The Great Cable Debate

[Anonymous]

I should say here I don't intent this discussion to be a food fight, rather an informative and honest discussion

I haven't come across any double blind tests yet, but will keep searching. What I do think is that the audiophile community doesn't always follow good scientific practise - if you don't have a massive double blind test with statistically significant results, you can't say the cable is worth it, you just have to say 'i don't know'. And saying 'i don't know, but to me it made a difference' is the same as 'don't know + placebo'. And placebo isn't enough.

Keep the posts coming, need some more data before I make my mind up

 

[JoelSim]

Frohicky:

I should say here I don't intent this discussion to be a food fight, rather an informative and honest discussion

I haven't come across any double blind tests yet, but will keep searching. What I do think is that the audiophile community doesn't always follow good scientific practise - if you don't have a massive double blind test with statistically significant results, you can't say the cable is worth it, you just have to say 'i don't know'. And saying 'i don't know, but to me it made a difference' is the same as 'don't know + placebo'. And placebo isn't enough.

Keep the posts coming, need some more data before I make my mind up

You're rather limiting our options Frohicky. If I hear a difference and say so then you won't believe me.

It's an impossible situation. Someone can only tell if there is a difference if they know their own system intimately. A double-blind test on another system which you don't know well is fraught with problems. Not to mention that some days you are more receptive to music than other days.

Surely the best people for something like this is Ketan and team at the magazine who spend a good part of their time noting improvements, differences, subtle nuances and the like.

Oh, they've done it already, here are their findings.

http://whathifi.com/Reviews/Accessories-Reviews/Audio-interconnects-analogue-Reviews/

http://whathifi.com/Reviews/Accessories-Reviews/Speaker-cables-Reviews/

http://whathifi.com/Reviews/Accessories-Reviews/Mains-products-Reviews/

 

[chebby]

Scientific, Great Randi, Placebo, double-blind test..etc. I am getting a flashback...

http://community.whathifi.com/forums/post/235210.aspx

 

[aliEnRIK]

JoelSim:
Oh, they've done it already, here are their findings.

The nets rife with similar findings Joel. But absolutely NONE of them that have tried a blind test have actually passed it.

That said, again, im pretty sure quite a few of the cables reviewed here are not of sound design anyways (ie ~ they physically distort the sound)

Please ~ run your own blind test. Take months on it if you like. I'd be interested if the blind test shows they make a difference

 

[JoelSim]

aliEnRIK:JoelSim:

Oh, they've done it already, here are their findings.

The nets rife with similar findings Joel. But absolutely NONE of them that have tried a blind test have actually passed it.

That said, again, im pretty sure quite a few of the cables reviewed here are not of sound design anyways (ie ~ they physically distort the sound)

Please ~ run your own blind test. Take months on it if you like. I'd be interested if the blind test shows they make a difference

I don't think there is a way of doing it scientifically, save a CDP with 5 outputs all calibrated to be exactly the same, 5 different interconnects all hooked up to different lines on an amp whcih has also been calibrated and then the ability to listen to the excerpt of music in quick succession. Actually even that wouldn't work.

 

[aliEnRIK]

JoelSim:
I don't think there is a way of doing it scientifically, save a CDP with 5 outputs all calibrated to be exactly the same, 5 different interconnects all hooked up to different lines on an amp whcih has also been calibrated and then the ability to listen to the excerpt of music in quick succession. Actually even that wouldn't work.

Theres quite a few ways of doing it. An ABX 'switchbox' would definitely be the best bet.

But lets take a simple interconnect say.

Get a family member to periodically swop them over (daily, weekly, whatever) without you knowing about it and cover them so you cant see them. (And have them make sure the contacts are clean). Preferably that your not present and have no idea that theyve been changed (The placibo effect is truly powerful)

All you have to do is listen and decide if its the interconnect you now use or a different one (One you claim would be better or (presumably) worse). Write it down and keep a record. (Obviously theyd need to keep a record of when they changed them too)

After a few months im pretty sure youll know if you really can tell the difference or not

 

[Andrew Everard]

rbantges:So has anyone been tempted to try for the $1M prize?

