lol... o.k, where is it?

[Thompsonuxb]

Minor differences, some not worth the bother trying to see if they are audible. Nothing to do with golden ears, nothing to do with "you can't hear what I hear" nonsense. Minor. Beyond that, the descriptive abilities of the participants are the only things left worth talking about as that gives us the narrative for these "differences". How difficult is it?

Its at this point that even I know this cannot not be taken any further - only if all of us are sitting in the same room with a decent set, a hand full of cables can this be setteled and even then the accusations of 'are you deaf' or 'now you're just making things up' will be slung across the room but at least we could have a laugh.... you know what I mean?

reminds me of that gag in the Hangover Pt3 were one of the gang and the asian guy are breaking into that guy from Rosannes house were they have to cut the wires to the alarm system at the same time.... you seen it?

Well the asian guy shouts out "ok... cut the grey one on 3" to which the other guy shouts back "which grey one?" to which the asian guy replys " the grey one. you have the light grey one, the dark grey one and the grey one" to which the other guy replies "... but I have a red one a yellow one and a green one,,,,,,"

you get it?

its just like this.

 

[matt49]

On a personal level Dave, you are absolutely right but such informal testing isn't going to convince anyone not present & not always those who are! I'm thinking of testing that no sane folk would bother arguing over in the same way that few people still think the earth is flat. Some will need a hell of a lot of convincing so getting it right is crucial if indeed DB ABX testing is up to the task which I'm far from certain is the case.

I agree.

It seems we're in a pickle. On the one hand, we know from personal experience that informal blind testing is an important corrective. On the other hand, the naysayers will always be able to criticise any real-world hi-fi blind testing methodology, because the expense (in time and money) of doing blind testing rigorously is prohibitive.

It seems to me there's nowehere to go from here, except to keep on saying: try an informal blind test!

There is one blind test that's dead easy to do at home: testing various digital bit-rates using Foobar2000's ABX plug-in. Everyone really ought to try it.

Matt

 

[the record spot]

Its at this point that even I know this cannot not be taken any further - only if all of us are sitting in the same room with a decent set, a hand full of cables can this be setteled and even then the accusations of 'are you deaf' or 'now you're just making things up' will be slung across the room but at least we could have a laugh.... you know what I mean?

reminds me of that gag in the Hangover Pt3 were one of the gang and the asian guy are breaking into that guy from Rosannes house were they have to cut the wires to the alarm system at the same time.... you seen it?

Well the asian guy shouts out "ok... cut the grey one on 3" to which the other guy shouts back "which grey one?" to which the asian guy replys " the grey one. you have the light grey one, the dark grey one and the grey one" to which the other guy replies "... but I have a red one a yellow one and a green one,,,,,,"

you get it?

its just like this.

No, it's not. In fact, it's nothing like it.

Colour blindness is one thing, BS on a hifi forum is somewhat different. We're talking about people with more or less the same physical hearing properties being able to describe what they hear. The colour reference above is stark, which makes me think "night and day". With cables in my experience across many setups, it's anything but.

 

[Frank Harvey]

You could take two people with the same aural capabilities, and even if they hear the same thing, they could very well describe what they hear in different ways, giving the impression they both heard something different.

Also, even though their hearing is of the same ability, what aspect of the whole musical performance are they concentrating on? They can't concentrate on everything. Are they listening to the bassline, the drums, the vocals, the guitar, the soundstage, bass, treble etc? If one of the systems is better with regards to bass, those listening to vocals won't hear a difference.

And speaking of people concentrating on different aspects, does everyone listen to the instruments/sounds that are presented directly in front of them? Or do they also take in the ambience of the venue in which the performance was recorded? Are they listening to any spatial information produced by the instruments, or just the instruments? Sometimes the differences can be in the subtleties, much in the same way as looking at two screens, one showing a DVD and one showing a Bluray. A close up on someone's face can look pretty similar, as DVD, despite being a heavily compressed format, can reproduce detail very well for objects in the foreground. But smaller objects in the background that are also in focus look like mush, because DVD just can't produce such small detail clearly. Now the Bluray, while still a compressed format but to a lesser degree, can produce very small details with the clarity needed, so everything in the background and foreground are all in focus, giving a more pleasing picture and allows those users concentrating on such details to see the difference. I'm not saying that cables are working in the same way as DVD and Bluray from a technical point of view, as cables are being given the same signal, but there can be small differences there for those that are listening to the right aspects of the music.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[cheeseboy]

oh no, you guys did not go down the 'your senses cannot be trusted' route with this thread....

why not, are you saying that *your* senses can never be fooled?

