new scientist

Mosfet,

That's a good point and no doubt that elsewhere this largely reflects reality. However in the mainly subjective arena of hi-fi things aren't quite so black and white and sonic differences in equipment or cables are not always easily or automatically identifiable by measurements alone.

For instance when you hear a 'better' CD player or amplifier, measurements alone don't always fully explain why it was better. Certainly measurement data may define elements of what was heard, but it doesn't always tell the full story. And so it could be with 'cable directionality'. Otherwise, when auditioning equipment to purchase all you would require is a set of test apparatus. Ears that nature gave us for a purpose would be redundant.

Anyway, at the end of the day with cables or anything else, all that really matters is what makes music more enjoyable to listen to, regardless of whatever mechanism was responsible for that experience – unless of course you’re into hi-fi for reasons other than simply musical enjoyment

------------------------------
Paul

 

My observation is that this describes the vast majority of folk who participate in these forums. They have the Flanders & Swann Syndrome (from A Song of Reproduction):

But I never did care for music much!
It's the hi-fi-del-it-tee!

Not, I hasten to add, that there's anything wrong with that. There are many, many worse things than obsessing over hi-fi. I earnestly wish that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice had been audiophools, totally obsessed with Widgets of Mass Distraction. ("We have no doubt that those aluminum tubes are destined for high-quality pickup arms. We must budget more help for the arms industry to be ready for the inevitable assault on our market...")

 

When I've bought a piece of equipment I always find that the improvement is never as large as I anticipate.

That always makes me wonder the size of effect of doing something like putting a cable in the wrong way, putting my equipment on cones or sorbothane. I can't say with certainty that I've ever heard any change for these things.

It's fun though. I've got a lot of respect for people like Zanash. Not driven by marketing or sales, but having a damn good time with the little tweaks that they can play with that enhances their hobby. And to be fair, gives the rest of us enjoyment and something to have a natter about. I think good/bad cables are like the 'drinking chanpagne from a plastic cup' analogy. And DIY is good fun and a learning experience.

People have to draw their own lines really and it always comes down to how convinced you are in relation to how much cash you will part with.

===========
Interesting thought and a bit off topic. Has anyone priced up their music collection in relation to their hi-fi?

 

It is, perhaps. Although asking him to justify his claims isn't really "picking on" him.

RA is either genuinely convinced that what he's selling actually works (with or without evidence) or he knows it's all nonsense and is cynically exploiting gullible audiophools.

I'm quite happy to give him (and others in the same game) the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the former rather than the latter.

But if he's going to make statements like these on his website (http://www.russandrews.com/article-Truth-or-Myth-Cable-Directionality-russdirectionality.htm):

"Cable directionality is measurable and quantifiable, if not fully understood."

"The engineers at KIMBER KABLE are now able to measure cable directionality and quantify it using some new and very expensive test equipment."

then, when asked to back these up, responds with:

"All I can say is that cable directionality is audible enough for anyone to hear"

then I don't think it's unreasonable to give him a bit of a hard time.

Those very specific statements on the website, if one wanted to get grumpy about it, could be described as straightforward false advertising - unless he is able to back them up.

 

Tones,

Indeed there isn't (I like your observation, incidentally!) but judging hi-fi with just science is in my opinion somewhat futile. An element of subjective assessment is always necessary to arrive at the most accurate conclusion. For me, whether science can explain something or not is immaterial; it's what is heard that matters, and how this impacts on our enjoyment of music.

Returning for a moment to my previous point about measurements not always telling the full story, I've always found it interesting when a piece of equipment measures very well and yet sounds crap (see some major brand 1980s Japanese equipment for relevant examples), so what's happening there? One presumes this must mean there are elements within the presentation that measurement apparatus has failed to reveal. And if that's what is happening then why shouldn't this be the case with 'cable directionality'? - The (subtle) effect of which incidentally I can clearly hear. The difference is by no means 'night & day', but when my Chord Signature cables are connected as per 'correct' direction of the arrows, there is a 'rightness' to the sound (sorry I can't be more specific) that's lacking when plugged in the opposite way. I first discovered this when my amplifier had to go in for a service and I had disconnected the cables.