Rich

Gosh, what's that? Never seen that mentioned before...

(Was going to post a picture of an anchor, but you'll just have imagine something else heavy and irony)

 

[chebby]

aliEnRIK:After a few months im pretty sure youll know if you really can tell the difference or not

There is the fatal flaw in your suggested methodology. Joel's system has never been the same for that long

 

[aliEnRIK]

chebby:
aliEnRIK:After a few months im pretty sure youll know if you really can tell the difference or not

There is the fatal flaw in your suggested methodology. Joel's system has never been the same for that long

haha

Id forgotten about that

 

[fayeanddavid]

aliEnRIK:fayeanddavid:
Surely, if you like what you hear/see that is subjective enough, no matter opinion.

Its for that exact same reason that the drugs companies are rolling in money. So no, I completely disagree

You've chosen to take my comments out of context, and bizarrely introduce an element that is not relevant.

We are not talking about the moral high ground here, just Hi Fi cables....................that's all.

 

[JoelSim]

aliEnRIK:JoelSim:

I don't think there is a way of doing it scientifically, save a CDP with 5 outputs all calibrated to be exactly the same, 5 different interconnects all hooked up to different lines on an amp whcih has also been calibrated and then the ability to listen to the excerpt of music in quick succession. Actually even that wouldn't work.

Theres quite a few ways of doing it. An ABX 'switchbox' would definitely be the best bet.

But lets take a simple interconnect say.

Get a family member to periodically swop them over (daily, weekly, whatever) without you knowing about it and cover them so you cant see them. (And have them make sure the contacts are clean). Preferably that your not present and have no idea that theyve been changed (The placibo effect is truly powerful)

All you have to do is listen and decide if its the interconnect you now use or a different one (One you claim would be better or (presumably) worse). Write it down and keep a record. (Obviously theyd need to keep a record of when they changed them too)

After a few months im pretty sure youll know if you really can tell the difference or not

As I'm sure you'll appreciate, I still think there are variables there ie what mood you are in, how much wine you've drunk, what you have on at work the next day etc etc.

 

[JoelSim]

chebby:

aliEnRIK:After a few months im pretty sure youll know if you really can tell the difference or not

There is the fatal flaw in your suggested methodology. Joel's system has never been the same for that long

Not recently, no. It was when I bought the first Nordost though.

I'm planning to try out a test of RCA vs XLR with the Heimdalls (bought the XLR today) and I will keep the one that sounds the best. I will also involve my Crystal Cable Piccolo RCA and try to get ANOther XLR cable.

 

[chebby]

JoelSim:As I'm sure you'll appreciate, I still think there are variables there ie what mood you are in, how much wine you've drunk, what you have...

...just won on ebay whilst drunk...etc.

 

[JoelSim]

Nah. Bought for a very good price this morning though and have inspected the pictures very closely for any signs of tampering, asked lots of questions and told them I already have a Heimdall so I will be able to see if anything is amiss.

Mallory suggested Chord XLR would be better than Nordost as the latter he feels is a bit thin. Having said that I have a ballsy CDP and my speakers aren't ideally placed which results in quite a bassy sound so perhaps that's why I prefer the thinner on my system. Anyway we will see.

 

[aliEnRIK]

JoelSim:
As I'm sure you'll appreciate, I still think there are variables there ie what mood you are in, how much wine you've drunk, what you have on at work the next day etc etc.

Absolutely. Im not expecting 100%. But if they DO make a differnce, then id be expecting you to be in the 80s at least

 

[aliEnRIK]

JoelSim:
Nah. Bought for a very good price this morning though and have inspected the pictures very closely for any signs of tampering, asked lots of questions and told them I already have a Heimdall so I will be able to see if anything is amiss.

