Bake-off Revisited

I dont know any respected designers that think that. Not respected by me anyway.

The LCR value of a cable can make a difference to the interface between the output characteristics of one piece of kit and the input of another in some instances. Loudspeakers being the most pertienent case in question - low cap leads for passive preamp or cartridge leads being another. However you can get cables of varying LCR for pence not £1000s of pounds. What is not true however is that an audiophile cable of set LCR is better than a non-audiophile cable with the same LCR, which is what the cable industry (and most of the profits of hifi retailers) is based upon. Good insulation from interference and good connectors are the only things that matter for most normal kit and cable. Which is why cheap home made cables can and do sound just as good - if not better. And the reason they sound better is because many high end cables have anomalously high LCR values so that a difference can be heard (different NOT better) and thereby convince the buyer to part with his cash, even though said LCR values are almost certainly detrimental, but may act as a moderating influence on flaws in the system elsewhere.

 

Boogs has just turned down a set of cables to try ......I wonder why that is ........?


This speaks volumes about our esteemed friend ......but as i told him there's no law against stupidity or cloth ears!

 

brizonbiovizier......well said !

 

Its clear that reading through the linked items

all these are hearsay and friend of a friend tales .....I'll leave the reader to ask themselve who they should believe !

 

He was going to then seems to have changed his mind. Never mind. He might have changed his mind had he bothered to listen.

 

He's a troll

 

Whilst I'm not commenting either way, I love your arrogant approach - ie. you think what your saying is news. All your arguments have been discussed thoroughly here before. Some people subscribe and some dont. This Thread is an interesting and personable take on the subject. There's no need to wade in so hard, you might want to look into previous threads and perhpas then consider offering something new.

 

Boogs, you are either a troll or deliberately hiding yourself away from the blindingly obvious.

Cables have three basic properties which affect the sound: resistance, inductance and capacitance. A simple example would be a high resistance/high capacitance cable - this would have the effect of a simple electronic RC low-pass filter, giving a rolled-off top end which would manifest itself in a slightly dulled-down treble.

Just because you don't think something is impossible doesn't make it impossible... try taking zanash up on his offer and listening for yourself.

 

You are Stewart Pinkerton and I claim my £5

 

Hello new here,

A few years ago my friend was buying hifi in around 800 per unit range (arcam alpha 9, 10 int and power amp, ruark crusaders) ICs were £100 audioquests', and similar to the quad the 9 had 2 outputs, so just to prove the difference bettween the audioquests and the freebee red and blacks both were plugged in and tried by swapping sources. Easy test, difference wasnt going to be hard to tell.......my god, we flicked bvetween inputs, tried different tracks, the most indepth listening resulted in wondering why £100 was paid. Astonished that no audible differnce could be heard. As a full believer in quality connectors, I felt like I had been BS'ing myself, I still cant believe there was no real difference. Even listinening with the his Grado reference cans, I couldnt hear a difference - most dissapointed. Sure a contentious issue, but my own experince says not to go over board with i/c's; nice ic's look well, nice. Are they really offerring me anything extra - now I doubt it, but by the nature of their construction they're certainly not taking anything away either.

Rich

 

that might be missing the point.

in some cases it could be that individual pieces of hifi react difrferently to cables changes.

example: my old audiolab S sounded totally different with a new power cable, the Tag pre amp that replaced it, is barely different at all with the same switch in cable. is this cable now hocum? no of course not just the new amp displays less of the shortcoming that made this cable so good on the cheaper amp.

likewise, i've made IC's that blow £300 shop stock IC's out of the water, and mine never cost over £80 inc plugs. the point is you can still pay £100 from a shop for crap..

and then of course there's the idiots that says, well Arcam, cd and amp with ruark kit, what do you expect?

or the guys who simply proffer that maybe it was you and your mate, who couldn't discern the differences.


the results are variable for sure.

 

Sam Old, Same Old...

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:SLEEP: Yawn... same old, same old: Did so / did not!!!

First: The only way that you are going to gain any kind of consensus on this topic is by conducting the evaluation with only the loudspeakers in the room, and the cable-swappers in a separate room ~ something that is easy to do if you [really] want to see true results.

Second: The results sheets need to be numeric, not described in terms of vague audiophile banter. Furthermore, these results need to be published in your forum so that folks can see: "5/10 or 9/10 or whatever number" of people / auditions took place and this is what occurred.

If, for instance, you found and published the fact that 6/6 of you were able to pick out one cable as inferior every single time, no matter how many auditions - and you were all in a separate room from the cable swapper... then folks would have a whole lot less to argue about.

I'm a big fan of blind auditions and have conducted my own strict group auditions with ICs in the past. The result, using expensive silver cables with 'special' plugs vs. very basic copper cables proved that there were in fact, no differences whatsoever between cables when participants could not see said cables ~ even though we all were sure of the opposite before we were disallowed the presence of the equipment...

Check it out here:

http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2476

... as well as an epilogue here:

http://cdnav.com/cdnav/viewtopic.php?t=164

Andrew D.
cdnav.com
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i'd be happy to lend 2 power cables for any bake off in the uk.

 

What the.......

this was a report on a bake off its not intended as anything more. Certainly not a subjective statistical study ..which are no use anyway ....

The idea was just to show that different cable make different sounds with out letting the participants get visual clues from the cables they had seen .....it was carried out on a friendly and informal way ....people made a few notes as there were 8 -10 sets of cables to listen to.

