Musing following some cable posts...

melorib said:
Learned with you guys, whenever anyone tries to discuss something serious, you always go back to everything sounds the same, wonder what you are doing in an hifi forum... :zzzz:
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Rubbish!

No rational person has said that "everything sounds the same". This is your (along with a few others) perception and this is exactly what is wrong with all the cable debates. I.e. not listening.
 
Following comments on this thread - Im doing a sanity check - I have 2 sets of RCA outs on my Dac In one I have slotted in a 2m length of of video shop £4.99 IC. In the other output I have some Audionote 1m silver stuff on loan from a mate - £200 ish I think he said.

Checking quickly - I think can hear a difference I have no one in the house patient enough to help me with blind testing

Ill listen the cables over the next week - Ill Try to be open minded
I will try and make a gadget to switch channels from my armchair to help me identify the differences easier - Then Ill bribe my son for to help with a blind test
 
ADPully said:
Following comments on this thread - Im doing a sanity check - I have 2 sets of RCA outs on my Dac In one I have slotted in a 2m length of of video shop £4.99 IC. In the other output I have some Audionote 1m silver stuff on loan from a mate - £200 ish I think he said.

Checking quickly - I think can hear a difference I have no one in the house patient enough to help me with blind testing

Ill listen the cables over the next week - Ill Try to be open minded
I will try and make a gadget to switch channels from my armchair to help me identify the differences easier - Then Ill bribe my son for to help with a blind test
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All you need to get him to do is wire the cables to different inputs on the amp, cover the cables over with a cloth and not tell you which one went to what input. See if you can tell him by listening! Make sure you cover the cables and plugs etc.. well, don't cheat!
 
Might be a good idea to swap the cables over after a certain number of tests too, and re-run it... to rule out possible differences in the dac output/amp input sockets.
 
sideshowbob said:
I don't think there's any mystery, placebo and expectancy effects are well understood...
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Not by you though it seems. How many times can a placebo or expectancy event be repeatedly cycled? I know the answer to this one ;)

If effem is willing to put up his cables for independent testing and evaluation I'm prepared to pay all the costs.

My opinion of you Ian has changed dramatically. The last time I enquired in 2003 the bill would have come to just under £80,000 at the local Uni.

You have no reason to assert this, I'm extremely open-minded. But his test has to meet certain basic criteria of good practice. Tenson's suggestion above of a CD player with two outputs, and a remote-switchable preamp, is a good one. If effem can consistently demonstrate that he can identify his cables in such a setup, then we can conclude that his cables do, indeed, sound different from the norm. No cable manufacturer has ever passed this kind of test, btw, at least not in any publicly verifiable way, which is why James Randi and others have put money on the table and issued their challenges.
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You open minded? Give me a break. Why is it you are so blinkered that you make the stupid assumption I am talking about ANY of MY products?????? :mad: I never mention them at all, ever, yet you repeatedly jump to false conclusions. There have been some excellent posts recently on this forum putting some interesting hypothesis' to the test, but there you are stuck in your mental tram lines saying "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference", "Cables make no difference".

No, no, no, young sir, there are some cable manufacturers that publish objective measurements for all their products, there are some cable manufacturers that have conducted double blind ABX tests. There are some cable manufacturers that sat down and worked out that cynics can be easily counted on one hand and happy customers number in the MILLIONS, so why should they expend vast financial resources and valuable time to pander in any way to a tiny minority of intellectual bankrupts? I still find it rather perverse that a cynic can tell me with a straight face that they have never heard any differences in cables and they expect a full objective set of proofs before they would ever consider buying one. And these people have the nerve to tell everyone they are "intelligent"?

I have a tremendous amount of respect for James Randi as a former magician who debunks the frauds and charlatans who intentionally decieve with bogus claims of healing, spiritualism and such-like. I have no respect for James Randi in any other field of endeavour that he carries out. As far as I am aware his $1m reward does not extend to cable differences.

People should buy and enjoy what they like, regardless of how it measures, for no other reason than they enjoy listening to it,
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So why do you piss on anyone's parade that has bought a cable that pleases THEM? I have no issue at all with you personally not hearing differences, I respect your views because that is what you experience as a person. It's one thing saying "Cables make no difference" but another matter entirely when you say "Cables make no difference TO ME" is it not?

Why you should perpetually insinuate your ideals on anyone else is beyond me because I don't do it. I enjoy my cable purchases (yes I do buy other brands) and for you to say I am deluded or hallucinating is offensive in the extreme. It wasn't YOUR money I spent so sod off and save the whales or do something really useful instead.

And, you can be quite sure, if it's audible it's measurable.

-- Ian
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Is it? According to whom? Why look for an entirely objective measurement for an entirely subjective event?


Now before anyone else gets excited, I am here as an individual and nothing else. I couldn't give a toss about cable sales because it's Sunday night and I'm not at work, but I do care very deeply about the narrow minded doing their level best to dismiss one of the very few pleasures I have left in life - my hi-fi which I will listen to later on. We have more than enough "nanny state" rules surrounding us and overtaking our lives these days, but who gave you miserable whinging hypocrites the right to question any aspect of MY hobby? Who has nominated YOU as the protector of anyone's interests?
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Crikey, when I last looked at this thread three pages ago we were talking about Sun Ra. What the hell went wrong?

Tony.

PS Sun Ra often wore what looked like a tin foil hat. I'm going to get mine now...
 
Dont go down to their level Effen thats just what they want. I came to this forum looking for advise and help and got it. Thanks to the members who gave this which has improved my system. On occasions i try to help other new members needing advice. It is not nice when they ask help on cables and other members come in and say they are all sound the same. These members must believe in them or they wouldnt ask. Jim
 
Jimbo said:
Dont go down to their level Effen thats just what they want. I came to this forum looking for advise and help and got it. Thanks to the members who gave this which has improved my system. On occasions i try to help other new members needing advice. It is not nice when they ask help on cables and other members come in and say they are all sound the same. These members must believe in them or they wouldnt ask. Jim
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That is what irks me so much, as has done so for many years long before I ever was a cable vendor. If cables do nothing for the cynics personally then all they have to say ONCE is "I tried XYZ cables and I heard no difference" Job done and let the thread continue unmolested. Time after time they come barging in uninvited I might add and grind on and on about the same old thing as if it was the very first time it has ever been said :rolleyes: By all means respect others and present a contrary viewpoint without resorting to attacking their personal purchasing choices or wielding irrelevant facts, then you might, just might get some respect in return ;)
 
Dev said:
never heard "night & day" differences between cables (including Pete's), just very subtle ones and not worth arguing about.
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Top post in the entire thread Dev.

The overwhelming majority of cables have only subtle differences between them, mainly in presentation. The ones that do have far more than just subtle differences have some lofty price tags attached that few would even consider as "value for money" but they are out there.
 
Effem said:
The overwhelming majority of cables have only subtle differences between them, mainly in presentation. The ones that do have far more than just subtle differences have some lofty price tags attached that few would even consider as "value for money" but they are out there.
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I think Ian was present at my bake off a few years ago where we compared I/Cs from £20 to £2k (I think) and in my system there were hardly any differences to note, we certainly could not have repeatedly and reliably identified any cable.

I think that cables with same electrical properties must sound the same. If they sound different there it must be measurable, even if we don't know what we need to measure. For example, 2 cables have the same LCR values but one sounds better because it has better insulation from RF. In this case there is still a difference.
 
Dev said:
I think Ian was present at my bake off a few years ago where we compared I/Cs from £20 to £2k (I think) and in my system there were hardly any differences to note, we certainly could not have repeatedly and reliably identified any cable.

I think that cables with same electrical properties must sound the same. If they sound different there it must be measurable, even if we don't know what we need to measure. For example, 2 cables have the same LCR values but one sounds better because it has better insulation from RF. In this case there is still a difference.
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I seems you lot down there in the south east and surrounding districts are the sceptics. Could this be a factor. Maybe you lot should climb the apple and pears and cum north to have a listen. Jim.
 
I think it'll be truer to say that if we are sceptics, we bacame so after hearing a lot of cables. Obviously cannot speak for all sceptics:D.
 
Dev said:
I think Ian was present at my bake off a few years ago where we compared I/Cs from £20 to £2k (I think) and in my system there were hardly any differences to note, we certainly could not have repeatedly and reliably identified any cable.

I think that cables with same electrical properties must sound the same. If they sound different there it must be measurable, even if we don't know what we need to measure. For example, 2 cables have the same LCR values but one sounds better because it has better insulation from RF. In this case there is still a difference.
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I don't wholly disagree with what you are saying Dev, but things do move on and "a few years ago" is past history I'm afraid. New alloys are being formulated now that move well away from the sameyness sounds of just copper or just silver wrapped in familiar dielectrics, still not though up in the "night and day" category for the most part I will openly concede but progress nonetheless. Zanash visited me a while ago with his wire formulations and while I heard clear differences between the various types it wasn't enough to make me leap up and down.

I have auditioned more wires than probably everyone on this forum put together and then some, but once in a while a cable comes along that really does stand head and shoulders well above the common herd and gets me excited. It was just this sort of cable (not one of mine I hasten to add) I wanted a real seasoned sceptic to come along and hear for themselves, not for me to "prove a point" but more to show that thinking in tramlines isn't a good policy to adopt because there are instances where lateral thinking reaps big rewards and upsets conventional thinking in one fell swoop.
 
I think there's enough evidence on this thread to show believers cannot spell for toffee and are therefore (a) a bit thick or (b) didn't go to school.
 
two quick points -

n.b... I'm not being cantankerous, I just thought the following when reading the past post...

1) how do you know you've tried more cables than other people when you don't know how many other people have tried ?

2) what new type of cable material has been developed in the last couple of years that hasn't been used previously? - I know of none.
 

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