Speaker cables and system quality

[Leif]

If you simply refuse to accept that our senses are easily fooled then this discussion is going nowhere.

Human perception, in all fields, is heavily influenced by psycological factors and this is well researced.

The idea that an hi-fi enthusiast can control these factors in the way that you claim you can is, frankly, ludicrous. That you continue to insist that you can, simply shows your lack of understanding of the subject.

Hi-fi, in the widest sense is a pretty trivial endevour, so hi-fi orientated research is pretty thin on the ground but if you research subjects like placebo effect, comfirmation bias, suggestion bias and the rest you might get an idea just how powerful these effects are.

no I'd refuse to accept that anyone can tell me my senses are fooled without good argument. But then tell you it's going nowhere as a way of shutting it down.

Our perceptions don't get influenced where there are no contradictions, no bias. What factors are you referring too?

and then say a vaguery like failing to understand, trying to shut it down further.

i can control and be aware of bias if I am alive to it, sure. Anyone can. It just requires open mindedness and awareness. These human reactions as I say are not automatic and set in stone. Ie that you must react to bias.

Confirmation bias and acceptance bias can no less be affected by realisation, as with a placebo. I suspect if you trialled telling people a hearing aid was a better model, but it was the same, they would succumb to placebo. An expert in a medical type setting would convince them. But tell them it could be worse or better , then they would make their minds up, but we come at it from this perspective when buying hi fi, to be cautious and dubious don't we? Especially with hard earned at stake. Well I do, you may not if you do believe what people tell you.

This shows I think for myself, but the diatribe of stuff people come out with, with no thought. Beggars belief. Maybe you could explain your thinking? An interesting debate

OK. Refering to the highlighted sections.

Firstly you can not control bias conciously, you may think you can but you can't, no-one can. This is the primary sticking point in the discussion.

The McGurk effect I linked to earier is a simple, clear example of how easily the brain is fooled, even though you know you are listening to baa, you hear faa. Even when you know. You simply can not control what you hear in a really simple test, why on earth do you think you control yout senses listening to hi-fi?

Secondly your hearing aid anology is an example of sugestion bias, not placebo which is entirely different. It also shows a complete lack of understanding as to how such testing is carried out.

Suggestion bias is the most common obvious effect in sighted, subjective testing. If you are asked to try something in your system the implication is that it will make a difference, so of course you hear a difference.

It really is a simple as that.

Unfortunately you are dealing with an irrational person who is anti-science. He has not even bothered to look at the link I posted earlier. It gives examples of people who changed their minds after undergoing blind testing and seeing how wrong they were.

"This shows I think for myself, "

You have proven beyond doubt that you do not think.

"the diatribe of stuff people come out with, with no thought. Beggars belief. "

I could not agree more. But you carry on regardless. Incidentally, how come all those studies I linked to - not diatribes - come to the consistent conclusions, contrary to the views you express. How come? Are they all liars? Or gullible? And you are the only intelligent person with good hearing? My view is that you are deluded, due to being stubborn and over confident. I suspect you have an emotional personality, and cannot handle rational thought.

the thing is mate you aren't posting any studies. Which ones. You just seem a bit angry and can't debate with people.

...

i think Leif is probably lacking a bit of intelligence

I posted a link referencing a whole list of studies which you have consistently refused to acknowledge.

As for intelligence, I gained a first in physics, and a PhD in theoretical physics, both from world class universities. I have also published many research papers in top scientific journals. And you?

 

[ellisdj]

Come on guys this is that one step too far where its got to personal insults etc

Anyones background is irrelevant because anyone can make hifi sound great, I am not having a pop but I thought this type of thread was ok for once and was quite interesting

 

[Leif]

OK. Refering to the highlighted sections.

Firstly you can not control bias conciously, you may think you can but you can't, no-one can. This is the primary sticking point in the discussion.

The McGurk effect I linked to earier is a simple, clear example of how easily the brain is fooled, even though you know you are listening to baa, you hear faa. Even when you know. You simply can not control what you hear in a really simple test, why on earth do you think you control yout senses listening to hi-fi?