I suggest why don't you setup and do the tests rather than criticizes in hind sight... then write up the results and then I can pick holes in your article !

 

Yawn another non believer. There are differences in cables as i use my ears not statistics to judge what i hear. I suggest you have your ears syringed as i suspect this may be your problem.

And in future it is always courteuos to either say hello or make oneself known with their first post than to deride experienced forum members.

 

Truth

Zanash:

I did the work and posted it should you choose to peruse and critique ~ see links above.

Jimbo:

Funny you would mention cleaning of one's ear canals, I'm a great believer in this step in improving one's hearing, I suggest you get on it as well.

We, the 'non-believers' could discuss this issue heatedly all day and night with you, but the [only] way you are going to see the light is to participate in a properly (strictly - no possible way of peeking), conducted unsighted audition of your favorite RCAs vs. some bargain-basement units.

Do it in your home, with your stereo, with your favorite music, with people that you feel comfortable around, with your favorite food and all of the other things that make you happy and comfortable... and you will - I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever - finally realize how you've been duped by marketing departments, magazines and your audiophile friends who, as it turns out, have also been duped...

Please: just try it for yourself - you will be shocked at what you learn...

It always disgusts me that of the hundreds of thousands of audiophiles in our hobby, so very few of us will take an afternoon of their time to learn the truth for themselfs. Instead, they listen to misleading statements, innuendo and general hogwash from vested marketing or egotistical interests on all sides.

Come freekin' on guys: it only takes a few hours to see the truth in this mess - get on it already!

Andrew D.

 

Fraid there were no marketing departments ..all the cables as stated were built by myself none were for sale .... none were left as a gift to the listeners ..[as sometimes happens] ...

As previously stated this was not a statistical double blind test ...it was never intended as such so the sooner you can comprehend that the better.

The sole purpose was to show in an informal setting that different topologies and conductors can sound different.

As the system used was not mine I had no way of knowing before hand if any of the cables would make an audible difference....I would have been just as pleased [though perplexed if they had not] ....

If your so anti cables tell us what your currently using in your own system if its not the freebies originally supplied with your seventies cassette deck your being rather duplicitous!

 

Just read your test......

you can't run a double blind test if you know the listeners ....thats obvious for a start and needs no explaination.

You need to run a statistical analysis say a peretto type and therefore a sample size of over 50 should be recomended as a minimum. I'd like a hundred plus to provide a decent sample size.
the participants must not know why there listening to the same music a number of times. They should be asked which they preffer not does one cable sound better than the other.

You should not carry out coin tosses to select cables ..this is not random.. as such and can be biased by the tosser.

If you need a random use a 20 sided dice above 10 gives one out come and below ten the other... thrown by an individual not connected with the test.

the cable changers must be allowed to make there choice of cable without influence from the audience.

These are not criticisms of the listening test but its methodology....

As you can see this carried out with any statistical validity is near impossible unless your a research institute with a great num,ber of participants.

Something hinted at was the ability to remember the sound of the other cable as it takes maybe 30 seconds to a minute to swap cables .....

my listening tests were carried out using a quad 77 pre with three identical inputs and a remote control so the cables could be swapped at the press of a button this seemless change was able to show clearly the effect each cable had on the sound....everyone heard the differences with the seven cables that was not in question not everyone agreed which they like the best ...which as you know must be down to personal taste

Also I had not met any of the listeners bar two before that evening....

I feel that you may need to reread some of the observations made on the thread in canuck audio mart as these realy express far better than I the short comings of the undoubtedly hard work and effort you made in conducting this noble but ultimately flawed test.

I'm personally not concerned as to whether you can or can't hear any differences....I'm not going to say your wrong far from it ...
What you hear is a personal thing and only known to yourself, if you find that you are deluding yourself theres only one person who will be missing out ....this of course applies to everyone including myself.

Oh yes my cables were engineer to deliberately sound different by the use of dissimilar conductors

silver
copper
aluminium
steel
silver plated copper
multi strand copper
solid core copper

I suspect that if you were to take a good budget cable and poor mega buck cable you could well get the results you found.

I don't think you can compare the results from our test as they are so dissimilar and with different objectives ..unless you really don't appreciate why.






I feel sorry that your missing out ....

 

Reality

Its you my friend who are missing out: on reality... You, like the 'cable-whispers' on CAM who attempted to discredit the process, chose to ignore the fact that it was not only I who was not able to discern any differences in cables, but everyone else involved - even with the dollar forty-nine cables in the 'trick' evaluation I sprung on the unsuspecting chaps after the main evaluation.

You keep on harping on and on about how [I] cannot hear this or that, but choose to ignore the fact that no one else heard any differences either. Fact of the matter: whenever anyone has conducted a properly controlled blind evaluation - ever - and published the results on the Internet, they came to the same conclusions - there are no audible differences between RCA cables that are not damaged.

Again I suggest - to anyone who is bothering to read the childish discussion the this chap and I are having, ignore our foolish banter: set up a blind evaluation of your own - just get the hardware, cables and cable-swappers out of the listening room - leaving only the loudspeakers with the folks doing the auditioning. Keep track of the process and compare notes later - you'll see what I mean...

Some examples of other's work in this field:

ABX.com
Home Cinema-FR

Andrew D.

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Johnny??? Is that you:JPS: