interconnect upgrade

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"][quote user="sex"]if some one spends time training his hearing they could then hear thing that you could not[/quote]

Stick to onions and lay off the tripe.[/quote]

Stick to discussion and lay off the insults like the above and the cheap shot at his mistaken English in your previous post. Unless, that is you are perfect in Italian, which I am sure you will tell us you are.

 

[Anton90125]

[quote user="Fingers Lee"]It's all over the net and of course it isn't on the stereophile site.[/quote]

As you are fully aware, there is a lot of unsubstantiated rubbish (IMO) on the net. From aliens to fairies at the bottom of some gardens.

[quote user="Fingers Lee"]Why do you not believe it?[/quote]

Simple it not proven to me (unlike hearing cable difference as personal experience). There is so much miss information out there one has to exercise caution.

[quote user="Fingers Lee"]The fact that some people hear it and others don't shows that the variability is probably in the listener rather than the equipment being listened to so we know exactly what to do to prove or disprove it.[/quote]

Yes but it doesn't tell us what to measure - how do we know exactly what to do to prove or disprove it. If as I suspect, the theory is incomplete (as all theories are by definition) , how is it incomplete? What are the missing parameters? This will never be solved if you don't believe they exist.

[quote user="Fingers Lee"]We can do double blind tests with those with the golden ears and rigorous controls in place to see if it's a purely psychological effect in humans.[/quote]

Agree totally! I feel that you will find that most people are golden ears not just audiophiles. These needs to be done by some one like the IEEE to legitimize it.

[quote user="Fingers Lee"]The question is who on earth will have the necessary will and money to do it.
[/quote]

Well if I win the lottery!

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]Stick to discussion and lay off the insults[/quote]

I was told "get your hears cleaned and start listening not hearing"

It was a reasonable response, o partisan one. I didn't know he was Italian.

 

[Anonymous]

no offence taken budy gold is in fact a bad conductor i did make a mistake there but i still think interconnects can make a difference

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="sex"]no offence taken budy gold is in fact a bad conductor i did make a mistake there but i still think interconnects can make a difference[/quote]

Fair enough mate.

 

[Anton90125]

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]

I don't understand why. The power of our minds to deceive us and delude us is truly awesome and common to all of us. The key is in understanding how, just like our other senses, our hearing isn't perfect and can quite easily be deceived or open to suggestability from visual clues. I intend no insult and make no exception for myself, after all, isn't stereo itself just an illusion?[/quote]

This is all true , indeed when we are talking slight/ minor changes your probably 100% correct. The problem with placebo effect imo is when you get big differences that take less then 3 seconds to be identified. The difference between the interconnect cables given away with hifi and my home made coax is almost day and night. I can not see how I can imagine such a difference. Even my mother (who think I am wasting my money on hifi) can hear differences.

[quote user="Keith McAlpine"]the dramatic differences some hear can't be heard by others or measured, not even with equipment far more sensitive than our ears?[/quote]

I do feel that there is something not being measured simply because we don't know what to measure. What we do know about hearing and the parameter's associated with it, we know well having fully researched it.

Things like resistance, capacitance and inductance have their place but perhaps there are other (or combination of) lesser variables that need to be considered. It could be that certain people are more sensitive to these variable then others. Maybe there are types of distortion which we are very sensitive to while other like harmonic that we can tolerate easily. The fact is if there is other parameters that need to be investigated , they won't be if the consensus (by the people that could do the analysis) is that these parameters do not exist. You wont find something if you are not looking for it.

I also feel some cables have addressed these problems possibly even by accident so they don't have a scientific description of what these problem are let alone its solutions. They need to explain why they sound better so they introduce a pseudo scientific explanation.

 

[Anonymous]

Oh dear god, just read a few of the few anti interconnects make a difference brigades comments, talk about being ,inane ,dull , boring overly complex and smart ***.You must have a degree from oxbridge. what utter drivel. Dear god. All of you get off this forum. You are so boring it makes my eyes water even reading your tosh.

 

[Alec]

"...not to mention its utter cr@p." LOL! But i think you did tha already LOLOLOL! Ahem. I have no opinion.see my sig. and thats all ive ever heard for long enough to let it sink in, if you see what i mean. night all.

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Fraziel"]You must have a degree from oxbridge. what utter drivel.[/quote]

You say it like it's a bad thing!

