[DSGant]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guidostrunk /img/forum/go_quote.gif Dude are you dumb , now your insulting my wife ( if she had any brains), get a job toolbox.

No, no one is insulting your wife. His argument is based on the very assumption that your wife, in fact, has brains, and those brains made the perfectly normal, subconscious act of correlating how nice a thing looks with how nice a thing is. This is something the mind does automatically. Reread the post.

Moreover, though, your example is not a cable issue. You are comparing a mini-to-mini cable to a line out. The mini-to-mini is going from the Fuze's (assumedly poorer) built-in amplifier to your (assumedly better) external amplifier. So it's taking a line level signal that has already been amplified by the Fuze's amplifier, then amplifying that signal further.

Your line out dock puts out a line level signal; that is, one that still needs to be amplified before it will drive an unpowered source, like headphones. So it's running a line from the Fuze's DAC/preamp directly to your amplifier, bypassing the Fuze's internal amplifier entirely. We can assume the Fuze's amp adds its own noise (since it lives inside an MP3 player) and coloration (because it's cheap). It's usually considered better in any case to run a line-level signal to an amp.

So, long story short, nobody is insulting your wife, but your example isn't very useful here because it's not about fancy cables, but rather about the path from the source to the headphones.

 

[SP Wild]

Just on the subject of pacebo again. I have always felt that everything in life is "all in your head". Placebo is real and when you think about product design - Hi-Fi is a luxury product, like luxury cars or boats. To know that no expense was spared in the culmination of your pleasures is truly a gratifying sensation.

Before a night out, I like to shower, brush, do my hair, wear the finest cologne and clothes I can afford - in doing so I feel better about myself and improve my chances of mating (at least when compared to dirty, smelly, and dressed in rags). I feel that trying to separate placebo from Hi-Fi would make less people want to get into Hi-Fi which is not a good thing for us.

In the future I want to be able to pick the cow in the farm that will become the leather in my luxury car, and the headlight lense should be milled from diamond - I also want Michael Schumaca to personally quality control the car. There will always exist the filthy rich and a market for them. For the rest of us a new Audi is still a good dream. Glitz and Glamour always pulls the crowds (and chicks) - making Hi-Fi more boring will make a small niche evdn smaller - there is no other outcome.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[greenstuffs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guidostrunk /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you read my post she has no clue about cables,no suggestion was even made, i even made the statement to her that there was no difference in the 2 cables. obviously she heard a difference without me telling her that i believed one was better than the other. Basically the whole point of doing it was to see if there was a difference or I'm just insane. i dunno , i guess she's suffering from placebo. I'm not going to get involved in this war about cables. Its like religion some are believers and some are not. I'll leave it at that.

Everyone will pick the best cables, i asked my friend to pick which one was the best cable (they are both two sennheiser stock HD650 cables i told him one used the new process with silver... and numbered the cables to diferentiate) nonetheless he picked one of the two. It is just how the human, nothing wrong with perception but this is how the brain works.

 

[ninjikiran]

Only difference is I don't need to spend $3000 on a cable to feel satisfied. I think the placebo effect is a really horrible compulsive disorder. I don't care what people do with their money but it is a dangerous path to walk.

The best medicine when you are sick is the will to get better, don't think you are ever going to get better and that can effect your recovery.

 

[eucariote]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenstuffs /img/forum/go_quote.gif It is just how the human, nothing wrong with perception but this is how the brain works.

x2 Feedback connections to sensory cortex far outnumber feedforward connections from sensory organs. That is because perception is an inferential process where we can only intelligibly perceive a world on a basis of prior history (Thomas Bayes illustrated this very well), expectations and ongoing goals. There is also a very high degree of integration across modalities, which disambiguate stimuli but make us very prone to illusions.

 

[SP Wild]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ninjikiran /img/forum/go_quote.gif Only difference is I don't need to spend $3000 on a cable to feel satisfied. I think the placebo effect is a really horrible compulsive disorder. I don't care what people do with their money but it is a dangerous path to walk. The best medicine when you are sick is the will to get better, don't think you are ever going to get better and that can effect your recovery.

People that spend $3000 on a cable tend to have a lot more money than you or I, it may well amount to pocket change for some - its all relative.

The average cable believer might spend a hundred or two for a piece of mind that he/she feels justify this amount. In the bigger scheme, its not a lot of money.

I just feel the issue is over-exaggerated, ie, cable makes a day-night difference or on the other hand - believers are pushing $50,000 cables on begginers (What!!!).

There is a sustainable market on improved cabling and so they are here to stay. If providing products at differing price points with the only differentiator being packaging hasn't bankrupted these companies than I must congratulate them, as this formula is not a viable strategy to remain competitive in a dynamic marketplace.

Lately I have been getting just as much aural satisfaction over an Ipod with PX100s as I have been with my dacs, amps and phones. Have I been ripped-off by the high-end? Hell yeah. Will I do it again? Hell yeah.

 

[Guidostrunk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenstuffs /img/forum/go_quote.gif Everyone will pick the best cables, i asked my friend to pick which one was the best cable (they are both two sennheiser stock HD650 cables i told him one used the new process with silver... and numbered the cables to diferentiate) nonetheless he picked one of the two. It is just how the human, nothing wrong with perception but this is how the brain works.

Which cable did he choose? I'm curious.

 

[Shark_Jump]

It's all about feeling good.

But this is a science forum, and I have been seeing difficulty having rational discussion with possible victims of placebo when it comes to their Hi Fi equipment purchases and objective evaluations.

The point is if these people believe their purchase has improved their listening experience, then even though it may be entirly subjective, it is very difficult for them to openly examine the possiblility their experience may be a result of placebo . This would require a self examination that if proven would degrade their listening experience.

