Cable directionality & cables

Originally posted by Paul Ranson
To get a beat you need a non-linearity, it's a distortion product and can be measured. It's a bit tricky if the non-linearity is in your ears of course.
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Possibly an accurate statement - if you are being particularly tight with your definitions - but more misleading than useful.

If you have a signal made up of two frequencies on a scope you WILL see the beat, as a variation in the peak amplitude of the trace. This requires no non-linearity in the system. If you put that same trace into a frequency/spectrum analyser though you will not see any signal at the beat frequency, unless there is a non-linearity in the system, as Paul says. You will see the two source signals at their respective frequencies - which anyone viewing such a spectrum would know would result in a perceived beat at the difference frequency.
 
Originally posted by MartinC
I don't know what lots of art 'means' but I still look...
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So you think Tony uses the scope for its artistic value :D Interesting thought.
 
Originally posted by Paul Ranson
To get a beat you need a non-linearity, it's a distortion product and can be measured. It's a bit tricky if the non-linearity is in your ears of course.

To look at an absurd example this is how radio works and we can certainly both hear and measure the audio that results.

Paul
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Thanks for that Paul.

So given the non linearity of the ear, lets assume that a particular beat results in the subject perceiving a tone quite clearly at say 1khz whilst listening in room to their system.

Would I be right in thinking that it would not be possible to measure this phenomenon unless the equipment used were calibrated to mimic the exact non linearity of the subjects ear?

Christ you're quick Graham.! So from your explanation, is it impossible to show the affect of a beat in the frequency domain using conventional measurements?
 
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Ah, hi Paul, I meant to ask ya earlier dude, did ya actually mean this bobbins?

Because documented reality is that in a sighted hifi evaluation you are using every sense. And there is good evidence that your ears get a very low priority. If you trusted your ears then you would listen 'blind', paying attention to levels etc. And wouldn't be so averse to the idea, however hard it is to actually do
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Call me a silly monkey, but when I audition gear I've got better things to do than sit there like an arse, blindfolded:D Is this what you do? Tell me no, puleeze.................:eek:
 
Originally posted by joel
So you think Tony uses the scope for its artistic value :D Interesting thought.
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In the context Tone talked about looking at it above it did sound rather like an artistic appreciation of the waveform dancing about to me :).
 
So the freedom of speech is only for some, Michaelab erased my post, I am out of here, thanks guys... :mad:
 
Originally posted by lowrider
So the freedom of speech is only for some, Michaelab erased my post, I am out of here, thanks guys... :mad:
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Your new thread which I deleted was just a childish wind up. I would go as far as to say it was insulting, to suggest that either my hearing or even my brain had been damaged from listening to my iPod :mad:

It's interesting that the subjectivists come out with such venom and are so furious about the fact that I have changed my view on cables :confused: . It's like I'm a traitor to some religious cult or something :rolleyes:

Michael.
 
Originally posted by merlin
Christ you're quick Graham.! So from your explanation, is it impossible to show the affect of a beat in the frequency domain using conventional measurements?
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Depends what you're trying to look at. If you're trying to show the presence or absence of distortions, then a frequency display is the obvious thing - you would be looking for clean transmission of signals of multiple frequencies without any distortion products (i.e. harmonics - at multiples of the input frequencies - or intermodulation products - at sums and differences of the input signals).

Beats are not necessarily indicative of distortions - just multiple frequencies in the signal.

I'm assuming you're not talking about "beat" as in "rhythm" and our perception of it (although a frequency display can be useful in looking at irregularities in a repetitive sequence, as in "jitter spectrum" :rolleyes: ) - there you're probably best off looking in the time domain: check out the rise and fall times of the signal envelope.

