# Sticky  The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio



## Sonnie

I just cannot resist...

The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio

This is a multiple choice poll, however, if you vote that you agree with all or disagree with all, do not vote on the individual questions or your votes will be deleted.

Do you agree... if not, then why not? (This is not an option... it is a requirement as part of the poll!) If you do not agree, then you must post why you do not agree or your vote will be stripped.

*This is a public poll... click any vote to see how members voted.*

Play nice ... remember our Forum Rules and Zero Tolerance!


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## fibreKid

Congratulations... you have found the missing link!

What did I win?? :jiggy:


Looks like there might be a permission or missing document problem.


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## salvasol

I found the lies ... with the snake :bigsmile::bigsmile:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/general-discussion/9023-zaph-audio-snake-oil-lies.html


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## Sonnie

Try it now!


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## tonyvdb

It made me laugh to read them all as I totally agree with all of it. I know someone on here is going to pipe in say that they could prove that they are wrong but I always say if your ears cant hear or see a difference who cares what the scopes and other electronic testing equipment says.


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## Funkmonkey

Nice. I am glad to hear that I am not alone thinking that there is a lot of mumbo-jumbo in the audio world. I must admit that several years ago I fell victim to the cable/interconnect lie. I spent about $40 (at the time that was a lot of money for me) on a pair of stereo RCA-RCA cables that looked a lot cooler than the patch cords that came with the CD player, when the salesman promised that they would improve the sound. I proceeded to hook them up and hide them behind my equipment, resulting in no difference in sound quality what-so-ever. Still have those cables, still use them, still think they look cool when I rewire something, and still think I got ripped off!!!


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Here’s my favorite quote from the article:


> If you can afford a fancy power conditioner you can also afford a well-designed amplifier, in which case you don’t need the fancy power conditioner.


I pretty much agree with all of it, except for the cables. I generally not a believer in that stuff, but I have seen two instances where I could hear a difference. Which was surprising, because I wasn’t expecting anything at all. So I’m hesitant to denounce the idea outright. 



> Just go into it with clear eyes and know that you're just spending the extra money for aesthetics.


Aesthetics that no one will ever see... Now _that_ I don’t get. :huh:

I never could figure out the ABX foes, with their complaints about additional switches, etc. How many switches and relays does the signal go through as it is? Let’s see, the pre-amp source selector, the amplifier relays (that many have), the amp’s speaker selector switch, etc. Silly, just silly. :dizzy:

Regards,
Wayne


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## avaserfi

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:


> Here’s my favorite quote from the article:
> I pretty much agree with all of it, except for the cables. I generally not a believer in that stuff, but I have seen two instances where I could hear a difference. Which was surprising, because I wasn’t expecting anything at all. So I’m hesitant to denounce the idea outright.


There are certain situations in which different cables will be audible, but this is only if the cable is either not designed properly or is not being used properly such as if the cable is not of sufficient gauge for run length in relation to resistance.


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt

avaserfi said:


> There are certain situations in which different cables will be audible, but this is only if the cable is either not designed properly or is not being used properly such as if the cable is not of sufficient gauge for run length in relation to resistance.


But would you expect to hear a difference on _lower-end PA speakers???_ Needless to say, it was shocking...

Regards,
Wayne


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## avaserfi

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:


> But would you expect to hear a difference on _lower-end PA speakers???_ Needless to say, it was shocking...
> 
> Regards,
> Wayne


That is pretty surprising. What kind of cables were they? It sounds like they were designed like complete and utter poo and that is just plain hard to do maybe there was a goal with those cables? I have encountered a pair of cables that were designed specifically to EQ the high end for a gradual roll off.


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## thxgoon

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:


> But would you expect to hear a difference on _lower-end PA speakers???_ Needless to say, it was shocking...
> 
> Regards,
> Wayne


Yes. The cables act in concert with the speakers and the amp as an RLC system and the author mentions this in the article. If there's something funky on one side of the cable, or if there's something funky with the cable then it's possible that it could make a difference. The catch is that there's no guarantee or 'spec' you can look for. It's possible that in one of these senarios the cheaper wire may sound better!


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## thewire

article said:


> The truth is that biamping makes
> sense in certain cases, even with a passive
> crossover, but biwiring is pure voodoo.





my amplifiers manual said:


> If only one speaker is to be used, connect it to the SYSTEM (A) terminals.


