cables and the foo fighters brigade ...

[hifikrazy]

FWIW. here is a blind test that shows a correlation between perceived sound quality and the price of the cable: http://www.nordost.com/images/review-images/review-pdf/15-hifiplus_issue34.pdf

By Nordost...

By Hifi Plus (though RG subsequently joined Nordost).....doesn't necessarily invalidate the test though.

Oh yeah sorry, not a cable manufacturer, a publication that reviews them...

The sceptics demand blind testing from these publications, and when they do......

Spot on. Anything that doesn't fit their argument will be discredited with a number of convenient reasons, even to the extent of saying a group of people sat in a room making up the scores. Genius :clap:

 

[hifikrazy]

Most musicians create music, either original or a variation on what has gone before, therefore sound accuracy is not relevant, just the emotive connection. (Guitars and keyboards can be picked up quite cheap these days, so I suggest you try them out, as I guarantee that your exotic cable obsession will disappear)

This is like saying Lewis Hamilton just loves to drive, and has no interest and knows nothing about how his Formula 1 car works.

And then you have casual car owners (the foo fighter brigade) claiming that they know more about cars than professional race car drivers, car manufacturers and car reviewers because... well because they just know...

 

[Broner]

I'll probably get some stick for the following but hey ...

So you've saved for a couple of years and have been eating nothing but canned beans. Finally that new shiney, lovely system sits comfortably in your living room.

Are you going to buy the cheap looking copper speaker cable (and interconnects) you can buy everywhere and which, to some, is as good as a thousand pounds worth of wire or will you spend a little more for the admittedly often obscure benefits of 'better' materials?

The way I look at it is that after spending £'s on a system which pleases my ears as well as eyes (we shop and probably listen with both) I dont want £2/meter cabling hanging out the back of my system, regardless of measurements. I will know 'its there' and the question of whether a cable which is featured in full spread pages of magazines really would improve anything would probably nag me for a long time.

Apart from looks (and lets face it, most of us have 'some' exposed cables even with the most elaborate channeling/hiding as I can attest with my cyrus and matching hark rack with careful cabling) I want something that has had a little bit of thought going into it, be that dielectrics, conductors, colour or even the companies accountants view regarding profits. Sorry but Maplins 'best' just will not do (I haven't looked at their web site, some bright spark will probably point out that they now stock Nordost or similar ...).

Bottom line, nothing wrong imho with spending a little bit on cables even if the benefits are more perceived than proven. After all, the have been quite a few drug tests where placebo effects have given thought to the power of mind ... .

My advise; Don't go overboard but spend commensurate with the rest of your system and peace of mind will probably set in more easily.

regards

For what it's worth, I feel rather symphathetic towards the opening post.

 

[andyjm]

Spot on. Anything that doesn't fit their argument will be discredited with a number of convenient reasons, even to the extent of saying a group of people sat in a room making up the scores. Genius :clap:

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

See the thread on organising tests in London. Perhaps you could participate and show us objectivists the error of our ways.

 

[matt49]

It so happens that I disagree with Cno about most things relating to cables etc. But I won’t have a pop at him, or indeed at What Hi-Fi, and for a very simple reason.

Cno has given lots of very constructive and helpful advice to me and many others on this forum. He’s helped me to understand what I’m looking for and to understand what to avoid. If he’s suggested things I think are wrong, I’ve just filtered them out, as anyone is able to do.

For me he represents the spirit of this forum: helpful, knowledgeable, gently humorous.

On the other hand, the cable-sceptic folk, for all that I agree with them about cables etc, have added virtually nothing to my understanding of hi-fi.

Some of the posts here, demanding that What Hi-Fi stop doing sighted reviews of cables, or publish null tests and so on, seem not to understand one basic fact. If What Hi-Fi stops following what consumers and retailers are doing, it’ll stop publishing, and then this forum, along with all its posts, will disappear.

Enjoy the rest of the thread, and try to be nice to one another for a change.

Matt

Matt

It will stop publishing when it stops making a profit. That's the top and bottom of it. I was in business a long time and at the end of the day everything comes down to money. Given that Haymarket isn't the most profitable business in the world none of its publications has a guaranteed life.

What sells HiFi mags? I don't know really because I rarely buy them. They are like car mags I only buy them when I am thinking of buying a car. As a hifi owner I don't need to constantly read reviews.

