Why pick on cables ?

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

I guess that's the difference between art and artistic.

 
I see it as a difference between fine (or pure) art and applied art. The former is an artistic expression purely for its own sake. The latter is an artistic expression embodied in something functional and useful. Both are "art." They simply serve different ends is all.
 
se

 

[bigshot]

Expression of what? Emotion? Humanity? Those are the things fine art expresses.

 

[iim7V7IM7]

While I agree that their is more than there fair share of technological hype in the world 
"audiophilia nervosa". Particularly in the world of aftermarket cabling.  I feel that we get too impassioned  here on Headfi in our positions of it is "total BS" vs. "it makes an enormous difference. The truth is most cases lies between.  

My recent listening experience with two different replacement cables (for my AKGs and some HD800s that I was auditioning) left me with the listening impression that there was an audible difference. I trust my ears. I however, do not believe the promoted science that is purported to underpin the products just the empirical results. Transducers are 1st order and amplifiers are 2nd order in contribution. I would classify the benefits as 3rd order in their effect. I don't expect miracles but subtle changes to the sonic signature.

I find the marketing claims to be more offensive than the products themselves or their pricing. I also find the dogmatic alpha and omega ends of this longstanding argument somewhat tiresome. I am a scientist by day. When I am home, I both play and listen to music. We should always remember its about the music and not the gear that brings it to us.

My $.02

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Expression of what? Emotion? Humanity? Those are the things fine art expresses.

 
Beauty.
 
se

 

[bigshot]

 

[dvw]

Quote:

I find the marketing claims to be more offensive than the products themselves or their pricing. I also find the dogmatic alpha and omega ends of this longstanding argument somewhat tiresome. I am a scientist by day. When I am home, I both play and listen to music. We should always remember its about the music and not the gear that brings it to us.
My $.02

I have no problem with the pricing even though they are outrageously high. For no particular reason other than looks, my sister bought a $20 thingie to hold her badge and I just used free one from the conventions I go to. But those things are sold based on their look. If the cable guys are selling diamond encrusted cable for $10K and market them by the way it looks. It's perfectly okay to me. But they are not. Things  like the 101 power cables shootout, and recommendation of expensive cable to newbie are just plain misleading. Here's the difference between tube guys and cable guys. The tube guys are not selling the tube rolling idea. People rolled tubes on their own. But cable guys are selling their cable for their performance.
 
I was at the CES show and asked one of the guys at a cable booth that are selling expensive power cable. My question is if the 6 feet of power cable makes a different, can I buy the cable in bulk and wire my whole house. The answer is the cable is NOT recommended for in wall installation because they are NOT UL approved. The company for this reason will not take responsibility if there is a fire or any hazzard caused by the cable. I buy all my cables at monoprice, cheaper and probably safer.

 

[bigshot]

Not a good idea to use any power cord that isn't UL approved. If your house burns down, it might invalidate your insurance claim.

 

[dvw]

I think most boutique power cord (or the ones I looked at) are not UL approved. 

 

[BlackbeardBen]

UL approval is not only very expensive to acquire, it is also very expensive to maintain.  My company is researching UL approval for our various pumps and it's not an easy thing to do.
 
Compliance to various regulations in general is difficult and expensive.  For the smallest companies it is more or less impossible as the cost of approval (product testing and destruction done by UL inspectors among other things) for a given product does not scale down very much.
 
I would be surprised if there were many UL approved boutique power cords other than the Monster ones.

 

[iim7V7IM7]

I have no problem with the pricing even though they are outrageously high. For no particular reason other than looks, my sister bought a $20 thingie to hold her badge and I just used free one from the conventions I go to. But those things are sold based on their look. If the cable guys are selling diamond encrusted cable for $10K and market them by the way it looks. It's perfectly okay to me. But they are not. Things  like the 101 power cables shootout, and recommendation of expensive cable to newbie are just plain misleading. Here's the difference between tube guys and cable guys. The tube guys are not selling the tube rolling idea. People rolled tubes on their own. But cable guys are selling their cable for their performance.

I was at the CES show and asked one of the guys at a cable booth that are selling expensive power cable. My question is if the 6 feet of power cable makes a different, can I buy the cable in bulk and wire my whole house. The answer is the cable is NOT recommended for in wall installation because they are NOT UL approved. The company for this reason will not take responsibility if there is a fire or any hazzard caused by the cable. I buy all my cables at monoprice, cheaper and probably safer.

Indeed there is a whole bunch of charleton marketing that goes on in a number of boutique industries, cables included. this bothers me as well.

My thought is that those who are relying on small A/B studies that demonstrate a ~ 50/50 chance of selecting one cable from another as evidence that there is no difference are not much different than the snake oil salesmen. Both may (key word here) have good intentions, but neither is based on sound science.

- the difference is small between stock and after market HF cables (3rd order)
- the endpoint in humans (listening impressions) is highly variable
- you will need a well controlled, statstically powered study to fail to reject the hypothesis
- this will likely an unimplementable study for practical reasons

Typically, with noisy endpoints in Phase II proof of concept clinical studies for drugs with small effects, we may need >200 patients per arm in order to have >80% power to show an effect with statistical confidence. Even in studies such as these you never prove that one is better. You fail to reject that they are different.

