Is there even a tiny bit of truth in all the marketing voodoo that audio cable manufacturers say? Or is it all BS?

[Killingbeans]

Actually it's more like people can hear a difference.. but they cannot say which one cable is which.

Yes. A blind test does not switch off cognitive bias in the test subject's brain. Nothing can do that, except clinical brain death.

It just gives the bias nothing to go on, making it equivalent to random guessing.

That's all we need to see in order to call BS with high confidence.

 

[solderdude]

Actually it's more like people can hear a difference.. but they cannot say which one cable is which.

When you can reliably hear a difference between cables then you can also say which is 'better' or 'different'.

How do you measure soundstage though? Or detail? These are qualities we can clearly hear in person. But I'm not sure how you would measure it.

It is all based on 2 voltages varying over time (L and R) and this can be measured well beyond human perception as long as it is in the electrical domain.
As soon as conversion (speakers/headphones) are involved measurements are problematic.
When rooms and for headphones positioning and seal are involved and on top of that human brains it all goes pear shaped.

Still one can trust hearing but in that case you need really tight 'controls' IF you want to do truth finding.

Most don't go through that trouble making audio comparisons just a 'fun' exercise. The problem starts when people start giving their perception any definitive value without ALL the required proper controls (statistics, level matched, blind etc.)

 

[antcollinet]

How do you measure soundstage though? Or detail? These are qualities we can clearly hear in person. But I'm not sure how you would measure it.

Soundstage comes from the signal and how that signal interacts with the speakers and room. If the signal is audibly identical - and we can measure that, then the soundstage cannot be influenced.

Same with detail-whatever you define that as.

 

[rank]

Even coat hangers transmit the signal.
I propose, given that the majority of messages do not bring any novelty in completely resolved fields (since at least the last quarter of the last century) of electricity to open a subjectivist subject.
We can put there in bulk everything that most fascinates the vast majority of the contributors here: I like vinyl, its crackles (which I do not have at home of course cos I WASH 'em) and its distortion, are my very expensive speakers less good than my neighbor's $300,000 ones, I know that all the wires are the same but still..., when will the 8-track cartridge return because the sound is better for me, russian tubes against chinese, does the V 2000 cassette still have fans? Etc.

 

[2tec]

greed and stupidity rear their ugly heads once again, this is classism and elitism, by using unintelligible jargon and high prices to appeal to rich fools who need to feel important by surrounding themselves with expensive toys that ordinary people can't afford

these upper class people need to feel special because deep down they know they aren't

 

[Killingbeans]

How do you measure soundstage though? Or detail? These are qualities we can clearly hear in person. But I'm not sure how you would measure it.

Electrically, the positioning of sound sources in the stereo illusion stems from phase and amplitude differences between the two channels. Trivial stuff that's routinely being manipulated in the recording studios. The playback gear have no hope of influencing this though. Worst case scenario, the phantom center gets shiftet to one side.

The perceived width and depth of the soundstage illusion stems from a mix of direct and an reflected sounds in your listening space + your brain's willingness to fabricate an illusion from these. 100% the radiation pattern of your speakers, their placement, the acoustics of you listening room and your brain. 0% the cables in your system.

Detail is... well, noise and distortion. Some types of distortion are said to give the illusion of added detail when listening to some types of program material, but cables do not make noise and they are not semiconductors, not matter how much the snake-oil manufacturers tries to claim that they are.

In any case, cables have no chance of influencing any of these things. They can "at best" function as part of a passive filter, but it takes a ridiculous design to get there.

 

[antcollinet]

Did you not watch the video? The whole video is about his proof and he went through the testing. Why do you people keep commenting discrediting him when you clearly haven't even watched the video?

The post referenced was about USB cable differing characteristics. I don't need to watch the video because there is no physical way for USB cable characteristics to impact the audio as long as they basically work.

So his video may be offering proof of different characteristics, but is it not offering proof of resultant changes to audio out of a DAC. If you are thinking I am wrong here, then you have failed to understand how USB audio works.

 

[solderdude]

This is why audiophiles don't like active speakers, isn't it? They eliminate the joy of speaker cable ownership.

but they do have mains cables and long interlinks to be anxious about

 

[HalSF]

This thread has definitely “acquired directionality.”

 

[MatrixS2000]

The reason why they don't show measurements is because what they are claiming to improve, can't be measured, only 'experienced'!

That is the lamest claim by any manufacturer and it is designed to stop you from thinking about it.

Step back and think about how a recording is made. It has to be measured to be recorded. That is what a microphone does. It captures sound waves, measures it and converts it to an electrical signal and passes it to some other piece of equipment for recording. If you can’t measure it, you can’t record it, therefore it wouldn’t be in the recording, so you would never be able to hear it in the first place. Do you see the circular nonsense being pushed here?

How do you measure soundstage though? Or detail? These are qualities we can clearly hear in person. But I'm not sure how you would measure it.

Both can be measured.

