Stereophile and Audio Cables

[Justdafactsmaam]

They haven’t thought to actually test whether there is a difference, incompetent, charlatans or both?
Keith

There comes a point where honest ignorance becomes willful ignorance. It’s not like they don’t know the scientific side of the debate. There is no excuse.

 

[krabapple]

When tech reviewer Paul Miller started out, he used to do tests at rf on cables (was it for HiFi Choice, by then in monthly mag form?) and he often found differences (internal reflections or something) at rf frequencies I remember. Digital sources back then didn't seem as 'clean' as I suspect they are today so maybe this could contribute to sonic differences if they were there at all.

er..no

 

[Overseas]

Wine from glass, plastic, paper cups or glasses, perceived differently but changed as substance?

 

[Induna]

The rhetorical style of the article at least makes it clear that "Audiophilism" is indeed a religion and, as with most religions, it is extraordinarily difficult to convince the believers that their conversion experience did not contain revealed truth about the nature of reality.

¡Así es la vida!

 

[rdenney]

We all can find the differences when measuring reflections or RF immunity, the question is if the transfer to audible differences and as a hypothesis it must be proven, otherwise it is nothing but a hypothesis.

You are right the SOTA DACs have much much cleaner HF of VHF output spectrum compared to stone age CD players. The remaining issue is the signal ground loop in case of single-ended interconnection of 2 class I devices or non-isolated USB loop. Try my test linked above .

Yet even the old 14-bit CD players sound excellent, and to my ears indistinguishable from later 16-bit and grossly oversampled players.

Rick "whose old Philips-drive Magnavox CDB-650 is still revered, or would be if it worked" Denney

 

[DLS79]

my god, some of the arguments in the comments section are nonsensical! Specially the car references by the "I have a PhD in Physics" guy!

 

[rdenney]

my god, some of the arguments in the comments section are nonsensical! Specially the car references by the "I have a PhD in Physics" guy!

I know a few PhD physicists. There's no telling what they studied to get their doctorate, and how distant that topic is from plain base-band audio. Few have actually done any of the math related to audio and become like ophthalmologists espousing expertise on knee surgery just because they are also medical doctors.

Rick "most PhD physics studies are pretty freaking far from even RF first principles" Denney

 

[Blumlein 88]

my god, some of the arguments in the comments section are nonsensical! Specially the car references by the "I have a PhD in Physics" guy!

Well there is a user here with that same name. Only 3 message in as many years. The most recent this past January. We could notify him and let him take part. And of course says in principle transients could behave differently. Mystic signals I guess those transients. He uses silver wire with silk dialetric. As silk can absorb water it isn't a choice I would make. But I'm not a mystical Japanese audio monk who baffles learned people with PhDs in physics.

 

[DonR]

I am saddened by JA's defence of the article in the comments.

 

[Count Arthur]

At one point I had a system that included over £1,500.00 worth of cables.

I now have a much better system that uses about £200.00 worth of cables.

 

[JeremyFife]

Wine from glass, plastic, paper cups or glasses, perceived differently but changed as substance?

Absolutely! Riedel glass developed a range of rather beautiful glasses designed to bring out specific flavour characteristics. Their "Burgundy Grand Cru" sommelier glass (1958) is in the New York museum of modern art ... it's thing of beauty, and very nice to drink good red burgundy out of.
Wine from a tumbler tastes different to wine from a basic 'tulip' type glass - but there's nothing surprising about that.

You can, of course, take this too far and many wine enthusiasts are cheerfully chasing the same sort of snake oil that we have to contend with.

 

[tmtomh]

There comes a point where honest ignorance becomes willful ignorance. It’s not like they don’t know the scientific side of the debate. There is no excuse.

This is the answer IMHO. Every hobby relies on the artificial expansion of the allegedly Unknown, and the endowment of tiny variations with large meaning. This is done to maximize the space and opportunities for people to explore and have fun - and of course it also expands the market and the profit potential for the trade in items related to the hobby, because it creates new desires that people are willing to pay a good deal of money to try to satisfy.

With non-engineering/science-reated hobbies like, say, vintage toy collecting, this expanded zone of the Unknown makes people feel compelled to collect all the minor variations of a 1950s Matchbox car or the early production run of a 1970s Lego set where one part had a slightly different mold. There the damage, if there is any, is about folks becoming obsessed with completing their collections, which can become very expensive and make the pursuit of purchases more important than enjoying the items themselves.

With audio gear this takes the form of "the journey" - but the nature of the hobby requires an additional kind of damage to be done, and that's damage to scientific truth and engineering knowledge. I find it absolutely, positively implausible that JA honestly believes that all six of the factors he cites could play a role in the sound produced by audio interconnects.