Chris

That was exactly my point, Chris. In order to make a profit, mags like WHF have to be able to advise consumers who are about to buy something. (I remember reading somewhere that most sales of WHF are one-offs; not many people buy the mag regularly.) And in order to give useful advice, the mag has to track what consumers want to buy and what retailers are selling.

Matt

 

[BenLaw]

Most musicians create music, either original or a variation on what has gone before, therefore sound accuracy is not relevant, just the emotive connection. (Guitars and keyboards can be picked up quite cheap these days, so I suggest you try them out, as I guarantee that your exotic cable obsession will disappear)

This is like saying Lewis Hamilton just loves to drive, and has no interest and knows nothing about how his Formula 1 car works.

And then you have casual car owners (the foo fighter brigade) claiming that they know more about cars than professional race car drivers, car manufacturers and car reviewers because... well because they just know...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10750846/Stradivarius-Youd-be-better-off-with-a-modern-violin.html

 

[chebby]

I know that some people will buy the copy that - favourably - reviews their own components even after purchase. (Affirmation of their choice or to mitigate buyer's regret or whatever.)

Maybe they like to have the reviews for their friends to read. ("He must have a good system, it says so in the magazine.")

A publication's printed opinion might still carry more 'weight' with some people than an internet review or online user opinions. Some people still think newspaper articles 'must be true' (!) because they are published in a printed, physical medium.

'Because it says so in a book' is still the last word for people of a certain mindset. (I've heard it too many times to dismiss the idea that printed media 'legitimises' something more than the web can*.)

*And before the web it was thought to make something more legitimate than seeing it on TV.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

I am not joining the cable debate but comparing simple.electrical theory with complex atomic theory seems totally irrelevant. I'll say no more.

 

[TrevC]

So if I was to say that the sun produces all the natural light and heat on earth and subsequently refuse to reconsider that statement you would describe it as an entrenched position, whereas I would call it knowing the facts.

No!

Entrenched positions happen when there are strongly held, differering POV, where both sides claim to have "truth" on their side eg NI ; Israel / Palestine etc and neither side is prepared to make a conciliatory move.

You claim to have a monopoly on "the truth," which I am questioning, based on a lot of experimenting / listening. I don't claim to have the answers, but I like to encourage people to try something similar and see what they think.

Your position is an entirely faith based one. I go with the science.

Trev, I believe your position is actually a faith based one. Faith in your own understanding. There may be some science available to humanity ATM re cables, but it is obviously not complete or exhaustive. Throughout history many scientific understandings have eventually been either updated, or even proven wrong. It happens all the time. Any good scientist knows this. Now I don't know the exact details, but Einstein knew that on some of his theories and mathematics, even though they heralded a new dawn in understanding, that they weren't 100% accurate, and that something wasis missing. No matter what he did, for some of his most important theories, the equations never added up completely. Sure, they worked 99.9999% of the time, but not 100%, and when you looked at the finer details. I believe this is where things like string theory and such comes into it, and is leading the hunt for the higgs particle, and understanding. When this tiny thing is found and understood one day, our understanding of all physics and chemistry could be turned on its head. And so it is with cables. You say the science is there, I say the science is innadquate, because I know what I heard. The cable I was upgrading to cost twice as much, so by the placebo ruling, it can only therefore sound better or equal to the previous cable. It actually sounded worse. Noticeably. It was like one cable was bob Marley, and the other bob Dylan. Sure, they were both called bob, played guitar and sang, but they sounded different.

However, I do agree that some kind of measurents and standardising for cables should be available.

You don't say what type of cables you were listening to. If you are talking speaker cables I have already said they do have a effect on sound quality. Mains cables obviously cannot change anything because they don't carry the signal. The suggestion that we don't have a full understanding of how audio travels along a piece of wire is absurd.

 

[Electro]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10750846/Stradivarius-Youd-be-better-off-with-a-modern-violin.html

I got it right first time :cheer:

Obiously I did not know which was which so I chose the clips by the ones that sounded better .

[EDITED BY MODS to remove spoilers]

And I was 100% correct

This was done in one take no going back and listening more than once .

I found this very easy indeed :?

