Stereophile and Audio Cables

[Brian Hall]

In other words, not because you are stupid/dishonest/crazy? You must be getting the point by now.

I do my best to never lie to anyone about anything. That is very important to me.

If I missed something in a prior post, point it out to me. I do not know what summary judgement you are referring to.

 

[SIY]

But I would take the argument further. I would offer JA two hi res files. One an original high res vinyl rip and the other a third generation copy that I made using my RME DAC, Old Tascam digital recorder , Mac Mini and Mogabi cables all powered by stock power cords. And ask him to distinguish them in and ABX test. The copy file was run through 6 sets of Mogabi cables two DACs and two ADCs using 6 components all powered with stock power cords.

You can do that. But since he has written at length (IMO, highly dishonestly) about how using basic controls ruins the ability to perceive differences inaccessible to conventional engineering (while ignoring that subjects using controls have shown fabulous sensitivity to things like level, frequency response, localization...), you will be at best ignored at worst blocked.

 

[Doodski]

he has written at length about how using basic controls ruins the ability to perceive differences inaccessible to conventional engineering

How can that even be spun? The jumping through the hoops that is required in order to denigrate the science must be plentiful. Can you elaborate further about how he spun that?

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

You can do that. But since he has written at length (IMO, highly dishonestly) about how using basic controls ruins the ability to perceive differences inaccessible to conventional engineering (while ignoring that subjects using controls have shown fabulous sensitivity to things like level, frequency response, localization...), you will be at best ignored at worst blocked.

Which is easy to debunk with a long list of ABX tests with positive results.

I’d counter his claim by showing I personally can detect a vinyl rip from an original hi res file of the same recording using ABX.

 

[BDWoody]

How can that even be spun? The jumping through the hoops that is required in order to denigrate the science must be plentiful. Can you elaborate further about how he spun that?

Blind Listening

John Atkinson sets the stage Nothing seems to polarize people as much as the vexed question concerning the importance of audible differences between amplifiers. If you think there are subjective differences, you're an audiophile; if you don't, you're not.

www.stereophile.com

This from some years later with further hand waving.

The Blind Leading the Blind? Letters, October 2005

Letters in response appeared in October 2005 (Vol.28 No.10): Curious

www.stereophile.com

 

[Doodski]

I'm

Blind Listening

John Atkinson sets the stage Nothing seems to polarize people as much as the vexed question concerning the importance of audible differences between amplifiers. If you think there are subjective differences, you're an audiophile; if you don't, you're not.

www.stereophile.com

This from some years later with further hand waving.

The Blind Leading the Blind? Letters, October 2005

Letters in response appeared in October 2005 (Vol.28 No.10): Curious

www.stereophile.com

Sooper @BDWoody. I'll be off now reading this literature for awhile.

 

[Axo1989]

I do my best to never lie to anyone about anything. That is very important to me.

You understand that I'm saying you are not being stupid/dishonest/crazy, yes?

Realising this, I'm hoping you can understand that when others say things you fundamentally disagree with or think are completely wrong, it's possible that they also are maybe not being stupid/dishonest/crazy. In other words, as @MattHooper said upthread (back to the point you were at right before I initially replied to your response to this):

I believe the selections "Stupid" "Dishonest" or "Nuts" are a false trichotomy.

Intelligent yet honestly mistaken is an option. ...

Now I'm taking it a bit further to argue that people easily "miss" things that they don't connect or comprehend. Because of the cultural context they operate from, because of their different knowledge and experiences, or for other reasons, things that seem obvious to me may not be that way to you, and vice versa. And not specifically you or me, but anyone, vs anyone else.

 

[caught gesture]

The Blind Leading the Blind? Letters, October 2005

Letters in response appeared in October 2005 (Vol.28 No.10): Curious

www.stereophile.com

perhaps an alternative hypothesis is called for: that the very procedure of a blind listening test can conceal small but real subjective differences
…the hoops that he‘ll jump through to invalidate the science. He then sets about his own blind test where apparently “small but real” differences were not concealed and gloats about his scientific experiment. Some people really just want to have it both ways, as long as it agrees with their preconceptions.

