Audiophile Audiophoolery - one for the cable sceptics

idc

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Yawn, some bloke slagging off the cable market. There is no evidence presented to back up any of his claims. Which is one of the things he is so critical of with the cable sellers, the hypocrit.
 

chebby

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idc:Yawn, some bloke slagging off the cable market. There is no evidence presented to back up any of his claims. Which is one of the things he is so critical of with the cable sellers, the hypocrit.

Ok i'll guess 5 pages before thread lock-down.
 
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Anonymous

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guy is soooooooo annoying. bet the has an aiwa stereo in his living room
 

Frank Harvey

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"Hello and welcome to 'That's Amazing', with me, Carl Hooper......."

I like his little photocopied piece of paper that looks like he took off a school kid that was supposedly by Panasonic - I sense a lawsuit approaching.....
emotion-14.gif


He seems to like talking about knobs - quite apt really.
 
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Anonymous

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reggaedave:guy is soooooooo annoying. bet the has an aiwa stereo in his living room
Show us your Aiwa's !

4167224391_c58324aed8_m.jpg
 

jaxwired

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Well, it's not like the high end industry hasn't giving this guy plenty of ammunition. The problem is that there's plenty of truth to what he's saying. But many people do believe that cables sound different. The question is, is "different" better or just different. I personally would never buy $1000 cables. I'm a strong believer in cables, but of all the audio products, I'd say cables are the least likely to have quality and cost correspond in a nice linear fashion. Cables do sound different to me, but I feel that the important thing is finding cables that complement your equipment. This is just as likely to be achieved with an inexpensive cable as a high cost cable.

These debunkers think all cables sound the same, all amps sound the same, all CDPs sound the same. Pretty much only speakers matter. Any fool can hear this is incorrect.
 
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Anonymous

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jaxwired:These debunkers think all cables sound the same, all amps sound the same, all CDPs sound the same. Pretty much only speakers matter. Any fool can hear this is incorrect.

No-one claims that all amps or CDPs sound the same. Devices like that are built to sound different, and have components that makes differences possible. What's debated, is whether the differences is good or bad. The sound preferred by many audiophiles is the sound of harmonic distortion.

Cables don't have components that process the sound. Bad cables and connections might degrade the sound -- but no cable can improve the sound. Very simple actually.

But of course speakers, and their surroundings, is what matters most.They virtually 'make' the sound; besides they're the components with the largest potential for altering frequenzy respons and adding distortion. And sending the sound into a room, they interact with that room's acoustics.

It's not so much about what fools are able to hear, as it's about what fools don't know about hearing. If you know only a little about acoustics, you'll know that shifting your position in the chair or even turn your head a little will affect the sound that reaches your ears more than any change in hi-fi components. If you know anything about human perception, you'll know that anything more than a few seconds pause between samples means that you're not comparing actual sound, but your memories of sound.
 
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Anonymous

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although if you use a poor cable with bad connections and swap it for a good one sound quality will improve simply because theres less degradation
 
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Anonymous

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Follow the Link , the article discusess in details the science behind wires.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

below a small excerpt for your review and consideration :

"I credit the success of the speaker wire industry to their expert sales and marketing ability. However, it is my experience that ordinary copper wire, as long as it's heavy enough, is just as good as name brands.

Looking at this from a different perspective, there will always be those who will want expensive wire, not because there is an audible difference, but because they may value pride of ownership and prestige in a similar way to that of owning a Tiffany lamp or a Rolex watch."
 

Frank Harvey

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Fahnsen:No-one claims that all amps or CDPs sound the same.I've had many arguments with individuals that push the belief that amplifiers, and CD players, sound exactly the same, and that there's no way they can sound different.

But of course speakers, and their surroundings, is what matters most.Agreed, but the amplifier also plays a large part in how that speaker will sound too.
 

jaxwired

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Fahnsen: No-one claims that all amps or CDPs sound the same.

As John has already stated, debunkers have in fact claimed this. In fact, this claim is not uncommon at all.

Fahnsen: The sound preferred by many audiophiles is the sound of harmonic distortion.

In my opinion, this is a naive over simplification.

Fahnsen: Cables don't have components that process the sound. Bad cables and connections might degrade the sound -- but no cable can improve the sound. Very simple actually.