 

[Alec]

You also found it very easy to ruin the fun for anyone else who fancied having a go, it seems.

 

[TrevC]

FWIW. here is a blind test that shows a correlation between perceived sound quality and the price of the cable: http://www.nordost.com/images/review-images/review-pdf/15-hifiplus_issue34.pdf

By Nordost...

By Hifi Plus (though RG subsequently joined Nordost).....doesn't necessarily invalidate the test though.

Oh yeah sorry, not a cable manufacturer, a publication that reviews them...

The sceptics demand blind testing from these publications, and when they do......

Spot on. Anything that doesn't fit their argument will be discredited with a number of convenient reasons, even to the extent of saying a group of people sat in a room making up the scores. Genius :clap:

For mains cables the reviewers are either making up the scores, or they are mistaken. Take your pick.

 

[TrevC]

Most musicians create music, either original or a variation on what has gone before, therefore sound accuracy is not relevant, just the emotive connection. (Guitars and keyboards can be picked up quite cheap these days, so I suggest you try them out, as I guarantee that your exotic cable obsession will disappear)

This is like saying Lewis Hamilton just loves to drive, and has no interest and knows nothing about how his Formula 1 car works.

And then you have casual car owners (the foo fighter brigade) claiming that they know more about cars than professional race car drivers, car manufacturers and car reviewers because... well because they just know...

It isn't a secret club we are in, anyone can learn about how electronics works!

 

[Electro]

You also found it very easy to ruin the fun for anyone else who fancied having a go, it seems.

Sorry I was too busy congratulating myself and looking for approval here to think that my post might spoil it for others

Mods feel free to delete my post .

[NOTE FROM MODS - post edited to remove your answers...]

 

[ReValveiT]

The Violin test was very easy, :boohoo: but we're talking whole instrument differences.

Now do the same test, only this time use the SAME Violin, but change the mic lead used for recording each.

NOW lets see who can tell the difference.

 

[TrevC]

Trev, I believe your position is actually a faith based one. Faith in your own understanding. There may be some science available to humanity ATM re cables, but it is obviously not complete or exhaustive. Throughout history many scientific understandings have eventually been either updated, or even proven wrong. It happens all the time. Any good scientist knows this. Now I don't know the exact details, but Einstein knew that on some of his theories and mathematics, even though they heralded a new dawn in understanding, that they weren't 100% accurate, and that something wasis missing. No matter what he did, for some of his most important theories, the equations never added up completely. Sure, they worked 99.9999% of the time, but not 100%, and when you looked at the finer details...

Einstein's theory's of relativity doesn't work 99.9999% of the time. It works 100% of the time.

Einstein's theory's of relativity could well be 100% correct and so far there has never been any experiment or test which disproves it. But the problem is that mathematically it contradicts quantum theory and there is no way that they can possibly both be right.

It is not known whether Einstein's theory's of relativity or quantum theory are correct or not. What we do know is that either Einstein's theory's of relativity or the laws of quantum physics must be wrong. We don't know which is wrong because they both stand up to all of the tests that we have put them through (so far). But we do know that at least one of them (or both of them) has to be wrong.

...I believe this is where things like string theory and such comes into it, and is leading the hunt for the higgs particle, and understanding. When this tiny thing is found and understood one day, our understanding of all physics and chemistry could be turned on its head...

They've already found it. 2 years ago.

It's going to take a lot more work, time and probably another multi-billion pound particle collider to fully understand how it works though.

...And so it is with cables. You say the science is there, I say the science is innadquate...

The laws that describe how resistance, capacitance and inductance work are fairly simple and are very well understood. They're used everyday to make electronics work and they work 100% perfectly according to those laws every single time.

...I know what I heard. The cable I was upgrading to cost twice as much, so by the placebo ruling, it can only therefore sound better or equal to the previous cable. It actually sounded worse. Noticeably. It was like one cable was bob Marley, and the other bob Dylan. Sure, they were both called bob, played guitar and sang, but they sounded different...

That's not how expectation bias works. You knew that you were using a different cable so you may have imagined there was difference. Just because you thought that it sounded worse is neither here nor there.

