[ultrabike]

I have heard music through a variety of USB, speaker wire (14-16 AWG < 6 meters roughly) and RCA cables of varying lengths, brand, and prices. Did not hear a difference all else the same. That said, if there was poor contact I heard a difference: No signal. Same could be said about cables for video.
 
As far as headphones, I have tried a variety of them, and the differences in sound quality were relatively obvious.
 
The fact that I heard no difference across different cables and the fact that I see high prices on cables that made no audible difference to me (i.e. Monster at my bro's house) makes me a bit critical of them. Furthermore, I have a feel for how much capacity some cables have, and that makes me even more critical of them... compared to other components of a sound reproduction rig. 
 
I did hear thumping and cracking through some headphone cables when running or when tapping them though: microphonics. But that's about it as far as I can think...

 

[Sandman65]

Quote:

That's the rest of the forum.

 
 
That's a big 10-4!!!    

 

[Sandman65]

You can lead a horse to water...
But if its happy with the Koolaide then what's the point?
 
Roger WHO???  LMAO
 
wubba wubba
 
perpetual emotion
 
 
blah....

 

[ultrabike]

Quote:

You can lead a horse to water...
But if its happy with the Koolaide then what's the point?

 
Even if you lead the horse to water, marketing always finds a way:
https://www.blingh2o.com/store/index.php
http://www.aquamaestro.com/step1.asp

 

[Lorspeaker]

" I have heard music through a variety of USB, speaker wire (14-16 AWG < 6 meters roughly) and RCA cables of varying lengths, brand, and prices. Did not hear a difference all else the same. "
 
this wonderful statement has saved u countless wades of $$$$$$....lol
 
==============================
 
i am doomed, every cable i have has an effect on my mood.. cursed cursed cursed.

 

[ultrabike]

I like cable dude. Pretty cable makes me happy... until I see the price tag and all of the sudden I feel blue and stuff.

 

[OJNeg]

Quote:

 
Even if you lead the horse to water, marketing always finds a way:
https://www.blingh2o.com/store/index.php
http://www.aquamaestro.com/step1.asp

 
Off topic, but are people actually able to differentiate between different water bottle brands? Is there even a measurable difference to how they treat the water at all? Or is it another case of price-tag/brand name placebo?

 

[Clarkmc2]

The questions:

I was pointing out the methods that might be required to assess a phenomenon that is small in effect. I was correspondingly pointing out the folly of small/simple proposals to evaluate whether something was real or not. If we're discussing science here then let's discuss science.
We're going in circles here.
1) posters say that there is no difference
2) I counter that I believe that there is a difference but it is a small one
3) posters propose experiments to A/B cables
4) I point out the foundational science/statistics required to reliably assess small effects
5) posters counter that the methods are extreme and if a difference is small it doesn't matter
Where does a rational discussion go from here other than the bar?
Who's buyin?

OK, let's discuss science. Direct observation, verifiable and repeatable. The answer:

Why go through all that mess? Just show that they alter the signal in any meaningful way. If as you claim they make a small, but real difference then they must alter the signal in some small, real way.

Let's see it.

se

 

[striker]

I wasn't passing any judgement as to whether this type of study is justified for a luxury hobby such as this (it obviously is not, too your point). I was pointing out the methods that might be required to assess a phenomenon that is small in effect. I was correspondingly pointing out the folly of small/simple proposals to evaluate whether something was real or not. If we're discussing science here then let's discuss science.
We're going in circles here.
1) posters say that there is no difference
2) I counter that I believe that there is a difference but it is a small one
3) posters propose experiments to A/B cables
4) I point out the foundational science/statistics required to reliably assess small effects
5) posters counter that the methods are extreme and if a difference is small it doesn't matter
Where does a rational discussion go from here other than the bar?
Who's buyin?

 
I'm sorry, but I'm failing to understand why should your proposed study should be needed to assess small effects. What does that study try to accomplish?
-To eliminate perception differences resulting from placebo? Any double blind test (DBT) does that.
-To eliminate perception differences resulting from different moods? Any DBT does that.
-To eliminate perception differences resulting from fatigue? Any DBT does that.
You don't have to design a statistical study that accounts for 30 variables and assesses what influence each of them have on the perception of sound, when, alternatively, you can just concentrate another study on what you're really trying to find out (a simple cable DBT).

And why the Rhinitis analogy? Can you DBT rhinitis symptoms across weeks? Can you revert to last week's symptoms at the press of a button to find out if the patient is feeling better? No, you rely on memory of past perceptions.

 

[iim7V7IM7]

The questions:
OK, let's discuss science. Direct observation, verifiable and repeatable. The answer:

I can show you a number of medicines that reduce your LDL cholesterol or raise your HDL significantly, but present no evidence of reducing arterial blockage nor reducing the rate of heart attacks or hospitilizations. Which should one care about, the surrogate or the true endpoint? Electrical measurements, like cholesterol are repeatable and easy to take but are a surrogate set of measurements and are not what you are trying to disprove. You are trying to prove that difference that people claim to hear are nothing more than a placebo effect.