Soundstage - read the yellow box:

Detail - just need to know how to read spectograms then you can measure detail differences between any 2 pieces of music:

 

[Devnull]

The post referenced was about USB cable differing characteristics. I don't need to watch the video because there is no physical way for USB cable characteristics to impact the audio as long as they basically work.

So his video may be offering proof of different characteristics, but is it not offering proof of resultant changes to audio out of a DAC. If you are thinking I am wrong here, then you have failed to understand how USB audio works.

Exactly! The specs for USB cables are why the protocol is actually fairly robust. It's 90 ohm +- 15% characteristic impedance and length limitations means cable construction has relatively little impact on the signal. USB is at the slower end of the spectrum when it comes to clock rates and edge rise times. Because of this it's very tolerant of "signal smear", where the pulse train starts looking more like a sine wave vs a square wave.

 

[antcollinet]

Exactly! The specs for USB cables are why the protocol is actually fairly robust. It's 90 ohm +- 15% characteristic impedance and length limitations means cable construction has relatively little impact on the signal. USB is at the slower end of the spectrum when it comes to clock rates and edge rise times. Because of this it's very tolerant of "signal smear", where the pulse train starts looking more like a sine wave vs a square wave.

But here is the point. Even if the cable is poor, and has an impact on the signal, or creates "smear" etc. As long as the bits are still detected correctly then the audio will not be impacted - one tiny little bit.

If there are bit errors then the result will be clearly audible as dropout, clicks/pops etc, not as "subtle" qualitative changes. There can be no impact on sound stage, or air, or top end, or blackness of the background - or any other nonsense audiophile concepts people like to attribute to cables.

 

[genesisaudiorack]

greed and stupidity rear their ugly heads once again, this is classism and elitism, by using unintelligible jargon and high prices to appeal to rich fools who need to feel important by surrounding themselves with expensive toys that ordinary people can't afford

these upper class people need to feel special because deep down they know they aren't

maybe part of the contemplation of cable qualities and so forth has a direct connection with people who cannot afford nice things.
again a missing link to my previous comment.....
why do people hear differences in cables when they use expensive highly resolving speakers.....while others have cheap second hand stuff that cannot perform the same way, and then make claims that cables dont matter because maybe they do not own or posses hardware that can resolve such details that become audible. question not a insult. a valid question.

sometimes i wonder if people talk down on things bc they simply cannot afford them or the hardware surrounding. again a valid observation.

 

[egellings]

Complete bullshit.
Keith

Good ol' bullshit. There's a lot of it about. At least we never have to worry about a shortage of it, whew! How could we possibly survive without it?

 

[SIY]

maybe part of the contemplation of cable qualities and so forth has a direct connection with people who cannot afford nice things.

Ah, one of the classics reappears.

 

[MatrixS2000]

If there are bit errors then the result will be clearly audible as dropout, clicks/pops etc, not as "subtle" qualitative changes. There can be no impact on sound stage, or air, or top end, or blackness of the background - or any other nonsense audiophile concepts people like to attribute to cables.

Exactly. And I will add there is no sound at this point, that happens after the bits reach the DAC.

So to illustrate what happens when a bit is randomly changed and reaches the DAC:

Here is a digital music file, zoomed in to the sample level - 5 samples on the screen, each sample represented by a grey box. The exact quantization level is not important for this example.

Now I will change the sample values of the centre sample to an arbitrary value, you can easily see the change as the position of the sample has changed as shown below:

Now I bet the digital cable believers are thinking, wow look at that HUGE change in sound!!!!! Well no, look at the time scale on the bottom of the screen. The full window represents 10 microseconds. If we zoom out to see the waveform a little more easily, this is what you will see:

The same sample is still centred in the screen and you can easily see the change in the waveform I cause by arbitrarily changing the sample value. It is also blatantly obvious that the music did not change other than the click I purposely caused. Again note that the time scale, still extremely short times. So lets zoom out to so that we have a few seconds on the screen.

As you should easily be able to see now, the music did not change, an artifact (a click) was introduced at that one spot only. No improved dynamics, no smoother bass or whatever other term is usually used to describe the perceived audio change.

So there you go, proof that random bit changes cannot change the audio other than by adding clicks and pops.

 

[genesisaudiorack]

It is, though. What matters isn't "6%", what matters are effective cable resistance and - to a much, much smaller degree under some rare cirumstances - cable inductance. If silver has 6% less resistance at the same length and diameter, guess what you can do? Just use a copper cable with at least 6% higher cross sectional area. That will decrease the resistance of the copper cable by at least 6%.

