Cable Happy.

[Shiner]

the logic being stated is that if science can't prove it,then it must not be so. then you guys back that up with, if science can't prove it isn't so because we can't measure it, then we can statistically eradicate it with testing using real ears, attached to real humans.


that's all great, but what if the act of testing is sufficient to remove a persons perceptability to the effect they would otherwise hear. then you can't measure it, can't test for it, but remain able to hear it..

You need to provide some evidence to show this is case.

everyone just assumes there are only two states for the case, off or on, cold or hot, like a lightbulb...

well i disagree, there's a third state, an untestable state, equivalent to a just been turned off lightbulb, still warm enough to burn your hand, but not bright enough to read by.


i firmly believe that differences between cables do exist, not anywhere like you would need to be able to justify good money on them though. just subtle tone controls, unless you have seriosuly weird inteactions in your set up.

If cables etc are untestable, how do manufacturers research them to make them in the first place?
Some of the vendors like to tell us through there advertising that they spend a lot of R&D. If these things are untestable / unmeasureable, what are they doing?


The fact of the matter is, that signal transmission along cables, both analogue and digital has been researched and has been well understood for decades.This research has been carried out by serious specialists in major industries, not a minnow industry like audio, but big industry applications like Nuclear, Military, IT. and nothing has been found.

May I also suggest an excellent read for anyone who is really interested in human hearing and all of its pitfalls

An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, Fifth Edition . Brian C.J.Moore

You can get it on Amazon.

 

[DavidF]

Oh John,

........I would just leave it mate.

 

[michaelab]

i firmly believe that differences between cables do exist

You and many others. However, no one has ever been able to demonstrate that they can hear these differences by reliably telling two cables apart.

The idea that the act of testing somehow mysteriously alters your hearing ability so you can no longer hear differences between cables is laughable. However, proper tests take this into account by making sure that test subjects can reliably hear differences that are small but known to be audible (eg small frequency response alterations).

Your "third state" analogy is meaningless. What is 'untestable' about a just turned off light bulb?

Michael.

 

[DavidF]

You and many others. However, no one has ever been able to demonstrate that they can hear these differences by reliably telling two cables apart.

The idea that the act of testing somehow mysteriously alters your hearing ability so you can no longer hear differences between cables is laughable. However, proper tests take this into account by making sure that test subjects can reliably hear differences that are small but known to be audible (eg small frequency response alterations).

Your "third state" analogy is meaningless. What is 'untestable' about a just turned off light bulb?

Michael.

Fine, don 't buy cables then!

As noted above, theres no obligation to.

 

[michaelab]

Fine, don 't buy cables then!

I don't.

 

[anon_bb]

Then the testing is wrong

What are you proposing is the same argument used for homeopathy poltergeists etc etc and belongs in the same category

If a subjective effect exists then a non-biased well conducted test will reveal it.

if you are trying to claim no test could reveal - then as our hearing is itself a test then by definition the effect does not exist except in your imagination. our ears have no special status - they are quite unremarkable except in their dynamic range which is quite well understood

Off but warm bulbs can be tested for using infra red - that type of argument is entirely specious. it appeals to popular misconceptions of science

the logic being stated is that if science can't prove it,then it must not be so. then you guys back that up with, if science can't prove it isn't so because we can't measure it, then we can statistically eradicate it with testing using real ears, attached to real humans.


that's all great, but what if the act of testing is sufficient to remove a persons perceptability to the effect they would otherwise hear. then you can't measure it, can't test for it, but remain able to hear it.

everyone just assumes there are only two states for the case, off or on, cold or hot, like a lightbulb...

well i disagree, there's a third state, an untestable state, equivalent to a just been turned off lightbulb, still warm enough to burn your hand, but not bright enough to read by.




i firmly believe that differences between cables do exist, not anywhere like you would need to be able to justify good money on them though. just subtle tone controls, unless you have seriosuly weird inteactions in your set up.