 

[hifikrazy]

I guess the conspiracy theorists will just write him off as having a biased view, but it's worth taking a look the comments recently posted by the MD of Atlas Cables on "the great cable debate"

http://www.whathifi.com/blog/the-great-cable-debate-%E2%80%93-crossed-wires

 

[hammill]

I guess the conspiracy theorists will just write him off as having a biased view, but it's worth taking a look the comments recently posted by the MD of Atlas Cables on "the great cable debate"

http://www.whathifi.com/blog/the-great-cable-debate-%E2%80%93-crossed-wires

It is interesting that you think that treating what the manufacturer of a product says with scepticism makes one a conspiracy theorist.

I have read the comment. No evidence that any of the cable differences he describes make any difference to what is heard or seen. His remark about the Strad is particularly amusing given this

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/jan/02/how-many-notes-violinist-stradivarius

A beautiful example of what happens when you remove expectation bias from the experiment

 

[Alec]

I guess the conspiracy theorists will just write him off as having a biased view, but it's worth taking a look the comments recently posted by the MD of Atlas Cables on "the great cable debate"

http://www.whathifi.com/blog/the-great-cable-debate-%E2%80%93-crossed-wires

And again the brand's reputation is given a kicking from within. Sad.

 

[Broner]

You really don't need to wear a tinfoil hat to understand that a cable manufacturer is the least trustworthy source when it comes to the qualities of their own products. It doesn't mean that they can't be right, it's just that there is a pretty strong incentive from their side to spread misleading information, and that is something that happens everywhere. Welcome to planet earth hifikrazy.

By the way: it really doesn't support your argument when you indirectly say that many people on the forum are conspiracy theorists without proper argumentation. It just makes you seem a bit of a douche and a troll.

 

[Alec]

You really don't need to wear a tinfoil hat to understand that a cable manufacturer is the least trustworthy source when it comes to the qualities of their own products. It doesn't mean that they can't be right, it's just that there is a pretty strong incentive from their side to spread misleading information, and that is something that happens everywhere. Welcome to planet earth hifikrazy.

By the way: it really doesn't support your argument when you indirectly say that many people on the forum are conspiracy theorists without proper argumentation. It just makes you seem a bit of a douche and a troll.

I think douche may be my new favourite word.

I really should find the time to grow up.

 

[hifikrazy]

Broner, so what do you suggest... That we listen to douches like you instead to tell us the "truth"?

I'm not naive enough to realise that in this world, manufacturers have a pretty strong incentive to say things to market their products. So does that mean you travel around in a home made soap box car because car manufacturers tell you misleading information about their products?

 

[the record spot]

Broner, so what do you suggest... That we listen to douches like you instead to tell us the "truth"?

I'm not naive enough to realise that in this world, manufacturers have a pretty strong incentive to say things to market their products. So does that mean you travel around in a home made soap box car because car manufacturers tell you misleading information about their products?

No. You'd read up on an independent review site, go for a test drive, check the company's reliability statistics. See what holds its value best and so on.

 

[Broner]

You really don't need to wear a tinfoil hat to understand that a cable manufacturer is the least trustworthy source when it comes to the qualities of their own products. It doesn't mean that they can't be right, it's just that there is a pretty strong incentive from their side to spread misleading information, and that is something that happens everywhere. Welcome to planet earth hifikrazy.

By the way: it really doesn't support your argument when you indirectly say that many people on the forum are conspiracy theorists without proper argumentation. It just makes you seem a bit of a douche and a troll.

I think douche may be my new favourite word.

I really should find the time to grow up.

But where do you find the time when you are having so much fun?

 

[hifikrazy]

Broner, so what do you suggest... That we listen to douches like you instead to tell us the "truth"?

I'm not naive enough to realise that in this world, manufacturers have a pretty strong incentive to say things to market their products. So does that mean you travel around in a home made soap box car because car manufacturers tell you misleading information about their products?

No. You'd read up on an independent review site, go for a test drive, check the company's reliability statistics. See what holds its value best and so on.

Yes, exactly, Which is what many of us do before buying cables. By the way I'm not directing the above at you, record spot , who I have no issues with. I can tell that you're different since you didn't insist on double blind testing to select the car.