Example for 5 m cable length:

• Copper, 2.5 mm² -> 33.6 mOhm
• Silver, 2.5 mm² -> 31.8 mOhm
• Copper, 4 mm² -> 21.0 mOhm

Worry about "6%"? Use a slightly thicker cable or - even simpler - make it 6% shorter if possible. Problem solved.

i think you missed what i was trying to imply.

copper has a conductance rating. copper also has a sound.
silver has a different conductance rating. it will also have a different sound, maybe minuscule....but technically speaking it is different. there is no definitive proof or data online used to discredit copper vs silver because it may be something we havent figured out how to put on paper.

when i used to repair tube amps as a kid, the guy who trained me used to teach me that when i see copper bar used to connect point to point sections in my tube amps i was to repair and replace with silver that insulated, the reason was a better circuit function. i used to take old amps id pickup at garage sales and re wire them and replace parts. when replacing with silver bar linking the circuits it sounded different than copper when it was inside. what was that? was it a more crisp sound due to refurbishing? was the silver alloy bar we use for tube amp point to point soldering connections a waste? why do tube amp builders use silver bar between circuits. the builders claim it improves sound.

my comment is that i believe materials and quality of such does improve sound.
i want to see two cables tested into a environment that prohibits opinions to be interjected. id like to see a high end silver tinned copper cable be tested against a run of the mill copper cable. in haven't seen this yet, Ive only seen copper vs copper testing. and in blind tests claimed online, i have seen videos and read the articles and they are riddled with improper testing procedures and supplies to do such. there hasnt been anybody that has setup side by side identical systems with the same age and hours.....and placed or imposed cables on each one and did a side by side mute test. its impossible to perform a test while people swap cables and the person cannot remember exactly how it sounds. this has never been done so the arguments are moot on each side.

theres 50% of the people in audio who claim to hear the changes or benefits. and the other 50% claim it doesnt exist. if so why hasn't a appropriate listener test been done.

 

[GXAlan]

sometimes i wonder if people talk down on things bc they simply cannot afford them or the hardware surrounding. again a valid observation.

There is an emperor’s new clothes kind of problem. There is bragging which the wealthy do not do and then “wealth signaling” which occurs from the simple fact that you own premium gear. Nothing wrong with buying audio jewelry like buying nicer a dining table or tableware.

You can get generic XLRs or Neutrik XLRs. While people aren’t plugging XLRs in and out in a domestic environment and the sound quality isn’t going to be meaningfully different, even at ASR people will often pay for the Neutrik gear. The cost of Neutrik cables is relatively low.

Some of the most expensive electronics are things like the Trinnov Altitude and Meyer Sound Bluehorn. You will see disparaging comments by those who wouldn’t even be in the market for either. That said you can measure and null the differences and prove that there is a difference. The value of that difference is just what is up for debate.

For cables, you do run into HDMI cables that go bad, and Cat8 cables do transmit faster than Cat5 cables. However when it comes to audio, the minimum threshold for performance is a lot lower.

Premium cables will lay down more elegantly without visual kinks and coils, but the audible impact is zero.*

The emotional impact is not zero, though. Imagine listening to a system and then listening to a system after spraying pepper spray into your eyes, for a proper blind test. You have not affected the electronics or your ears, but your experience is lousy because of your emotional state.

If you can afford the beautiful cables, you will have a different emotional state when you sit and listen. Maybe the reason you can afford those cables is hard work, luck at the stock market, or sacrifices made elsewhere. It is a subconscious reminder of your success and that is going to put you in a better mood. From that standpoint, go for the nice cables!

But it’s jewelry and the equivalent of a NFT and not actually an improvement to the sound EVEN IF it is an improved to the sound experience due to the associated sighted bias, in a positive manner.

 

[genesisaudiorack]

There is an emperor’s new clothes kind of problem. There is bragging which the wealthy do not do and then “wealth signaling” which occurs from the simple fact that you own premium gear. Nothing wrong with buying audio jewelry like buying nicer a dining table or tableware.

You can get generic XLRs or Neutrik XLRs. While people aren’t plugging XLRs in and out in a domestic environment and the sound quality isn’t going to be meaningfully different, even at ASR people will often pay for the Neutrik gear. The cost of Neutrik cables is relatively low.

Some of the most expensive electronics are things like the Trinnov Altitude and Meyer Sound Bluehorn. You will see disparaging comments by those who wouldn’t even be in the market for either. That said you can measure and null the differences and prove that there is a difference. The value of that difference is just what is up for debate.

For cables, you do run into HDMI cables that go bad, and Cat8 cables do transmit faster than Cat5 cables. However when it comes to audio, the minimum threshold for performance is a lot lower.

Premium cables will lay down more elegantly without visual kinks and coils, but the audible impact is zero.*

The emotional impact is not zero, though. Imagine listening to a system and then listening to a system after spraying pepper spray into your eyes, for a proper blind test. You have not affected the electronics or your ears, but your experience is lousy because of your emotional state.

If you can afford the beautiful cables, you will have a different emotional state when you sit and listen. Maybe the reason you can afford those cables is hard work, luck at the stock market, or sacrifices made elsewhere. It is a subconscious reminder of your success and that is going to put you in a better mood. From that standpoint, go for the nice cables!

But it’s jewelry and the equivalent of a NFT and not actually an improvement to the sound EVEN IF it is an improved to the sound experience due to the associated sighted bias, in a positive manner.

again i think you are marginalizing what people experience by just writing them off as wealthy that's unfair and prejudiced.

 

[JSmith]

because maybe they do not own or posses hardware that can resolve such details that become audible

Please... stop.


JSmith