When the amp came back I inadvertently connected the cables the 'wrong' way round. I didn't notice this until when sitting back listening to some music and feeling that the system sounded a bit 'off'. I'm not sure if you experience days when your system doesn't sound as good as usual, but that's the effect I got. So I checked all the connections and of course discovered what the cause was. Reconnecting the cables the 'correct' way round restored the sound to normal. Anyway, I'm sorry for boring everyone, but that's my own subjective experience of 'cable directionality'.

------------------------------
Paul

 

Paul, I suspect measurements will tell us nearly everything we need to know about how a piece of Hi-Fi sounds. Our inability to relate those measurements to human perception is the key... but that doesn't mean we can't measure what the equipment is doing.

Equally with cables, if there was directionality we would have detected it by now for other applications, even if we couldn't explain exactly how it would sound in each case.

Said to anyone, not just Paul,
MUSIC SIGNALS ARE AC. If there was an effect, it would sound like distortion. In fact we can try it. Put a diode in series with your interconnects.

 

I personally am the world's greatest sceptic with regard to these things (something for which any old timer on this forum will vouch). Quite simply, I don't believe a word of it. I ended up putting it all down in a thread "The Myths of Hi-Fi" on the HFC Forum. I rely both on science (in which I've worked all my life (chemical industry, not electronics)) and on my ears, and I've never heard any difference in anything except better equipment, so my view is, if you want your hi-fi to sound better, buy better hi-fi.

However, I also appreciate that people hear what they hear, and if they like something that they hear more than something else they hear, then that's for them. It matters not that (as I believe) it usually doesn't exist in reality. Sound exists only in our heads, the brain's analysis of the vibrations in the atmosphere detected by our eardrums. And that is not an analytical instrument, but is swayed by our expectations, individual perception, biases, desires, etc. If we want something to sound better, it usually will. But pride of ownership of a nice bit of equipment, or even a nice cable, is just as much a justification for owning it as anything else.

I also have allegedly directional cables, bought at a time long ago when I teetered on the edge of audiophool belief. There was never any difference. I still use them, with one mounted the wrong way round, just for spite.

 

LMAO!

 

paul, aren't the signatures Psuedo balanced with a floating shield?

they will likely sound subtley different, i think we all accept that psuedo balanced/floating shield cables have directionaility.

after all there's a fricking great aerial attached, hanging off one end of your system.

it was RAs claim "that all cables were directional" that people were up in arms about, as this implies that cables that are constructed symmetrically have a direction.



i'd love to sit down in an anechoic with an incredibly high sampling rate mic set up, and see whether the difference between fliipiing cables is any greater than from consecutive samples, which is surely the only was to do this scientifically, record the output waveform enough times to prove significance through comparissons.

 

You are putting the universe at risk by causing the acceleration of proton decay!! Don't you know that without protons matter evaporates into radiation and life as we know it will cease to exist!

And who is going to clear up that vast soup of subatomic particles that are building up at the speaker end of your hi-fi?

 

Fair enough, that's your prerogative. My view is that I'm sceptical of most things, but believe (through experiencing them) that some of the claimed effects exist.

That philosophy will generally always work, because if a particular piece of equipment sounds better then more than likely it is better. The problem however is how do you judge "better"? Do you use mostly your ears or science? I think a bit of both is necessary. My experience tells me that using only one or the other, or relying heavily on science, can produce quite inaccurate assessments. Relying heavily on your ears at the expense of science, although certainly not ideal, is not quite as bad because the appreciation of hi-fi is after all a largely subjective matter.

I see where you're coming from but I think that mindset can sometimes be misleading. How do you assess beyond doubt what exists in reality? I mentioned earlier that measurements frequently show equipment as being technically excellent, and yet subjective listening tests often show sound quality to be poor. Therefore something obviously exists that isn't measurable, so why shouldn't the same also apply to 'cable directionality' or any other subjective hi-fi observation?

I agree, however the same also applies if you want something to sound worse. And judging by comments I read on forums it seems that many sceptics adopt that particular mindset for whatever reason!

In my case with the Chords, I had no preconceived notion that something was 'wrong', and yet clearly heard that was the case.

