[bigshot]

Yes, I understand this. My point is that not everybody understands or believes this, so it's good to allow them to discover it for themselves and not discourage them from doing so.

It's easier to just explain how cables work. If they don't believe it, they can enjoy marinading in their ignorance!

But I think audiophools know they are wrong. They just try to discredit any test or scientific theory that might prove they're wrong. It has nothing to do with whether cables sound different or not. It's only about their own ego.

 

[etlouis]

What phenomena do you think we cannot measure? We can measure bass, we can measure treble, and we can measure dynamics and impulse response, all to a further degree than the human ear by many, many orders of magnitude. Audio signals are *fully* understood from a physics standpoint. There is no magic yet to be discovered.

I am quite convinced of 2 factors that affect audio quality, and I am 100% sure I hear them:

1. Material of the cable
2. Gauge of the cable

Material. Any mix of silver and copper does well. Full silver is leaner sounding, full copper is thicker and has more bass.

Gauge. Thinner = slightly less details.

IMO any iem cable that is thick enough and made of decent metal is good enough to get the job done. The rest is brand loyalty and fashion points.

I don't think anyone also did "reverse testing", to take the worst, cheapest cables out there and do A-B tests using sensitive equipment.

Maybe the real differences exist in the extremes.



Cables contribute less to the listening experience with portable setups (DAP+IEM) than... other things like:

1. Noise from the outside world
2. The artist and his recording environment
3. The type of music you're listening to
4. Your mood

 

[bigshot]

I am quite convinced of 2 factors that affect audio quality, and I am 100% sure I hear them

The way to be 100% sure is to do a level matched, direct A/B switched, blind listening test.

I don't think anyone also did "reverse testing", to take the worst, cheapest cables out there and do A-B tests using sensitive equipment.

See the "coathanger test" in the audiophile myths thread pinned at the top of this forum.

 

[old tech]

I don't think anyone also did "reverse testing", to take the worst, cheapest cables out there and do A-B tests using sensitive equipment.

Do you think the $1 million Randi institute prize hasn't been enough incentive for someone to prove it over the past 30 years or so?

 

[colonelkernel8]

I am quite convinced of 2 factors that affect audio quality, and I am 100% sure I hear them:

1. Material of the cable
2. Gauge of the cable

Material. Any mix of silver and copper does well. Full silver is leaner sounding, full copper is thicker and has more bass.

Gauge. Thinner = slightly less details.

IMO any iem cable that is thick enough and made of decent metal is good enough to get the job done. The rest is brand loyalty and fashion points.

I don't think anyone also did "reverse testing", to take the worst, cheapest cables out there and do A-B tests using sensitive equipment.

Maybe the real differences exist in the extremes.



Cables contribute less to the listening experience with portable setups (DAP+IEM) than... other things like:

1. Noise from the outside world
2. The artist and his recording environment
3. The type of music you're listening to
4. Your mood

Being convinced and being correct are two different things. This isn't politics, we can arrive at real, physical truths.

1. No.
2. No.

Material: No. Physically impossible. Either material carries the same signal the same way, and in a headphone cable, the driver is likely going to be way higher impedance than the cable, and it will not affect the transmission whatsoever. The material of the cable cannot cause high or low pass filtering in the audible range.

Gauge: So long as the gauge has a low enough impedance, (which for headphones means a pretty thin cable), it will be audibly transparent. The only time you need big, thick cables is for long runs of cable, huge PA speaker systems, or both. The "thinness" of a cable will not act as a low pass filter in a headphone, unless we're talking REALLY small wire.

Cables contribute nothing to any system.

1. YES
2. YES
3. YES
4. YES

 

[castleofargh]

It's easier to just explain how cables work. If they don't believe it, they can enjoy marinading in their ignorance!

But I think audiophools know they are wrong. They just try to discredit any test or scientific theory that might prove they're wrong. It has nothing to do with whether cables sound different or not. It's only about their own ego.

On the contrary I think it's rare for people to know they're wrong about their cables and what impact they have on audible sound. For starters, most people just happen to have felt like there were some sort of changes in the sound. Maybe that was initiated by some BS marketing, a price tag or some good looking plugs. Maybe the origin of the bias was an audiophile posting nonsense about the soundstage of silver, or the need to avoid peasant copper electrons? But the strongest aspect for the final belief to take root, is to think we've experienced the effect ourselves. And many do! Once I think something happened to me in person, why would I dismiss that event in favor of some dude on the web posting about about electrical conductors and audio standards?
From there, the damage is done and the audiophile usually "knows" what he heard. At least he'll believe he does, because of course there is nothing in a casual sighted impression to prove or disprove if the perceived sound difference was at all about sound. That's what IMO makes most audiophiles look so foolish. Clinging onto uncontrolled subjective experiences and demanding to be taken seriously when using that as evidence for objective facts. It's so aberrant that I do get why you'd suspect people to know better and pretend to try and save face. But I just don't think that's the case.
Ignorance, overconfidence, and the many cognitive biases potentially involved here, I think that's more than enough to explain most of what is usually going on.

