LCR and cables

Supra Sword costs a fortune though, is there a cheaper cable with the same LCR?

 

???

It causes your amplifier to clip??

 

Surely he's refering to a Technics amp?

 

If your amp is close to clipping into your speakers you change the amp or speakers - not the cable.

Here endeth the lesson.

 

Simple. LCR parameters may be different, but so what. According to the theory this results in so little difference (to frequency response for example) that you need really 'bad' LCR measurements to get audible differences.

However, before you all turn into soppy subjectivists remember no DBT (ALMIGHTY) has ever shown differences in statistically repeatable tests; therefore there are no differences. You are all imagining it.

And very few DBTs (any?) have shown amp differences so there.....

 

Yup, you're right. I'm sure a DBT can be set up that shows that everything sounds the same as everything else!

I'm off to Dixons this morning to buy their latest all-in-1 £29.99 stack with DVD/CD/DAB/SACD/Blu-Ray/DVDAudio/MD/VHS and a built in speaker and a 2 inch LCD screen. Should be cool

Once I sell my Big Rig, think of all those extra CDs and DVDs I can buy !! Woo-Hoo

 

Absolutely!

Science!!

Who needs it?

 

It causes your amplifier to clip?? [Bottleneck]

Surely he's refering to a Technics amp? [Hodgesaargh]

If your amp is close to clipping into your speakers you change the amp or speakers - not the cable. [Stereo Mic]

Hi all,

Yes, a Technics amplifier clipping due to difficult speakers.

The amplifier, a Technics SU-MA10 integrated rated at 100w 8ohm not much current delivery, with VDH D-352 speaker cable was driving a pair of Kef R-107 at full extension and even cut off at 25hz on certain program material at certain volumes with the attenuator/volume setting around -28 -20, the amp would clip or switch off. For some reason, with Naim cable replacing the VDH, the bass is I feel better, and the amp can be used with the attenuator/volume setting around -20 -16 with the offending material.

A very small increase in the volume control I agree, one notch basicaly, but it does seem to concur the amp is happier with the Naim Nac cable, maybe the VDH is not suited in some SMALL way.

This clipping is mainly due to the speakers and amp not being the most suitable for loud music and sustained low frequencies together (worth pointing out that the kube adds EQ as well), there are less problems with cut off at 50hz or 35hz. And the amp has no such problems with Kans, Rogers or the big 103db sensitivity CV's.

I didn't change the VDH cable for any other reason than wanting to put the 'expensive' cable into another system. So it was quite by accident that I found the Nac5 preferable with the Technics amp.

I am currently using the Technics amp with the 107's in one of my systems, and it clips with loud sections of movies if I do not watch the volume setting, quite annoying, but its not there to be played 'loud' its just convenient as I muck about with some of my kit a lot at the moment. I am using some 'black' Naim speaker cable with them now, not as good as the white .

 

Excellent and you can then sit there and enjoy all that music and take DBTs till the cows come home .

You of course must glory in how scientific you are, look at the minimal distortion and use wet string to connect the components. Remember, if you hear differences, you are being delusional and being conned by snake-oil salesmen. This is because you are a child and can make no judgements yourself.

If you get even a hint of sound differences take a frequency response measurement (graph) and study it, look at the specs (nothing but the specs).

And when your ears tell you it sounds crap, well it only cost you £30 and must be superb value. What an astute person you are, you are not being conned by these nefarious salesman no sireeee.:SLEEP:

Where's my digital oscilloscope?

 

Even though you are being ironic the greater irony is that you are in fact correct.

LCR differences can most obviously be heard - for sound reasons of physics - between the cartridge and phono stage as the cartridge is a passive driving device.

 

Well you are now becoming a soppy subjectivist

As far as I am aware there have been no peer reviewed papers showing any statistically significant differences between cables tested with DBT. There may be LCR measurement differences but they are irrelevant as DBT shows they do not make an audible difference.

DBT/ Real Science is a harsh mistress.:JOEL:

 

No its simple physics. Isn't that objectivism?

Try using an ultra high capacitance cable between your cartridge and phono stage.

 

Yes, but that is not where there is a debate. Try some good cables with reasonable LCR parameters. I would bet that if you subjected them to DBTs you would not get a statistically significant result but some would claim to hear a difference. There would even be LCR differences (not huge ones) but they would not correlate with listening impressions.

You are right about simple physics...objectivism or just too simple physics?

 

I still think I'm learning any pointers as to how you learnt appreciated

did you go diy? I'm just starting to investigate ths area of cables,
or concentrate on kit,
or, tweeking with iso feet & positioning things ? (suit my current budget moving things )

Cheers



I had an interesting converstion a good while back, shame I can't quite remember, but seem to recall its high capacitance that can loose the higher frequencies or is it the other way round (gray cells tut tut tut), discovered when developing radar, comes to mind - maybe I should have just have kept quiet a!