Secondly your hearing aid anology is an example of sugestion bias, not placebo which is entirely different. It also shows a complete lack of understanding as to how such testing is carried out.

Suggestion bias is the most common obvious effect in sighted, subjective testing. If you are asked to try something in your system the implication is that it will make a difference, so of course you hear a difference.

It really is a simple as that.

The last time I baked-off interconnects in my own system, the test included a £15 one that I'd be given for free many years ago and a £125 one that had been very well reviewed on hi-fi forums that looked like it was constructed better - fancier plugs, nicer sheathes. I heard no difference between them. Was this because, please tick as appropriate:

[ ] I was affected by suggestion bias, so of course I heard a difference. I'm just telling lies to avoid being embarassed in front of other people.

[ ] I was not golden eared enough to hear any differences.

[ ] Davedotco is talking nonsense when going on about suggestion bias. There were no audible differences between the cables in the system used. And so therefore I heard no differences despite davedotco saying that I should have been affected by suggestion bias.

I don't think Davedotco was saying that you must think that the more expensive cable is better because it is more expensive. My understanding is that the psychology of audio perception is complex, and without blind testing non auditory clues can and do influence ones perceptions, but the nature of that influence varies from person to person, such as ones prejudices. An audiophile who knows which equipment is said to be good will have different prejudices from a non-audiophile. The links I posted (which has been consistently ignored by the OP) provide very good examples, including one where a group of people listened to some devices, and concluded that recognising the best unit in a blind test would be a slam and dunk, whereas they failed miserably to consistently recognise it when actually blind tested. We are not talking about a bunch of idiots, but intelligent sane people with a decent knowledge of consumer grade hifi.

In my own case, I have done various (non-blind) listening tests, and quite often I cannot tell the difference, sometimes it is very obvious. The problem is that my auditory memory is short and hence I can only register gross differences. Thus when I connected the analogue output of my iPhone to my hifi line in, the audio quality was mediocre when compared to having a Chord Mojo DAC between the iPhone and the hifi. But, when I compared the analogue and digital outputs of my Apple Airport Express, the differences were small, if any. To compare the two would require a few seconds of audio from one, immediately followed by a few seconds of the same audio from the other. And it would require a range of samples e.g. high frequency, low frequency, rapidly changing high/low frequency and so on. This just is not practicable.

 

[lindsayt]

Yet everyone says that mark knopflers music is very well recorded.

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/year?artist=mark+knopfler

Well that, by and large, just goes to show that "everyone" doesn't know what they're talking about.

The 2016 film sound track Altamira is not too bad from a compression point of view. So, in the course of this thread I may have discovered another recent mainstream original release CD that may actually be reasonably well recorded and mastered to add to Neil Young's Peace Trail. Maybe Mark and Neil have been talking to each other?

Sailing to Philadelphia is borderline OK.

The rest of his original releases since 1996 have excessive dynamic compression.

 

[Andrewjvt]

Come on guys this is that one step too far where its got to personal insults etc

Anyones background is irrelevant because anyone can make hifi sound great,  I am not having a pop but I thought this type of thread was ok for once and was quite interesting 

It was until quest for the 13th note called leif dumb and also referred to chebby as chubby

 

[Vladimir]

Pleading to the troll to behave... Have you people lost your mind?

 

[ellisdj]

Come on guys this is that one step too far where its got to personal insults etc

Anyones background is irrelevant because anyone can make hifi sound great, I am not having a pop but I thought this type of thread was ok for once and was quite interesting

It was until quest for the 13th note called leif dumb and also referred to chebby as chubby

No need to point the finger lol

PS Nothing wrong with being Chubby - or did he say he gets a chubby over his cables - I know I do...

 

[Leif]

Pleading to the troll to behave... Have you people lost your mind?

To be honest, being an old fart, I can't for the life of me remember where I left it. I don't s'pose you've seen it? It was there a minute ago ...