Indeed further point is when talking to these people you could argue you have a moral need to take this into account, as if you proove your point to be correct based on ration assertions, you could end up degrading the other persons listening experience if they start questioning their belief systems and purchases.

However this is somewhat hypothetical as from personal observation, 99.99% times most peoples ego will not allow them to ask this question of themselves. so their listening experience will remain undiminished.

 

[Guidostrunk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eucariote /img/forum/go_quote.gif x2 Feedback connections to sensory cortex far outnumber feedforward connections from sensory organs. That is because perception is an inferential process where we can only intelligibly perceive a world on a basis of prior history (Thomas Bayes illustrated this very well), expectations and ongoing goals. There is also a very high degree of integration across modalities, which disambiguate stimuli but make us very prone to illusions.

OK brainiac, my wife was not fed with a preconceived notion that one was better than the other, and to her cables are like foreign objects. And me asking her which cable looks better is like me asking you to pick out a pretty dress. So intern she basically went into it blind folded and made her decision on what cable sounded better. So shes still in the placebo coma right now.

 

[Uncle Erik]

SP Wild, people only claim night/day cable differences until put to a listening test.

Once people don't know wha cable they're listening to, they start saying things like there wasn't enough time to listen, that the sample periods were too short, and so on and so on. Then they claim that the difference is subtle and that the conditions of the test threw them off.

So the differences go from night/day sighted to extremely subtle when unsighted, so subtle that small variations in test conditions - or even the "stress" of being tested - throws them off.

Oddly enough, in 30 years of controversy and testing, not a single person has been able to overcome these "oppressive" test methods.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guidostrunk /img/forum/go_quote.gif OK brainiac, my wife was not fed with a preconceived notion that one was better than the other, and to her cables are like foreign objects. And me asking her which cable looks better is like me asking you to pick out a pretty dress. So intern she basically went into it blind folded and made her decision on what cable sounded better. So shes still in the placebo coma right now.

No. Your wife was running off inference.

First, she knows - at some level - that you would not have purchased a second cable for no reason at all. She inferred that you bought it for a reason.

Second, the fact that you asked her to test the cables suggested or implied that there was a difference between them.

If she was presented with a black box and asked to switch between an unknown A and B cable, where the cables might be different or might be the same, she would not be able to tell the difference. Neither could you. And neither can anyone else.

 

[Guidostrunk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif No. Your wife was running off inference. First, she knows - at some level - that you would not have purchased a second cable for no reason at all. She inferred that you bought it for a reason. Second, the fact that you asked her to test[/u] the cables suggested or implied that there was a difference between them. If she was presented with a black box and asked to switch between an unknown A and B cable, where the cables might be different or might be the same, she would not be able to tell the difference. Neither could you. And neither can anyone else.

Geez, I guess I'm in another subjective battle . Well I'm a cable believer, and i guess there's no sense in getting into this whole cable scientific war. I respect you here on this forum as i have read many of your posts and you are very informative and seem like a nice guy. So I'm going to opt out on this thread because its the same old same old , your wrong I'm right yada yada yada. At least at the end of the day we will both be enjoying our music the way we want to. You guys have FUN here lol. Cheers.

 

[SP Wild]

Uncle Eric, I agree with you entirely with the issues you have raised. I will use myself to prove your point.

I feel cables make an audible difference, sometimes I feel its a huge difference so I spend up big. Then sometimes I feel the difference is in fact miniscule. I feel I might be able to pass a blind test but I am not entirely confident.

Lately I feel that all this exotic stuff is unecessary for the issue of musical enjoyment as I actually enjoy music directly from the Ipod as much as on my big rig. EQ the tonal balance to taste and Bobs yer uncle or Eric.

But I do believe cables do make a difference in audio quality - Economic and social science doesn't deny the possibility.

 

[Shark_Jump]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif SP Wild, people only claim night/day cable differences until put to a listening test. Once people don't know wha cable they're listening to, they start saying things like there wasn't enough time to listen, that the sample periods were too short, and so on and so on. Then they claim that the difference is subtle and that the conditions of the test threw them off. So the differences go from night/day sighted to extremely subtle when unsighted, so subtle that small variations in test conditions - or even the "stress" of being tested - throws them off. Oddly enough, in 30 years of controversy and testing, not a single person has been able to overcome these "oppressive" test methods.

Uncle Erik,

What you are doing is stating an objective fact (although unqualified).

What I am saying is although you may be talking the truth, the implications of what you are saying is challenging the other guys perceived sound quality enhancement. If they can objectively comprehend what you are saying (or perhaps just believe you are credible enough to take what you are saying on face value) and question their perceptions on this basis, the end result is that you may have effectivly degraded the sound quality of their systems, as they perceive it. Do you really want to do this ?

 

[Torr]

Another interesting thing about the placebo effect is that drug companies are having a hard time dealing with the fact that placebos have become more effective over the years. I first heard about this while listening to NPR, but a quick google search will bring up a lot of articles on the topic.

It is a fact there is no physical audible difference between a well made low end cable and the most expensive high end cables. We can prove this scientifically not just with double blind tests, but by using oscilloscopes and other tools to verify that the signal coming from one cable is indistinguishable to the signal coming from another. Yet, we can also prove that once filtered through the human mind, the powerful placebo effect causes the perception of a very real and oftentimes profound improvement in audio when using high end cables. So, is it morally wrong to produce and sell high end cables? If a person is in great pain and a placebo could make them feel better, would it be wrong to prescribe them a placebo? Would it be wrong if the placebo cost $100? What about $1,000? $100,000? Is it ever wrong?