 

[busb]

Those are valid points you have raised, but the problems they pose are fairly limited insofar as the participants are people who claim to hear a difference (if I’m correct, that immediately eliminates the problem of false negatives). The problem of the echoic memory should also occur at home, and we know that people say they are able to hear differences between cables at home, so that also shouldn’t pose a problem for this specific group of people. After all, if it was a real problem, then people wouldn’t experience instantaneous and significant differences when switching a cable, nor would subtle differences be perceived.

Another problem could be some sort of listening fatigue (as you and Dave pointed out), especially if you want to get at statistically meaningful data, but that can be covered in the setup of the test.

What I agree with (I assume that I’m agreeing with you here) is that those points you have raised (particularly the one about the echoic memory), are a problem when one wants to use a double blind test to check whether cables actually produce different sounds or not. You can tweak the methodology a bit to help out, but I’m not sure to which degree one can cope with it. It seems to me that a double blind test is therefore particularly effective to check whether the differences that are already experienced between cables, are due to actual differences in the music emitted or find their origin in psychological causes. In this respect, the sum of many double blind tests is quite sobering.

One final note: I disagree wholeheartedly with anyone who is unwilling to critically look at the validity of the double blind tests. Any possible limitations of these tests to speaker cables should be taken seriously and if that eventually means that the ‘whacky brigade’ is off the hook, then so be it.

Broner - my absence was due to being on holiday during which I saw Goldfrapp supported by a new band called We Were Evergreen. The warm-up act were excellent, Goldfrapp were stunning, even the sound in the Hexagon was fair. Must see more live music!

I'm afraid I don't understand your point so I invite you to expand: how do you know that participants are expecting to hear a difference, some may other not. People who claim to hear differences may not claim to hear them all the time & some may suspect that no differences wer actually made to try to catch them out! Even if they expect to hear differences, why would that fact negate false negatives?

If asked in an informal seting whether or not I can hear differences, I've always erred to the side of caution - possibly not wanting to risk no differences taking place, who knows. As for echoic memory, I'm not an expert so will make an assumption that it only really covers short-term memory that covers fairly subtle nuances & only covers a few seconds. We may pick out differences like I did at the Goldfrapp gig where I noticed some - in other words, I could tell some songs were not identical to the recorded versions. We may pick out eveb reasonably subtle variations to the same song played on someone else's system - the memory of sound is highly complex - we can pick out things over decades!

As a general observation, some posters on this thread have taken the idea that our hearing isn't quite as foolproof as they state very personally to the point they have responded equally personally - it's as if their whole perception of Hi Fi is under threat - it isn't!

I've been to cable manufacturer's demos where when I've stated that I couldn't hear changes to the sound, where the response has beern "Are you sure?" The demos have always followed the same format - start with entry level working up to high-end - none have ever randomised the order. I have heard some differences (or thought I had) so it's not as if I never did but they have never been "night or day". I've also been told by more than one dealer that blind testing doesn't work but without any explanation as to why not. I have a friend who spent £600 on an XLR cable fairly recently - he completely & utterly rejects any idea that his hearing can be fooled - he has absolute certainty & the belief that DB ABX doesn't work without any thoughts on why. He has also spent serious money on digital cables where the differences have been great to his ears.

 

[Broner]

Sorry for the late reply busb. I have been travelling a lot and it’s not always possible to find a litte bit of time for myself to draft a response. Anyway, thanks for your reaction. I hope that I can explain my thought and reasonings better this time, but it is admittedly a difficult matter to discuss.

About the echoic memory: I said in my previous post that this should also inhibit people’s experiences at home, so that means if people at home are able to hear a difference that would relate to actual differences emitted by cables, then the echoic effect also shouldn’t pose a problem for those people in blind-testing conditions.

About the problem of the false negatives: I said in my previous post that when you limit your analysis to people who have claimed to have heard differences between cables, you eliminate the problem of false negatives. You could ask people in advance whether they believe that cables make a differences and subsequently you could check whether there are differences between the two groups of people.

People who claim to hear differences may not claim to hear them all the time

Do you mean that those people who claim to hear differences may not hear differences between other types of cables or do you mean that they do not claim to hear a difference for a specific cable all of the time. The last point would seem a bit odd, as that would defeat the idea of people who claim to hear differences from the outset. The first point could be solved by testing several cables over several moments so that you have a nice overview of experiences with a relatively large number of cables, enlarging the chance that people could be able to hear a difference if the different cables cause audible differences in music reproduction. You could, of course, also work with specific cables of which you know in advance that people claim to be able to pick them out.

