Mains cable test results

This hits the nail on the head. I don't think any of the participants had any delusions that this would be a scientifically rigorous study that would end up in a learned journal. I am a total cable unbeliever and I heard what I expected, no difference between any of the power cords. Others heard differences; good for them, I say. I'm just happy that I personally don't have to waste money on cables and can invest it usefully in the soon-to-arrive next Gardiner cantata recordings.

 

ive only dabbled in the mains cable thing and that was with a brief fling involving a sonic link mains cable (£60 job)

I didnt expect much but took it as i got it in a bundle with a bunch of other kit and thought id give it a whirl.. it certainly looked the part.. nice and chunky.

And i was actually stunned that i could hear an audible difference.

It spent most of the time on my then valve preamp. And it seemed to open up the midband a great deal was criper and brighter. This wasnt a great thing at the time due to other components causing the whole setup to sound overbright.

it was interesting to note that just a mains cable could generate such an effect on sound however. taking my system from open and clean to a bit top heavy.

I also tried it on my roksan CD player. In this position it made no difference of any kind. The roksan has filters etc going on in its mains input anyway and i dont think much would make a difference to how it sounds. Certainly the chance from the stock to the £60 cable made no audible difference.

But preamp... yep... surprising change... and certainly proof to me that cables "can" make a difference... if not always a good one.

 

I'm with Tones ....if its not fun were probabley missing something.
Shrink ...but you heard the difference, good bad or ugly!

I'm still not certain that blind testing has any part in listening to music and have always felt that these tests are flawed. Though I'm not clever enough to pinpoint why.

Where else in life do you blind test items ?

When you take a car for a test drive ?
When your looking for a new house ?
buying fruit and vegatables?
Going to the cinema ?
Chosing a girlfriend/boyfriend ?
visiting the dentist?
choosing a holiday?

can anyone think of one?

It seems to me, that as in most of life you need to develope your skills in those area to gain expertise before you become sucsessful at it on a regular basis.

I still prefer the old and tried method of adding a peice of kit to your system and seeing what difference it makes.....if you can't hear anything then there are a whole range of reasons why not.

This does not mean cables make no difference, it could means -

1, the listener can't hear it due to lack of ability or a hearing problem
2, the listener doesn't want to hear it
3, the kit is unable to resolve the difference,
4, the kit is working perfectly and the item is no better than whats all ready installed
5, other external factors are effecting the test, ie room accoustics
6, The cable has no effect

I'm certain that there are many more reasons people can think of.

What always leaves a sour taste is when individuals insist they are right and everyone else is wrong.....
Its strange most people who can hear cable changes can accept that some people can't, but this is not recipricated. So we end up with another cable debate [row].
To me this is very odd, I can't hear certain things, like for instance the effect of freezing cds. But I don't go round stating that this can't work, its just I've never been able to hear it.

Lets look at another example..... the green pen effect.......
[I can see all those eyes roll upward ]
This seems to polarise opinion even more than cables, and for me offers an insight into problem that can arrise.

Everyone I have shown this effect to has been able to hear a difference however small. But when I have let people borrow the discs and listen to them at there leisure....
Theyoften come back and said they can't hear anything. A quick listen on their gear shows that the changes are there, but for what ever reason they are missing them. If I then say listen for the start of track 4 and play both the treated disc and the untreated disc in quick sucsession, the common reaction is that they then can hear the effect[but not allways !].

I'm certain Taz won't mine me saying that when we listened to this effect last thursday. His reaction was one of amazment, to the point where he sat up till 2am painting the edges of his disc. He later told me he was listening to details he had never heard before on some of his favorite discs.

I think we may be approaching the question of mains cables from the wrong angle ....should we rather be asking why can some people hear the differences rather than wondering why some people can't ? If we take the non-hears out the equation
you should be able to get a cleaner statistical analysis of the effect of a group of cables have. Lastly, if you use a suitable large population size, rather than a few mates* your results may be more meaningful. This is not meant to belittle the efforts of all who took part, its rather to offer advice for anyone who may want to try something similar in the future.

rather than a few mates* .......is not meant in a derogatory way, just an example of the small sample size.

 

The value of tests such as these to me is they provide an antidote to the commercially pandering reviews written in the hi-fi press - and also the outright guff written elsewhere. The opinions given by the listeners are honest because they are given unknowingly and free from sighted bias.

And yes, I've also blind tested a few girlfriends.

 

Zanash,

I would not get hung up on sample size. Two sets of issues are more important. One set focus on the (quasi-)experimental design that supports the assessment of size and significance of any differences in the test variable. The other focus on the methods used to generalise from any test environment to a defined larger target population. For both, good design means that smaller samples can be used, for given effect size and variability.

As to the choice of who is on the 'tasting panels', it is entirely reasonable that some palates are better employed tasting tea and wine for blending, and so I would reckon that the auditory perception of some is better than others. We would want our judges to be reliable (that is to be consistent in repeated trials) and accurate, altho this latter quality is tough to assess as we do not (always) know what the truth is - that's the point of the 'kettle test'. Even among the 'accurate' there will be some lack of 'reliability'.

Of course, we all want it to 'work' for me, with my set-up and my room and my music, which is where the second set of issues gets complex. First, we need mechanism/method to generalise from our (quasi-)experimental findings (if any) to that defined population. Next we may have to recognise that there are definable & identifiable sub-populations [the perceptive and the not, say]. And finally, we, as individuals, have to find ways to map ourselves onto that set of sub-populations - might it work for me given that I cannot have a home trial ...