 

[davedotco]

The reason that there are no exaustive studies relating to hi-fi is that, scientifically speaking, hi-fi is trivial. There are plenty of studies of the variations in visual and spoken perception that show how unreliable our senses are.

The only way to resolve this discussion in a positive way is for the doubters to try a blind test.

It does not need to be scientifically rigorous, I am not looking to prove a hypothesis here, simply to give those taking part a sense of how similar components are when tested without visual stimuli.

Pick a couple of components, amplifiers say, that you know sound very different and test them blind and level matched, the switching needs to be done by a third person not involved in the listening. This is not that difficult to set up.

Listen to the two components, see what you hear.

 

[Vladimir]

Pleading to the troll to behave... Have you people lost your mind?

To be honest, being an old fart, I can't for the life of me remember where I left it. I don't s'pose you've seen it? It was there a minute ago ...

Off to the audiophile bore gas chambers with you old man. I.G.Y. will be playing as you start smelling pine trees.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

The reason that there are no exaustive studies relating to hi-fi is that, scientifically speaking, hi-fi is trivial. There are plenty of studies of the variations in visual and spoken perception that show how unreliable our senses are.

The only way to resolve this discussion in a positive way is for the doubters to try a blind test.

It does not need to be scientifically rigorous, I am not looking to prove a hypothesis here, simply to give those taking part a sense of how similar components are when tested without visual stimuli.

Pick a couple of components, amplifiers say, that you know sound very different and test them blind and level matched, the switching needs to be done by a third person not involved in the listening. This is not that difficult to set up.

Listen to the two components, see what you hear.

yes I'd agree it's trivial. There is no advantage or benefit in doing it in adding to things like health etc, but it would be interesting,

but we have gone from you saying there are studies to now saying there are not. And I have tried double blind and if you pick one terrible cable that performs badly, and one good, and have a very decent system, it's easy to tell.

but I tried to get people to do a double blind test in a forum but none of them wanted to.

Can you list the studies you refer in regard to visual and spoken perception as they can, as far as my current view goes, be taken apart by understanding that our ears don't hear what we want to by our thought parts of our brain. We can perceive a noise to be say something different, if they sound different because our auditory cortex has to relate to the frontal cortex to ascertain the memory bank of sounds we have heard before.

if one can't prove a hypothesis then basically there is no basis to say, studies show double blind proves people can't discern between hi fi, as you agree there are not any such studies.

id agree on amps and you will pick out very obvious differences, but the same is true of cables if you really know the system, and one is poorly performing and the other is not.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

Pleading to the troll to behave... Have you people lost your mind?

To be honest, being an old fart, I can't for the life of me remember where I left it. I don't s'pose you've seen it? It was there a minute ago ...

Off to the audiophile bore gas chambers with you old man. I.G.Y. will be playing as you start smelling pine trees.

the thing is I think Leif is the real troll here as he is not trying to add to the understanding of the post by his comments, but just wants to put people down, probably because he is a little bit upset still about his belief of someone offending his beloved arcam solo system which he just loves the look of. Despite trying to help the guy out for ages. And if you've nothing to add or want to debate, why actually bother to take part. I'm genuinely interested in this post, and I don't think people are right in their assumptions about how our thinking parts of the brain can or cannot influence what we hear, which can be challenged.

 

[Vladimir]

Pleading to the troll to behave... Have you people lost your mind?

To be honest, being an old fart, I can't for the life of me remember where I left it. I don't s'pose you've seen it? It was there a minute ago ...

Off to the audiophile bore gas chambers with you old man. I.G.Y. will be playing as you start smelling pine trees.

the thing is I think Leif is the real troll here as he is not trying to add to the understanding of the post by his comments, but just wants to put people down, probably because he is a little bit upset still about his belief of someone offending his beloved arcam solo system which he just loves the look of. Despite trying to help the guy out for ages. And if you've nothing to add or want to debate, why actually bother to take part. I'm genuinely interested in this post, and I don't think people are right in their assumptions about how our thinking parts of the brain can or cannot influence what we hear, which can be challenged.