 

[sq225917]

michaealab, the lightbulb is just an analogy. an explanation of where it comes from may help.

you have a room with two light switches outside the door, you can switch one switch on and then off again, then entering the room you have to deduce which switch controls the light inside the room.

if you consider the light as only having two states, on or off, it is imposible to tell visually which switch works the light. but if you work out that the light may be any of the following states, 'on', 'off never been on', , 'off just turned off' then by handling the bulb, to see if it is warm, if the light is off on entering the room you can solve the puzzle.

the analogy works thus, cable sceptics believe that there are only two states, cables which can be measured as sounding different, or deluded idiots who hear differences where none can be measured. what i am proposing is a third state, differences that can be heard in the normal scheme of things but are generally so subtle and shifting that the act of being under observation robs one of our ability to discern the difference.

it's not black and white.

and science is a million miles away from understanding everything that effects the way we 'hear' music. there are just way too many factors to affect how the sound is heard, processed, stored, recalled, linked emotionally to other memories. amachine that could decode this process, would be....well a bigger brain..

science ain't got the answers, it can't even explain the conversion of experience to checmical memory. frankly it's pathetic, and the blind faith some place in it laughable. free your mind boys, you are prisoners to science.

 

[DavidF]

I don't.

....but I bet your not just using bell wire in your system!

 

[banpe2006]

..Lets take a step back in time, say to 1200 ad. (just after the world was flat ) .If science had told people that when you were dead, that was that - and ressurection was a biblical myth.... how would you now as a scientist explain a heart transplant to save a life? Did your "boys" get it wrong, or hadnt they quite figured it out yet? That is, instead of keep saying "theres no proof, theres no proof" perhaps ye should crie..."theres no proof yet, theres no proof yet!" its a double bluff....there is no proof that cables work, perhaps because you havent figured out how this could be done. Ahhh, but we cable freaks have....we use the ears that god gave us,along with the sense of taste, touch, vision and smell and when the day finally arrives when ears , eyes, smells , touch and taste can be fully understood and recreated by science...then build me a robot that can sit infront of my hifi , shake its pretty metallic head and wag its little aluminium robotic finger and tell me - in a birmingham dialect - that my cables dont work; then, i may believe you.

 

[anon_bb]

No you are completely wrong and have misunderstood the very basis of what science is about.

First of all no faith is required that is the point. Our lack of understanding about how memories are stored is not a failure of science - it is a failure of our understanding so far. Science is the only way to get that understanding and very definite progress has been made in that area. Science is the means to gaining knowledge and that is not weakened in any sense by having imperfect knowledge of the world. We would not need science if we had no gaps in our knowledge.

Cables either make a difference or they don't - there is no intermediate state. There can be an intermediate observation, as in quantum mechanics which you are kind of referencing without actually understating, but this distribution collapses to a single measured value upon observation.

If we hear a difference then there must be a difference that can measured between cables that gives rise to that perceived difference, whether or not we have the skill to measure it or not. Otherwise the ear, as a measurement device, would also not find anything different because they would be the same. We can then either try to measure what has not been previously measured or we can assess the subjective impressions of the listeners. if they can hear a subjective difference then a test can be devised to measure it.

The only people that claim no test can measure something because the test makes it goes away are clutching at straws, as with the supernatural or homeopathy etc because THEY HAVE NO REPEATABLE EVIDENCE OF ANY KIND. Don't forget that every time you "hear" something it is also an observation so by your logic hearing the difference would also make it disappear so it could not be heard - which is a contradiction. If people can hear this alleged difference when swapping cables then it is eminently suitable for testing under blind conditions. if the effect then vanishes then it was just in the imagination. Human perception is not perfectly understand - but what is perfectly understood is the role of prejudice and self deception upon casual perception. Rigourous scientific testing eliminates this element and if the effect likewise disappears it is a placebo like effect of psychological origins not related to an underlying physical phenomena.

 

[anon_bb]

People who are resuscitated are not dead they are merely very close to death (death is defined as the entropic point of no return). If you were actually dead you could not be resuscitated. Nobody has ever been resurrected from true death.

We get closer to the theoretical entropic final limit as technology advances. In 1400 Ad it was a long way away. resuscitation science has progressed since that time as has our understanding of what constitutes death (and may do so again).

I believe that answers your question

 

[darrylfunk]

dear oh dear oh dear.


cables.


never mind.

 

[DavidF]

lol

petes plat alloys sounded good to me









edit

no, (IMO) this wasn't auto suggestion.

