[castleofargh]

audiophile anecdotes rely on too many assumptions that turn out to come from misunderstanding or ignorance. and the typically weak testing methods involved certainly don't help sorting things out accurately.
I have experienced various issues, some really cheap RCAs where the plug was barely holding in place. or some with impedance specs way off compared to what was claimed(ironically that also happens with crazy expensive interconnect...). crap happens and I'm sure that on occasion with some gears, those stuff result in audible difference. I don't see the point of rejecting that possibility because it exists, no matter how unlikely.
what I personally reject is a baseless correlation between money and sound quality offered by a RCA. it's very possible that something is more expensive because it has better quality materials, because someone is paid to check each cable for defects, because they throw away stuff that would get a pass for another brand... all those can be legit reasons why we may overall have more confidence in a more expensive product. although I tend to purchase several cheap ones and throw away those that aren't to spec or have issues, the total cost is still cheaper than any "audiophile" cable. so when the price is 10 or even a hundred times what a perfectly adequate RCA cable costs, they better be selling cables that regrow my hair. because that's the only way I will accept such prices for a RCA cable. but then again, that's just me with my very limited amount of money(and even fewer hairs left ^_^).

 

[bigshot]

It might have been just a friend showing off their new interconnects that they mortgaged their house to pay for, and not a typical pots n pans cooking demo type thing at all.

If that is the case, then you could just attribute the results to sloppy controls on the testing. The motive might either be self validation or commercial interest. Both of those are bias capable of skewing the results, especially when it's clear that they didn't address auditory memory or line level.

 

[Glmoneydawg]

Well, I do know it is a fringe case - but VERY real in actual audio life.

Imagine driving ANY full range electrostatics - with the exception of Quad ESL-63 ( it is, electrically speaking, a LC transmission line, finally terminated in resistance - not neaerly as impossible load as most normal pure capacitance ESLs ) and its later variants. Sooner or later, the purely capacitive load, most normally coupled trough a step up transformer, will reach - if not actually zero impedance, then certainly a value most amplifiers are no longer capable of driving correctly. Typically, that would be 1 ohm and lower ( highly reactive at that ... ) in the upper audible range - give or take an ohm or few kHz either way , depending on the actual speaker.

There are behemoth amplifiers in multi hundred watts per channel range that - fall apart like broken glass in such a load. It is either complete silence (best), some very low volume level attainable before the protection cuts everything off ( worse) or some heavy distorted unlistenable screeching, too limited in volume ( the worst ).

I have found one amp which - by specs and ratings - should NOT be suitable for driving ESLs - yet, in practice, it IS. It is the 75 w/ch into 8 ohms Technics - either as power amp SE-9060 or in integrated amp livery, as SU-8080 . The circuit is the same, differences are in the power supply - and, as it is often with Technics, the supply in integrated is actually better than in separate power amp.

Now - any of the descriptions above vs Technics ( that can play cleanly, but, with 75W/ch, obviously can not drive typical 85 (usually even below ) dB/W/m sensitivity speakers to ear splitting levels.

That IS night and day difference.

There are , of course, better amps for the ESLs. But, they ARE few and far in between. Acoustat TNT-200 ( DO check its schematics - unlike anything else ... ) is the first relatively affordable amp that can drive ESLs to decent, but NOT ear splitting levels. For that, true "welding apparatus" amps are required, but that is $$$$. Gamut range of amps with a p and n pair single giant MOS-FET as output devices
are the real deal in this case - as well as probably is Sanders amp specifically designed for the ESLs.

Similar occurs at the other extreme - moving coil phono cartridge preamps. Particularly those that have to amplify the cartridges with below 0.1mV/5cm/sec sensitivity. Merely achieving an acceptable S/N ratio definitely is a challenge... - not to mention any further requirement. Here, the boys and men are told apart in few seconds...

Agree 100%....but we are bringing transducers into the equation now with speakers and cartridges.......too bad Acoustat is gone,the 2+2 electrostat was one of the first and best high end listening experiences i can remember....they did voices like few others.

 

[bigshot]

If you charge a grand for a wire, all you have to do is post a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo and charts on your website and offer a 30 day no questions return policy. You sell a few and issue a bunch of polite refunds, and just wait for some poor sap to lose track of time and be stuck with it after the 30 days are up. Then the sap will go to work for you self validating their purchase on online forums to convince themselves that they spent their money wisely. Then you can cruise through the forums and copy paste the testimonials back to your website on the technical mumbo jumbo page. It becomes a self generating money machine.

 

[Glmoneydawg]

If you charge a grand for a wire, all you have to do is post a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo and charts on your website and offer a 30 day no questions return policy. You sell a few and issue a bunch of polite refunds, and just wait for some poor sap to lose track of time and be stuck with it after the 30 days are up. Then the sap will go to work for you self validating their purchase on online forums to convince themselves that they spent their money wisely. Then you can cruise through the forums and copy paste the testimonials back to your website on the technical mumbo jumbo page. It becomes a self generating money machine.

Saddly that might just work.

 

[KeithEmo]

Of course it works - but I suspect you HUGELY underestimate how well it works.

You DO NOT have to wait "for someone to lose track of time and go past the return date".
There are major amounts of both "rationalization" and "self selection" going on.