Even if they expect to hear differences, why would that fact negate false negatives?

False negatives can only occur with people who don’t expect to hear a difference and because of that expectation wouldn’t pick out a difference, even it was audible to them. By focusing on people who claim to hear differences between cables, you eliminate this concern immediately.

I think that the general summary of what I’m saying here, is that those problems you have mentioned are not at all, or not necessarily intrinsic to a double-blind test as compared to casual listening and switching cables at home. Therefore, they shouldn’t be considered as intrinsic problems to blind testing, as long as one realises that a blind test is particularly effective to test whether people who experience differences between cables, are also able to experience those differences when they don’t know which cable is connected.

I have a friend who spent £600 on an XLR cable fairly recently - he completely & utterly rejects any idea that his hearing can be fooled - he has absolute certainty & the belief that DB ABX doesn't work without any thoughts on why.[/q]

I think that’s a very normal and common way of thinking. If you’ve spent such a large sum of money, it must make a difference. Admitting that it possibly doesn’t matter, feels like admitting that you’ve possibly made a very stupid and costly mistake; and that is something that people are rarely willing to do.

I do quite a bit of research on food waste and what we see is that everybody feels that wasting food is bad and many people think that they actually throw away very little. In reality, however, people throw away much more then they think. People don’t like to confront themselves every day with how much they actually waste, so people start throwing away food unconsciously and can subsequently claim in all honesty that they waste very little. It’s quite funny.

 

[busb]

Sorry for the late reply busb. I have been travelling a lot and it’s not always possible to find a litte bit of time for myself to draft a response. Anyway, thanks for your reaction. I hope that I can explain my thought and reasonings better this time, but it is admittedly a difficult matter to discuss.

About the echoic memory: I said in my previous post that this should also inhibit people’s experiences at home, so that means if people at home are able to hear a difference that would relate to actual differences emitted by cables, then the echoic effect also shouldn’t pose a problem for those people in blind-testing conditions.

About the problem of the false negatives: I said in my previous post that when you limit your analysis to people who have claimed to have heard differences between cables, you eliminate the problem of false negatives. You could ask people in advance whether they believe that cables make a differences and subsequently you could check whether there are differences between the two groups of people.

People who claim to hear differences may not claim to hear them all the time

Do you mean that those people who claim to hear differences may not hear differences between other types of cables or do you mean that they do not claim to hear a difference for a specific cable all of the time. The last point would seem a bit odd, as that would defeat the idea of people who claim to hear differences from the outset. The first point could be solved by testing several cables over several moments so that you have a nice overview of experiences with a relatively large number of cables, enlarging the chance that people could be able to hear a difference if the different cables cause audible differences in music reproduction. You could, of course, also work with specific cables of which you know in advance that people claim to be able to pick them out.

Even if they expect to hear differences, why would that fact negate false negatives?

False negatives can only occur with people who don’t expect to hear a difference and because of that expectation wouldn’t pick out a difference, even it was audible to them. By focusing on people who claim to hear differences between cables, you eliminate this concern immediately.

I think that the general summary of what I’m saying here, is that those problems you have mentioned are not at all, or not necessarily intrinsic to a double-blind test as compared to casual listening and switching cables at home. Therefore, they shouldn’t be considered as intrinsic problems to blind testing, as long as one realises that a blind test is particularly effective to test whether people who experience differences between cables, are also able to experience those differences when they don’t know which cable is connected.

[quote-busb] I have a friend who spent £600 on an XLR cable fairly recently - he completely & utterly rejects any idea that his hearing can be fooled - he has absolute certainty & the belief that DB ABX doesn't work without any thoughts on why.

I think that’s a very normal and common way of thinking. If you’ve spent such a large sum of money, it must make a difference. Admitting that it possibly doesn’t matter, feels like admitting that you’ve possibly made a very stupid and costly mistake; and that is something that people are rarely willing to do.

I do quite a bit of research on food waste and what we see is that everybody feels that wasting food is bad and many people think that they actually throw away very little. In reality, however, people throw away much more then they think. People don’t like to confront themselves every day with how much they actually waste, so people start throwing away food unconsciously and can subsequently claim in all honesty that they waste very little. It’s quite funny.

