That calculation was wrong, it was based on the speed of sound in the air, 343 or so m/s, in transmission lines we use C=3e8 m/s... The wavelenghts are many orders of magnitude longer.
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Analysis of Paper on Measurements of RCA Cables by Kunchur (Video)
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Sorry man, no preferences, zero bias, just hearing. And, as I said, used the piano just as an example, to make the concept simpler. It´s very clear on any tipe of acoustic music.I've been an audiophile since I was in college, so thankfully had opportunities to enjoy what my budget could afford when my hearing was still great.
#1. Sighted bias. This is different than imaginary perception. Something imaginary doesn't actually exist. Bias can alter our perceptions measurably. The best example of this are some of these fMRI studies on phantom acupuncture. When the brain thinks something, it can actually alter and convince you of the change.
Phantom Acupuncture Induces Placebo Credibility and Vicarious Sensations: A Parallel fMRI Study of Low Back Pain Patients - Scientific Reports
Although acupuncture is an effective therapeutic intervention for pain reduction, the exact difference between real and sham acupuncture has not been clearly understood because a somatosensory tactile component is commonly included in the existing sham acupuncture protocols. In an event-related...www.nature.com
What this means is that your brain probably does hear better piano note decay, but it's because of the sighted bias. You can convince and train your brain to believe in the same thing for any product. This is what being a good listener is about and it's free. When the subjective listeners believe that some tweak is changing the sound, I genuinely believe that they hear and experience what they are writing. The problem is that most tweaks are sold at absurd markups and there may be more effective ways to convince yourself of what you presume to hear.
#2. Intentional, euphonic colorations. I don't think this is too hard to appreciate. Someone like @amirm is a "trained listener" and is able to detect difference in frequency response and transparency. Harman used to have a Windows application that let you train yourself. He can hear differences between transparent and non-transparent audio and prefers transparent audio.
100% there is a concept of personal preference. That 17 year old kid with the car stereo and bass that's heard from blocks away and is nothing but distortion and rattle? You cannot talk that person out of believing that they are listening to poor quality audio, because for THEM, that experience of the shaking car gives him/her the audio pleasure that a more neutral experience doesn't happen.
For me, I like ultimate transparency for recorded instruments like classical music. On the other hand, I genuinely think that colorations can make some music sound better and can ABX the differences.
These are the cables with actual capacitors or inductors in them.
#3. Masking. A few posts up, I show that bad cables can introduce coloration, and in my specific case, a buzz. This buzz may not be equal across the spectrum. The same way you need to turn up the volume if you are watching TV and there is a vacuum going on, you can imagine that any type of added noise into a signal may preferentially mask specific portions of the content and then when "level matching" you preferentially enhance other portions of the content.
Andysu
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yeah , i have small traces of ground hum and other random noise at low s/n ratio on the Dolby Stereo CP200 , it's common everyone has one or used one at cinema knows . but it can be contained to reduce it . i think mostly the power supply ps1b , secondly maybe some caps on the slot cat-mow cards may can do with being changed to better grade as the caps are like 40 years old . but it still works . but has faint s/n with fader at normal level i don't notice it , but it is still there . just as the s/n tinnitus in my inner ear is there . so no such thing as perfect audio . even the ionosphereis noisy when switching the CB radio on . i like it . okay , in audio it may be disconcerting .Noise. The most annoying thing I know, and it can really be audible. Not a little cozy noise that Amir talks about in the video, but other noise, crap humming, grounding noise and so on. BUT that, in itself, has nothing to do with the cables themselves.
Referring to https://www.bksv.com/en/knowledge/blog/sound/wavelength-to-frequency (Bruel & Kjaer) the wavelength of a sound in air at 20 Hz: 340 m / 20 = 17 m, so the wavelength of a sound in air at 20kHz would be 1.7cm. The speed of a sound in air at 15C is 340m/s compared to the speed of electromagnetic propagation in a vacuum which is the speed of light, 3e8m/s, giving a wavelength at 20kHz of 15000mThis is in terms of the propagation velocity of electrical signals, and not sound. It is indeed quite short in air
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Haha, Amir was so shocked about this pseudoscience that he spelled his own name wrongly…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
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Did you do these comparisons sighted, did you keep precisely matched levels for all comparisons? Without controls your observations are useless. Not singling you out, just part of the condition of being human.
If there are real audible differences the signal is different enough it can be shown in measurements.
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I am always open for good science. Here's what I would try, and would love to get your genuine thoughts. Take your best and worst cables for the piano note decay. Share with us your cable choices since one of them may have distinct differences in colorations, etc. Confirm the track, share with us the piece where you are hearing the differences.
a) Try a setup where you use both cables simultaneously in parallel. What do you hear? Do they take on the characteristic of the worse or better cable?
b) Try a setup where you use one speaker with one cable and the other speaker with the other cable. In a non-mono block configuration, there's probably going to be some cross talk.
I'm particularly going to be curious about the subjective results you get from option A.
c) do you have a speaker cable that is good for X not Y and a speaker cable that is good for Y not X? If so, what happens if wiring them in parallel.
I agree. I don't think he could pass an oral interview at any of the more prestigious labs in the country. Where as Amir could get in the door no problem. Seems like anyone can be a "Professor" now........
DanielT
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It's probably like that for most people. And then I'm not talking about a little disturbing noise.This is what annoys most people, even those who are not interested in HiFi. When it becomes audible, really audible. Noise, humming, crackling and so on.
Recap, change caps.. hm. Might be needed, I've done it in old amps. The electrolytic capacitors in the power supply part. Did it need to be done? Did I hear a difference? I don't know but I replaced them anyway. It didn't get any worse. I can always imagine it getting better.
