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Cable argument put forward by a scientist

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faheem

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I stumbled on a video series by someone ( Reviews by Wave Theory ) who claims to be a Scientist with dual PhD in Physics and STEM.

Each video is fairly long and his 4 videos released putting forward his argument are over 140 min in total. If anyone here has watched his videos on the subject, I'd like to hear their take, anyone who hasn't, maybe give some of it a listen, if someone with a similar background can contribute, I'd like them to explore why they agree or disagree.

Personally, I hear no difference between cables that are in equally good working condition, but am interested to hear from those with more experience and knowledge.

Link to Video 1

Link to Video 2

Link to Video 3

Link to Video 4
 
You can easily null interlink cables.
That shows no difference.

I suspect, given the usage of low imp. headphones he might be having some connector issues (listening to what he is describing re stereo imaging).

His video is just (his) argumentation there is NO evidence presented anyway, just (his) argumentation is put forward.

And yes, even measurements show that cables differ.
Speaker cables especially which, depending on the situation, can actually be audible but is very measurable and explained easily in that case.

I also measured (audible) differences between some headphone cables. Especially those between SE (3-wire cables ONLY) and balanced cables.
Not tonally different but stereo imaging different. Also easy to prove using measurements and follows Ohm's law. No mystery there either.

Just look at what this cable seller is doing. (scroll down to the cable section)
 
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OK, I watched all 4 videos. He makes a fundamental mistake a the beginning, thinking he had conducted a valid experiment when he had not. The "Science" he knows is not audio science or he would know this:

1. His testing was clearly sighted. So was his wife's. His defense of this is that "I didn't expect it to make a difference so the fact that it did, it means there is a difference." This is a fundamental mistake.

2. He only considers placebo as an explanation and dismisses it per above. This is wrong as there is another critical factor here: our hearing is not constant. The brain uses bi-directional signaling to focus on what it wants to hear. The very act of making a change to the system cause the brain to perceive the same audible experience differently. What he considers constant, i.e. perception of sound, is not!

To fix this issue, we conduct the test blind and repeat it many times. The brain will now be in its analytical mode and hence dynamic, but that applies both to when a change is made and not made. To the extent the signal is not changing, then we observe random behavior. If there is real audible difference, then that stands out.

All he had to do was to repeat the experiment but this time, do it blind and repeat a dozen times. If he had done this, he would have realized that he is failing to reliably tell the difference between those cables.

As to explanation he provided, that is the theory of velocity factor that is thrown around by a few other people. Here, he almost realizes the mistake of trusting theory by showing that the difference between propagation delay of 1 KHz and 2 kHz is just 5 nanoseconds (billionth of a second). Unfortunately then jumps the shark by visualizing the impact this way:
1717050094941.png


He claims his shifted blue signal is what is happening. It is not. That shift is in other of milliseconds or at most many microseconds. That is hugely larger than nanoseconds. Shift that signal nanoseconds and it would not even be visible in that scope graph if this were a true measurement. If a cable did indeed shift high frequencies this much, it would indeed have an audible effect. We get that if you run a cable 1000 feet. But that is not the length of his headphone cable.

I have measured many cables using complex signals of multitone and there is no change in them whatsoever. As noted above, I have also done null tests with music showing no difference.

But really, the fundamental problem is improper experiment. He needs to go back and do that test blind and repeat it. Without it, he is chasing a phenomena that does not exist, fitting facts to a myth..
 
BTW, another mistake he makes is that the cable that sounded better to him had better velocity factor matching. That is super unlikely as these cable makers have no idea how to measure such things.

One company that does, sent me a test cable: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/belden-iconoclast-xlr-cable-review.33929/

As you see there, I tested with complex signal and there is absolutely no difference in signals:
index.php


This is what the multitone looks like in time domain:
index.php


This is much more complex that the signals he was using yet we see no difference at all.

Really, cables have far, far higher fidelity than any devices they interconnect. If they can't carry proper signals, heaven help us when it comes to amplifiers, headphones and DACs!
 
The 'problems' with his first examples of stereo imaging moving and as soon as another cable is connected that image is 'solid' points towards some added resistance (that is also not stable, so bad connection).
When he is using low impedance headphones (which it appears he is) a few ohm could make an audible difference. Easy to achieve with a dodgy connector.

It seems like he is basing his theories on that 'experience'. He should have investigated why that happened and not start to dream up wild theories.
Sounds like (pun intended) a dodgy connection to me.
 
I'm not going to watch 2 hours of this but from scrubbing through the video: absolute drivel.
If you're dealing with 6-12 foot cables transmitting audio frequency signals, propagation delay is a complete non-issue. Such things become an issue as you deal with some combination of higher frequencies and proportionally longer cable lengths and you have to start treating the wire as a transmission line instead of a lumped-element model with some frequency-dependent impedance (which is also generally unimportant at audio frequencies unless you're dealing with a pathological scenario), but any realistic home audio scenario does not remotely fit the bill.

The most common problems with cables, assuming they are what would subjectively register as "reasonable quality", are bad/failing joints and corrosion on the connectors. Worrying about low-level electromagnetic behavior is barking up completely the wrong tree.
 
