Analysis of Paper on Measurements of RCA Cables by Kunchur (Video)

[amirm]

I keep getting asked to address the paper by professor Kunchur on his latest paper as promoted by a number of youtubers. There, he claims to have found correlated measurements for why different cable "grades" make an audible difference. So I put together a presentation detailing his testing and problems with it:

It is long (41 minutes) but hopefully you can skim through it. If not, you have for reference next time someone throws the paper/youtube video at you.

Edit: link to the paper: http://boson.physics.sc.edu/~kunchur/papers/Interconnect-cable-measurements--Kunchur.pdf

 

[Lambda]

I don’t have the time now but a link to the paper would be appreciated

 

[xaviescacs]

Now is a good time to quote again my astrophysics teacher saying that astrophysics isn't fun. Prof. Kunchur apparently shares that view too and he's trying to have fun with something else.

 

[amirm]

I don’t have the time now but a link to the paper would be appreciated

Sure. Added it to the OP.

 

[abdo123]

Is that journal predatory? I don’t read physics papers.

 

[Bow_Wazoo]

With this video, it is clear what will be the background sounds, for my relaxed working day. Thank you. I am excited.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Funny about them mentioning "RG-59" cable. I can just see some audiophile reading it, hooking his speakers up with a large spool of coax for better "attack", and then wondering why his linear amplifier suddenly starts smoking profusely. Yeah they put protection networks in the output, but still one part that people don't appreciate is that your interconnects sometimes can look a lot different to your equipment than you.

 

[Deleted member 50971]

Good morning Amir.

Thank you for this, I’ve watched part of his Video before and can’t quite remember where it got derailed, but if I remember right there was something in there that I didn’t feel was very scientific.

Definitely later today I’ll be watching your video, but by the look of your face on the thumbnail I don’t think it ends well for the testing methods lol.

Edit;

I knew this would be on YouTube also, heads exploding in 3… 2… 1…

 

[Sokel]

astrophysics teacher saying that astrophysics isn't fun.

I think those ones have their hands full these days.

 

[xaviescacs]

I've finished the video. Fancy scopes, microB, subjective frequency response, new undefined variables, 4 ns pulses, noise correlation... yeah, he is having a lot of fun. It's a "Hold my beer" paper.

 

[xaviescacs]

I think those ones have their hands full these days.

Apparently not all of them... xD

 

[Belker]

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

I've finished the video. Fancy scopes, microB, subjective frequency response, new undefined variables, 4 ns pulses, noise correlation... yeah, he is having a lot of fun. It's a "Hold my beer" paper.

From the university's page: "A second area is psychophysics, auditory neurophysiology, and high-fidelity sound reproduction." I like how he keeps it super-broad and uses things like psychophysics instead, you know, so he can play with the expensive toys in the lab and look smart.

 

[the_brunx]

Somehow you can tell how easy it was for this professor to be a victim of snake oil from how naive his papers are written.
Deceived and deceiving

 

[tomtoo]

Cables measure different!

Amazing news.

 

[Cars-N-Cans]

Popcorn, anyone?

 

[xaviescacs]

From the university's page: "A second area is psychophysics, auditory neurophysiology, and high-fidelity sound reproduction." I like how he keeps it super-broad and uses things like psychophysics instead, you know, so he can play with the expensive toys in the lab and look smart.

I don't think there are scopes or pulse generators in any astrophysics department or lab, usually there is only computers and books So it seems the mates of the EM department forgot to lock the door of some lab and someone has been having a nice party there.

 

[Sokel]

Seriously now,I find myself unworthy of criticizing a professor but I'll take Amir's word for it and go on with just decent cables who get the job done (except for measuring,there is another story).
That's the practical value of it.

 

[diaolodoro]

I'm 5 mins into the video and the paper never mentions the cable full specifications(??) That's not scientific, it's just a guy playing with cables with extra steps in between. Pretty interesting for a blog, not good enough for a paper publication (with all due respect to Milind N. Kunchur). I haven't read his 2nd paper, but conformation bias in research is true and it's happening more often than we think.
Should I keep watching?

 

[abdo123]

@amirm Isn't the wavelength of 20KHz around a little bit higher than one centimeter? Am i missing something in your transmission line explanation?