 

[Argo Duck]

^ I couldn't agree more. I thought at one point of designing one or two studies to examine some aspects of questions debated in these 'sound' science forums. One good experiment is worth many tens of thousands of words of argument. Unfortunately, the practical difficulties are too great. They are often too hard even in a well-resourced setting and with a reasonable effect size to count on, let alone one where such as we have here where equipment is not standardized, training (of listeners/testers) is not standardized, baselines are difficult to achieve etc.
 
I think the "audiophile" phenomenon may touch on some tantalizing science in places, but it's neither an easy nor a priority area of research.

 

[Chris J]

Quote:

I have no problem with the pricing even though they are outrageously high. For no particular reason other than looks, my sister bought a $20 thingie to hold her badge and I just used free one from the conventions I go to. But those things are sold based on their look. If the cable guys are selling diamond encrusted cable for $10K and market them by the way it looks. It's perfectly okay to me. But they are not. Things  like the 101 power cables shootout, and recommendation of expensive cable to newbie are just plain misleading. Here's the difference between tube guys and cable guys. The tube guys are not selling the tube rolling idea. People rolled tubes on their own. But cable guys are selling their cable for their performance.

 
Actually there are many tube vendors and even a small number of tube manufacturers who sell tubes based on "These Tubes Sound Better/Best!" marketing strategy.

 

[Clarkmc2]

^ I couldn't agree more. I thought at one point of designing one or two studies to examine some aspects of questions debated in these 'sound' science forums. One good experiment is worth many tens of thousands of words of argument. Unfortunately, the practical difficulties are too great. They are often too hard even in a well-resourced setting and with a reasonable effect size to count on, let alone one where such as we have here where equipment is not standardized, training (of listeners/testers) is not standardized, baselines are difficult to achieve etc.

I think the "audiophile" phenomenon may touch on some tantalizing science in places, but it's neither an easy nor a priority area of research.

This is another reason why I advocate electrical measurements over statistical methods. What is in question is not just whether someone can hear a difference or not. It doesn't ever need to go there if there is no difference to hear. These discusions have produced one comment after another suggesting (or demanding) listening tests to determine the veracity of every "I know what I heard" claim. These claims do need to be deemed audible or not - something which can often to usually be pre determined by measurements as well, as this is about what audio gear is doing, not about individual psychoacoustics - but that determination is unnecessary and pointless if there is no difference to hear.

I am not a meter man by any means, but most DB tests based on claims of the audibility of subtlties would be a tremendous waste of resources if there is no difference to hear or not hear. Determine that first. That is what measurements are for. Verify the existence of a phenomenon, THEN study its characteristics.

 

[iim7V7IM7]

This is another reason why I advocate electrical measurements over statistical methods. What is in question is not just whether someone can hear a difference or not. It doesn't ever need to go there if there is no difference to hear. These discusions have produced one comment after another suggesting (or demanding) listening tests to determine the veracity of every "I know what I heard" claim. These claims do need to be deemed audible or not - something which can often to usually be pre determined by measurements as well, as this is about what audio gear is doing, not about individual psychoacoustics - but that determination is unnecessary and pointless if there is no difference to hear.
I am not a meter man by any means, but most DB tests based on claims of the audibility of subtlties would be a tremendous waste of resources if there is no difference to hear or not hear. Determine that first. That is what measurements are for. Verify the existence of a phenomenon, THEN study its characteristics.

Electrical measurements are great in that they have excellent repeatability and reproducibility. They however, are a surrogate for human listening and perceptions. A surrogate where no in-silico to in-vivo correlation to listening to my knowledge has been reliablely established. Try getting a statin today approved with simply cholesterol measurements. You need to demonstrate efficacy and safety with hard endpoints (reduction in heart attacks etc.).

 

[jcx]

its been pointed out that the 1st post had some basic rhetoric errors - a false equality of comparisons between links in the audio reproduction chain re "audibility"
 
headphone all vary by more than DBT/ABX thresholds - we know they "sound different" - measurement of output sound frequency response alone is sufficient to establish that differences are audible
 
wire/cable electrical interconnect electrical characteristics can be calculated, measured - for most situations in headphone audio reproduction their interaction with normal equipment does not give changes in frequency response that would be expected to be audible  - often by margins of 100x
 
some don't seem to get the basic idea - you have to have numbers, sensitivities, knowledge of thresholds - just because every physical assembly has (possibly microscopic) different properties and some differences in some properties can lead to changes big enough to be heard doesn't mean any difference whatsoever can be heard
 
 
tubes made at the same factory can differ in critical electrical characteristics by >10% - vendors measure, charge extra for matching tube's gm to even 10%, even dual triode tubes - both sections in the same envelope can have Vt difference up to 2 V
 
in many common tube circuits, "normal" new production parameters range for the same model tube, and service life drift, wearout differences can have effects on amplifier response that are clearly above DBT/ABX audibility thresholds