Do cables make a difference ?

Which doesn't mean cannot be bettered...

Paul

 

What with some decent cables Paul?

 

I have answered your questions. Thank you for asking.


1.Do cables make a difference ? yes/no. It is not a simple 'yes/ no' answer. Do cables make a difference to whom? To me or in general? And do you mean a real difference or a perceived difference?

2.Which cables make the most difference? IC's/Mains/speaker
As a percentage what difference does best cable make ?
IC's....................%
Mains.................%
Speaker...............%
Digital..................%

We haven't established what you meant by difference so we can't really answer this one. Plus should we mark the cable that makes the most difference in our opinion as 100% and use that as our reference? Or should we consider 100% to be a measure of 'total difference' in audio and mark our cable differences on a scale accordingly?

3.Have cables ever made your system sound worse? yes/no. Yes, I have previously thought so

4.Idealogically cables can't make a difference ? yes/no. Beg pardon? What sort of difference? A real one or an imagined one?

5.Have you ever tried any after market cables ? Yes /no. Yes.

6.What IC cables do you use? Out of the box/ DIY / After market/ Custom made. I use 'After market'

7. If you were to rate your system were would it fall.

High end...............................low fi

Rate using what criteria? This is not made clear.

8. And an indication of system worth

5000+.......2500+.......1000+......500+.......

5000 what? 5000 pounds? 5000 dollars? 5000 points?

 

Notaclue ....are you filling the questionaire in for someone else ?

A difference is a change either for the better or worse I can't tell you what the answer should be

Everyone else has managed to muddle through. If you could not answer the questions why respond ?

Give us your best guess !

 

Perhaps you meant to ask "Have you found that different cables have changed the sound of your hi-fi system?" I would answer 'yes'. I have previously found this.

"Do cables make a difference?" is ambiguous. It is not clear.

 

No. Cables are pretty much irrelevant. At the moment some fit loudspeakers would help... Although I shall be changing my speaker cable to something more flexible when I get around to it. It would be retro to find 'RS 56 strand' on the roll and twist it up.

Paul

 

why don't you stop being deliberately awkward and answer the questions. What did you think he was referring to in the context of a hifi forum?!

 

Steven - you should know better than refer to the "bumble bees can't fly" myth.

The myth you're referring to is that scientists "proved" that bumble bees can't fly because their wings are too small to be able to lift their bodies. It's often used in ignorant attempts such as yours to discredit science and scientists. It is of course a total myth. See here for a detailed account.

Bumble bees quite clearly can fly. No scientist has ever had a problem with that. It is true that until relatively recently the physics of insect flight was not well understood so scientists couldn't explain how bumble bees could fly, but that they can fly is patently obvious to anyone.

In the case of cables and other hifi voodoo there's no evidence that they do anything and that fits with current theory so there's nothing for scientists to try and understand or explain.

Michael.

 

But what would happen if no one had ever seen a bumble bee, could be conclude that such a creature must be flightless.

As for cables, dont forget Hawksfords 'Essex Echo' paper from the 80's. It has lead to a number of very interesting arguments but as far as I can remember no one has discredited it. Putting cable theory to one side, it often strikes me as interesting that people will argue about cables in great length but possibly the biggest influence on a HiFi is acoustics which is something rarely discussed by comparison

 

Every time when some one brings up the bumble bee story I always felt sorry for them since they they either don't have a clue what was the main point of the story or they are just thick.

 

And here lies the nub of the argument.

Whilst everyone can see bumble bees fly, no one understood the mechanics of something that was seemingly contradictory. With cables only some people can hear the difference. As it's not a universal perception, those who can't refuse to accept because "science say they can't". The surety of their perception and a belief they know everything leads them to an absolutist stance.

 

This has been proved to be false....I believe that recent [last 20yr] work on bumb bees has shown the original data to be in error. Maybe there an entamologist on the forum. Similarly the business of spinach being very high in Iron, has also been shown to be a mathematical error in the original research, a zero was transposed!

Hind sight is a wonderful thing.....I'd do lots of things differently if I had this wonderful gift, as I have not [and also previously explained football analogy] were going to have to live with the questions as they are.

 

What has? My suggestion that understanding and knowledge move on and that perception is unreliable which blinkers peoples views

or

That Bumblebees can't fly

 

Double blind testing reveals bumbles bees can fly ... they also sting.

 

The bumble bee thing.....The areodynamics research that said it couldn't fly....now proved to have been in error. saw it on something like horizon a few years back.

 

Likewise,

Those that have invested substantial sums of money into cables for their hifi, or substantial amounts of time and money making their own, would by nature find it difficult to admit that all of that expenditure was in vain, and that a similar result could have been had for just a few quid from Maplin.

Similarly, shops with huge retail markups and magazines with huge advertising revenues from cable manufacturers are more than willing to substantiate a myth of a relationship between price and performance, and use the latest voodoo theories to back it all up.

Belief in spin and self investment can lead to a similar absolutist stance from the opposite viewpoint.

The more someone who has invested time and money into cables and bought into the myth of high price = high performance, the more they will dig their heels in and refuse to accept the seemingly obvious .... something that any studio engineer could have told you in the last few decades...... 'you can buy a well measuring high performance studio-grade audio cable for just a few quid a metre, that will be just as good if not better than any snake oil product'

 

Agreed which is why much of this arguing is a waste of time. Neither side will back down yet neither will stop to define the terms by which the discussion is being carried out. As the old saying goes " A plague on both your houses"

 

This is one area I do find confusing. It smacks of Conspiracy Theory. "The retailers/manufacturers are deliberately misleading their customers" Does this mean they know that they are selling junk, that they know the cables make no difference but make and sell cables of varying types just to make money. From my limited experience I would say this is untrue. Firstly everyone in the industry would have to buy into the idea so that the conspiracy was not exposed and secondly, those few people I know who make cables genuinely believe their products make a difference. That is not to say that the pricing might be a little wild but that is a different story.

 

Bees cannot glide. Nothing has ever changed there.

Paul

 

I don't think anybody disputes the fact that cables do make a difference. We know that they do for many.

I questioned the question "Do cables make a difference?" because it is not clear.

The question is whether the differences people hear between electrically similar cables are genuine audible differences or simply the result of the listener listening in a different way (as they know something has changed) and perceiving sonic differences that do not really exist. In other words, they imagine differences.

How can we know if the differences are real beyond reasonable doubt? A double blind test. I have yet to see a positive double blind test of cables where the listener was able to hear differences that could not be explained by 'science'.

Therefore the only sensible position to take is that there is considerable doubt as to whether 'unexplainable' sonic differences between cables really exist. After all, we can neither explain them nor find anyone who can even prove they can actually hear them in the first place.