Circular Reasoning:

A use of reason in which the premise depends on or is equivalent to he conclusion, a method of false logic by which "this is used to proove that, and that is used to proof this"; also called circular logic.

 

[iim7V7IM7]

I'm sorry, but I'm failing to understand why should your proposed study should be needed to assess small effects.What does that study try to accomplish?

-To eliminate perception differences resulting from placebo? Any double blind test (DBT) does that.

-To eliminate perception differences resulting from different moods? Any DBT does that.

-To eliminate perception differences resulting from fatigue? Any DBT does that.

You don't have to design a statistical study that accounts for 30 variables and assesses what influence each of them have on the perception of sound, when, alternatively, you can just concentrate another study on what you're really trying to find out (a simple cable DBT).


And why the Rhinitis analogy? Can you DBT rhinitis symptoms across weeks? Can you revert to last week's symptoms at the press of a button to find out if the patient is feeling better? No, you rely on memory of past perceptions.

No, any double blind test will not eliminate what you describe with confidence unless it is well controlled and adequately powered to detect signal over noise. Rhinitis symptomology, like listeners perceptions are somewhat amorphous and require similar probatory test techniques. Yes, it is assessed over many weeks contemporaneously.

 

[striker]

No, any double blind test will not eliminate what you describe with confidence unless it is well controlled and adequately powered to detect signal over noise. Rhinitis symptomology, like listeners perceptions are somewhat amorphous and require similar probatory test techniques. Yes, it is assessed over many weeks contemporaneously.

 
Sorry, but it does eliminate.

There's no placebo because you don't know what you're listening to.
There are no fatigue differences, because you're listening to samples having the same level of ear fatigue.
There are no mood related differences, because you're listening to samples in the same mood.

And what exactly do you mean by "powered to detect signal over noise"?
Detect true differences over false differences?
That's easy: if they're real, they'll be more or less consistently identified; if false differences are detected, those detections won't be consistent and will be similar to mere chance.


About the Rhinitis:
Exactly. That's why additional studies are needed, you can't revert to last week's perceptions at the press of a button.

 

[Clarkmc2]

Electrical measurements, like cholesterol are repeatable and easy to take but are a surrogate set of measurements and are not what you are trying to disprove. You are trying to prove that difference that people claim to hear are nothing more than a placebo effect.

No. Not really. The first step is to determine if there is any actual difference to hear. If electrical measurements show that it is identical sounds that are being heard as different by the same individual in the same circumstances where the only variable is an expectation of difference, that IS placebo. That step will likely settle the majority of these instances. The remaining can be filtered for audibility however you wish, but again the dB difference will be sufficient to settle most of the remaining instances of a claimed audible difference. The few that remain, have at them with whatever methods you wish to verify or disprove the claim.

Or do you believe in unknown factors that could produce non identical sounds from a speaker or headphone when identical signals are being used to produce the sounds? Of course not, you are a man of science.

It seems to be your inability (up to now ) to recognize the identity - meaning equal-ness or equivalence - of the electrical signals and the sounds they produce that is causing you to think it a surrogate situation.

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

I can show you a number of medicines that reduce your LDL cholesterol or raise your HDL significantly, but present no evidence of reducing arterial blockage nor reducing the rate of heart attacks or hospitilizations. Which should one care about, the surrogate or the true endpoint? Electrical measurements, like cholesterol are repeatable and easy to take but are a surrogate set of measurements and are not what you are trying to disprove. You are trying to prove that difference that people claim to hear are nothing more than a placebo effect.

 
Woah, wait a second.
 
In medicine and many other fields, you're looking at unclear paths of cause and effect.  You have to be very careful about which factors are caused by each other, which are just correlated for other reasons, what some kind of confounding factors affecting multiple other things are, and so on.
 
 
Here, we have a situation where if one cable hypothetically delivers the same signal (same voltage and current at each time instance) as another, the acoustic response of the system will be indentical.  (Or do you suggest that there is another avenue of "information" being sent that would cause the sound produced to be different?)  In practice, you can measure this signal with one cable and another to verify how close the electrical signals are to being identical.  You can also measure the acoustic outputs, though with lesser accuracy and precision (still beats human hearing).  This is not some unknown black box.  We know pretty well the mechanism behind the operation of the system from an electrical point of view—and to a reasonably good degree for the psychoacoustic aspects as well.

 

[jvandyk]

Quote:

That was an article on speaker wire by one of the chief engineers at McIntosh. It explains why your double wiring idea works and suggests away to do it with a single wire. Feel free to doze though.
I got a short in my Sennheiser headphones. The replacement cable rom Sennheiser cost $8.

Yeah. I read that part. I like using bulk wire like the Audioquest grey stuff. I made a nice 10 ft pair of double run and terminated it with the good AQ bananas. I think total cost was maybe $70. Compared to the Transparent Musicwave+ bi-wire though, it's just no contest, despite the large effective gauge of the AQ. The $600 cable has cleaner, more powerful bass response, much smoother mid range and better clarity.
 
It is maybe the single best improvement I made to my system in the past 10 years.
 
PS- The replacement cable for my old Stax cans was expensive..can't remember exactly how much..I think about $100.