• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Ethan Winer Builds a Wire Null Tester

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,385
Location
Seattle Area
Ethan has built a null tester for testing audio interconnects to reveal differences between them. He has a new video on it which is kind of long on intro but then gets to the meat of the argument toward the last third:

 
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,385
Location
Seattle Area
BTW, I am offering some of my high-end cables (Transparent Audio) to Ethan for testing. Alas, they are old (bought them 15+ years ago). If anyone has newer ones and willing to loan them to Ethan, that would be great.
 

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
I built one as well about 25 years ago and brought me very valuable insight...



It is rather basic but does the same as Ethan's version.
As a meter I used my Nakamichi. Also used that to record nulls when nulling amps and speaker wires under real loads.
The music was playing so loud you can't hear the nulls.

My gain only went to 40dB so I could see around -60dB on the meter but of course could record much deeper than that.
The nulling pot was a multiturn pot. Just without the fancy dial.

I agree totally with Ethan by the way.
 
Last edited:

Cosmik

Major Contributor
Joined
Apr 24, 2016
Messages
3,075
Likes
2,180
Location
UK
Just watched the last third...

It would be interesting to call the bluff of the 'micro diode' proponents and actually try to create some deliberately using grossly oxidized junctions and so on.
 

Blumlein 88

Grand Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 23, 2016
Messages
20,521
Likes
37,050
I've done a variety of wire null tests. People just don't want to know the truth for the most part. I've used wires in DAC/ADC loopbacks. Record the various wires and then null the file. You usually get the same result of a wire vs itself 5 minutes later as you do between two different wires of the same length. You can see a difference in nulls due to timing between say 1 meter and 3 meter wires due to the several nanosecond delay. That is how sensitive such tests are. I've tried directional wires where it is the wire vs itself reversed. Nothing there.

It is nice that people do such things every so often. It is a bit disheartening that you can't show this a time or two and kill the stupid myth.
 

JJB70

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 17, 2018
Messages
2,905
Likes
6,148
Location
Singapore
If people want to believe something enough then they will believe it regardless of rational evidence. The various myths around cables have been demonstrated as being just that, myths, countless times yet people still buy into it all.
 

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
Speaker cables did not null 'perfectly' and had to be a few meters tops because of delay between input and output.
Nulls between speaker cables and a small resistor were similar so I think for speaker cables only resistive issues exist.
 

JJB70

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 17, 2018
Messages
2,905
Likes
6,148
Location
Singapore
I like the bit at the end of the video which illustrates the standard audiophool response to rational thought - kick him out of the club and delete his posts. There was some classic stuff on Mark Waldrep's site a few months ago with the same reaction from audiophoolery.
 

Thomas savage

Grand Contributor
The Watchman
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
10,260
Likes
16,298
Location
uk, taunton
I like the bit at the end of the video which illustrates the standard audiophool response to rational thought - kick him out of the club and delete his posts. There was some classic stuff on Mark Waldrep's site a few months ago with the same reaction from audiophoolery.
Umm, when one clearly sets themselves apart as a antagonist you can expect a reaction. In this regard Winer often clips his own wings with a unnecessarily belligerent attitude at times which is a real shame as he’s done a great service to the hobby imo and continues to do so as well as being quite amusing at times.
 

DuxServit

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Apr 21, 2018
Messages
428
Likes
508
I watched the whole thing— thanks @Amir for posting such a good piece. It’d be great if ASR could have a thread on Ethan’s tests using different cables.

Love to see how the $22K cable performs ;)
 

SIY

Grand Contributor
Technical Expert
Joined
Apr 6, 2018
Messages
10,383
Likes
24,749
Location
Alfred, NY
If people want to believe something enough then they will believe it regardless of rational evidence. The various myths around cables have been demonstrated as being just that, myths, countless times yet people still buy into it all.

Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired - Jonathan Swift
 

solderdude

Grand Contributor
Joined
Jul 21, 2018
Messages
15,891
Likes
35,912
Location
The Neitherlands
Love to see how the $22K cable performs ;)

There will be nothing to see :D ... just the noise from the nulling device.

Still... the cable believers will keep 'believing' simply because the audible difference is like 'night & day' or at least 'quite obvious' or should I say 'evident' to them.
Stupid scientific minded idiots... that's what we are.
Nulling tests... they can't work because it uses stupid op-amps... everyone knows op-amps removes 'the analog' from sound.
Why didn't he use tubes ?

Urmm... the video is a hoax ... it's rigged.

but... but ... USB cables, ethernet cables, 'digital' cables and... and...
 

Thomas savage

Grand Contributor
The Watchman
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
10,260
Likes
16,298
Location
uk, taunton
Having been doing this ASR thing for a few years it seems to me that if there’s a audible difference there should be a clear and detectable difference in the signal . In fact we can see many little differences that aren’t audible so I’m not sure there’s any mystery really and if there is it’s to do with psychological ‘priming ‘ within the listener.
 

JJB70

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 17, 2018
Messages
2,905
Likes
6,148
Location
Singapore
Umm, when one clearly sets themselves apart as a antagonist you can expect a reaction. In this regard Winer often clips his own wings with a unnecessarily belligerent attitude at times which is a real shame as he’s done a great service to the hobby imo and continues to do so as well as being quite amusing at times.

Bah, he's a rank amateur, now Peter Aczel in his prime, there was a guy who really could antagonise when the mood took him!
 

Cosmik

Major Contributor
Joined
Apr 24, 2016
Messages
3,075
Likes
2,180
Location
UK
Umm, when one clearly sets themselves apart as a antagonist you can expect a reaction. In this regard Winer often clips his own wings with a unnecessarily belligerent attitude at times
Is there a way to say "You're all wrong, irrational, superstitious and gullible." non-belligerently? :)
 
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,368
Likes
234,385
Location
Seattle Area
I don't think Ethan's test will do much to change any of the die-hard believer's mind. The mechanism of the test is too complicated for them to grasp what it is demonstrating.

What it is good for is what Ethan says at the start: that is, we say cables make no difference but we don't have good data to point to. In that regard, it provides more evidence for us to be convinced of its truth.
 

tomelex

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
990
Likes
572
Location
So called Midwest, USA
Nice Work Ethan!

I think Ethan did a good job with his preamble, he is a good teacher and is trying to teach the reasons why his null test is applicable and reasons whey it would not be (example if you don't account for phase etc).

I have learned from Ethan over the years and he is an asset to the audio community, and to this great site that Amir created. Thanks for posting Amir, great video for this site, recommend sticky status at some point. Also appreciate you sent him your high end cable for test.
 
Last edited:

tomelex

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 29, 2016
Messages
990
Likes
572
Location
So called Midwest, USA
Umm, when one clearly sets themselves apart as a antagonist you can expect a reaction. In this regard Winer often clips his own wings with a unnecessarily belligerent attitude at times which is a real shame as he’s done a great service to the hobby imo and continues to do so as well as being quite amusing at times.


as you get older your tolerance for un truths get very low, so I understand him pretty well, its almost impossible to sway faith based folks ideas or beliefs, and as long as they have their counterparts there they feel secure, yet will never submit to a substantial monentary bet or proper blind test. The guy who impresses me the most is Amir, the stuff he has had thrown at him and stayed calm amazes me.
 
Top Bottom