I do think it is perfectly plausible that he might honestly feel that one or two of those items (most likely the 1st and 2nd factors he cites) might make a difference, and he honestly isn't sure about it.

But even with that, he is still consciously and actively participating in and reinforcing a culture in which such uncertainties are never to be investigated to the point where they might be definitively proven or disproven - because that would collapse the artificially large sphere of the allegedly Unknown and pop the balloon that makes an article like Reichert's able to be published at all. There's no way in the world that JA doesn't know his comment will be used as a "good enough" hook for those who Want To Believe to hang their subjectivist hats. To that end, his remark to Archimago about how "what I don't understand is why someone would dismiss any of them out of hand" is just repulsive.

He should of course feel free to post what he wants, but I don't find anything to commend in his comment in that discussion, and the article itself is a bad joke - from "Changing audio cables always changes the sound of my system," early on, it's clear there's no point in reading the rest. I did anyway, in case someone accused me of not being open-minded, but that's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back, and I can in good faith strongly recommend to others that they not waste their time reading it.

 

[DSJR]

er..no

Common sense would suggest that, but can you give evidence to show your side of it?

Okay, maybe this was clutching at straws, up at these silly high all but rf frequencies as all the differences that could be shown... My comments about the grubby ultrasonic output of CD players is factual though, as Mr Miller showed at the time and also the 'stuff' above the audio-band frequencies that amps seemed sensitive to - I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of reprints or scans to show you how he measured stuff back then - some amps I remember, weren't very good at all back then... Like I said, clutching at straws (these days, I use whatever I have to hand and don't ever feel short changed as long as I can't SEE them...

 

[DSJR]

Yet even the old 14-bit CD players sound excellent, and to my ears indistinguishable from later 16-bit and grossly oversampled players.

Rick "whose old Philips-drive Magnavox CDB-650 is still revered, or would be if it worked" Denney

Umm - the Sony 101 did sound great if a little 'dry' perhaps, but I regularly got a headache with the original Philips 14 bit models for some obscure reason. First 14 bit player not to do this for me was the Meridian MCD (I also liked the B&O CDX and Mission DAD7000 - Philips 104 in drag, but can't remember their architecture without looking them up) and my first CD player was the MCD-Pro, followed two years later by their 207 CD/Preamp* model.

* Oh sh*t and apologies for going off the track here, I recall the meridian 207 line preamp sounded a little thin toned compared to my then Linn LK1. I now realise the LK1 is *severely* band limited by design (and on test) with a constricting kind-of roll-off at the top which I could clearly hear back then. I was using NS1000's at the time and really should have got a better amp but UK-choice was limited then until the Nakamichi Stasis models came along at well under Krell prices and showed how inferior the UK 'high end' was at the time. Also, the way we then subjectivists could develop a blind spot to odd and audible measurements.

 

[egellings]

I think that would be futile, because subjectivist audiophiles do not care what science, or measurements, say about the audibility of cables. They firmly believe that they hear the differences no matter what, and as far as I can see, the only way to possibly make them change their minds is to make them go through a comprehensive controlled blind test, that shows them to be unable to actually hear any differences.

Even then the audiophools will simply claim that the rigorous testing procedure fatigues them and impairs their ability to hear the differences that they do hear under more relaxed conditions.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Even then the audiophools will simply claim that the rigorous testing procedure fatigues them and impairs their ability to hear the differences that they do hear under more relaxed conditions.

They should just get their wives to do the ABX from the kitchen

 

[Audiofire]

Thanks for the reviews of the review, so that one is free from being exposed to the nonsense

 

[Zapper]

but also JA gave a detailed reply suggesting that there were a number of at least technically plausible ways cables could sound different.

His hypotheses were plausible, or at least possible. They are also measurable. So why doesn't he measure them?

He doesn't because the purpose of his hypothesis is not to explain reality. The purpose is to give believers a framework to rationalize their beliefs. It's the same with any other fringe belief - flat earthers, creationists, moon landing deniers. Each group has their smarter members whose role is to provide the conceptual framework to justify absurd claims. They use seemingly plausible hypotheses or facts to obscure and confuse, not to explain. JA plays that role for the audiophools.

 

[DLS79]

I think this covers a lot of the zealot audiophile types.

Grandiose delusions - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

zealot audiophile : "I can her thinks no one else can, and science can't quantify"
rational human being : "ok buddy................."

 

[Mikig]

particular note, as the attention on the cables is concentrated only on the external ones.

In fact, inside devices and speakers, we talk about millimeters of diameter, insulation only with rubber and no exotic materials...

then between devices, we move on to noble materials, centimeters of diameter and multiple layers of insulation...

without asking too many questions , this should already raise serious doubts….