Looking at signals on a scope can be quite artistically moving - just like watching a dancing flame - but whenever I get to do so its a) much higher frequency (RF) so there's no associated physical experience and b) it's all tightly time-synced so we really don't want any irregularities at all (as that shows its "broken" :( )
 
Originally posted by michaelab

It's interesting that the subjectivists come out with such venom and are so furious about the fact that I have changed my view on cables :confused: . It's like I'm a traitor to some religious cult or something :rolleyes:

Michael.
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but the objectivists are exactly the same towards us
 
Call me a silly monkey
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You're a silly monkey.

Why is that silly monkeys have so little imagination? How many ways are there to say that a 'blind' test means that the listener doesn't know what they are listening to, and that a 'double blind' test means that neither the listener nor the tester know what is being listened to.

Paul
 
Originally posted by penance
but the objectivists are exactly the same towards us
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Really? I haven't seen it. Although I'm a devout non-believer in tweaks, cables, power cords, supports, green pens, oak feet, wooden knobs, silver goops, Shakti stones, etc., etc., etc., I have always been happy for the believers to believe in them. We all hear and perceive things differently, so if you heard a difference, as far as I'm concerned, you heard a difference, and it doesn't matter whether that difference existed only in your head or in measurable physical reality.

Like smell, sound does not exist outside our heads, it is the reaction of the ear-brain system to certain compressions and rarefactions in the atmosphere, and it is subject to that system, including psychological/expectation/whatever factors. I only ask that a statement such as "power cords make a difference" not be presented as a law of the universe, as is sometimes the case, but as an individual perception. To the best of my knowledge, all the objectivists I've observed on this forum work to these same principles, and I think that talk of an "objectivist take-over" of ZeroGain is much exaggerated.
 
Originally posted by GrahamN
I'm assuming you're not talking about "beat" as in "rhythm" :( )
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Indeed I'm not you old Jive Turkey! I think it's a term Ian might use.

What I am trying to understand, and forgive me here but my knowledge is somewhat limited, is that ,given the presence of a beat when playing two disparate frequencies, and the perception for the listener of that beat, is there any way of identifying the frequency of the beat by using say a spectral analyser, or are we just reliant on a mathamatical process to be able to define the perceived pitch?

Thanks
 
Originally posted by Paul Ranson
How many ways are there to say that a 'blind' test means that the listener doesn't know what they are listening to, and that a 'double blind' test means that neither the listener nor the tester know what is being listened to.
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I have nothing against an objective approach and use measurements extensively along with listening.

I have nothing against 'blind' or 'double blind' listening tests either. Care must be taken for these to have any meaning however.

For example, In an A-B comparison the hearing tends to compensate for what has gone before. So if I'm listening to a speaker with a 3dB peak at 100Hz and then I listen to a 'flat' speaker, the flat speaker will sound like it has a trough at 100Hz. Therefore, I prefer to live with a product for a while before I can draw any meaningful conclusions. Of course then one's memory is the weakest link.

It's difficult to have a 'blind test'. Speakers should be tested alone in a room to avoid exciting each others' resonances. Therefore they need some sort of curtain or screen. A curtain that is visually opaque generally degrades the sound.

Cables, amps, etc. are easier to test blind but the difficulties of the mind compensating when switching from one product to another still applies (where there is a difference).

At the Bristol show we switched off the display on the Wadia cd player and put an LP on the turntable so it was difficult for anyone to know what was playing, cd or vinyl. The audience was blind (until we changed the disk) but not double blind - we knew.
 
Originally posted by 7_V
It's difficult to have a 'blind test'. Speakers should be tested alone in a room to avoid exciting each others' resonances. Therefore they need some sort of curtain or screen. A curtain that is visually opaque generally degrades the sound.
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Well of course you could actually use blindfolds...
 
HOLD IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This afternoon is getting a bit more 'upbeat' :D than usual, this seems to be seriously emotive subject, normally people who post happily are geting some what 'increased under collar temperature wise.
Far too much scratch your eyeballs out boys, just cool down and relax, take a couple of breaths before hitting the posting botton.
 

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