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Any time you see Jay you gotta wonder. What hair color today, black or blue? What surname, Soulsick or Adaji? Going solo or bringing Don along?
Now an astrophysicist to prove cables are different and those differences are audible. People at Transparent, Nordost, Cardas, Audioquest and PS Audio must be turning cartwheels right now.
And we have Jay to thank for this breakthrough that makes the world once again safe for the manufacturers of $20,000 RCA cables. NOT!
Now an astrophysicist to prove cables are different and those differences are audible. People at Transparent, Nordost, Cardas, Audioquest and PS Audio must be turning cartwheels right now.
And we have Jay to thank for this breakthrough that makes the world once again safe for the manufacturers of $20,000 RCA cables. NOT!
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Wonder what cables are in the Webb telescope out there in space?
Sadly science is not impossible to corrupt , therefore it's due diligence to re test claims again and again it's a constant struggle .
It actually happens to often , it can be business interest but often personal vanity group think and other factors ? so academia needs constant house keeping . some one said "predatory journals" ?
Just like it took >30 years to ban leaded gas ? Thanks to people that just don't give up
it seems there are many people who claim again and again they can hear absolutely without a shadow of a doubt audible differences between cables (all types, shapes, and colours). they claim if measurements do not show differences between cables then those are the wrong measurements, if measurements do show differences then aha! you see conclusive evidence that there are measurements we can see feel and hear. Yet, I have never seen one person do a proper audible test to prove that the claimant can hear a difference of any kind, be it a subtle difference or A LOUD difference, still a difference that can be proven time again and again. Why hasn't Doc Kunchur do such a test, Jay? or anyone else who keeps claiming left and right "yes, I have heard many times all kinds of audible differences, big small and sometimes big and small at the same time, but I can't demonstrate such differences because I hear my mom calling me for dinner, but trust me Jimbo, those differences are real, y'all". Well? ah the sound of crickets.
Andysu
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i use cheap trash hdmi cables speaker wire inter-connectors all cheap grade high quality amazon . and even did video , CB radio test this evening played the video back and didn't hear any modulation breaking over on the home cinema . i use the fm , the am and even the single side bands with 200watts linear power . no signal broken over into the system . now the aerial is outside close by . now i do have mobile one i can could try on the biscuit tin lol and place that in the room . but that would be dodgy , as i once blew a tv to smithereens , okay not really smithereens at 100 feet distance pushing same linear power but had lose core on the coaxial that was outputting "the spawn of rf" itself too me 2 weeks so to figure it ? i thought i had water in the base of the aerial with high SWR reading .It's probably like that for most people. And then I'm not talking about a little disturbing noise.This is what annoys most people, even those who are not interested in HiFi. When it becomes audible, really audible. Noise, humming, crackling and so on.
Recap, change caps.. hm. Might be needed, I've done it in old amps. The electrolytic capacitors in the power supply part. Did it need to be done? Did I hear a difference? I don't know but now. I replaced them anyway. It didn't get any worse. I can always imagine it getting better.
edit: recall when got the CB few years ago had aerial on tin and inside or outside the widow , in the home THX cinema room , and heard small thump sound on the amp running the sub and that is all i heard . but as it is now . not a peep . heard radio station 30 miles away over amplifier speaker though the mains 240v 50Hz , years ago and that maybe flake never repeated twice . heard one time fire services radio , while they went past outside up the road , and they are on VHF ? heard them modulation for few seconds then signal was not in range to be picked up on the home cinema .
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This getting weirder all the time . He's gone over the edge ? Trying to push several papers trough AES ( and sadly sucess with some ) . Driven by some kind of "high end audio is real" agenda ?
Serous cognitive dissonance ! He can not accept that he as a high end audio aficionado got somewhat conned ( haven't we all ) as he is an intellectual and capable scientist and man being wrong is not an option .
Well you can. I was believing this cr*p for >15 years before i finally got it . And I'm an Engineer , I should have known better but i did not . Hopefully this person eventually gets his wits together and shrug it off ?
Serous cognitive dissonance ! He can not accept that he as a high end audio aficionado got somewhat conned ( haven't we all ) as he is an intellectual and capable scientist and man
being wrong is not an option .Well you can. I was believing this cr*p for >15 years before i finally got it . And I'm an Engineer , I should have known better but i did not . Hopefully this person eventually gets his wits together and shrug it off ?
Being wrong and willfully ignoring scientific principles are two different things.
Peer review is never 100%.
www.nature.com
But the best we have.
Peer-reviewed paper defends theory of intelligent design - Nature
Critics of evolution score publishing success
But the best we have.
This is an outstanding debunking video, @amirm . I am glad that Kunchur acknowledged his faulty apples-to-oranges comparison of RCA and XLR cables in his previous paper, which I commented on 2 weeks ago. Regarding this new paper, I can only guess that he did not disclose the makes and models of tested cables because of potential legal liability to him and his university. The lack of data, which makes it very difficult to reproduce results published in research papers, is a well known problem.
As for the Jay boy and other "subjies" latching on that "scientifically proven finding," these are all smooth talking sales and marketing types (they proudly admit having worked in pricy audio stores, their careers in advertising or movies, etc.). They lack basic physics, math and engineering training to properly evaluate a paper like that one or to measure audio products and interpret results. So what is left for them is "personal hearing impressions" that are more difficult to undermine (after all, it is all in their heads).
As for the Jay boy and other "subjies" latching on that "scientifically proven finding," these are all smooth talking sales and marketing types (they proudly admit having worked in pricy audio stores, their careers in advertising or movies, etc.). They lack basic physics, math and engineering training to properly evaluate a paper like that one or to measure audio products and interpret results. So what is left for them is "personal hearing impressions" that are more difficult to undermine (after all, it is all in their heads).
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