Hipper
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Can someone please provide a link, or explain, how an individual listener can do a blind test of speaker cables in a normal domestic situation.
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They say speaker cables do not matter ..
- Thread starter sngreen
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- #62
No one can, it is a catch phrase.
you need the X so you can not do it.
Easiest way is to record the electrical signal at the speaker terminals, then ABX the files.
Controls are a catch phrase? Perhaps you still go to a barber for surgery?
- Thread Starter
- #66
I am afraid the signal alone will not help here. The easiest way would be to have amplifier that allows you to select speakers, as A B A/B .. and then simply switch the outputs. There are certain notes that might reveal sooner than the plain signal, especially if someone has played a given album for some time and knows it very well. Also you can not hear the depth, width of the perceived soundstage with mere signal. Goes without saying the rest of the system must be up to a higher level.
You can make up a switch-box with an ABX switch (preferably get someone else to wire it for you and make a note of where the wires go) where the X will be either A or B, then do some blind testing. Make a note of whether you think X is A or B and do it enough times for some sort of statistical validity. Get the box rewired so that X may be the same as before or different, do that a few times, then check the connections, and see whether you were right enough times.
The person doing the wiring should not be present whilst you do the tests so any knowledge they may have won't influence you, and of course if you believe that a short length of generic wire to the switch-box and the switch box itself affects what you hear, then the test won't be valid for you.
The problem I have with blind testing is not the tests themselves, but me and my expectation bias. As a non-believer, my expectation is that I won't hear a difference, so I don't. Is that because there isn't a difference, or that I can't/won't hear it?
S.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
Cable blind tests can be done at home. It merely requires a second person.
For cables it thus is VERY easy (but time consuming) to blind test at home.
For amplifiers and DAC's it is much more difficult but not impossible.
It is 'not done' in the audiopile community because it takes away the special abilities of golden eared folks when differences in reality are small.
For that reason blind tests are deemed flawed so one can continue to believe (their) hearing is superior.
For cables it thus is VERY easy (but time consuming) to blind test at home.
For amplifiers and DAC's it is much more difficult but not impossible.
It is 'not done' in the audiopile community because it takes away the special abilities of golden eared folks when differences in reality are small.
For that reason blind tests are deemed flawed so one can continue to believe (their) hearing is superior.
Apesbrain
Addicted to Fun and Learning
A valid test requires the listener to not know which cable is being used; the method you've described is subject to psychological bias. If you don't have access to an ABX switch, you could ask a sympathetic friend to "blindly" switch the cables while you listen. He must show no "tell", and the output must be level-matched. Each participant keeps a record and the results compared after a number of trials. It can then be calculated how effective the listener is at determining the correct cable in use vs. random guessing.
The "record output and then compare the recordings" method is also viable, but you need to agree that the recording process itself does not introduce an additional variable. I think I could accept that, but others will not: witness the impassioned arguments here about ADCs and bitrate.
Either way, it's a tedious process and of little value. You should use the cables that sound best to you and stop trying to convince others to follow your lead. There simply is no universal "truth" here as we all hear differently and we each have unique preferences when it comes to sound.
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- #71
Oftentimes one person is enough, if you know what to listen for and if the difference is obvious. Switch the outputs and hear it, that should not even take long. More persons is only for proof, if such is really necessary. The question is whom to prove, and how.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
You would need a special switcher that disconnects both cables at each end (amp and speaker) and then it needs to be controlled by either someone else or a random generator. Otherwise it is not blind.
You prove things to yourself. You cannot prove things to others.
You prove things to yourself. You cannot prove things to others.
- Thread Starter
- #73
As an argument this presentation is quite well done, except to the very end; calling someone a layman who can only do crossovers somehow defeats it. Paul McGowan is hardly a layman and he hears, according to him, the differences quite well. Rather convincingly. Why certain components, although done to the same specs do sound different from each other in a given setup can not often be measured, as it seems, it is how it is. One finds one explanation to it, the other thinks he defeated it by putting up something else and the circle goes on. Both are good and quire interesting as shown, but which is more true that the other - remains open.
Why did Amir show only one range, and far outside our hearing, where his measurement are observed, did I miss something? Maybe I should watch it again.
- Thread Starter
- #74
If Kimber Kabel components are made and assembled in China, everything's possible.
Convincingly? How? So he'd probably won't have issues doing a bind test then, will he?
Like magic? There is a simple mechanism to test this: a double-blind test.
The claim was about HF noise and radio pickup, so that's what he was looking for.
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Grandpa Paul also sells these kind of cables, he's full of it in several ways, too. Good luck with what many call BS Audio....
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Sure he does... At least he says it rather convincingly.
Seems like it would be easy to demonstrate it with a properly controlled blind test. Especially given how obvious it is and all...
Edit: If it can be heard, it can be measured. So far, there is zero actual evidence otherwise, despite the many claims to the contrary.
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If you are genuinely interested into better sound in your home, stay here. If this is a subtle trolling attempt then .. You may succeed but won't last long. Either way, you're wrong. Numbers tell the story.
Peace
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