But I think it reasonable to put the focus on the audio-psychology of the judges - would be good if there were body of knowldege ...

 

If you don't do this 'blind' then you are indeed seeing what difference it makes rather than discovering whether you can hear them.

So you accept that your experiences of cable 'sound' may be delusions?

Paul

 

Hi,

I always tell this little episode of mine, back from the days when I used to arrange the occasional DB Test.

An ex BBC Engineer and virulent cable unbeliever got so much on my nerves with his prejudiced, uninformed bable about DBT and how cables make no difference that I included him in an experiment.

I posited that we would test the differences between cables. I had three others in the group who generally where openminded, that is they accepted cables can make a difference as a matter of fact but where not particulary gung ho about cables.

What I in fact tested on the test group was the polarity reversal of one stereo channel. Now I do not think ANYONE would argue about this being a clearly audible change?

Well, when the listeners where "blind" to the change the three "controls" scored a "perfect" DB Test (10/10 correct identifications) while our "disbeliever" scored perfectly random.

Seeing the test sheets he originally accused me of fraud.

I then told him what he had ACTUALLY been listening to. We have not on very cordial terms ever since....

I guess my point is threefold.

When we test "gear" we test it's impact on music replay, which is two layers of abstraction. Sort of like testing the impact shapes of glasses have on the taste of Wine.

Secondly, if the test is not truely blind (meaning the subject is unaware of what is being tested and is thus capable to switch of her or his internal "realiaty generation engine" which tends to make her or his perception of reality agree with her or his prejudices) the expectations and/or prejudices act as strong randomising agent.

If I believe strongly there is no difference I will not hear it even if it present, if I believe strongly that there is a difference I will hear one where non exist. Either one will radomise results to a considerable degree.

There are other issues too, often people will rank familiar items higher than those that are in a pseudo objective sense actually better but less familar.

As a result all subjective testing (and DB Testing of the impact of gear on music is still PURELY subjective) of music is a major minefield.

Ciao T

 

Interesting account.

Arelated story, from when I worked in a survey-based research group as a bright young thing - a while back admitedly.

I provided the tables and carried out the multivariate analyses with a top researcher (who was also my boss) who was known for the (welcome) fertility of his mind - being able to conjour (causal) explanation for what I had indicated were robust findings.

We finished the first draft of that key paper. I then drew breath and said "shall we test this on the other half of the data?". He looked blank, and I explained how I had divided the data into two randomly equivalent halves (recognising the sampling design used for the survey). He then went through a wide range of expression/attitude/emotion. But he eventually got the point, and we went ahead and tested what we were asserting (based very firmly against the literature) against the second replicate, modifying our conclusions accordingly where the first statements did not stand up.

Finally, we re-computed both the estimates and the measures of error using the pooled data.

Replication of findings is also important.

Now that was analysis of (natural setting) observational data. Causal statements require more - hence the focus on the (quasi-)experiment. In the Wigwam thread I posted the following book review (not by me) that I think is informative especially in the reference to the earlier work of Campbell & Stanley (1966). I'll try cut&paste:

***



http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cach...l+&+Stanley&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8

 

Hi,

Interresting stuff.

Allow me a statement, ex cathedra, here.

The problem with any experiment in the context of cables is that they, if carried out diligently and according to best practice throw a spanner of actual, more or less reliable data into what is in essence a religeous debate (war?) which neither side wants, especially as few decents experiments in our particular line of enquiry yield unequivocal and absolutely reliable data that allwos conclusions to be drawn without significant nagging doubt.

What either side is interrested in is actually ammunition to shore up their position. They just want "proof" that they are right and if neccessary will hapily (deliberatly and conciously or unconciously but non less deliberatly) manufacture such proof as required.

Between the "god" of "everything is determined" and "nothing is determined" (or all "cables sound the same" and "no cables sound the same") and wherever Hegel's Angel Thesis meets Daemon Antithesis the most gnomic "god" of all of them, namely truth, is forgotten.

I generally criticise the pseudo objectivists in this debate as I feel the pseudo subjectivists often lack the neccesary background to do so and it is intellectually stimulating. And I do tend towards a highly mystic and non-deterministic worldview anyway, so I already KNOW (as in Gnosis) that the overly deterministic and simplistic view by definition is WRONG (as is of course the overly non-deterministic and simplistic view).

As philosopher (in the Renaissance sense of the word) I am interrested in how it works, as artisan (in the sense of someone who makes things) I am interrested in what works, as mystic I am merely pleased it works and that G*d and the world is good and all is well (despite the huge mess everything apparently is in all IS well).

Ciao T

 

well that's all right then ;-)

 

I've just remembered the dictum:

"Seek simplicity, and distrust it."

Alfred North Whitehead
English mathematician & philosopher (1861 - 1947)



.. in all honesty I think I'm just a crass empiricist that's prepared to give the other guy a break

Or, as the bloke next to me in the pub last week said:

"every day is a school day"

 

Or H L Mencken's dictum:

'For every complex problem there's a solution that's simple, straightforward, and wrong'.

 

Oh dear I've just come across this:

"I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context or in juxtaposition to some incongruous matter which quite distorted my meaning , or destroyed it altogether."

Alfred North Whitehead