Material. Any mix of silver and copper does well. Full silver is leaner sounding, full copper is thicker and has more bass.

Gauge. Thinner = slightly less details.

I don't wish to be as extremist as others about the rest of what you posted, but that specific quote is wrong. There isn't even an optimistic way to look at electrical circuits to support that quote. We'd have to reinvent electricity to make this work, it's pure fiction.

I see 2 options here:
1/ You did experience something like that, where the actual cause may or may not have anything to do with the metal or the gauge. It was a one time accident and your mistake is generalizing over some weirdo anecdotes.
2/ If you consistently noticed those effects while using various audio equipment and cables. Then you've been fooling yourself all this time, because such consequences would not consistently come out of changing the gauge or the metal in the cable. in practice the impact would rarely reach audible levels with reasonable audio cables. but they also would do something entirely different on occasion. so audibility isn't even a necessary consideration, we can and must reject your idea just because it's objectively false.


ps: I'm aware of the irony, trying to convince you when I just described to bigshot why you probably wouldn't put much trust in my reply.

 

[etlouis]

On the contrary I think it's rare for people to know they're wrong about their cables and what impact they have on audible sound. For starters, most people just happen to have felt like there were some sort of changes in the sound. Maybe that was initiated by some BS marketing, a price tag or some good looking plugs. Maybe the origin of the bias was an audiophile posting nonsense about the soundstage of silver, or the need to avoid peasant copper electrons? But the strongest aspect for the final belief to take root, is to think we've experienced the effect ourselves. And many do! Once I think something happened to me in person, why would I dismiss that event in favor of some dude on the web posting about about electrical conductors and audio standards?
From there, the damage is done and the audiophile usually "knows" what he heard. At least he'll believe he does, because of course there is nothing in a casual sighted impression to prove or disprove if the perceived sound difference was at all about sound. That's what IMO makes most audiophiles look so foolish. Clinging onto uncontrolled subjective experiences and demanding to be taken seriously when using that as evidence for objective facts. It's so aberrant that I do get why you'd suspect people to know better and pretend to try and save face. But I just don't think that's the case.
Ignorance, overconfidence, and the many cognitive biases potentially involved here, I think that's more than enough to explain most of what is usually going on.



I don't wish to be as extremist as others about the rest of what you posted, but that specific quote is wrong. There isn't even an optimistic way to look at electrical circuits to support that quote. We'd have to reinvent electricity to make this work, it's pure fiction.

I see 2 options here:
1/ You did experience something like that, where the actual cause may or may not have anything to do with the metal or the gauge. It was a one time accident and your mistake is generalizing over some weirdo anecdotes.
2/ If you consistently noticed those effects while using various audio equipment and cables. Then you've been fooling yourself all this time, because such consequences would not consistently come out of changing the gauge or the metal in the cable. in practice the impact would rarely reach audible levels with reasonable audio cables. but they also would do something entirely different on occasion. so audibility isn't even a necessary consideration, we can and must reject your idea just because it's objectively false.


ps: I'm aware of the irony, trying to convince you when I just described to bigshot why you probably wouldn't put much trust in my reply.

I do trust you, as much as I trust cable difference. At least with iem/dap systems. Full-sized stereo maybe in a different game where the currents and prices involved aren’t the same.

I'm just trying to put the idea out there that the results are not as conclusive as people think.

Wires do play a role despite being the smallest of roles.

You still need a well constructed piece of wire (decent gauge, decent material), and that beneath a certain price point are these bad cables that probably degrade your audio quality.

To completely disregard the possibility is just as dogmatic as people who blindly believe in premium cables.

 

[Kentajalli]

POST 2088
Going back to the subject matter "How do I convince ..." it should be obvious that You can not convince people!
2087 previous posts and back-forth's means the subject matter is almost a religious one.
- There are believers , who will swear that cables matter, silver sounds better than coat-hangers and they can hear a feel the improvements.
- And there are non-believers who quote all kinds of science and blind-test experiments to prove cables don't matter.
No group can convince the other.
After all similarly in religion, Faith and feelings are meaningless to non religious people, and equaly one can not prove god does not exist by logical scientific means to those who believe non-scientific things.
Just give up!