 

Has it occurred to you they might be imagining it? Millions of people claim homeopathy and reading tea leaves work. DBTs work in every other scientific field - its only mumbo jumbo area where scientific method is in contention - for obvious reasons.

 

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics or DBT's

Folks,

DBT's work in audio too, not wanting to rehash the previous discussions, but most supposed DBT's in Audio are neither sufficient in sample size nor rigerous enough in implementation (including guarding against personal bias) to offer any statistical power or any relevance.

Further, given that they are generally produced with great theatrics by self proclaimed "debunkers", who, even after repeated, rigerous and purely scientific criticism of their methodes (including published papers in peer reviewed publications) do not change their methodolgy their general applicability and indeed their accuracy must be at least considered suspect.

I remember one DB Test of speaker cables published in JAES in which the authors used a fairly small sample size and set an apropriate level of significance (.2 in their case) and came to the conclusion that with an 80% certainty in their test their test subjects could distinguish between cables.

They Nay sayers criticised their choice of significance level and instead insisted of applying a wholly inappropriate (in view of the sample size) significance level of first .1 (at which the rerun test still produced a positive) and finally .05 where the test with a similar small sample size failed to show a difference.

To put these tests into a plainer language, three tests where run, of these two showed that with respectively 80% or 90% certainty the "cables sound difference" conclusion was not due to randomness (I'd call that bloody good odds), while a third test showed that the same conclusion could not be supported with a 95% certainty.

HOWEVER, calling in from the leftfield, all tests combined together actually would give 95% certainty or a "cables sound different" conclusion to a .05 level of significance.

The people who had been conducting the tests (I may be off base, but I seem to remember, possibly wrongly, Kinoshita San's involvement) simply gave up shouting in a desert where no-one wants to hear as a bad job and the Nay sayers declared a victory.

Meanwhile I had the job recently to compare two capacitors from different manufacturers of practically identical construction (same materials, including film thickness), of very close to absolutely identical values. Surprise suprise, despite being identical to all measurements both turned out to show under blind conditions (not stringent DBT though) a small, but clearly identifiable difference, WITH SOME recordings.

The recordings that showed the difference most where completely minimal "direct" recordings done to extreme degrees of purity and attention to details. While recordings that showed not discernable difference under blind conditions where modern style, processed and produced recordings, including surprisingly some "audiophile" ones.

This also produces an interesting corollary to the "supposedly identical and interchangable capacitors sound different" conclusion, namely that many modern recording practices and much modern recording gear introduces a much greater level of whatever distortion or alteration of the signal was caused by the capacitors so that capacitor differences are obscured.

Woe to any DBT using such recordings as source....

Ciao T

PS, controversial results of DBT's are not only common in audio, in other areas the same happens, except few audiophiles are exposed to the controversy. DBT's are neither good or bad or useful or useless in themselves, they are a tool. The results depend on the use of the tool by the experimenter, the experimenters intentions, experience and degree of care in use, plus they have inherent and implicit limitations that are rarely mentioned, as they are taken as "read" by those "skilled in the art".

 

A very interesting and informative post, 3DS. That sure helps put DBT audio tests in perspective.

I was once the listener in a fairly informal SBT of 2 CDPs (took place in a hifi dealers dem room) - I could tell them apart 12/12 times.

 

Did anyone measure the LCR?

Thorsten, I know your position. Have you ever demonstrated your abilities by identifying cables under controlled conditions yourself?

 

Hi,

AFAIR - yes.

I have participated and actually conducted a number of DB Tests. These included cables. The results invariably suffer from a fairly small sample size, which makes statistical analysis difficult. That said, when using not a singular criteria like a .05 Significance but more advanced statistical methodes I seem to be doing okay, similar to the old tests conducted.

So a 75 - 80% statistical certainty that my correct identifications of items are due to actual audible differences instead of chance. My score increases significantly in a blind preference test (that is not an ABX test, but a blind test between two random items where preference is marked instead of attempting a "same/different" identification.

Such tests however do not lend themselves to the simplistic "different/same" with a 95% certainty that any "different" identifications are not due to chance (and BTW, as a result of this certainty a equally near certainty that small differences will be missed due to small sample size) so beloved by "Debunkers".

Hence I have so far not bothered to formally publish much, at very small sample sizes and small (if subjectively relevant or significant) differences (such as passive components or cables are arguably limited to) we, if we practice honest and equitable statistics, simply must conclude that we lack sufficient data to satisfy traditional scientific rigor of proof.

Neverless, we may (and do) let such results influence our choices of parts or cables, both personally or in our case for our products.

Kind regards T

 

This isn't a short coming of DBT - they just have to be used correctly. One way to tackle small sample size is to use ranking tests for a number of cables and assess using something like spearmans rank correlation. Obviously something like CDPs can be told apart every time and no one contests they sound different. One could argue that if large sample sizes are required for cables then the differences must be so small that if even if it exists it is not worth bothering with - when the money spent elsewhere would swamp the alleged difference by orders of magnitude.