I do this. I use my receivers amplifiers also. I plan not to later on when/if I have more sensitive speakers. :surrender:


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt

avaserfi said:


> That is pretty surprising. What kind of cables were they? It sounds like they were designed like complete and utter poo and that is just plain hard to do maybe there was a goal with those cables?.


Well, you probably won’t believe this – _I_ still can’t believe it.

Everything was set up in our warehouse-cum-showroom, and we were using an old Technics CD player with both RCA and balanced XLR outputs for demo purposes – or in our case, just to have some music to work to! Typically we were using the RCA jacks, but for some reason one day I used the balanced – maybe the RCA cables were missing, I don’t remember. Just used some cheap mic cables we had laying around (which is what we mostly sold). Well, I was amazed at the improvement in SQ, just by using the XLR connections over the RCAs. Sure wasn’t expecting anything. You can bet I was using the XLRs exclusively after that!

Here’s the kicker: Sometime later I popped the cover on that Technics CD player and almost had a heart attack at what I saw. It really didn’t have balanced outputs at all. _Someone had retro-installed some chassis-mount XLRs and wired them directly to the RCAs!!!!!_

‘Course, now that I think about it, it’s possible the difference could have come from using the mixer’s balanced inputs instead of unbalanced. There will be some extra circuitry involved at the console, even if the source isn’t balanced.

Regards,
Wayne


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## lcaillo

Most of the "lies" I generally agree with, but nearly all of them has some caveat that needs to be considered or some degree of truth to it. The problem is that rather than getting to the bottom of why people experience what they feel they do, one side wants to promote the idea as the be-all and end-all and the other side is bent on proving them wrong.

Science that starts with the goal of disproving lies is as wrong as the lies themselves. It may seem to justify self-righteousness, but it simply polarizes. In most of the debates and arguments about these issues that I have experienced, there is more interest in proving one's point than interest in learning, discovery, and the search. This is unfortunate, because we have so many great tools that could be applied to both the hardware and the perceptual parts of the experience. Home Theater Shack at least has some open minded people who are willing to discuss hese matters in a civil discourse without the vitriole.

Like my sig on AVS reads...the correct answer is, "it depends."


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## eugovector

This looks like fun, don't have time to read it now, but will after I get to work. My prediction, I will agree with 90%.


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## imbeaujp

Verry interesting post !


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## jr1414

I can agree with all except the power conditioner. The difference I found was on the video side, however. I could never tell a difference with audio, but I noticed less "ziggy's" on test patterns with my PJ.


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## alan monro

Sonnie . Isn't it good to expose all the lies to all the members . At Last . If there is a member who has been hypnotized by a unscrupulous salesmen may he awaken to the lies . Alan .


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## eugovector

I thought I would end up disagreeing with several points, but he always qualified his statements right at the end:

-Speakers and headphone potentially benefiting from break-in
-LP superior to CD because of mastering differences
-Bi-wiring is not bi-amping

It is interesting to see the people who do disagree though.


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## Sonnie

Those who disagree should state why they disagree... just as James did about the power conditioner. Obviously it made a difference and it would be nice to know why it did if anyone would have an idea. I meant to make it a public poll, but I guess I forgot to check the button.


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## Sonnie

Actually it is a public poll ... just click on the number to see who voted. :bigsmile:


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## drf

It certainly is fun to think my DIY $100 GC amp has less THD than a $12,000 valve amp. :yay:


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## imbeaujp

Hello,

I agree with many of them except:

Cable - I can hear a difference between a 5$ analog interconect and a well home made interconect build with quality canaire cable and good RCA plugs. So I am not ok to say that interconect analog cable does not make any difference in sound. Also, if cable make difference in sound, that does not mean that one cable is more HI-FI than another. But I totally agree that AC cables does not make any difference.

Valve amp - Again, the sound is not better with a vacuum amp, it is different. This is the same case with vinyl over CD. If we say that there is no difference between different amplifier or source, so why dont we buy all the same brand and at the lower price possible ?

