Testing audiophile claims and myths

[Hamltnblue]

Nice of you as a new member of the forum with a dozen posts to just casually say people here do not know what they are talking about. You don't even need to read "the entire 977 pages." How much did you read? One page? Three pages?

Cables are the same in the sense that as long as they work and do their job they don't stop you enjoying the music. The potential improvements in sound quality are so increadibly tiny, that for a normal person or even an audiophile it is meaningless. Other things are massively more important such as ergonomics or the frequency response of the headphones. I write this as someone with a university degree in electrical engineering.

Even if we admitted cables do matter, what are people supposed to do with it? Buy ALL cables in the word and select the best 10 out of them to be used in different situations: One cable for rock music, another for classical music etc. Is that what you want? Sorry, but I am not interested of cables. My cables works and I enjoy music. I don't see the point of thinking about some other cables being better. There is always something better. If I keep chasing for better I can never be happy for what I have now. It's not 1948 anymore when audio gear was bad. Decent audio gear in 2021 is so good, that music listening experience is bottlenecked by bad music production. Well produced, mixed and mastered recordings sound phenomenal if you have decent audio gear. The best cables in the World don't help you at all if the recording is ruined by lousy production and loudness war.

The ways we see the World are not the same. Differences in attitude and beliefs can have a significant effect on happiness of individuals. Whenever something in our lives is "good enough" (such as "mediocre" headphones cables) we better take them as victories in life to be happy about, because there are so many things in our lives that are not "good enough" and also not easily improved. Thank God at least normal audio cables don't suck!

I actually read about 50 and have some common sense . And a degree in electrical engineering is not a degree in electronic engineering, and definitely not audio engineering. There are several here that may not have a degree in anything that may actually have a better knowledge in the subject. I too have a sound background, but am always trying to learn. In my opinion, readers should shy away from advice from anyone who knows all and has closed the book.
I do agree to the majority of your post.

The point of the post was simply to point out, just because something cannot be seen or heard from any one of us, doesn't mean that it isn't experienced by another.
If you admit that differences in a cable spec are small, you might consider that that small difference is enough to potentially filter out a small subtle portion of a sound.
Some people are sensitive to these changes. It is easy to be a nay Sayer if any of us isn't one of them.

 

[castleofargh]

I actually read about 50 and have some common sense . And a degree in electrical engineering is not a degree in electronic engineering, and definitely not audio engineering. There are several here that may not have a degree in anything that may actually have a better knowledge in the subject. I too have a sound background, but am always trying to learn. In my opinion, readers should shy away from advice from anyone who knows all and has closed the book.
I do agree to the majority of your post.

The point of the post was simply to point out, just because something cannot be seen or heard from any one of us, doesn't mean that it isn't experienced by another.
If you admit that differences in a cable spec are small, you might consider that that small difference is enough to potentially filter out a small subtle portion of a sound.
Some people are sensitive to these changes. It is easy to be a nay Sayer if any of us isn't one of them.

And the other way around. Just because some people claim to hear differences, does not necessarily mean they did.
IMO, it is important to stick to the facts we have. Take any idea, no matter how weird, and chances are you will find people on the web believing it. Is that a reason to suddenly accept the idea as true?
We have some circumstances leading to audible level of change from cables. They're measurable and typically predictable with enough electrical specs. Maybe some stuff will be at the edge of audibility and only some people will notice it. I’m completely fine with all that. Does it mean I will trust the first guy claiming to have heard a change on the forum? Not without some supporting evidence.
Sticking to reality and keeping an open mind also means to account for all the times someone will ”hear” a change when there is none in the sound. Falling for a psychological bias with cables is a very likely scenario.
If a controlled test shows an ability to tell 2 cables apart by ear, then all is well and for sure we'll be able to measure the most likely cause of difference.

 

[redrol]

For instance, many think all cables are the same. They are not. They are however a part of the overall amplifier circuit up to the point of connection at the speaker or headphone. Changes in conductor metals, insulation materials, twists per foot, and even soldering techniques can affect the circuit. Differences in capacitance can have a significant effect on individual sounds. Anyone who ever studied basic electronics has been exposed to the formula for capacitive reactance.

Yeah. No. A cable of 3-4 feet properly made and used normally will reproduce human audible frequencies perfectly. There will be no differences that are measurable between 20-20hkz.

Thats just the way it is man. You can bring up random electrical properties but that doesn't make them do anything in this context.

 

[LongBeforeShort]

I have tested different amps with different cables level matched, not only did the amps sound the same, all of them had different cables attached. I don't know if people would produce cables outside of the norm just to make it not work the way it should, but i have yet to cross paths with something like that....

For me pretty much all SS amps, cables discussions are for the vast majority probably nonsense, because at the end of the day, they got a specific job to do and that's it. I could not sleep well if everyone would build something else, imagine living in a world where all wheels were different in shape.

What's important is the required power output, loudspeaker (room)/headphone, source, features of the amp (room correction, eq etc.).

 

[bigshot]

The point of the post was simply to point out, just because something cannot be seen or heard from any one of us, doesn't mean that it isn't experienced by another.

That is true, but it's true because some people have degraded hearing, and don't hear everything that other people hear. It isn't true that some people have superhuman hearing able to hear things no one else does. Just because some people have degraded hearing it doesn't mean that other people hear better than humans can hear.

Human hearing is finite. The upper limits of human hearing are well defined and documented. No one can hear sound that is so far down below the signal it is completely obliterated, and no one can hear super audible frequencies that human hearing just isn't able to detect. There is some fuzziness right around the line, but it is very small and inconsequential when it comes to listening to music in the home.

