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Scientific reasons why cables matter for audio
- Thread starter cany89
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cany89
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I'm not going to defend any youtuber. I don't particularly follow Lachnan either. But I think he at least correctly identifies the differences between some headphones. I fought with him many times in comments about cables, especially USB cables...
My purpose in sharing this video was to get feedback on what the guy who presented at Axpona was saying, rather than on Lachnan's comments...
Yes. It works. As I'm sure social sciences could detail how and why exactly.
A lot of advertising is applied psychology and therefore scientific.
EJ3
Master Contributor
How 'bout an EMPIRICAL reason (also): because there is a higher percentage of people that it works on than more intellectual advertising.
tmtomh
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Appreciate your reply and your editing of the original post. Your added initial summary is helpful - thank you!
I put in a response. He is just talking over Iconoclast cables which I have reviewed and shown to make no difference. I post this comment:
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I suggest not being impressed by someone who just shows you a powerpoint with stats/formulas you don't understands. I understand all of it and I am telling you that his theory and conclusions simply do not apply to audio frequencies. Nor do your claims of my testing hold water. I reviewed Iconoclast cables. Not only did I test them at 1 khz, but also across full audioband. I also ran 32-tone test, emulating some kind of music. No change was observed whatsoever.
But I didn't stop there. I put music through them and captured the output, and nulled it against a generic cable. The null shows pure noise, no different than between the two cables.
Further, I put the music output of the two cables, together with the null output. To date, not a single person has managed to pass a blind test of those cables, or report hearing anything in the difference file.
As to why you and your friend thought you heard an improvement, the answer to that is simple and is at the end of my video you referenced:
Briefly, whenever you make a change to your system, even if the waveforms are still identical, you will *perceive* a difference. Why? Because your brain acts differently. It focuses more, hears more detail, more air, etc. because it is paying attention. For this reason, almost always, you think everything sounds better. With that bias set in now, if you go back to the old cable, it will sound "bad."
We can easily prove the above by making the test blind. And repeating it. Do it 10 times and see if you get 9 out of 10 right. You know how to shoot a one hour video. Set aside same amount of time, have a friend swap cables randomly without you knowing and see if you can tell the difference. Do this and you will learn how your hearing system really works. Until then, you are looking for ghosts to explain reality.
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Here is the link to my review: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/belden-iconoclast-xlr-cable-review.33929/
Didn't post it there because it may get deleted as spam.
---
I suggest not being impressed by someone who just shows you a powerpoint with stats/formulas you don't understands. I understand all of it and I am telling you that his theory and conclusions simply do not apply to audio frequencies. Nor do your claims of my testing hold water. I reviewed Iconoclast cables. Not only did I test them at 1 khz, but also across full audioband. I also ran 32-tone test, emulating some kind of music. No change was observed whatsoever.
But I didn't stop there. I put music through them and captured the output, and nulled it against a generic cable. The null shows pure noise, no different than between the two cables.
Further, I put the music output of the two cables, together with the null output. To date, not a single person has managed to pass a blind test of those cables, or report hearing anything in the difference file.
As to why you and your friend thought you heard an improvement, the answer to that is simple and is at the end of my video you referenced:
Briefly, whenever you make a change to your system, even if the waveforms are still identical, you will *perceive* a difference. Why? Because your brain acts differently. It focuses more, hears more detail, more air, etc. because it is paying attention. For this reason, almost always, you think everything sounds better. With that bias set in now, if you go back to the old cable, it will sound "bad."
We can easily prove the above by making the test blind. And repeating it. Do it 10 times and see if you get 9 out of 10 right. You know how to shoot a one hour video. Set aside same amount of time, have a friend swap cables randomly without you knowing and see if you can tell the difference. Do this and you will learn how your hearing system really works. Until then, you are looking for ghosts to explain reality.
----
Here is the link to my review: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/belden-iconoclast-xlr-cable-review.33929/
Didn't post it there because it may get deleted as spam.
kemmler3D
Master Contributor
Yes, and imagine a world where this really happened...
The super-high-end cable market would collapse, because you couldn't just market cables as "obviously better" or "more musical"... people would just pick the cable that had the EQ-like response they want.
If you put the benefits in objective terms instead of just stimulating cognitive effects, then you'd have to actually justify the price, which would ironically be much harder.
RexrothPigeon
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Of COURSE cables matter. But not for audio, for your bank balance.
JSmith
Master Contributor
Let's never forget;
JSmith
JSmith
Let alone the recent banana and dirt experiment
Those are not the cables you are looking for...
tineared
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One word for the presenter…. Intellectual idiot
not going to start watching this 1 hour video. i see his channel has 77k subscribers and 61 comments as to this moment.
if anyone is interested in bumping (by "liking" ) Amir's comment on the video so more of "Passion for Sound" subs and viewers might read it - right here (you should see "Highlighted comment", remove single space in youtube url )
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The review section is quite telling in how these people think:
It’s all about authority with these people. That is basically all they have. It makes it easy to dismiss any argument, simply because they don’t like what it says
On “our side” is the opposite: we dismiss any argument because of who you are, but not because of what you have to say.
It’s all about authority with these people. That is basically all they have. It makes it easy to dismiss any argument, simply because they don’t like what it says
On “our side” is the opposite: we dismiss any argument because of who you are, but not because of what you have to say.
Hi,
With all due respect, there is a reason why audio cable matters. Cable architecture is generally inductive, but one can achieve more capacitive stuff (like Ethernet multi twisted pair). This is measurable or can be estimated, allowing for a lumped model that can be simulated.
Given Audio frequencies, who cares? Well, the input and especially amp output stages should not. but...
Poor electronic design can result into poor stability near unity gain, which is reached at several MHz. Where non ideal cable impedance can start to matter wrt to source and sink impedances in same frequency domain.
My 2 cents.
With all due respect, there is a reason why audio cable matters. Cable architecture is generally inductive, but one can achieve more capacitive stuff (like Ethernet multi twisted pair). This is measurable or can be estimated, allowing for a lumped model that can be simulated.
Given Audio frequencies, who cares? Well, the input and especially amp output stages should not. but...
Poor electronic design can result into poor stability near unity gain, which is reached at several MHz. Where non ideal cable impedance can start to matter wrt to source and sink impedances in same frequency domain.
My 2 cents.
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