Mallory suggested Chord XLR would be better than Nordost as the latter he feels is a bit thin. Having said that I have a ballsy CDP and my speakers aren't ideally placed which results in quite a bassy sound so perhaps that's why I prefer the thinner on my system. Anyway we will see.

Interesting that 'Mallory' finds the Heimdall a bit thin in bass. When I auditioned the Nordost Silver Wind speaker cable I found bass majorly lacking

I have to ask though, why would you still be trying other makes out if you have the heimdalls?

 

[JoelSim]

aliEnRIK:JoelSim:

Nah. Bought for a very good price this morning though and have inspected the pictures very closely for any signs of tampering, asked lots of questions and told them I already have a Heimdall so I will be able to see if anything is amiss.

Mallory suggested Chord XLR would be better than Nordost as the latter he feels is a bit thin. Having said that I have a ballsy CDP and my speakers aren't ideally placed which results in quite a bassy sound so perhaps that's why I prefer the thinner on my system. Anyway we will see.

Interesting that 'Mallory' finds the Heimdall a bit thin in bass. When I auditioned the Nordost Silver Wind speaker cable I found bass majorly lacking

I have to ask though, why would you still be trying other makes out if you have the heimdalls?

I haven't had XLRs before so will test balanced vs unbalanced, then see which I XLR I prefer, or which RCA I prefer.

Given that Mallory has suggested Chord, I will trust his judgement vs what I like.

The losing cables will be moved on at no financial loss.

http://www.fantasyleague.com/Pro/Default.aspx

 

[aliEnRIK]

JoelSim:aliEnRIK:JoelSim:

Nah. Bought for a very good price this morning though and have inspected the pictures very closely for any signs of tampering, asked lots of questions and told them I already have a Heimdall so I will be able to see if anything is amiss.

Mallory suggested Chord XLR would be better than Nordost as the latter he feels is a bit thin. Having said that I have a ballsy CDP and my speakers aren't ideally placed which results in quite a bassy sound so perhaps that's why I prefer the thinner on my system. Anyway we will see.

Interesting that 'Mallory' finds the Heimdall a bit thin in bass. When I auditioned the Nordost Silver Wind speaker cable I found bass majorly lacking

I have to ask though, why would you still be trying other makes out if you have the heimdalls?

I haven't had XLRs before so will test balanced vs unbalanced, then see which I XLR I prefer, or which RCA I prefer.

Given that Mallory has suggested Chord, I will trust his judgement vs what I like.

The losing cables will be moved on at no financial loss.

http://www.fantasyleague.com/Pro/Default.aspx

If you have true balanced hi fi seperates, then you really should use balanced interconnects. The design alone reduces the 'noise floor'

 

[JoelSim]

Yes, I have owned true balanced separates for 3 days now, so it's about time I tried it. Just thought it would be interesting to test them against one another. I just need to source a Chord XLR now, unless anyone wants to lend me one.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks all for the responses, glad this is generating interest. I'll respond to JoeSlim in particular

I apologise in advance for the size of the text, want to try and cover everything.

The situation is, I think, one that has an answer. Cable x is either better than y, or it isn't, given some agreed criterion. I think most people most of the time agree on most of the aspects they want to hear from their music or film, so we have some criteria to measure against.

But we know that people look for positive bias, that they have moods, drink wine on some nights, pair equipment together, etc. So we need some way of removing all of these factors to just leave x and y. And we have one such method: science. Anything else is insufficient. It's like someone saying "well homeopathy works for me" - they are welcome to hold that opinion, but they aren't welcome to their own truth. If someone says, to take an example, that this Nordost Valhalla cable is better than this Bell Wire, they aren't entitled to their own truth.

They are, of course, welcome to say "it sounds to me like Valhalla is better than Bell" and, barring a brain scan, I would take their word that this is truthful

but that's not the question I want answering. I want the cable to justify it's cost, be advertised truthfully, and justify itself over simply the placebo affect with a cheaper cable.