*boredom*

 

[Leif]

Pleading to the troll to behave... Have you people lost your mind?

To be honest, being an old fart, I can't for the life of me remember where I left it. I don't s'pose you've seen it? It was there a minute ago ...

Off to the audiophile bore gas chambers with you old man. I.G.Y. will be playing as you start smelling pine trees.

the thing is I think Leif is the real troll here as he is not trying to add to the understanding of the post by his comments, but just wants to put people down, probably because he is a little bit upset still about his belief of someone offending his beloved arcam solo system which he just loves the look of. Despite trying to help the guy out for ages. And if you've nothing to add or want to debate, why actually bother to take part. I'm genuinely interested in this post, and I don't think people are right in their assumptions about how our thinking parts of the brain can or cannot influence what we hear, which can be challenged.

*crazy*

Regarding my Arcam Solo Movie, I had recently purchased it, and asked on a forum for people to recommend speakers. You posted a comment in which you told me that the Arcam was poor, and I should sell it and buy a Quad Vena or a Cyrus One amplifier. Do you go out of the way to be obnoxious?

As for you being genuinely interested in this post, it is clear that you are not. Time and time again I point out that I posted a link to countless tests which demonstrate the difficulty of judging the sound from audio equipment, and you have not once responded.

Perhaps we should stop feeding the troll?

 

[Leif]

Pleading to the troll to behave... Have you people lost your mind?

To be honest, being an old fart, I can't for the life of me remember where I left it. I don't s'pose you've seen it? It was there a minute ago ...

Off to the audiophile bore gas chambers with you old man. I.G.Y. will be playing as you start smelling pine trees.

Oooh, a day out. I love day's out. I get tired of sitting in my chair, rocking back and forth. Is it Christmas yet? I do like getting my fingers into a nice sticky pudding.

 

[Vladimir]

Pleading to the troll to behave... Have you people lost your mind?

To be honest, being an old fart, I can't for the life of me remember where I left it. I don't s'pose you've seen it? It was there a minute ago ...

Off to the audiophile bore gas chambers with you old man. I.G.Y. will be playing as you start smelling pine trees.

Oooh, a day out. I love day's out. I get tired of sitting in my chair, rocking back and forth. Is it Christmas yet? I do like getting my fingers into a nice sticky pudding.

No pudding today. More green jelly from last Tuesday. *bad*

 

[davedotco]

This post has past the point of being illuminating.

Although having never taken part in a blind test, the OP remains convinced of his ability to descriminate between cables in such a test.

The only way to decide this, is to organise such a test.

In the absence of such a test, here is a link to a number of tests (and some 'comment' articles) carried out by enthusiasts, societies etc over the years. Enjoy.

https://numeralnine.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/a-brief-guide-to-audio-for-the-skeptical-consumer/

 

[lindsayt]

https://numeralnine.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/a-brief-guide-to-audio-for-the-skeptical-consumer/

Of the 7 main points in that article I agree strongly with 2 of them and agree partially with 2 of them. The remaining 3 points I do not agree with.

How about you davedotco, do you agree strongly with all 7 major points in this article?

How about everyone else? How many of the 7 points do you agree with?

There's probably no single correct right or wrong answer as each person's opinions will be guided by the exact experiences they've had.

 

[insider9]

I've got:

- strongly agree x 2
- slightly agree x 1
- strongly disagree x 1
- slightly disagree x 3

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

https://numeralnine.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/a-brief-guide-to-audio-for-the-skeptical-consumer/

Of the 7 main points in that article I agree strongly with 2 of them and agree partially with 2 of them. The remaining 3 points I do not agree with.

1

How about you davedotco, do you agree strongly with all 7 major points in this article?

How about everyone else? How many of the 7 points do you agree with?

There's probably no single correct right or wrong answer as each person's opinions will be guided by the exact experiences they've had.

1) disagree with this to the extent the right cables make a difference, not necessarily cheap or expensive, but I'd qualify to say it's about how it fits into the system.