 

[SoundAndMotion]

You still need a well constructed piece of wire (decent gauge, decent material), and that beneath a certain price point are these bad cables that probably degrade your audio quality.

To completely disregard the possibility is just as dogmatic as people who blindly believe in premium cables.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't consider myself dogmatic. I'm an open-minded skeptic.

But if I claim four $5 bills is identical to one $20 bill for the intended purpose (e.g. buying the family lunch at McD's), I may stick with that idea "dogmatically" until shown otherwise.

Perhaps you know a secret. Maybe you know Tim always has too many $20's and prefers the smaller bills for change. He therefore sneaks you a Happy Meal toy if you pay with $5's.

So the gauge and material conductivity combine to give you a resistance/conductance (add geometry and we can talk impedance) of the cable, and I'll agree that that must be sufficient for the purpose. But I guess I'll remain "dogmatic" that two 0.1 Ohm cables of similar geometry will sound the same, whether silver or copper, unless you can tell me the secret.

 

[Zambu]

I don't know anything about cables (other than sound goes in and sound comes out), I'm just trying to think about the issue from my personal perspective. So for example, here's my usual portable setup (well I've changed the tips since the picture but whatever). Do note that this is not the stock cable of the IEM, I just didn't like the usability of the adapters that the stock 2.5mm required so I changed it to a generic copper KBear 4.4mm cable (25 dollars). My understanding is that their cables are well-received in the budget cable threads.

Now, I circled couple of examples to look at. So you know, just thinking by logic, if the sound can be affected by a variety of ways in cables, then those are probably pretty bad cables? Like if you loot at that circle on the right, how could it actually be any better than a coat hanger that's built (twisted?) for this purpose? If I would "close those gaps", would the sound become better? If I would stretch it, would the sound become worse?

But it's fairly soft and sturdy so I use it for now. I also have an 80 dollar cable (with good reviews that cite "audible differences") that I actually kind of dislike as it's so stiff that it makes the experience miserable so it's just gathering dust for now. Maybe at some point I will try to see if I can hear differences between my cables, but at this point I know that I will pick my next cable based on "look and feel" and anything beyond that is extra.

But I'm open-minded about the issue and have no desire whatsoever to pick any "side" in a discussion, this is only about my personal enjoyment of music pretty much. It would be nice if there were relevant differences, since I'll be touching and feeling and looking at those cables for like the next 40-50 years unless I eventually go wireless (or deaf).

 

[manueljenkin]

It's easier to just explain how cables work. If they don't believe it, they can enjoy marinading in their ignorance!

But I think audiophools know they are wrong. They just try to discredit any test or scientific theory that might prove they're wrong. It has nothing to do with whether cables sound different or not. It's only about their own ego.

It is interesting to see bigshot accuse someone else of having ego.

 

[bigshot]

I apologize for hurting your feelings in the past, even if I don't remember who you are.

 

[Bernard23]

It's fairly easy to measure any changes in the signal / data (analogue or digital) and correlate to any change in an audio waveform. No change, means there is is no change. If there is a measurable change, then it's a discussion about whether the human ear / brain can detect it. From my own professional experience, humans are pretty poor at quantifying things using their senses only, so in truth, subjective reviews of audio gear from a scientific perspective are largely meaningless.

There are only differences in cables if you believe they exist, that's how unreliable our subjective assessment is, so it's futile trying to change an opinion either way.

 

[Kentajalli]

It's fairly easy to measure any changes in the signal / data (analogue or digital) and correlate to any change in an audio waveform. . . . . .

Not that I believe in exotic cables, but that general statement is WRONG!
for the past 50 years, scientists have been sharpening their test equipments and methods, but to claim it is fairly easy, and that we have reached the summit point where we can measure absolutely everything accurately is nothing but an arrogant day dream.
But yesm cables are just cables - silver or a coat hanger do the same job.

 

[Bernard23]

Not that I believe in exotic cables, but that general statement is WRONG!
for the past 50 years, scientists have been sharpening their test equipments and methods, but to claim it is fairly easy, and that we have reached the summit point where we can measure absolutely everything accurately is nothing but an arrogant day dream.
But yesm cables are just cables - silver or a coat hanger do the same job.

Where did I say absolutely accurately? I'm well aware of the principle of measurement uncertainty. Are you suggesting that the uncertainty in taking standard electromagnetic measurements (i.e. traceable to the SI reference) from a set of different cables is higher than that in the subjective assessment of their audible differences? I'm familiar with the former, not the latter, but I'd find that hard the believe!