I completely agree. The problem is getting some enthusiasts to admit this!

Haha, I like that

------------------------------
Paul

 

Yes indeed, so we're in agreement there. However I have also heard this effect with other cables that use different design principles, although the effect was somewhat less noticeable.

Yes I read your earlier post and totally agree with your observations. Like I mentioned before somewhat light-heartedly, old Russ is currently funding his early retirement. Whether you wish to contribute to that is entirely up to you

------------------------------
Paul

 

Why, that's the province of the divine HOBBY, of course, praise be to His/Her/Its/Their name! HOBBY is the supreme divinity of audiophoolia and is entirely responsible for the apparent deviation of things audiophool from physical reality. The thread has long disappeared from HFC, but here's the original by way of explanation:

Recent exchanges on the cable front have persuaded me that hi-fi is in fact a form of religion, in that belief in something that is not subject to proof is paramount. It certainly meets the definition of faith:

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see†(Heb.11:1 (NIV)).

All of these have led, inevitably, to a need for the recognition of the existence of a Divinity, who is perceptible only to those who have Faith, and who is silent to those who are sceptics and unbelievers. The Divinity has many sacred names, but the one that has come down to normal mortals is HOBBY.

It has led inevitably to the creation of THE CHURCH OF THE REPRODUCTION, and all who can ascribe to the Ten Commandments, as laid down by HOBBY on Mount Vinyl, are automatically members. Here they are, as spoken by HOBBY and later engraved on tablets of purest 180g PVC/PVA copolymer (with apologies to Moses and Ex.20 (KJV)):


I am thy HOBBY that has brought thee out of the land of Idiots, into the house of bondage:

1. Thou shalt have no other hobbies before me.

2. Thou shalt not make unto me any craven remarks on cables, or on green pens or power cords or supports or amber or CD-enhancing liquids or the fact that amplifiers all sound the same or any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth that could possibly (or impossibly) have an influence on sound quality, or Russ Andrews. Thou shalt bow down thyself to them and serve them, for I the HOBBY am a jealous hobby, visiting the iniquity of the fathers unto the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that raise logical and scientific objections against me. And showing no mercy to thousands of them that love me and keep me in profit.

3.Thou shalt not take the Naim of thy Brand in vain, for the Brand will not hold him guiltless that taketh its Naim in vain

4. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it wholly for demoing new gear. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy journal reading and surfing, but the seventh is the Sabbath of thy HOBBY; in it thou shalt not do any work, neither thou nor thy son nor thy daughter nor the stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the HOBBY made the earth, the active, the neutral and the alternating current and all that in them is and demoed it all on the seventh day, Therefore the HOBBY listened on the demo-day and hallowed it.

5. Honour thy cables and thy interconnects, that thy days may be long upon the kit that thy HOBBY giveth thee (at least until the next upgrade, at which point thou wilt need new ones).

6. Thou shalt not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (see commandment 2).

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery with sceptics and unbelievers.

8. Thou shalt not steel, unless it be called Mana.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against tweakery.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's, with the exception of his hi-fi, so that the upgrades continue unbroken.

In the past, the HOBBY has spoken through his servants the Profits, such as St. Ivor of Caledonia and St. Julian of Salisbury, and the outpourings of sacred literature such as “Hi-Fi Choiceâ€Â, all devoted to the worship and extolling of the HOBBY, but now he calls on all hi-fi owners everywhere to repent, to discard their unbelief and to embrace the sacred lore of communication with the HOBBY through better power cords, interconnects, cables, stands and tweaks of all manner. Forgiveness is possible, even at this late stage and even for those stricken with the unspeakable heresy of digitalis, for the time is short and soon the End Times will come. The Righteous will pass to Paradise where reproduction will be perfect and the sweet spot will cease to exist, because everywhere will be a sweet spot. However, for those who persist in unbelief, their ultimate (and dare we say it, well-deserved) fate will be terrible – they will be thrown alive into the lake of molten PVC, moulded into records and played at a stylus pressure of 2 tons, recast again in the lake of molten PVC and played again ad infinitum.

