[AmbientRevolut]

It's funny how closely this discussion mirrors other various discussions I have.. about other topics. Delusion is easy.
 
-AR

 

[maverickronin]

Yep.  Its all got the same irrationality at its root.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

 
Quote:

 How would you A/B a headphone cable? I would have to be blindfolded or something. Come to think of it, how were headphone cables tested by this thread -- or was it only other cables that were tested?

Have them disguised. As yet there ahs been no blind test of a headphone cable that I can find.
 


Quote:

Maybe -- or maybe the fact that what I heard was so obvious it would lead me to question my experiment, see where it went wrong, what I wasn't taking into account, and make corrections, or else just be aware of its limitations.

Or it is placebo and or psychoacoustics or something else in the mind of the listener as opposed to something about the cable. You cannot rule that out.


Quote:

It sounds clearer. I should go back and check if it gets louder. But not that I remember.

Please check. Attenuation causing differences in volume may be a real reason as to how cables could affect sound.

 

[Heidegger]

Quote:

 

Have them disguised. As yet there ahs been no blind test of a headphone cable that I can find.
 




Or it is placebo and or psychoacoustics or something else in the mind of the listener as opposed to something about the cable. You cannot rule that out.



Please check. Attenuation causing differences in volume may be a real reason as to how cables could affect sound.

 
Even blindfolded I think I could tell the cables apart just by the way they feel.
 
The Cardas does not get louder.
 
And sure I won't rule out placebo, but it's hard not to.
 
By the way, the Black Cube's 10dB setting has really opened up in a marvelous way. I really think it's due to break-in period.

 

[b0ck3n]

All newcomers should be directed here when they join the forum, and equip themselves with knowledge before becoming subject to the influence of very convincing but highly subjective (and indeed probably mostly imagined) impressions that are expressed in just about every thread on here.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

 
Quote:

 
Even blindfolded I think I could tell the cables apart just by the way they feel.
 
The Cardas does not get louder.
 
And sure I won't rule out placebo, but it's hard not to.
 
By the way, the Black Cube's 10dB setting has really opened up in a marvelous way. I really think it's due to break-in period.

I was meaning disguising the cables just by wrapping them in something, sheathing, fabric taped at both ends. You could even out the weight and feel of the cables that way and once blindfolded it would be much harder.
 
I am glad that you will not rule out placebo, but I would be interested to know how you can keep your belief going in cables when faced with all of the contrary evidence in the opening post of this thread. I could not and it was finding all of that evidence that made me switch sides in the debate.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Heidigger, the point of a test is so you don't know which cable you're listening to. Telling them apart by feel would mean that your expectations would come into the test. It's important that you only listen to the cables.

I encourage you to try a blinded test. You might be surprised at what you find.

 

[maverickronin]

I think he meant that even if you blindfolded him and put him in front of a rig with two HD650s with different cables it still wouldn't be properly blinded because when he switched from one to the other it would be pretty obvious that one has a thick and stiff boutique cable and one has the flexible and lightweight stock cable.
 
Because of that extra measures need to be taken to disguise the cables to "blind" the sense of touch.  Its not like with ICs where you can have a switchbox or something.  The person testing it has to put it on their own head and adjust it themselves.  The weight and texture of the cables would be be very obvious.
 
I'd bet that whichever cable felt heavier and stiffer would get better reviews.  To get around this you'd need to either sleeve them with the same material and somehow equalize the weight and stiffness or get two of each cable and sleeve and disguise all four but make the stock cable thicker in one A/B pair and the boutique cable thicker in another A/B pair.  That would effectively decouple a cables weight and texture from its electrical/sonic performance.
 
Of course I just came up with this on the fly so someone else probably has a better methodology somewhere.

 

[Trysaeder]

How to do a DBT: 
Get two cables
Get two headphones
Plug the cables into your headphones
Do the normal things to get music
Damage the part of your brain responsible for emotions
Listen to each headphone
 
Weeeee!!! Completely unbiased results from human listening. But still, people will find something wrong with this when it shows that the 1000% markup won.
 
 
In all seriousness, some people are more easily affected by expectations that others. This, along with a strong emotional part of the brain, can make people hear things. EVERYONE will be affected by expectations. Your expectation is the horse, your experience is the cart, not the other way around.
 
I have convinced several friends to upgrade from stock buds to MEE's selection of iems. Along with that, I have suggested that they use FLAC at home (they all have ipods). 100% of them said with great certainty that flac 'sounds so good', AFTER I explained what it was. When just given a flac file, not one person noticed a difference.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Speakers pass the most blind tests and are the most distinguishable part of the hifi chain. Codecs and different bit rates also do pretty well under blind testing. Enough to suggest that there is a worthwhile difference. Cables perform the worst out of all hifi products.