No one can hear the difference between two properly designed and functioning interconnects. Just because one wire has red insulation and another has blue, or if one cost $6 and the other cost $1000, it doesn't mean that they sound different. There is such a thing as audible transparency. If a wire performs to spec and is audibly transparent, it will sound exactly the same as every other audibly transparent wire.

Do people on internet forums lie about how their hearing is superior to normal mortals? I don't think I need to answer that question. We all know the truth about that.

 

[Hamltnblue]

Actually, a person can have significantly degraded hearing and hear much more than a healthy 20 year old. The ear is only a receiving device if you will, Just like the eyes, nose, and other senses. How your brain process the information received is what you hear.
People spouting that they have superior hearing is actually pretty funny. One thing is a definite though. Depending on learning and/or experience, a person can certainly hear much more listening to a sound reproduction as others. It isn't because the others can't, it's because they don't know to look/listen for it, and haven't trained themselves to do so. They also probably don't realize others are not hearing the same things they are. went through the proces and once taught it as well. Watching others have the light bulb go off is a great thing.

Now if you don't hear something in the first place, you likely wouldn't know it was missing or changed if specs change. Not saying anyone is or isn't in the category but sometimes it could be what is going on when people say they hear no difference. I believe them every time, but once again, doesn't mean someone else isn't.

 

[bigshot]

Interpreting sound is different than just perceiving sound. Usually around here we're talking about simple perception and fidelity, which are more objective than interpreting speech or decoding sound location cues. Measuring and quantifying interpretation isn't as cut and dried as measuring whether you can hear something or not. But audiophiles like to conflate the two and convince themselves that their "vast experience" at passively listening to music on their stereo system means that they can hear super audible frequencies and sub audible noise floors.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

This thread caught my eye tonight. Entertaining for sure.
I didn‘t read the entire 977 pages but the old saying “owning a race car does not make one a race driver” definitely applies here. Many experts can state facts, specs, blind tests etc, but have no little idea what they are talking about.
For instance, many think all cables are the same. They are not. They are however a part of the overall amplifier circuit up to the point of connection at the speaker or headphone. Changes in conductor metals, insulation materials, twists per foot, and even soldering techniques can affect the circuit. Differences in capacitance can have a significant effect on individual sounds. Anyone who ever studied basic electronics has been exposed to the formula for capacitive reactance.

The biggest thing missed is that hearing is a learned skill. Frequency range is just a small part of it.
The brain is the processor and has to learn or be taught.
Many audiophiles simply do not hear all of the available sounds, and wouldn’t know if they changed or not.
Put a dozen people in a room with good equipment and have them write down what they hear in a recording. You’ll get plenty of variance.

If you put "blind tests" and "little idea what they are talking about" in the same sentence...

BTW, frequency response, distortion and phase response are the only factors that can be measured and/or perceived here, and frequency response is already by far the thing we're most sensitive to.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Until evidence is produced that a cable can audibly affect sound quality and that affect can be reliably reproduced, so that people can buy a cable made a certain way, knowing that it will do a specific thing to their hifi, such as the AB cable from company XYZ, will make their system's treble brighter, then ABX testing stands as the only credible method for determining if something does actually affect sound.

 

[pibroch]

It's very easy for bass guitarists to consistently pick EQ differences between some different models of electric guitar cables. For example some muffle high frequencies more than others. (I used this to good effect when I used to play bass guitar.)

To any sound engineers with suitable training who may be reading this, how might these differences be deliberately designed?

 

[bigshot]

Those cables are designed to impart coloration. Home audio cables are designed to be audibly transparent. Guitar amps add heavy doses of distortion, but home audio amps are designed to be transparent. Two completely different purposes.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

It's very easy for bass guitarists to consistently pick EQ differences between some different models of electric guitar cables. For example some muffle high frequencies more than others. (I used this to good effect when I used to play bass guitar.)

To any sound engineers with suitable training who may be reading this, how might these differences be deliberately designed?

https://www.pedalsnake.com/blog/2016/08/guitar-cables-better/

 

[bigshot]

I can see a bassist using a cable that rolls off the highs. Do they have special cables for bass? Or am I just imagining this?

 

[Prog Rock Man]

I would need to a proven link between how a cable is made and what it is made of and the effect that has on SQ and the cause of that effect, before I would be convinced.

 

[vergesslich2]

Quote (topic was burn-in):
I agree. The sound MIGHT not change much, it's just us ourselves get used to the sound signature of the new headphone.

Don't know if my question belongs to here, but is listener fatigue dependent on a frequency response characteristic?

When in a Youtube video someone claims a headphone becomes less bright after some time (and does not try to answer the listening fatigue matter), I'm reminded of my listener fatigue that occured when I tried to master a track. The more fatigue there probably was, the more bright I made a tune with headphones. From then on I thought that the fatigue would occur at high frequencies more than at low frequencies, disqualifying headphones with bright characteristics for buying them for a constant (and not fatiguing and or possibly ear damaging) listening experience. So, to make it short, I sticked to the HD 600. But I have no evidence. Maybe I could become a bit bass deaf, and it would be just my personal taste of degrading my hearing.

PS: Oh, found it in Wikipedia. Quote: "Statistical analysis yielded a correlation between exposure of higher-frequency sounds to lower temporary threshold shifts and greater levels of tiredness and hearing loss." Should have googled it.