Repent, ye sinners, before it is too late!

Members of the Church shall be required to take unto themselves the name “Bagehotâ€Â*, the way Sikhs are all required to take unto themselves the name Singh (lion). The Church does not require offerings, but HOBBY must be placated by constant upgrades. Audio Nirvana will only be reached at the Eternity of Perfect Reproduction. The greater the upgrades, the better shall the position of the believer be in the Eternity.

The position of Supreme Pontiff of The Church of the Reproduction is currently vacant. It resembles that of another large religious organisation, and because of that and because the True Believers achieve great spiritual highs when communing with the HOBBY, s/he bears the title of Dope. All members of the Church are entitled to stand for election as Dope, but in reality only those with equipment whose purchase price resembles the Gross National Product of Belgium and/or Mana levels exceeding Phase 11 have any real chance in the Sacred Conclave of Carbuncles of the Church. Election is announced by the white smoke of the Sacred Dielectric from the chimney of the “Bricklayer's Armsâ€Â, Hounslow, Mddx. The coronation of the Dope takes place shortly thereafter (s/he pays).


* Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) was the most famous editor of “The Economistâ€Â. His famous comment on British Royalty is also appropriate to hi-fi - letting the light of reality in on it would destroy the magic.

The Scriptures also tell us how it originally came about. Again, I bore you with the original HFC thread:

The True Believer will have no truck with new-fangled alleged scientific theories of origins. Well, we all know what these so-called scientific types are like on the subject of hi-fi, don't we? Eternally rambling on as to how it's all in our heads! I look forward to their eternal rambles when they have eternity to do it – in the Lake of Molten Vinyl. Let's hear how that record plays! The True Believer should instead adhere to the simple, unvarnished truth, as laid down in the divinely-inspired account in the Scriptures at Generous 1:
Generous 1
1In the beginning HOBBY created the heaven and the earth.
2And the earth was without sound, and void; and silence was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of HOBBY moved upon the face of the waters.
3And HOBBY said, Let there be lightning: and there was lightning.
4And HOBBY saw the lightning, that it was good:
5And HOBBY made Day and Night, because he knew that this would represent the magnitude of the differences that would be heard. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6And HOBBY said, Let the lightning be capable of voltage reduction and conduction, such that it can be used, and let there be conductors.
7And HOBBY made the conductors, and divided the elements of the earth into conductors and non-conductors.
8And HOBBY called the conductors Metal and he called the non-conductors Di-Electric. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9And HOBBY said, Let dry land appear, and let it be enclosed: and it was so.
10And HOBBY called the dry land Listening Room; and HOBBY saw that it was good.
11And HOBBY said, Let the Listening Room bring forth loudspeakers of every kind: and it was so.
12And the Listening Room brought forth infinite baffles and ported enclosures and electrostatic membranes and subwoofers and satellites of every kind: and HOBBY saw that it was good.
13And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14And HOBBY said, Let there be amplification of every kind in the Listening Room, and let them glow in the darkness: and it was so.
15And HOBBY brought forth the resistor and the capacitor, the integrated circuit and the LED of divers colours, the valve and the transistor, and did cause the LEDs and the valves and the names on those whose Naim was above every name to glow.
16And HOBBY set them in place in circuitry, so that they ruled over the loudspeakers, to divide the quiet from the noisy: and HOBBY saw that it was good.
17And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
18And HOBBY said, Let the Listening Room bring forth abundantly source components of every kind.
19And HOBBY created great turntables, and every source component that playeth, which the Listening Room brought forth abundantly: and HOBBY saw that it was good.
20And HOBBY blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiplay, and fill the Listening Room with sound, and let music multiply in the earth.
21And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
22And HOBBY said, Let the earth bring forth creeping things, and let the creeping things exude the oil that is within them, and let the oil blend with the conductors and Di-Electric and be transformed into cables and interconnects, and with the wood and metals of the earth to form stands and green pens and cleaning fluids and demagnetisers and all manner of wondrous devices that improve sound, in complete defiance of all the principles of natural law that I shall eventually get around to establishing for everyone else: and it was so.
23And HOBBY made every thing that creepeth upon the earth and the oil within them, and fashioned from the oil cables and interconnects and caused them to unite with the source components and amplifiers and loudspeakers in the Listening Room, creating The Gear: and HOBBY saw that it was good.
24And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
25And HOBBY said, Let us make music-carrying means that can be used on the source components, and let us make The Audiophool made in our image, after our likeness: and let him have dominion over the hi-fi equipment, and over the music and over all the accessories that have come from the oil from every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and let him have golden ears, such that he can perceive better than any other man, yea, even things that are not actually there, and let him even occasionally listen to music thereon, to provide a fig leaf of justification therefor.
26So HOBBY created vinyl and tape and CD, and he created The Audiophool in his own image, in the image of HOBBY created he him; female he also created, with common sense and WAF instead of audiophoolery.
27And HOBBY blessed them, and HOBBY said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth with high fidelity equipment, and subdue it: and have dominion over the dealerships of the earth, and upgrade constantly.
28And HOBBY said, Behold, I have given you every means of upgrading, the bank balance, the credit card, the cheque book, the dole money that really should be used to pay the rent, and have placed within you the spirit to make you desire to do so, to never be satisfied with what you have, and I have given you the Hi-Fi Magazine and the Internet Forum to increase the desire to do so; and it was so.
29And HOBBY saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
30Thus the heavens and the earth, the Listening Room and all The Gear in it were finished, and all the host of them.
31And on the seventh day HOBBY ended his work which he had made; and on the seventh day he retired to the Listening Room and switched on The Gear, and switched off from all his work which he had made.
32And HOBBY blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which he created and made.
33 And on the ninth day, HOBBY finally got to listen, because The Gear took that long to warm up.