 

[sq225917]

Maybe he should try this hypothesis, " that where no real differences exist between two recordings human hearing and memory isn't good enough to accurately discern them as being identical"

The difference is us.

 

[CleanSound]

And let's see through the smoke screen:

JA is a reviewer for a traditional magazine and the way how it works is that there is a very fragile ecosystem of manufacturers, distributors, dealers who all have their hands in cables, and they keep Stereophile's advertising flowing and keep products coming in for review. He made this statement to cast doubts that cables are indeed snake oil but without full in legitimizes cables to keep the status quo going. Very fragile ecosystem.

 

[mhardy6647]

JA is a reviewer for a traditional magazine and the way how it works is that there is a very fragile ecosystem of manufacturers, distributors, dealers who all have their hands in cables, and they keep Stereophile's advertising flowing and keep products coming in for review. He made this statement to cast doubts that cables are indeed snake oil but without full in legitimizes cables to keep the status quo going. Very fragile ecosystem.

IN the spirit of this post (which is the one I mean to reference, this time! ) -- discussions like this current thread put me to mind of Monty Python's sketch about the housing block that exists on the strength of, shall we say, communal belief. OK, hypnosis.

EDIT: Come to think of it, Mystico & Janet might make a very good name for a cable or other boutique hifi company.

 

[teched58]

Magazines as referenced above are obsolete but there are many good things going on.
Having been here since only a few days after Amir put ASR online, I have to say I've been amazed in a
very good way at how fast the site has grown and brought wider attention to the objective side of audio.
But it's not just here either, from the list of growing good guys like Archimago, Audioholics, all the work and online
tutorials for FREE measurement software like REW, there's so much more to list and CRS is killing me right now.
But yea, I do believe the rational voice of the objective audio approach is growing stronger each day and I'm hopeful we
will no longer get kicked around as has been the practice of the $$$ dominated subjective community over the last few decades.

I wish I could agree with you, @Sal1950 , since you make more sense than most.

However, in life and in business everything has an arc. For businesses it's often like this:

1. Startup: Iconoclastic newcomer that takes on all the world's previous b.s.
2. Rapid Growth Phase: People see how great the newcomer is. They flock there and tell their friends to come, too.
3. Peak: When you reach the top of mountain in your niche.
4. Protect Your Bacon: Now you're cooking, but now some of those pesky supporters that you previously welcomed are getting cranky that you keep telling them what they should or should not say.
5. Beginnings of a Slow Decline: Not to belabor. Let's say this phase is where you've reached the point where your iconoclasm has been replaced by a room full of Wilson speakers. (NOTE: This is obviously NOT referring to ASR.)
6. Final destination. The fun little upstart that everybody loved is now a successful business that's fairly static in that it pretty much repeats its greatest hits ad infinitum, with a hefty dose of moderation to keep it from going of the rails. And it's keeping a close side-eye on a new competitor that's shaking up the field.

P.S. I don't see any viable competitors to ASR yet. And I am NOT making any statement about where ASR is, though it's probably between 2 and 3.

 

[zhabotinsky]

perhaps an alternative hypothesis is called for: that the very procedure of a blind listening test can conceal small but real subjective differences.

First, he is proposing an alternative null-hypothesis. Second, how do you define and assess "real subjective differences"?

 

[Brian Hall]

Now I'm taking it a bit further to argue that people easily "miss" things that they don't connect or comprehend. Because of the cultural context they operate from, because of their different knowledge and experiences, or for other reasons, things that seem obvious to me may not be that way to you, and vice versa. And not specifically you or me, but anyone, vs anyone else.

I understand now. I am a bit autistic and tend to see things as black or white with very few shades of gray. Something is either true or false. It is hard to understand how someone who is supposedly intelligent can ignore obvious and easily available evidence that they are wrong and intentionally continue to spout wrong things. That really bothers me.

I know this is different from subjects where there is no actual evidence to prove something one way or another like religion.