Echoic memory is considered to be a part of short-term memory that last from 3 to 4 seconds (slightly longer than the visual equivilent of iconic memory). From reading up on it, is a literal exact copy of sound particularly useful for understanding speach that seems to be left unprocessed by interpretation so is raw but very short-lived. With speach, it looks like we remember then process the meaning & that's what gets remembered in our general short-term memory store. We remember the meaning rather than a recording of the sounds! I'd say this is very startling because we remember our interpretation that may include "mishearing" particular words. I don't think we can realise we may have misheard something then reprocess echoic memory to confirm the meaning, though aparantly, people have asked for someone to repeat a sentance to then realise immediately what was said so partial interpretation of the 1st time around gets confirmed by the repetition. This is a very complex area of how we process sound which we probably evolved with language skills from over a million years ago. It is probably mostly for understanding speach & is very challenging to either understand or write about! As for evaluating sound quality - that looks like a byproduct of speach recognition! Please be aware that much of this paragraph is MY interpretation of the importance of speach recognition in audible memory. We may also remember certain other aspects such as accent or the mood of the speaker therefore also remember some aural aspects.

I really am not sure how important echoic memory is to DB ABX testing but reading about it does not increase my faith in ABX being worthwhile one bit! As Dave.co points out, some form of ABX testing at home can be both fun & sobering. The importance of echoic memory alone may render ABX futile (I am still waiting for some peer reviewed proof that DB ABX testing as a viable method works, if anyone is still reading or sufficiently interested). Someone may claim to hear differences in cables but not not always - that's what I meant. In other words, some don't state they can always hear differences & they are the one's I trust more than those who say they always hear differences, even when cable haven't been swapped!

I still maintain that the reliability of audible memory rather limits the usefulness of formal DB ABX testing - I don't see a way around that but the issue of false negatives can be worked on by introducing some deliberate defects that effectively "calibrate" a session of tests. I suggest that ignoring the issue of false negatives just because an assumption is made that participants already believe in an postive outcome is bad science because as a general rule - assumptions should be minimised or accounted for.

A lot of people on audio forums rely very heavily on DB ABX testing being foolproof as an assumption rather as a fact! Again, links to verifiable proof please someone then I'll shut up!

As for spending serious money on cables, I admit that I have in the past. This means I'm very interested in not doing so again if someone can prove to me that it's largely pointless!

 

[davedotco]

This is getting somewhat academic and rather losing the plot.

Blind testing may well be flawed, both psycologically and statistically but it is a whole lot more meaningful than any sighted test. Some perspective is required here.

I have been involved in blind testing on a mumber of occasions, going back to the Hi-fi Choice speaker tests in the late 70s. Some of these were loose, informal affairs, some more structured but the is one overwhelming lesson that I learned from them.

Quite simply, without the usual visual clues it is quite remarkable how the 'night and day' differences you were convinced you were hearing just disappear, either completely or to a level of inconsequence.

Does that make everything sound the same? No it doesn't, but it really helps in terms of working out what does and does not make a worthwhile difference.

I urge anyone and everyone to take part in such a test given the chance, no need to view it as a challenge, just think of it as a learning experience.

 

[busb]

Hi Dave

Acedemic yes but I'm sure you won't be too surprised if I deny it's losing the plot. I don't disagree that informal blind testing has it uses. I would maintain that sighted tests have been completely discredited for anything but personal use as for when buying stuff.

As for formal testing, I can only reiterate that many approach DB ABX testing as being completely foolproof which I consider to be foolhardy. I also reject the argument "it's the best we have!" Either formal blind testing as a methedology works or it doesn't. I do not have an axe to grind apart from acknowledging life would be simpler & cheaper if most cables, DACs, amplifiers DID sound essentually the same as many engineers maintain! Again, I lay down my challenge for someone to produce scientifically verifiable evidence that the methodology actually works. I abhore bogus science that legitimises bad practice!

 

[davedotco]

Hi Dave

Acedemic yes but I'm sure you won't be too surprised if I deny it's losing the plot. I don't disagree that informal blind testing has it uses. I would maintain that sighted tests have been completely discredited for anything but personal use as for when buying stuff.

As for formal testing, I can only reiterate that many approach DB ABX testing as being completely foolproof which I consider to be foolhardy. I also reject the argument "it's the best we have!" Either formal blind testing as a methedology works or it doesn't. I do not have an axe to grind apart from acknowledging life would be simpler & cheaper if most cables, DACs, amplifiers DID sound essentually the same as many engineers maintain! Again, I lay down my challenge for someone to produce scientifically verifiable evidence that the methodology actually works. I abhore bogus science that legitimises bad practice!