 

[jcx]

a problem with headphone swapping is that even sequential serial production headphones may not have basic driver sensitivity matching to 0.1 dB - which level difference CAN be heard in ABX DBT testing
 
also the uncertainty in placement position, differences in seal if you have hair likely would mean even "perfectly" matched headphones would differ by more than the DBT threshold for repeated (re)placements - requiring many trials to give statistical resolving power
 
 
the engineering approach is much simpler - a fundamental of the Scientific/Rationalist Physicalism/Materialism world view is that the "same" (within limits of measurement noise) signals at the headphone driver terminals then the headphone produces the "same" (again within noise, environmental, parameter drift of the transducers) sound
 
with a modified headphone you could measure the V at the driver terminals with different cables attached with a "prosumer" grade soundcard w good ADC, DAC and http://www.libinst.com/Audio%20DiffMaker.htm
 
you can then listen to the difference file itself - and even turn the gain up, add the amplified difference track to the "reference" recording and try ABX in foobar with whatever "high resolving" system you lilke - even post the files for others to ABX
 
for typical cable and headphone parameters there will be measurable differences with headphones that have large impedance bumps - like the HD600, but comparing with ABX thresholds they will be orders of magnitude less than established statisically significant audible frequency response variations:
 
http://home.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_crit.htm
 
 
of course you simply can't convince "true believers" that a 24/192K  ~US$130 ESI Juli@ card is by all engineering measures "more resolving"/accurate at audio than a $13K STOA turntable, hand crafted cartridge

 

[Cataphract]

Quote:

of course you simply can't convince "true believers" that a 24/192K  ~US$130 ESI Juli@ card is by all engineering measures "more resolving"/accurate at audio than a $13K STOA turntable, hand crafted cartridge

 
Or even a $30 ($20 after MIR) Asus Xonar DG these days.

 

[tlniec]

I hate to say "so why even bother," but this, to me, gets to the heart of the matter.  If tiny, mundane variations like positioning on your head, seal, how much wax happens to be in your ears that day, etc -- even with THE SAME headphone -- are capable of producing audibly different sound, then how much value exists in plumbing the depths of audibility with things like jitter, cables, etc.  Are the folks that must have the most expensive source, DAC, amp, cables, and headphone and feed it nothing but 24/192 files also meticulously placing their headphones on their crania EXACTLY the same way each time, after carefully dressing their hair a specific way (to avoid seal interference) and gently cleansing their ears of wax?  Maybe they are, in which case I'm off-base.  But if they aren't, then it seems like they're futile in focusing their energy on their equipment, assuming reproduction faithful to the source is their goal.
 
I guess if someone wants to say I'm using this as a rationalization for being OK with cheap gear and cables and CD-quality audio, and I must have tin ears, that's OK with me.

 
Quote:

a problem with headphone swapping is that even sequential serial production headphones may not have basic driver sensitivity matching to 0.1 dB - which level difference CAN be heard in ABX DBT testing
 
also the uncertainty in placement position, differences in seal if you have hair likely would mean even "perfectly" matched headphones would differ by more than the DBT threshold for repeated (re)placements - requiring many trials to give statistical resolving power
 
 
the engineering approach is much simpler - a fundamental of the Scientific/Rationalist Physicalism/Materialism world view is that the "same" (within limits of measurement noise) signals at the headphone driver terminals then the headphone produces the "same" (again within noise, environmental, parameter drift of the transducers) sound 

 

[curtain]

Well this argument could be applied to anything, as in photography when capturing and reproducing a waveform as light is, you would still technically capture a better photo on a day with bad light with a top end DSLR than a point and shoot. I may have sleep in my eyes or a hang over or my glasses may need adjustment but that doesn't preclude the ability of a system to deliver a technically superior result for consumption however altered that might be.

Also i think, and I'm not accusing anyone here of this, people spending inordinate amounts of time posturing one position over another should possibly spend more time consuming and enjoying their music otherwise you might ask yourself if you're just being political because you are a little bit elitist or a little bit cheap and when it comes down to it, just plain bored.

 

[dalethorn]

Lots of good commentary here, and some hand-waving dismissals.  Indeed, have we come to the point where complex electronic products all sound the same, even when tubes/valves are used?  I have heard that tests have been done asking subjects to listen to CD tracks and then 192k MP3's from those tracks, where the majority of subjects said the MP3's sounded better.  So much for testing.
 
When I tell people that I found a good CD ripper plugin in 2005 (CyberLink MP3), and I can rip most tracks at 128k and they're mostly indistinguishable from the CD, they gasp in horror.  OTOH I have no trouble spotting 1 db variations in most of the frequency spectrum with headphones, comparing to a Senn.800 for reference.  I suppose it depends on what you tune in to.
 
When a test is done, how do you tell the subjects what to listen for, if they aren't experienced in hi-fi listening?  If all you tell them is to listen for *any* difference, then how would they identify the "better" component?
 
In the Full Size headphones section of this forum, there is a tremendous push on headphone amps - seems like half or more of the million posts there.  So is that a bad thing, when I see (my opinion) that most of those amps aren't necessary or even an improvement in the sound?  Or is it just good business, since we're in the business of buying this stuff?