As such, things like expertise, passion, practise, experience etc in cable listening is deserving of respect and worth discussing on an artistic level, but can never rise above anecdote.

You rightly ask how we could do this experiment. Off the top of my head, maybe something like this. We get the two cables, connect them to identical systems, in identical rooms in which the cables cannot be seen. No-one involved knows which is which. This test is repeated on several days, with several types of music, with several people, and finally the whole thing repeated on several systems so as to cover the system matching without having to consciously match them. The result would have to be statistically significant, using perhaps a two sigma standard deviation.

Of course, this would be expensive, time consuming, boring and a general pain in the ***

so what I recommend is that every cable article in the world be prefaced by the sentence "everything that follows is a personal opinion, to which we can assign no likelyhood of truth, or guarantee of lack of bias" . I'm of course not saying that reviews and advice are useless - I will be on this very forum mining as much as I can for my upcoming system

I just want reviews, technical articles, etc to be clear in the level of certainty they carry.

 

[Anonymous]

A long read that one but well said, can't see the last part happening though.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeh, sorry for the length :-/ you can tell I normally type on philosophy forums

 

[Anton90125]

I use Townshend Isolda and have found a "Big difference" with it.

Look at the the following youtube video. As a physicist you will appreciate the methodology behind it. The video is particularly good as it proves a point without being subjective. Max could have done the expriment better and avoided some of the comments from cartain famous cable naysayers, however the underlying principles still hold true.

Enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9HrYAyVItY

This video also shows that the cable physics goes deeper then alot of naysayers would have you believe. ie their arguments seem to be limited to "its only resistance that important, impedance/capacitance arnt't important" etc.

Remember hifi is about listening not about measuring. If what your hear gives you a "kick" and you enjoy the experience then thats all that counts. If one cable helps the process more then another then that cable is probably better (excepting the fact that no one hears exactly the same way).

I find it quite funny reading some of the comments regarding properly constructed cables. You can get 2 properly constructed cables which sound different. What do they mean by properly constructed anyway? Does it mean conforming to some arbitary view of what parameters define a cable? or does it mean manufacturing damage some where in the cable reducing it performance?

 

[aliEnRIK]

Anton90125:I use Townshend Isolda and have found a "Big difference" with it. Look at the the following youtube video. As a physicist you will appreciate the methodology behind it. The video is particularly good as it proves a point without being subjective. Max could have done the expriment better and avoided some of the comments from cartain famous cable naysayers, however the underlying principles still hold true. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9HrYAyVItY This video also shows that the cable physics goes deeper then alot of naysayers would have you believe.

Im definitely a believer in certain cables. I once posted this same video on a different site and a guy came on whos into audio in a big way (more so the technical side of it, building amps etc)

He 'claims' (And ive no reason at all to doubt him), that Mr Townshend did that same setup at a hifi exhibition, and the 'standard' speaker cable he used was FAR longer than normal. Which would produce those results anyways

***EDITED***

 

[Anton90125]

I am not sure what this person "claims" actually makes sense? Mr Townshend was doing test on loadspeakers cables and with a tone generator. If "and I say a big IF" this extra long mains cable had any bearing on the oscilloscope display, this would be constant between all the cables being used. What Max successfully demonstrated was that transmission line properties can be found at audio frequencies and that these properties will effect the frequency characteristics of the cable from just being a simple resistance driven conductor to that of an active component in your signal chain. The cleaver bit was he did it without resorting to any subjective standpoints. You can easily reproduce this experiment yourself and always get the same result.

To make the experiment more airtight (naysayers comments), he should have repeated the experiment with many lenghts of cable and coiled them and uncoiled them, even going to the point of actually distorying one of his Isolda cable to change the geometry and thus show the negative effects.

I got the Isolda (SH from Ebay) and the difference is so black and white. All I can suggest is get some one to demo it for you.

Most naysayer will not demo a cable on principle (a principle that not very scientific ie text book is right why should I do an experiment to prove otherwise)