Agreed. However, cables do noticably sound different. Since this is true, it makes perfect sense to buy and try different cables.

Fahnsen: But of course speakers, and their surroundings, is what matters most.They virtually 'make' the sound; besides they're the components with the largest potential for altering frequenzy respons and adding distortion. And sending the sound into a room, they interact with that room's acoustics.

I agree that speakers have the most profound impact on the sound you hear from hifi, but what's your point? No speaker is perfect. Are you suggesting all effort and money be spent on speakers to the total exclusion of the electronics? Once you pick a speaker, again, it makes perfect sense to attempt to improve the electronics as well. Or do you feel you should just buy $100 CDP, a $100 amp, and keep upgrading speakers, pouring all money into speaker upgrades and never touching the electronics, since the speakers are so important? I'd have to disagree. Common sense and experience tells me this would not result in an optimal use of funds versus sound quality.

Fahnsen: It's not so much about what fools are able to hear, as it's about what fools don't know about hearing. If you know only a little about acoustics, you'll know that shifting your position in the chair or even turn your head a little will affect the sound that reaches your ears more than any change in hi-fi components.

Again, you have no point. So we are fools to spend money on the equipment at all? We should instead spend our time perfecting how we hold our head in relation to the speakers? This is just ridiculous. Again, common sense and experience tells me that the brain and hearing are far more complex than your over simplification implies. I really don't think that man in general fully understands how music is processed by the brain and everything that is occurring. I can tell you for a fact that I've found far more musical satisfaction from equipment upgrades, then from tilting my head.

Fahnsen: If you know anything about human perception, you'll know that anything more than a few seconds pause between samples means that you're not comparing actual sound, but your memories of sound.

This is probably true, but again, science does not fully understand how the brain processes music. To be smugly confident that we do understand this is just naive. I've done some reading on this subject myself and I feel confident that, we continue to merely scratch the surface of understanding the human brain.
 

jaxwired

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FrankHarveyHiFi:Fahnsen:]But of course speakers, and their surroundings, is what matters most.Agreed, but the amplifier also plays a large part in how that speaker will sound too.

I don't even think you can make the comparison. It's a classic apples and oranges comparison. How speakers and room acoustics impacts sound (or your heads tilt for that matter), is completely different than what different amps do to the sound. They change the sound in fundamentally different ways that are not even comparable. You need to try and optimize both to get optimal sound. While it's true that speaker changes are the most noticable, that does not mean that changes that amps make to the sound is not highly important for musical satisfaction.
 
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Anonymous

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There can be little doubt that cables can be engineered to change the sound you hear coming out of the speakers. Note I said change not improve. Improvement is subjective - it's in the ear of the listener or eye of the viewer. It's probably easier to make noticeable change engineering the speaker wires than it is using interconnects. Repacing cheap no-name cables with branded ones is usually not a bad idea.

Beyond that it's up to each person to buy the cable they like the best for their system. I do agree with 2 points the bloke in the YouTube clip makes. The first is the fact that if you buy very expensive cable you don't want to feel you've wasted your money so you ae more likely to "hear" an improvement. The second is the power cord statement. I agree with this in as much as I can't see how a metre of power cord is going to make any difference when you consider the 10's of miles of transmission line and transformers and switches and wiring that lead up to your wall outlet.
 
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Anonymous

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That guy is SUCH a fool and has wasted his own time and all of ours ......

He spent 9+ minutes telling us all how it cannot make any difference - then to finish on the fact that it does actually seem to work .....

Hmmmm - seems like he is a gold plated fool !
 
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Anonymous

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welshboy:
There can be little doubt that cables can be engineered to change the sound you hear coming out of the speakers. Note I said change not improve. Improvement is subjective - it's in the ear of the listener or eye of the viewer. It's probably easier to make noticeable change engineering the speaker wires than it is using interconnects. out of curiosity what exactly do they do to change the sound
 
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Anonymous

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one off:welshboy:

There can be little doubt that cables can be engineered to change the sound you hear coming out of the speakers. Note I said change not improve. Improvement is subjective - it's in the ear of the listener or eye of the viewer. It's probably easier to make noticeable change engineering the speaker wires than it is using interconnects. out of curiosity what exactly do they do to change the sound

It's easiest to explain with reference to speaker cable. consider the following:

The cable has significant length and forms a simple capacitor.

