphones, amps, or speakers with the same Frequency Separation, but sound completely different?

It's because other things are at play, just like cables. Just because one data says there are no difference doesn't mean other factors are not at play. You're just not looking at the right data.

Once again, I defer to industry engineers and experts (Gordon Rankin. Darko Audio, Duncan, Paul McGowan) whose jobs every single day are to tweak and isolate performances, have access to dozens if not hundreds of USB cables, and all have said USB cables make a difference. Ask them and I bet you $1000 they all have a preferred USB cable.

 

[bigshot]

Redcarmoose, this thread is about cables. The impedance stuff was a sidebar that we've already gotten past.

Jambajuice, deferring to "experts" is a logical fallacy called "appeal to authority". Sound physics are well known and have been researched and understood for over a century. Just because you don't understand it, it doesn't mean nobody else does. You can continue saying "we don't know" but the rest of us are just thinking to ourselves "you don't know".

 

[jambaj0e]

Yo

The thing a lot of people don’t understand is that when it comes to passing a signal across, a cable can only degrade the signal. It can’t improve it. The signal is what it is. If a cable is designed for the purpose you’re using it for, and there are no manufacturing defects, it can’t get any better. You can get a decent Amazon Basics cable and it will sound just as good as a $500 audiophile cable. An audiophile cable might be prettier, with fancy connectors and braided covers. But the sound is the same- perfect for human ears. It’s OK to want fancy cables as “jewelry”. And I suppose a fancy cable might be built a little tougher if you are plugging and unplugging often. But as long as a cable conducts properly, it sounds perfect. I use monoprice and Amazon basics and don’t need anything better. I hide my cables behind the components. I don’t display them as decoration.

I say that you have an Amazon cable yet you probably haven't extensively tested $500 cables. I have, and on my systems and with several ears including mine, we can tell different. You just can't either because you haven't actually tried it yourself or you don't even bother to do so.

 

[bigshot]

Have you read the thread pinned at the top of this forum? Testing Audiophile Myths? I suggest you do.

 

[jambaj0e]

Everyone here can change, but only if relevant evidence is provided and it is repeatable by others. Claiming something by virtue needs to be supported by evidence. It isn't arrogance, is how science works, provide evidence that the null its not right, and we'll change.

It's easy, come to TheSourceAv where I've set up a DAP to a Chord Dave to an Audeze Lcd-4 and we'll repeat the same blind test that 3 of us took and was able to tell the difference between 5-6 cables.

It's really not hard to do if you actually want to do it instead of spouting unclaimed "facts" when you haven't done it yourself on a highly resolving system.