[The Monkey]

To be fair, I believe the Sound Science forum was created so that there could a space dedicated to the discussion of such things as DBT.  As I recall, prior to the Sound Science forum, there was no place to discuss DBT on HF because of the outright ban.  But, yes, discussion of DBT and the like is not generally embraced here. 
 
Regardless, we, the head-fi community as a whole, are to blame for the deluge of claims about unicorns and pixie dust that transform mediocre systems into transcendent rigs.  A potent mixture of insecurity, laziness, and ignorance seems to have created a fair amount of group think about cables and many other things headphone-related.  Check out the review section, every single piece of gear gets 5 stars.  Why is that?  There's plenty of gear out there that sucks.  But we have allowed this to happen.  For every person who just wants to chat about some gear--both positive and negative--it now seems there are 3-5 who want to shove an 18 AWG interconnect down their throat.  Head-Fi is not controlled by some secret group who decides what is and what is not discussed.  We, for the most part, determine what gets discussed here.  And DBT-ban or not, it seems clear that the majority of members want to engage in claims about things that can never be refuted and to approach headphone stuff with no more than the most superficial amount of thought or introspection.
 
So until such time as sufficient numbers of head-fiers have had enough of such talk, this is the way it will be.

 

[dexter3d]

Quote:

To be fair, I believe the Sound Science forum was created so that there could a space dedicated to the discussion of such things as DBT. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd7lanc60rU

 

[Ypoknons]

Ah well. You do what you can when you can. The first priority is keep the critical thinking alive.  

 

[khaos974]

I'm not aware of any measured difference between interconnects, but an engineering measured differences above the audible level for speaker cables, mind you the cables were quite long.
The experience was reported on Head-Fi, I think, you'll have to look for the thread
 
Quote:

 
At least for me when I see statements like the above, or an interconnection cable making huge sonic differences, it helps me put into perspective what kind of differences the reviewer is talking about, as in very small differences exaggerated (which happens a lot around here). After all, even supposing there is a difference  (that has yet to be measured), it probably is little, so when a person says that difference is night and day, at least exaggeration seems to be present.

 
On the subject of DBT prohibition, if you look at the sponsors, ie the companies who have advertisement space, a number of them are cable manufacturers, not to mention that even in sound science, DBT threads have a tendency to degenerate, I expect it would be worse in other subforums.
 
I also try to look up the post history and the equipment thread of reviewers before taking into account their impressions, if they happen to own a number of expensive cable, I'd take their review with a lot of bags of salt.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Part of the reason DBT got shoved aside was because believers usually found themselves over a barrel when arguments turned up.  They couldn't extract themselves from their claims and several threads turned up in the Members Lounge whining (in not such direct terms) that they were losing arguments.
 
After a few of these threads, we got our own sandbox to play in here.
 
And besides, you don't need DBT to show up the latter-day alchemists.  Once I get a few things squared away, I've got a test that should put an end to this nonsense.  Believers claim that they can't tell the difference in an ABX test and that they need to listen for awhile to get an impression and write a review.
 
Fine.
 
I'll make up several cables of different things.  Some will be the things that believers claim to be "good," like pure silver, special cryo copper, etc.  Other ones will be something else entirely.  I'm thinking about soldering together paper clips with some twist-ties from the market and possibly dropping a resistor in there.  I'm also going to get some seawater down at the beach and brine a cable for a couple of months.  I've got other ideas, too.
 
The believers will be asked to rate each cable from 1 to 10, give impressions of mids, bass, highs, write general comments, and so on.  Won't it be something if the golden ears find that a string of rusty paperclips sounds better than pure silver?

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Go for it Uncle Erik. You could maybe throw a coathanger in there for good measure and then two identical cables, so we can wonder at how they sound different from each other.

 

[dexter3d]

Quote:

The believers will be asked to rate each cable from 1 to 10, give impressions of mids, bass, highs, write general comments, and so on.  Won't it be something if the golden ears find that a string of rusty paperclips sounds better than pure silver?

 
Hmm, that's a terrific idea, but what makes you think that any cable believer will sign up for this debunking experiment? As you see, they are offended when somebody even MENTIONS blind testing (and your proposed test is still blind, as they are not going to know which of the cables is expensive, right?)
 

 

[Currawong]

dexter3d: If you take away the subject from your original post, what you're asking is, in effect, "Why is my belief system banned from discussion in the main forums?".  The answer is, the same reason discussion of religion and politics are.
 