 

[Doodski]

I'm

Blind Listening

John Atkinson sets the stage Nothing seems to polarize people as much as the vexed question concerning the importance of audible differences between amplifiers. If you think there are subjective differences, you're an audiophile; if you don't, you're not.

www.stereophile.com

This from some years later with further hand waving.

The Blind Leading the Blind? Letters, October 2005

Letters in response appeared in October 2005 (Vol.28 No.10): Curious

www.stereophile.com

I read all of the Stereophile literature that you linked me to and it's very interesting that he proposed his hoop jumping distortions of reality in the very first page and then used the remainder of the 6 pages to explain in detail the rational behind the listening test methodology. He snuck it all in @ the beginning and then by the end of the 6 pages one forgets that hoop jumping detail. Very schneaky!

 

[egellings]

Our eyes and ears can deceive us. I think our noses and tongues are more honest.

Eyes & ears pick up radiations-light waves or sound waves, respectively. There's no physical material in them. Your tongue and schnozzolla pick up actual molecules--physical material. It will be harder to fool those senses.

 

[Palladium]

And let's see through the smoke screen:

JA is a reviewer for a traditional magazine and the way how it works is that there is a very fragile ecosystem of manufacturers, distributors, dealers who all have their hands in cables, and they keep Stereophile's advertising flowing and keep products coming in for review. He made this statement to cast doubts that cables are indeed snake oil but without full in legitimizes cables to keep the status quo going. Very fragile ecosystem.

Lol not our fault they painted themselves into a scientifically indefensible corner. Can you imagine any of their circle surviving like luxury watches where the entire industry won't even begin to dare claim they keep time better than free GPS?

 

[Daverz]

perhaps an alternative hypothesis is called for: that the very procedure of a blind listening test can conceal small but real subjective differences
…the hoops that he‘ll jump through to invalidate the science. He then sets about his own blind test where apparently “small but real” differences were not concealed and gloats about his scientific experiment. Some people really just want to have it both ways, as long as it agrees with their preconceptions.

It's the old Uri Geller dodge of "your skeptical vibes are supressing my psy powers."

 

[Palladium]

It's the old Uri Geller dodge of "your skeptical vibes are supressing my psy powers."

I like every rebuttal from quackery ultimately boils down to a personal attack on the skeptic's wealth.

 

[JaMaSt]

Eyes & ears pick up radiations-light waves or sound waves, respectively. There's no physical material in them. Your tongue and schnozzolla pick up actual molecules--physical material. It will be harder to fool those senses.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3887364/

In summary, unlike most other sensory modalities, afferents from the olfactory sensory system (a) bypass the first-order, relay thalamus, (b) directly target the cortex ipsilaterally (Shepherd and Greer, 1998; Tham et al., 2009), which minimizes spread of circuitry, (c) involve a primary processing area that consists of paleocortex (which contains only half of the number of layers of neocortex), and (d) involve primarily only one brain region (the frontal cortex; Shepherd, 2007). The last observation stands in contrast to vision and audition, which often involve large-scale interactions between frontal cortex and parietal cortices, as in the case of the well-documented interactions between frontal-parietal cortex or frontal-occipital cortex. This summary reveals the relative simplicity of the anatomy of the olfactory system compared to that of other systems. In addition, it has been claimed that, because of its positioning within the cranium, the olfactory system features a privileged and accessible region (Shepherd and Greer, 1998). As Shepherd (2007) concludes, “In olfactory perception there is no ‘back’ of the brain; the primary neocortical receptive area is in the OFC, which is at the core of the prefrontal area. Thus, in olfaction, all of the sequences of processing that are necessary to get from the back to the front of the brain are compressed within the front of the brain itself. This reflects the evolutionary position of smell, with its privileged input to the highest centers of the frontal lobe throughout the evolution of the vertebrate brain. From this perspective, the basic architecture of the neural basis of consciousness in mammals, including primates, should be sought in the olfactory system, with adaptations for the other sensory pathways reflecting their relative importance in the different species” (p. 93).