First off, someone who is skeptical probably will not buy a $1k cable, even if they know they can return it.
Therefore, anybody who actually puts up the money alredy has SOME expectation that it will sound different.
Then, by ordering it, and laying out the money, they create a significant "investment" in being right.
Most of us would feel somewhat silly if, after expending all that effort, they didn't hear a difference.
In other words, while some members of THIS forum might expect to confirm that there is no difference....
MOST people who go to the trouble to try that $1k cable would expect and hope to hear a difference.
They've probably told their friends they were trying it, waited for it to arrive, and have positive expectations.
And, when it arries, they'll invite all their friends over to hear it...
And most of those friends will help validate their expectation...
Because most of them share those positive expectations...
(Like believers in conspiracy theories their skeptical friends probably won't be invited.)

If you doubt how well this works....
Check out websites and TV advertisements for "dial a psychic"...
And sales of "magnetic bracelets" and various obviously useless "holistic remedies"...
You might be amazed how many people consult "psychics" and "astrologers"...
And their so-called "science" is far less credible...

People who frequent those websites believe that those fancy cables have some merit...
They expect to hear a difference, tend to believe positive reviews, and tend NOT to believe negative reviews...
Certainly the marketing department helps to promote the process...
But human nature takes care of most of the process quite effectively anyway...

Saddly that might just work.

 

[bigshot]

so says a member of the trade

 

[analogsurviver]

Agree 100%....but we are bringing transducers into the equation now with speakers and cartridges.......too bad Acoustat is gone,the 2+2 electrostat was one of the first and best high end listening experiences i can remember....they did voices like few others.

Well, last time I checked, an audio system consists of many components in a chain - leave any of the links out and you are blessed with perfection - silence... A perfect amplifier driving nothing has no purpose nor meaning - yet, it DOES exist . And., believe me, it does have MANY siblings....

Acustat is stil with (but not) US. Strickland first sold the company to Hafler, which got sold to Rockford, which sold Acustat to Italy - final and current HQ being in China.
Currently, more than half of worlds' electrostatic speakers are being produced in China. Quad, Acustat ....maybe more.

Put 2 and 2 together to figure out why I consider King's Audio King 3 full range electrostatic speaker the cream of the crop...in their third version of the King, they actually nailed it - better than anyone else. Here, the only exemption would be Beveridge - but, roughly speaking, the difference in price is about an order of magnitude.

 

[RRod]

Saw this blurb at the end of a booklet today:

In order to reproduce the original waveform as closely as possible we use 24-bit, as it has a dynamic range that is up to 48 dB greater and up to 256 times the resolution of standard 16-bit recordings. Recording at the 44.1 kHz sample rate, the highest frequencies generated will be around 22 kHz. That is 2 kHz higher than can be heard by the typical human with excellent hearing. However, this recording uses the 192 kHz sample rate, which will translate into the potentially highest frequency of 98 kHz. The theory is that, even though we do not hear it, audio energy exists, and it has an effect on the lower frequencies which we do hear, the higher sample rate thereby reproducing a better sound.

I would have preferred if they started that last sentence with "The theory is that, since dead salmon…"

 

[71 dB]

Saw this blurb at the end of a booklet today:

I would have preferred if they started that last sentence with "The theory is that, since dead salmon…"

192/2 = 98? Really? Anyway, 98 % of people who read that will believe it all.

 

[old tech]

Saw this blurb at the end of a booklet today:


I would have preferred if they started that last sentence with "The theory is that, since dead salmon…"

If the blurb substituted theory with myth, then perhaps it would be closer to the mark.

 

[bigshot]

In audiophile circles a theory is just a myth with an advertising budget.

 

[old tech]

Getting back to the original intent of this thread, I posted this test in another but I think it sits better here.

A blind test comparison of sound cards.

The conclusion, the difference between a $2 Realtek ALC889 codec and other more expensive sound cards/DACs, including the $2,000 Benchmark DAC 2 is features, not sound quality.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733.html

 

[KeithEmo]

First off, I'll admit that I skimmed the article... although I did so pretty carefully... and I found a few things a bit odd.

Quite interestingly, listener A posted nearly random results.... except for the results with one particular track... (the Daft Punk track).
Oddly, on that one, he got 8/8 right on the first pass... (which seemed to surprise him - and which he seemed especially eager to credit to "probably being luck").
Then, when he repeated the test, he got more or less random results (which seemed to be what he expected).
(It kind of makes me wonder if he had an expectation bias not to hear any significant difference.)

There also didn't seem to be any detailed results for Listener B.

And, obviously, only two test subjects, two pairs of headphones, and a rather limited assortment of tracks, were included.

I would add it to the list of tests which seem to suggest that, if you expect to hear major obvious differences, you're likely to be disappointed....
However, at least to me, it falls far short of supporting an authoritative claim that "there are no audible differences"....
Therefore, their "conclusion" is really a pretty long reach from what the results would support....
(I should note that Tom's is a discussion forum for computer folks... They never claimed that their results were conclusive - and even suggested that more testing was indicated.)

Getting back to the original intent of this thread, I posted this test in another but I think it sits better here.

A blind test comparison of sound cards.

The conclusion, the difference between a $2 Realtek ALC889 codec and other more expensive sound cards/DACs, including the $2,000 Benchmark DAC 2 is features, not sound quality.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733.html

 

[analogsurviver]

At first, I thought the following ( found today on FB ) is an April Fool's joke - but, no, Devious Machines https://www.deviousmachines.com/ actually exists :
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" Adjustable Price Slider " - hard one to top for any marketing type ...