My basic problem that different cables make no difference is that the people who have these systems probably don't have systems where they would 'hear' the cables anyway. And I've been there with systems I couldn't tell, but I can now with a much better system. I've had systems from £300-£15k. But the problem with saying this, is all the doubters don't believe you and think you a snob. All I can say is until you have the experience you'd change your mind. If I leant my system to you with some cables that are pretty poor and good I reckon you would too.

2) disagree, but you will get some expensive duffers as with anything. But you can't get away from the fact that you get what you pay for, that all that design and components in trying to reach hi fi heaven in a low production audiophile model, costs. If everyone bought audiophile hi fi like tv it wouldn't. Manufacturers claims don't have to stand up to scrutiny as the article refers, its just about is it worth it for what it does at the price. If you think yes, you buy. That's mainly it.

3) absolute nonsense. Different amps tend to have their own house sound and contrary to the first point in the article are tuned with different frequency responses. So it's a bit like making a point for argument sake, and then agreeing with it by the first point.

4) speakers require some burn in, yes absolutely. I gave my speakers back I had taken home as the courier dropped them in delivering to the dealer. They had 100 hours on them. When I got the new pair less damage, the sound was flatter due to no run in, pmc said. I'm a bit dubious amps need much electrical run in, I think it's about optimum temps often.

5) only tried transistor amps not valves.

6) largely depends on the system to make format issues moot. So you can get MP3 sounding awesome if you have great amps and dacs and speakers. Cd is as good as other formats but hi bit rate stuff just sounds different. Also hugely dependent on recording and compression of recording. So formats not worth worrying about to having good cd ripped stuff or CDs. Many mp3s and compressed stuff sounds bad on good systems though. If your system is decent most stuff will sound good though.

7) yes and no. Depends on recording and mastering etc, jury still out on mqa for me. Some hi res Recordings trump cd and conversely the other way around, you get a different sound with hi res and higher frequencies. I have no care to understand why these things happen.

 

[davedotco]

Just another post affirming your position that you can reliably hear things that scientific testing strongly suggests that you can not.

In order to challenge you views you need to do something different, blind testing is the obvious challenge though I accept that this is not easy to arrange. Beyond that, I am at a loos as to what to suggest.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

Just another post affirming your position that you can reliably hear things that scientific testing strongly suggests that you can not.

In order to challenge you views you need to do something different, blind testing is the obvious challenge though I accept that this is not easy to arrange. Beyond that, I am at a loos as to what to suggest.

the point is Daved that you think it's scientific, but it's far from that. The first coat hangar v interconnects test link, doesn't actually say what the system is. If its a cheap system possibly you could expect that result. Why is so. But what is the sample size? What are the controls? Have the perceived problems of the test been discussed. How have these been eliminated. What tests within the test have they tried to understand these factors and variables. Where is the hypothesis, analysis, evaluation of data and conclusion

If you think that's science then it's far removed from my knowledge of what scientific study seeks to do. I have a biological sciences degree just to share where I come from. It can't just be coathangars are as good as interconnects. How come?.....'Jim told me'

 

[davedotco]

Just another post affirming your position that you can reliably hear things that scientific testing strongly suggests that you can not.

In order to challenge you views you need to do something different, blind testing is the obvious challenge though I accept that this is not easy to arrange. Beyond that, I am at a loos as to what to suggest.

the point is Daved that you think it's scientific, but it's far from that. The first coat hangar v interconnects test link, doesn't actually say what the system is. If its a cheap system possibly you could expect that result. Why is so. But what is the sample size? What are the controls? Have the perceived problems of the test been discussed. How have these been eliminated. What tests within the test have they tried to understand these factors and variables. Where is the hypothesis, analysis, evaluation of data and conclusion

If you think that's science then it's far removed from my knowledge of what scientific study seeks to do. I have a biological sciences degree just to share where I come from. It can't just be coathangars are as good as interconnects. How come?.....'Jim told me'

As I have said before, hi-fi is a trivial subject so you are unlikely to get any tests or research that stands up to real scientific scutiney so we simply look at the evidence that we have. Amature/enthusiast conducted tests consistently show that differences described as 'obvious' in sighted tests, all but dissappear when tested blind. That is the reality.

