Recent content by andyjm

Cno, if I told you to go and measure something with a wonky ruler, that measured differently depending on its mood, time of day, suggestions it had received about likely length to be measured, you would rightly suggest I am mad. Yet you persist in 'let your ears be the judge' when all...

I will save everyone the effort of reading this, it has no validity. It starts off badly, then goes downhill from there. The second sentance talks about the coax cables used to carry power from the powerstation. Coax?

No one on this forum can hear 20kHz unless they learned to type before they were 5 years old. Although most here think they have golden ears, the truth is that in a modern environment they will be lucky to hear 15kHz in their 20s, and from there it is all downhill.

You mentioned you had a science background. Do a bit of googling on the impact mains cables have on the output of audio equipment (staying away from the reports written by those with commercial interest in the subject), and with your new found knowledge use the money you save by not buying new...

Its all about the resistance of the connection, not the number of connections - although the more steps in the chain you have, the more chance to have problems. Banana plugs are generally rubbish. Poor contact pressure and low contact area. If want to use a termination, spade terminals...

It never hurts to be cautious so a hearing test is a good idea, but she is in her mid 60s, so I am afraid her hearing will have significantly deteriorated due to age. There are a number of youtube videos of an audio enthusiasts group (I think associated with PS audio) where the average age of...

Insider, I am afraid that Nordost piece was written by someone in marketing. How about something written by someone who actually knows what he is talking about: http://www.libinst.com/AES%20Audio%20Differencing%20Paper.pdf

Have a look at the link. The article isn't great, but the second graph tells the whole story. http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/staff/alexh/teaching/auditoryTute_2014/ At age 60, you mum will be over 40dB down on the hearing she would have had as a 20 year old. The third graph is interesting for...

Ahh. I wasn't clear again. You are quite correct about the speakers, it is the complex low impedance load that they present that complicates the whole thing. You need them to stay in the circuit while you are testing. When I suggested monitoring the voltage at the speaker terminals rather...

Insider, Have you tried 'audiodiffmaker'? Free download - just google it. The argument has always been a frequency sweep doesn't capture the totality of the music, and that systems that sweep the same sound different. Audiodiffmaker just looks for differences, irrespective of the cause. No...

- to be clear smoothing is different to averaging. Vlad's comments about the issues in mechanical systems can be overcome by running multiple sweeps of the same set up then averaging the results. Running an averaging window through a single sweep is very different.

Insider, I applaud you for your work here, but my earlier comment about not measuring what you think are measuring still stands. I dont deny the graphs, but simple changes to inductance, capacitance and resistance (the only changes possible in a cable) won't produce the types of differences...

Ok, just so I have got this right, you ran 20 sweeps for each cable, and performed an arithmetic average of the 20 sweeps to come up with the 'average sweep'. You then compared the 'average sweep' of each cable with each of the other cables, producing a difference graph. If so, I stand by my...

Well, you should do. I misunderstood the 'smoothing' heading on the graph. As Vald the wise points out, speakers and mics are mechanical systems. You need to average over multiple runs. A single sweep is subject to all sorts of variables and pretty meaningless for difference calcs - that would...

I think you misunderstood my post. I can't find it now, but didn't Insider post that he was averaging 250 runs for each cable? If the individucal cable runs are relatively flat, the difference plots shouldn't have +1 -1 dB spikes along tham separated by a few hundred Hz.