Things that can't be measured

Jul 7, 2021 at 1:20 PM Post #31 of 77
Science can't tell you everything buddy! We don't know everything about audio and how it works - its all just magic to a degree - at the end of the day, trust your ears! I've experienced significant gains in my chain by upgrading cables to full nordost and audioquest (I make sure to keep the nordost cables on the analog signals and audioquest on the strictly digital signals to avoid any infetterence). I've also made sure to burn all my gear in - how can science explain that? Hah, thats what I thought. Look guys, we just don't understand everything yet. What happened before the big bang? We just don't know! Same with audio. Just trust your ears!

:dt880smile::floatsmile::):):)
The same ones that can be fooled by auditory masking, the same ones that start losing their ability to hear frequencies with age, the same ones that do not produce equal amplitude response for every frequency (Fletcher-Munson), the same ones that are horrible at detecting nonlinearities, the same ones that vary per subject….
 
Jul 7, 2021 at 3:42 PM Post #32 of 77
How the hell do magnets work?
 
Jul 8, 2021 at 2:18 AM Post #33 of 77
I just learned that a large group of people believe cables transfer more than electrical signals (excl. optical cables) and these cause the transducers in headphones to act differently. I've heard the same for interconnections. These changes apparently can easily be heard, but cannot be seen in the frequency response of either the headphone or DAC output. Can somebody point me to the science behind that and how we would go about measuring these effects?
Man people here like using big words. Ignore most of this. All you need to know is that the audio cable can introduce resistance, capacitance, and inductance. When you are a rich boy, and the only thing you can change is your audio cable, then it actually matters. But for this to matter, your DAC/AMP has to have so low of an impedance that the line impedance to your cans and from your source matter. Chances are if you are asking it doesnt matter. But now that doesnt mean any cable is ok. Cheap cables can mess up your setup. Just dont buy sheap china stuff, and over $20 bucks is getting too high. Pretty much the only place it matters is IEM, and my recommendation is use google
 
Jul 8, 2021 at 2:21 AM Post #34 of 77
I'm afraid people who believe cables transfer more than electrical signals aren't very scientific to begin with.
If anything audio cables transfer placebo particles invented by snakeoil sellers. :k701smile:
Also, expensive audio cable are known to transfer a lot of money from buyer's wallet to the bank accounts of snakeoil sellers.

The real frequency response is the Fourier transformation of the system's impulse response. It is complex-valued. It has amplitude and phase. Plotted frequency responses are almost always only the amplitude while the phase is omitted. This loses a lot of properties of the system. So, there are lots of stuff that we can't see in an "amplitude only" absolute value frequency response plot, but that doesn't mean we can't measure those. Impulse responses are theoretically full descriptors of a linear system. Complex-valued Fourier transformations simply take impulse responses from time-space to frequency-space (it is kind of like watching an object say a car from 90° different angle: You see different things, but it is the same damn car!) so no information about the system is lost.

There are four known forces of nature:

The strong force (keeps atom nuclei together)
The weak force (causes radiation)
Electromagnetism (electricity, magnets, light...)
Gravitation (makes apples fall into your head when you sit under an apple tree)

Recently scientists have gotten results while studying muon particles (similar to electrons in other ways but about 200 times more massive) that indicate there might be a fifth force we don't know about because muons don't obey completely so called standard model which otherwise has made astonishly accurate predictions. However, I doubt it people scientifically illiterate enough to buying into the nonsense told by snakeoil sellers would know more about this possible fifth force of nature than top scientists in the World...
You're wrong. If you have a $50,000 sytem the cables matter. Get schooled
 
Jul 8, 2021 at 2:25 AM Post #35 of 77
I've worked in top recording studios in Hollywood that use standard monoprice cable to wire their mixing boards. The only time a studio will use high priced cables is if it's free and comes with money for repping the brand.
 
Jul 8, 2021 at 2:30 AM Post #36 of 77
I've worked in top recording studios in Hollywood that use standard monoprice cable to wire their mixing boards. The only time a studio will use high priced cables is if it's free and comes with money for repping the brand.
Like during the actual mixing of the scene? Nothing against monoprice, they make good stuff. I would just think it would be a sony cable since they have a huge market share
 
Jul 8, 2021 at 2:33 AM Post #37 of 77
Monoprice sells quality cables in bulk to recording studios. I asked the Chief Engineer of the studio I was doing a lot of work with what kind of equipment and cables he used and he gave me a tour, telling me how he designed the room, put the system together and calibrated it. When he got to cables, he opened a closet door and showed me a huge spool of wire with a monoprice label on it. He said that is where they got all their cabling. It was reasonably priced in bulk and conducted signal the same as any other cable intended for that use.
 
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Jul 8, 2021 at 2:37 AM Post #38 of 77
Monoprice sells quality cables in bulk to recording studios. I asked the Chief Engineer of the studio I was doing a lot of work with what kind of equipment and cables he used and he gave me a tour, telling me how he put the system together and calibrated it. When he got to cables, he opened a closet door and showed me a huge spool of wire with a monoprice label on it. He said that is where they got all their cabling. It was reasonably priced in bulk and conducted signal the same as any other cable intended for that use.
Agreed they do. I buy a lot of monoprice. I just expected that you would be locked in to buying over priced BS from the company that "sponsored" you if you catch my drift. Now I dont know who buys those over-priced cabled besides fish oil audio-idiots
 
Jul 8, 2021 at 2:40 AM Post #39 of 77
Like I said, the only reason a studio uses high end woo woo cables is if they 1) get them for free and they perform to spec and 2) the studio gets a fee for endorsing them. Most studios aren't interested in doing that kind of business and just buy cables by the foot in bulk.
 
Jul 8, 2021 at 5:36 AM Post #40 of 77
You're wrong. If you have a $50,000 sytem the cables matter. Get schooled
I think I'd rather need to get rich! I don't have a $50,000 system. Very few people have so for almost all people cables do not matter even if you were right.

Of course there's situations when the cable isn't up to the task, but it is not lack of snakeoil. Cheapo bulk cable will do if selected for the task properly. Spending money on cables instead of things that matter significantly more is silly. Some morons use their $50,000 system in a room without acoustical treatment thinking the sound must be good because the cables cost $20,000.
:smirk:
 
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Jul 8, 2021 at 5:43 AM Post #41 of 77
I’ve seen very little correlation between price and quality.
 
Jul 8, 2021 at 5:47 AM Post #42 of 77
Quality doesn't vary much. Price does.
 
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Jul 8, 2021 at 5:40 PM Post #44 of 77
It's perfectly possible to replicate a recording 1:1. Whenever I finish a mix, I have the sound mixer line up the 16/44.1 bounce down with the mix in the board, and we compare the two. If we hear a difference, something is wrong. Hasn't happened yet.

If you mean a live performance, then I would have to point out that the goal of commercially recorded music isn't to exactly reproduce the sound of the performance. It is to create an optimized mix where elements are combined and balanced and processed in a way that it sounds *better* than the bald performance itself. Another limitation is the number of speakers. You can't reproduce a whole room of direct sound, directional sound and reflected sound with just two stereo channels... not yet at least. To accomplish that, there has to be new customized signal processing technology. People are working on that, but it isn't ready for prime time yet. And when it does arrive, it will likely be used for synthesized immersive sound environments that are optimized and balanced and processed to sound better than natural.
 
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Jul 8, 2021 at 5:51 PM Post #45 of 77
My wife’s ability to use common sense, her compassion to others and my stubbornness.
 

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