Before you, or anyone else gets offended at my labelling it a "belief system", let me assure you that I have seen exactly the same kinds of posts, behaviour and attitude regarding dozens of subjects on many other forums.  If Sound Science is marginalised, then it's because the behaviour and attitudes of people with fanatical beliefs put the vast majority off wanting to discuss science at all.

 

[dexter3d]

Quote:

dexter3d: If you take away the subject from your original post, what you're asking is, in effect, "Why is my belief system banned from discussion in the main forums?".  The answer is, the same reason discussion of religion and politics are.
 
 

 
Oh, come on Sound reproduction has nothing to do with religion and politics. You either hear the difference, or you don't. The _only way_ to test this (in case you want your experience to serve as a recommendation to someone else) is by a blind test (if we speak of listening). This is not a BELIEF, there is simply no other way. Any other approach would be extremely flawed, completely disregarding numerous scientific FACTS about human perception. There is nothing fanatical about constructing a proper test. What is fanatical is sticking your head into the sand and saying 'blah blah blah' - this I cannot understand.
 

 

[The Monkey]

Quote:

 If Sound Science is marginalised, then it's because the behaviour and attitudes of people with fanatical beliefs put the vast majority off wanting to discuss science at all.

 
You mean, of course, that there are fanatics on both sides of the debate, correct?

 

[The Monkey]

 
I would also add that one of the mistakes I see the science/DBT proponents often make is the discounting of the experience of cable believers.  There are lots of experienced members here who believe strongly that cables make a big difference.  I don't agree with that, but I also have not heard as much gear or had as much time in this hobby as a lot of members, so mine is just another opinion.  That's why I favor any type of data that would tend to confirm one way or the other.  In other words, I don't favor testing to disprove "believers."  I just would like some answers.  I would think we'd all want that.   

 

[Jack C]

I've seen both sides of the argument misuse DBT in their arguments, not just for headphones but just about every other audio application. Except maybe for car audio, those guys are a bit more laid back and not as up-tight, at least not the bunch I conversed with. DBT is a lightning rod and it is often easier to move the lightning rod, than attempting to deal with all of the lightning that it collects. 
 
Jack

 

[dexter3d]

Quote:

 
There are lots of experienced members here who believe strongly that cables make a big difference. 

There are SCIENTISTS (people with nature science PhDs doing research work), who believe that the earth is 6000 years old. Experience and authority does not prevent from believing all sorts of BS.

 

[Jack C]

Quote:

dexter3d: If you take away the subject from your original post, what you're asking is, in effect, "Why is my belief system banned from discussion in the main forums?".  The answer is, the same reason discussion of religion and politics are.
 
Before you, or anyone else gets offended at my labelling it a "belief system", let me assure you that I have seen exactly the same kinds of posts, behaviour and attitude regarding dozens of subjects on many other forums.  If Sound Science is marginalised, then it's because the behaviour and attitudes of people with fanatical beliefs put the vast majority off wanting to discuss science at all.

 
While both sides sometimes incorrectly apply science and DBTs in their arguments, DBT is by definition a tool for observation and not a belief system. I don't think people would be offended, but exasperated, by your characterization of DBT and Sound Science as a belief system. And seeing a bit of irony too. 
 
The reason DBT/Science is marginalized is between DBT and subjective impressions, you can enjoy music without one but not without the other, respectively. As mentioned in previous posts in this thread, there is really not much to argue around subjective impressions since everyone has a different take.  I mean, if you say "I like this blue, but it's just a tad dark, I wish it to be a bit lighter, and maybe with a hint of green, then it would be perfect", there is really nothing to argue about.
 
Jack
 

 

[Prog Rock Man]

Quote:

dexter3d: If you take away the subject from your original post, what you're asking is, in effect, "Why is my belief system banned from discussion in the main forums?".  The answer is, the same reason discussion of religion and politics are.
 
Before you, or anyone else gets offended at my labelling it a "belief system", let me assure you that I have seen exactly the same kinds of posts, behaviour and attitude regarding dozens of subjects on many other forums.  If Sound Science is marginalised, then it's because the behaviour and attitudes of people with fanatical beliefs put the vast majority off wanting to discuss science at all.

Sorry, that does not work for me for various reasons. You accept calling science a belief system can be seen as offensive, so you can accept that I think it is wrong to do so. Religion and politics have not bearing on hifi and cables, so it is not unreasonable to ban such. Finally this is a forum and as such I and others are perfectly capable of having a reasoned debate whilst ignoring flaming trolls from both sides out to mix things up.