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amirm said:
OK, I watched all 4 videos. He makes a fundamental mistake a the beginning, thinking he had conducted a valid experiment when he had not. The "Science" he knows is not audio science or he would know this:

1. His testing was clearly sighted. So was his wife's. His defense of this is that "I didn't expect it to make a difference so the fact that it did, it means there is a difference." This is a fundamental mistake.

2. He only considers placebo as an explanation and dismisses it per above. This is wrong as there is another critical factor here: our hearing is not constant. The brain uses bi-directional signaling to focus on what it wants to hear. The very act of making a change to the system cause the brain to perceive the same audible experience differently. What he considers constant, i.e. perception of sound, is not!

To fix this issue, we conduct the test blind and repeat it many times. The brain will now be in its analytical mode and hence dynamic, but that applies both to when a change is made and not made. To the extent the signal is not changing, then we observe random behavior. If there is real audible difference, then that stands out.

All he had to do was to repeat the experiment but this time, do it blind and repeat a dozen times. If he had done this, he would have realized that he is failing to reliably tell the difference between those cables.

As to explanation he provided, that is the theory of velocity factor that is thrown around by a few other people. Here, he almost realizes the mistake of trusting theory by showing that the difference between propagation delay of 1 KHz and 2 kHz is just 5 nanoseconds (billionth of a second). Unfortunately then jumps the shark by visualizing the impact this way:
View attachment 371936

He claims his shifted blue signal is what is happening. It is not. That shift is in other of milliseconds or at most many microseconds. That is hugely larger than nanoseconds. Shift that signal nanoseconds and it would not even be visible in that scope graph if this were a true measurement. If a cable did indeed shift high frequencies this much, it would indeed have an audible effect. We get that if you run a cable 1000 feet. But that is not the length of his headphone cable.

I have measured many cables using complex signals of multitone and there is no change in them whatsoever. As noted above, I have also done null tests with music showing no difference.

But really, the fundamental problem is improper experiment. He needs to go back and do that test blind and repeat it. Without it, he is chasing a phenomena that does not exist, fitting facts to a myth..
Click to expand...
Thanks Amir, that's as thorough explanation as I had hoped for.
 
It's baffling how people have the motivation and time to produce these long winded theoretical takes on audiophoolish things when it would be some much more simple and interesting to provide evidence from controlled testing. Dude with a couple of PhDs could surely find the people and facilities to make that happen and write the results up in a way that it would be hard to debunk.

....unless of course they already know that test would be failure. But if so, where is the motivation coming from? Oh well, this has been grinding my gears for a couple of decades, might not be solved anytime soon.
 
bodhi said:
It's baffling how people have the motivation and time to produce these long winded theoretical takes on audiophoolish things when it would be some much more simple and interesting to provide evidence from controlled testing. Dude with a couple of PhDs could surely find the people and facilities to make that happen and write the results up in a way that it would be hard to debunk.

....unless of course they already know that test would be failure. But if so, where is the motivation coming from? Oh well, this has been grinding my gears for a couple of decades, might not be solved anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Does he have PhDs? What's his real name? Just asking.
 
oleg87 said:
Worrying about low-level electromagnetic behavior is barking up completely the wrong tree.
Click to expand...
"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality." (Nikola Tesla, "Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions, July 1934)
 
What’s up with bad science it sticks like an unpaid bill years and decades after debunking . And has an irrational and irresistible allure to some people ?

This guy Kunchur we discussed here ( its been going on for a while )

The MPR vaccine / autism guy , was a total fraud also working outside of his real expertise , like Kunchur , its a hint guys ;)

Why is bad science better story telling than good science ? This stink like the moon hoax and flat earth conspiracies from far away .
And nobody sees it ?

But as soon as the next crackpot theory hits social media everyone is on to it “they” ( big Pharma, illuminati the lizard people ) has fooled us again here’s the truth.

Real interesting science news just disappear ?
 
"I'm a doctor, and I smoke Camel."
 
I was interested in the second video Waves & Waves Superposition. I first thought he will make a case that sound could travel in a quantummechanical superposition state (QMS) now that could be interesting. Let me use the state of a Qbit used in a quantumcomputer it could be in 3 states 0 or 1 an 01 at the same time. Let me try to translate a QMS to sound. In such state you could hear/measure a frequency don't hear/measure a frequency or both excist at the same time. I'm talking about probably a 10.000 of a second or way smaller probably Planck length territory. As the author explains for instance a orchestra has an extreme complex sound signature. The moment you hear/measure (rephrase that to determine) or don't hear/measure the sound the superposition or wave function has collaps an you hear/measure or don't hear/measure the sound in realtime/reality. Now this is from my part highly Subjective/philosophicle but it could be that each of us could determine above QMS of sound minute different than another person causing a difference in sound perception. IMHO this must be that small that we probably don't hear a difference compared to each other. But who knows a slight difference in perception ( for instance concentration or a lack of concentration a coldness, sadness, happiness etc etc) could collaps the wave function/ superposition sooner or later compared to each other. So you could measure what you want but individually we all determine what we hear when we collaps individually the wave function. Let me name that SSP (Snarfies Sound Perception).
More important do i make sence. :facepalm:

I follow the SF serie Dark Matter they enter a box which represent a superposition. The manifestation of a superposition in the cube is quite interesting has to do with state of mind determine it's out come.;)
 
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