You simply do not accept that, despite all the explanations that have been offered.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

Just another post affirming your position that you can reliably hear things that scientific testing strongly suggests that you can not.

In order to challenge you views you need to do something different, blind testing is the obvious challenge though I accept that this is not easy to arrange. Beyond that, I am at a loos as to what to suggest.

the point is Daved that you think it's scientific, but it's far from that. The first coat hangar v interconnects test link, doesn't actually say what the system is. If its a cheap system possibly you could expect that result. Why is so. But what is the sample size? What are the controls? Have the perceived problems of the test been discussed. How have these been eliminated. What tests within the test have they tried to understand these factors and variables. Where is the hypothesis, analysis, evaluation of data and conclusion

If you think that's science then it's far removed from my knowledge of what scientific study seeks to do. I have a biological sciences degree just to share where I come from. It can't just be coathangars are as good as interconnects. How come?.....'Jim told me'

As I have said before, hi-fi is a trivial subject so you are unlikely to get any tests or research that stands up to real scientific scutiney so we simply look at the evidence that we have. Amature/enthusiast conducted tests consistently show that differences described as 'obvious' in sighted tests, all but dissappear when tested blind. That is the reality.

You simply do not accept that, despite all the explanations that have been offered.

I agree re trivial subject, as i said before too, but I think we can agree it's simply not right to say it's scientific as in your posts a few up said, as clearly you agree they are not scientific. But thats the point, amateur tests aren't scientific and don't show that differences dissappear in blind tests. They are simply not rigorous enough and can't stand up to scrutiny, the controls aren't considered, the variables on which the tests are undertaken, the sample size, statistical analysis.

i reckon if I went around to people who own decent audiophile hi fi and have tried very bad performing speaker wire to very good wire, for their taste, a statistically significant number could pick that out in double blind. I'd start it with a control group who could too in open a and b testing, and a control who could not in a-b, then I'd relate the controls to the actual test groups. But it would need a lot of time and effort and resource.

If you refer me to the tests which you think show what you do, not just to shoot an argument down, but to show you want I mean to the extent the tests are not scientific and don't show what you say. They are just by people who often haven't thought it through, small sample size, don't know the hi fi probably, bad tests conditions etc etc. If you aren't actually told how the cables were swapped over for example, how can you not know they aren't affected by bias, if they hear the noises in the room and that affects their decisions wrongly. Could there be negative bias. Is 5 tests a basis for saying it shows a coat hangar is the same, is it significant and more than a random test. What is the probability of 5 people agreeing the same. Where and how are the people listening. Did they make their minds up together or alone. How was that organised. Did they write the things down on a piece of paper or say it out aloud. Now I'm not necessarily trying to rubbish them, but if I wanted to form a view of the veracity of the 'study' would you not want to know these things? In science you would. It doesn't have to be highly advanced stuff, just common sense testing and knowledge of that testing.

Often too the motivations for people doing this are to just play down the cable debate, rather than test a hypothesis. It's just amateur stuff.

 

[nopiano]

Dave and others have carefully explained how we can be fooled by sighted tests.

You've now picked on the link with several Hi-Fi myths and seem to be conflating this with your beliefs about cable sound.

For what it's worth, I've long believed cables make a difference. However, I'm much more sceptical these days and prefer decently constructed standard cables than fancy boutique types. There are also several good points many pages ago about simple cable 'housekeeping' and keeping contacts clean - all important.

The debate here came close to the most relevant point, long ago postulated in a Hi-Fi magazine - either by Angus McKenzie or Martin Colloms, I suspect - that the best cable sounds like none at all - that is, has no effect on the signal. Most analogue cables that carry outlandish claims either try to change tonal balance or banish an artefact that probably doesn't exist, or is inaudible!