It is possible that there was a difference but if there was this would be due to the measurable differences caused by using a cable that was inadequate for the purpose due to having an excessively high resistance, capacitance or inductance. Standard OFC speaker cables have sufficiently low resistance, capacitance and inductance that they don't degrade the signal enough to make it sound any different. Standard OFC speaker cables don't alter the sound at all. If an expensive foo cable sounds different to a standard OFC speaker cable it means that the signal has been degraded by the foo cable sufficienty to make it sound different.

However, I do agree that some kind of measurents and standardising for cables should be available.

There already is. They're called resistance, capacitance and inductance.

Indeed. +1 :dance:

 

[Alec]

We need more of those huge strings of quotes. Yeah. Up with that sort of thing. Possibly.

 

[TrevC]

You also found it very easy to ruin the fun for anyone else who fancied having a go, it seems.

I picked out the Tesco, but got the others wrong. Maybe I need replacement cables.

 

[Covenanter]

You also found it very easy to ruin the fun for anyone else who fancied having a go, it seems.

I picked out the Tesco, but got the others wrong. Maybe I need replacement cables.

I got it right but given that the Tesco one was so poor it might just be luck after that.

I had heard that there was some science behind older violins sounding better in that the European climate was colder then and the growth rings in trees were closer together which made the wood denser than modern wood. I'm not sure of the validity of that although it sounds reasonable.

Chris

 

[Anderson]

FWIW. here is a blind test that shows a correlation between perceived sound quality and the price of the cable: http://www.nordost.com/images/review-images/review-pdf/15-hifiplus_issue34.pdf

By Nordost...

By Hifi Plus (though RG subsequently joined Nordost).....doesn't necessarily invalidate the test though.

Oh yeah sorry, not a cable manufacturer, a publication that reviews them...

The sceptics demand blind testing from these publications, and when they do......

Spot on. Anything that doesn't fit their argument will be discredited with a number of convenient reasons, even to the extent of saying a group of people sat in a room making up the scores. Genius :clap:

You seem awfully invested in this topic..

 

[Jota180]

People 'spin' their articles in newspapers to support their political viewpoints. I don't really take anything at face value...

"diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill."

(Nicky Oppenheimer, De Beers chairman)

Of course, (except for industrial use as the hardest naturally occurring mineral) as are many other things.

Industrial diamonds are neither rare nor expensive, (or at least not thousands of pounds a carat) and are now commonly produced synthetically.

I know. What point are you making? Is it just argument for the sake of it because I questioned the original post? Politics?

De Beers' marketintg determined how much you should spend on a diamond engagement ring. In fact, before De Beers, diamonds weren't even traditional in engagement rings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27371208

FFS, how boring is this. Diamonds have had value for thousands of years because they are rare and they are beautiful to look at. Look at the numbers, in fact go and dig some up if it's so easy. Want to start on rubies, emeralds, pearls anyone? I think half you lot just come here for a row.

Not in Japan, there was virtually no diamond engagement rings before WWII and DeBeers advertising has made it the most popular gem stone for engagement rings and they also set how much a man should be expected to pay - three months salary. All on the back of advertising claims.

People have no idea De Beers invented the 'tradition' of the diamond gem engagement ring and they invented it during the great depression to shift more diamonds and people now believe it's a tradition and they were also told how much they should spend. 1 months salary in the UK, 2 months in the US and 3 months in Japan.

It just goes to show how gullible the vast majority of human beings were, are and always will be.

Myself, I've noted the trend away from cables towards WiFi and have been working on a fan that will help blow the WiFi towards the streamer in a more parallel fashion ensuring the Fi doesn't get out of alignment with the Wi.

This will yield superior audio results and will give the result of a premium analogue sound and the impression the musicians are actually in your room. So real will this effect be you'll be tidying your room before playing any music just incase the band take issue with your messy pad.

 

[pauln]

Myself, I've noted the trend away from cables towards WiFi and have been working on a fan that will help blow the WiFi towards the streamer in a more parallel fashion ensuring the Fi doesn't get out of alignment with the Wi.

This will yield superior audio results and will give the result of a premium analogue sound and the impression the musicians are actually in your room. So real will this effect be you'll be tidying your room before playing any music just incase the band take issue with your messy pad.

Can I invest? I need to dump my shares in De Beers now anyway, so...

 

[ISAC69]

 

[pauln]

Which one is you?

 

[ISAC69]

Unfortunately I missed that wrestling