Depending on how the two wires lay in relationship to each other there is also an amount of inductance (or the potential for it) in the cable.

By playing about with the design parameters you can effect both of these parameters and hence you can subtly change the signal as it passes along the speaker wire. (more correctly you change the interaction between the amp output and the speaker input). Hope that helps.
 
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Anonymous

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jaxwired:While it's true that speaker changes are the most noticable, that does not mean that changes that amps make to the sound is not highly important for musical satisfaction.

Changing amps will matter if one of the amp don't have sufficient power to drive the speakers, or if one of the amps does significant things with the sound -- like changing the frequency respons or add distortion.

There can be little doubt that cables can be engineered to change the sound you hear coming out of the speakers. [...] Repacing cheap no-name cables with branded ones is usually not a bad idea.

Replacing a cable with no shielding, bad soldering and cheap plugs that don't fit and/or are made of badly conducting metal, with a cable that's shielded and has good plugs properly soldered, will certainly be a good idea. Whether any of the cables are branded or not, doesn't matter.

To change the sound, other than by degrading signal strength or picking up noise, a cable needs to be fitted with some kind of device. And actually, some exotic cables have some strange lumps on them. People who have the guts to dissect such lumps, however, tends to find nothing that can actually change anything...
 
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Anonymous

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BigAir:
That guy is SUCH a fool and has wasted his own time and all of ours ......

He spent 9+ minutes telling us all how it cannot make any difference - then to finish on the fact that it does actually seem to work .....

Hmmmm - seems like he is a gold plated fool !

Actually hes point is that it has a pacebo effect only you can hear because you know how much the cable costs. Nothing anyone that doesnt know you have the expensive cables will hear.

I actually agree with alot of the stuff he sais, but he is still annoying.

I was watching a house for a friend of mine (feeding the cat, watering the plants and whatnot) while he was away for a two week holiday. I replaced all the really expensive cables he had with standard cables and hid his gems. I left his speaker cables because i knew he would see them, but he could not see the cables in his system as they were in a rack. A month after he had come home i told him what I had done. He never noticed the difference and have not bought an expensive cable since.

I have replaced all of my cables except the hdmi that came with my dvd player. I dont have any expensive cables though.. i just upgraded to get some shorter cables that didnt leave a mess behind the amp. I have the cheapest QED interconnects except for the speaker cables that cost abit more.
 

Frank Harvey

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jaxwired: FrankHarveyHiFi:Fahnsen:]But of course speakers, and their surroundings, is what matters most.Agreed, but the amplifier also plays a large part in how that speaker will sound too.

I don't even think you can make the comparison. It's a classic apples and oranges comparison. How speakers and room acoustics impacts sound (or your heads tilt for that matter), is completely different than what different amps do to the sound. They change the sound in fundamentally different ways that are not even comparable. You need to try and optimize both to get optimal sound. While it's true that speaker changes are the most noticable, that does not mean that changes that amps make to the sound is not highly important for musical satisfaction.Sounds like a contradiction to me....
 
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Anonymous

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My point is that it doesn't matter what the method of it working is. Some may call it the placebo effect, others something else - but time and again the nay-sayers prattle on about it making no difference and YET - still admit that some can hear a difference.....

.... even if all cable believers are making it up in their own mind because they want to ....... it works and makes a difference for them, so it is real for them and that's the only thing that matters!

I have previously written about the way we perceive the world around us and how we filter the external environment, in order to create our internal representation of the external world. Search for the NLP Communication Model for more details.

Simply put - ALL we have is our internal representations .... THAT is reality to each and every individual - so it doesn't matter what is going on outside a person ..... reality to them, is how they internalise it.

If someone hears a difference it is real to them - and in actuality - it's just as real as the person who doesn't hear a difference.

People who hear the differences buy the stuff, and those that do not .... don't.

I don't see why one should slag off the other really. Why can't people accept that we are all different and those that hear cable differences don't feel they need 'protecting' by the nay-sayers to save their money - which is often their justification for saying those that hear the differences should 'beware' and know their mistakes etc etc .....

** One says - it CANNOT make a difference, so doesn't hear it .... even if it is there.

** The other says, it does make a difference, because we can hear it - even though it supposedly can't !!

Each is entitled to their own view and to spend their money how they choose, depending which camp they fall in to - surely!
 

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