Here is everything the believer needs to know – note how, in the inspired account, The Gear was created before the principles of natural law were, thus answering clearly once and for all for all except those who will not see the question as to why hi-fi does not adhere to natural law, and why only the true Believer can ascertain the differences. Do not be deceived by so-called scientific logic – these scoffers are themselves deceived and are fated in the End Time for the most part to end up in the Lake of Molten Vinyl, which is the Second Death.

 

Ears only, but backed up by the belief that nothing much other than a major box change is going to make any difference. I'm rarely disappointed.

Quite simply, I don't care any more. If it makes (to my ears) a nice and/or different noise, I'm happy. If people hear something different, I'll be the last to object.

I might well be afflicted with this very ailment, but that's fine, as it saves me a lot of money, which I can then squander on Bach cantatas and the like.

 

I guess there are worse ways of spending your hard-earned

I think you have a fairly healthy outlook on things. At least you appear open-minded and don't ram your way of thinking down people's throats, which in my book is refreshing to see.

------------------------------
Paul

P.S That last post of yours was a bit of an epic! Did you type it out from your own thoughts or was it mostly a copy and paste job from elsewhere?

 

I have no desire to spoil others' contentment. I am happy with my stuff, they are happy with theirs, all's well with the world

I have to confess :shame: that it's entirely original. Worse, there's more of it, but I shall not inflict it on you. It is a series of Bulls, pronounced ex catheter by the Dope on such fundamental religious questions as, is a believer in HOBBY forever saved, or can s/he backslide all the way into the Lake of Molten Vinyl?

 

Phew - glad nobody has mentioned CD lathing then!

 

Done to death elsewhere, I believe.

 

Paul, I think this is where myself, Mosfet, BBV, owl37400 and many others will disagree. It does not in any way mean that there is something we can't measure. All it means is that you don't like equipment that measures that way (and a lot of the time you only see a few measurements not the full picture). Just because it measures as an accurate piece of equipment does not mean you will like[i/] the sound. Humans like distortion!

Equally with cables, we can measure pretty much all there is to know about how a cable will effect a sound signal in the audible range. What we can't do very well is relate how the effect will be perceived. But, we can measure the effect it has on the signal.

 

Pretty good knowledge of the Bible tones. I was of course promoting the scientific impact of you reversing the direction of your cable (woof woof).

Not that the two are necessesarily mutually exclusive (religion and science).

Anyway it seems like people want to have a serious discussion on this subject so I will refrain from further spam.