 

[darrylfunk]

what makes you percieve the improvement on a particular instrument sound ?

surely it would be perceived on the complete 'audio picture' as such.

surely the conducting material cannot know how to add a gloss to strings or a parp to brass !!!

none of this is making any sense.

a cable is either electrically and mechanically better and as such should allow better repro than a lesser cable.

it is indeed just like rocket science not magick!

 

[banpe2006]

It answers my question in part, but surely, death was, to folk of that time - final, and was entropic. All that has happened is that the goalposts have been shifted with ongoing medical advances. They were still dead at the time. Therefore, whilst cables cannot be explained as yet, there may come a time when this may be possible and science will be able to reflect and say "whilst cables didnt make a difference then, they do now"

I believe that answers your question. (cant do the smiley)

 

[darrylfunk]

cables are very easy to explain in physics terms i mean phone lines work pretty well dont they ?

i dont see what death has to do with it apart from the haitian voodoo aspects of some cable vendors.

 

[DavidF]

what makes you percieve the improvement on a particular instrument sound ?

surely it would be perceived on the complete 'audio picture' as such.

surely the conducting material cannot know how to add a gloss to strings or a parp to brass !!!

none of this is making any sense.

a cable is either electrically and mechanically better and as such should allow better repro than a lesser cable.

it is indeed just like rocket science not magick!

Well ...

Pete was over doing a few bits and I can't remember what now.

He had brought over these platalloy i/cs and we gave them a try; the most vivid memry as a saxophone on Charlie Haydn s private Collection No 2 CD (Its mine, its a favourite, so I know it VERY well) was reproduced with so much extra life and realism.....

We went back to my silver and gold; just not quite the same thing.

Believe me it would have suited me for the result ot have been different.

 

[sq225917]

""Our lack of understanding about how memories are stored is not a failure of science - it is a failure of our understanding so far. Science is the only way to get that understanding and very definite progress has been made in that area. Science is the means to gaining knowledge and that is not weakened in any sense by having imperfect knowledge of the world. We would not need science if we had no gaps in our knowledge. ""


and your lack of being able to measure the correct variable in a cable, or knowing which way to look for that variable in the first place is exactly the same. you guys just don't get it.

potentially the variables in the signal going through a cable form such a complicated matrix of information that the brain is only just able, to almost, make sense of something, percieve a transient difference, that we then try to describe through our limited language constructs.



and you claim it doesn't exist because when you try to measure the same with lab equipment that wiggles a simple needle in front of you or gives a digital readout you can't do it.

Can you discern the difference in pitch of two audio signals passing through a cable with LCR values. NO.. of course you can't. What data do is there to prove why any further assesment of signal transmission should be able to predict a result with any greater accuracy.

 

[cooky1257]

BBV;You are using cables, you have chosen those cables ergo you reached a decision via your lugholes(hopefully) you either think some cheap tandy interconnect is fine enough and the bellwire you connect your speakers with is ok for you too.
Now given you may have arbitrarily chosen a cable that was in fact a bad lcr match for your kit are you saying if you use one with a better lcr characteristic it wont sound any better?

 

[anon_bb]

No you have misunderstood. Death was inevitable in each time frame and the entropic death point was the same - but modern technology can resuscitate much closer to that point now than it could then. The utter limit of death dictated by increase in disorder has not shifted - just the limit of resuscitation at that time.

Cables either make a difference or they don't. That wont change - only our perception of it will change as new theories or new test results come to light. Currently there is no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that it exists other than anecdotal claims by audiphools, all of which evaporates under scientific scrutiny leaving only excuses by which they try to exempt their religion from the tests that work in every other instance in the physical world. This they have in common with believers in the supernatural, homeopathy and the tooth fairy. All of these being imaginary as well...

A lot of wooly thinking on this thread - our ears are measurement devices - rather undiscerning except in a narrow range of frequencies but with a wide dynamic range. geared towards survival and communication not cable discrimination.

It answers my question in part, but surely, death was, to folk of that time - final, and was entropic. All that has happened is that the goalposts have been shifted with ongoing medical advances. They were still dead at the time. Therefore, whilst cables cannot be explained as yet, there may come a time when this may be possible and science will be able to reflect and say "whilst cables didnt make a difference then, they do now"

I believe that answers your question. (cant do the smiley)