But seriously, I never cease to wonder at how het-up people get about something which is, after all, a hobby, and therefore supposed to be a pleasant pastime. I do wonder whether fishing forums or those about model railways are similarly full of people accusing the manufacturers in those fields of being dishonest, conning customers and so on.

"Spend £500 on a split cane rod? Ridiculous - do you think the fish know you're not using a £20 one from Argos???"

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the music: if spending £30, or £100, or £1000 on cables enhances your enjoyment of the music or the movies or whatever, then you are happy.

If you don't think such an expenditure justified, don't spend the money - but why bother mocking those who find enjoyment that way?

It's a hobby, and it's supposed to be fun. There are much more important things in this world about which to get aerated.

 

[Anton90125]

Absolutely correct !

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]There are much more important things in this world about which to get aerated.[/quote]

I am still in shock about what happened in Pakistan !

 

[Anonymous]

oh dear, just read my last post.think i had a bit too much of the cabernet sauvignon last night. Never drink and post!

 

[Clare Newsome]

In vino veritas, as Oxbridge types might say

 

[Anonymous]

indeed. lol.

 

[Gwyndy]

if all the arguments in this thread haven't scared you away from Hi-Fi for life, welcome to the forums Tosh

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Clare Newsome"]
In vino veritas, as Oxbridge types might say

[/quote] in vino indeed when p***ed we say the truth !

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="sex"][quote user="Clare Newsome"]
In vino veritas, as Oxbridge types might say

[/quote] in vino indeed when p***ed we say the truth ![/quote]

Sex and Metallica - two good things........

 

[Anonymous]

It seems as though there are two principal attacks on the idea that interconnects make a difference:

1) The lack of sufficient evidence via double-blind, controlled experiments, etc., and in the absence of such, that it's possible to fool ourselves psychologically/psychoacoustically

2) The absence of an explanation for any improvements using currently accepted scientific theories.

The problem is that equally, there don't appear to be a plethora of proper controlled experiments to utterly rubbish the claims, and just because currently scientific theories can't account for an effect, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's entirely possible that our scientific understanding needs to be extended.

Neither side has sufficient compelling evidence to win the argument. The cable-o-phobes bang on about how the case is not proven, the cable-o-philes point out that it isn't disproven either. We might as well debate whether God exists. Since none of us seem to be in a position to provide proper peer-reviewed research, we are left with discussing and exchanging our ideas and experiences, which I contend is a more productive and rewarding activity than the automatic gainsaying of what the other party says.

If you doubt that subtle and counter-intuitive factors can have their effect, a lot of folk in audio production leverage it to great effect and are forever experimenting to that end. Who would have thought that adding a little bit of low-level noise to a signal might actually enhance your ability to perceive detail? Or that distortion might actually in some cases wind up sounding "better"? Initially some people hear the effect, later some find a way to explain it. The same could turn out to be true with cabling. Similarly, it is entirely possible for some to notice effects more readily than others, painful as it may be for some to accept.

To get an idea of what audio engineers have to deal with in this regard, check out this interview transcript with audio veteran Rupert Neve, the salient part coming quite early on (the bit about Geoff Emerick)...

http://www.prosoundweb.com/chat_psw/transcripts/rupert.shtml

... not that I mean to open up another area of contention...

 

[Anton90125]

[quote user="helisphon"]

... not that I mean to open up another area of contention...

[/quote]

I think you have hit 90% of it on the head. I have no problem with people saying they believe that cables make no difference. I defend their right to say that. Since (as you say) very little has actually been proven by any accredited scientific body either way, any statements pro/anti can only be an opinion.

The problem we Pro Cable people have is when some one crosses that line and claims that it is a scientific fact. In the absence of any real research there is no way that such a "fact" can be stated as scientific. When this is pointed out, a number (possibles the same individual?) takes to cheap insults and conspiracy theories.

It has been argued (possibly correctly) that some posts have been hijacked by this debate which rapidly degenerates into bickering.

In the spirit of this forum to provide posters (asking reasonable audio questions ) a range of opinions and experience surely there is no place for insults and a lack of respect for other people's opinion.

The constant aggression (every time a cable related posting appears) to any pro cable opinion/ experience has forced me to take a sarcastic stance on more then one occasion - a stance I am not comfortable with.

I have found that I have lowered my self to the level of these people. Given that I have asked for actual proof for particular statements and assumptions and getting run a round instead. So much for an adult or scientific debate. One poster even suggested that I preferred low fi !

What do I do in this situation, let these posters give a one sided view or try to rebalance the debate at the risk of incurring abuse,attack and insults.