I said that I think DB ABX testing (in hi-fi) is flawed, even giving a couple of reasons why, so if you intention is to 'prove' something to a rigorous academic standard then the methodology probably does not work.

I have long since stopped advocating such testing in an attempt to 'prove' anything in hi-fi, I just recommend people to take part in blind testing simply as a way of bringing a bit of perspective to the issue.

Your challenge is never going to be met, the psychological issues are very difficult to overcome without carrying out a very large number of repetitions and if you do that other factors such as 'listener fatigue' come into play.

 

[cheeseboy]

Again, I lay down my challenge for someone to produce scientifically verifiable evidence that the methodology actually works. I abhore bogus science that legitimises bad practice!

Depends what you are trying to measure. If you want to remove all fatigue and listener bias, you have to use machines, not humans to do it, and the second you do that, some people cry foul and say that couldn't possibly measure what they hear, so we're left in a stalemate situation, and even moreso when the tests happen and people outright refuse to believe the results because *they* can hear a difference.

Therefore, I would conclude that even if you could produce a test to suit what you are suggesting, people would still ignore it or challenge anyways.

 

[busb]

Again, I lay down my challenge for someone to produce scientifically verifiable evidence that the methodology actually works. I abhore bogus science that legitimises bad practice!

Depends what you are trying to measure. If you want to remove all fatigue and listener bias, you have to use machines, not humans to do it, and the second you do that, some people cry foul and say that couldn't possibly measure what they hear, so we're left in a stalemate situation, and even moreso when the tests happen and people outright refuse to believe the results because *they* can hear a difference.

Therefore, I would conclude that even if you could produce a test to suit what you are suggesting, people would still ignore it or challenge anyways.

You may well be right! My problem is that all the wrong people (engineers in particular) seem to have faith in a possibly dubious test as if it was completely foolproof. Some people insist that many of the differences that many others state they hear are merely imagined but without whorthwhile proof. If no one can verify DB ABX testing works, many of the claims made should be dropped. It's that simple. I've also suggested some modifications to the methodology that would test its veracity.

 

[davedotco]

Again, I lay down my challenge for someone to produce scientifically verifiable evidence that the methodology actually works. I abhore bogus science that legitimises bad practice!

Depends what you are trying to measure. If you want to remove all fatigue and listener bias, you have to use machines, not humans to do it, and the second you do that, some people cry foul and say that couldn't possibly measure what they hear, so we're left in a stalemate situation, and even moreso when the tests happen and people outright refuse to believe the results because *they* can hear a difference.

Therefore, I would conclude that even if you could produce a test to suit what you are suggesting, people would still ignore it or challenge anyways.

You may well be right! My problem is that all the wrong people (engineers in particular) seem to have faith in a possibly dubious test as if it was completely foolproof. Some people insist that many of the differences that many others state they hear are merely imagined but without whorthwhile proof. If no one can verify DB ABX testing works, many of the claims made should be dropped. It's that simple. I've also suggested some modifications to the methodology that would test its veracity.

Any serious blind or ABX test have to rely on the statistical analysis of psycoacoustic data. Given a rigorous method and sufficient samples the probability of worthwhile results becomes very high but of course at no point does it become an absolute.

The idea that a methodology should be dropped because it can not be proved to be totally effective is I think a nonsense. Apply the same logic to sighted evaluations, which we know to be flawed, then all listening tests/demonstrations should be dropped also.

Just put all the options into a hat.

 

[cheeseboy]

You may well be right! My problem is that all the wrong people (engineers in particular) seem to have faith in a possibly dubious test as if it was completely foolproof. Some people insist that many of the differences that many others state they hear are merely imagined but without whorthwhile proof. If no one can verify DB ABX testing works, many of the claims made should be dropped. It's that simple. I've also suggested some modifications to the methodology that would test its veracity.

yep, dave beat me to it. If you're saying that claims on DB ABX should be dropped because proof is not 100%, then by the same token, all of what hi fi should be closed down as it's even worse on the spectrum than db abx testing....

Although having said that, we can prove things a lot more easily in the digital world, and they have been proven, yet people still don't want to believe!

 

[Native_bon]

Any person with common sense will know that cables make very little or no difference at all. That is the only reason this debate will never end..? Am not religiuos, but people piont their fingers at others for beliving in a God..... How is this different... Humans will never cease to surprise me. There is something really elusive about mankind.