The Power Conditionner - Here it depends. If your AC line is clean, no groud loop, no RF interference in your video line, the conditionner will not give you much improvment. But this is not my case. The Power Conditionner give me a cleaner sound and video over cable. This is a fact. Many of recent audio component are cheeper than some vintage one and the AC filters are cheeper. So the PowerConditioner could prevent from AC fluctuation (thunder) and protect your components.

Any comments ?


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## Sonnie

imbeaujp said:


> Cable - I can hear a difference between a 5$ analog interconect and a well home made interconect build with quality canaire cable and good RCA plugs. So I am not ok to say that interconect analog cable does not make any difference in sound. Also, if cable make difference in sound, that does not mean that one cable is more HI-FI than another. But I totally agree that AC cables does not make any difference.


I think you misread what he said about this. I would say you could hear a difference between "some" $5 interconnects and a good home made or otherwise quality built interconnect, but not all. Why? Because you can buy and build a very good interconnect for $5. You may have to buy the connectors and wire in bulk to get to the $5 price point, but it can be done.

I suspect if you hear a difference, then there is something faulty with one cable or the other.

To quote the writer: _The lie is that high-priced speaker cables and interconnects sound better than the standard, run-of-the-mill (say, Radio Shack) ones._

He qualifies his claim: _The simple truth is that resistance, inductance, and capacitance (R, L, and C) are the only cable parameters that affect performance in the range below radio frequencies. The signal has no idea whether it is being transmitted through cheap or expensive RLC. Yes, you have to pay a little more than rock bottom for decent plugs, shielding, insulation, etc., to avoid reliability problems, and you have to pay attention to resistance in longer connections._





imbeaujp said:


> Valve amp - Again, the sound is not better with a vacuum amp, it is different. This is the same case with vinyl over CD.


Again, I think you misunderstand his claim. He does not say that they are not different, in fact he very much says they are different. No doubt vinyl and CD are different as well.

Here is the lie: _Unbelievable! And so is, of course, the claim *that vacuum tubes are inherently superior to transistors* in audio applications—don’t you believe it._

_Whatever vacuum tubes can do in a piece of audio equipment, solid-state devices can do better, at lower cost, with greater reliability. Even the world’s best-designed tube amplifier will have higher distortion than an equally well-designed transistor amplifier and will almost certainly need more servicing (tube replacements, rebiasing, etc.) during its lifetime._





imbeaujp said:


> The Power Conditionner - Here it depends. If your AC line is clean, no groud loop, no RF interference in your video line, the conditionner will not give you much improvment. But this is not my case. The Power Conditionner give me a cleaner sound and video over cable. This is a fact. Many of recent audio component are cheeper than some vintage one and the AC filters are cheeper. So the PowerConditioner could prevent from AC fluctuation (thunder) and protect your components.


Again, I don't think you disagree with him. He qualifies the lie: _“All Bryston amplifiers contain high-quality, dedicated circuitry in the power supplies to reject RF, line spikes and other power-line problems. Bryston power amplifiers do not require specialized power line conditioners. Plug the amplifier directly into its own wall socket.” What they don’t say is that *the same is true, more or less, of all well-designed amplifiers*. 

The *biggest and stupidest lie of them all* on the subject of “clean” power *is that you need a specially designed high-priced line cord to obtain the best possible sound*. Any line cord rated to handle domestic ac voltages and currents will perform like any other. Ultra high-end line cords are a fraud._


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## eugovector

I also think it's interesting how all it takes is one time, and you're sold, the exception that proves the rule so to speak.

I could use 50 random cables, and the one time I hear any difference, good or bad, I'm sold on expensive cables.

Don't get me wrong, we all generalize. I have had great experiences with monoprice, and because of that, I recommend them for every situation. However, I don't feel bad about it because monoprice saves you money. If you buy 3 cables from monoprice and the third one is junk, 3 monoprice cables and one Monster cable (ought to replace the defective monoprice one) still cost less then just buying 3 Monster cables (or 2, or 1.1 for that matter).


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## Sonnie

*This is a multiple choice poll, however, if you vote that you agree with all or disagree with all, do not vote on the individual questions or your votes will be deleted.

Do you agree... if not, then why not? (This is not an option... it is a requirement as part of the poll!) If you do not agree, then you must post why you do not agree or your vote will be stripped.

This is a public poll... click any vote # to see how members voted. If you see more members listed than number of votes, it is because they voted more than they were supposed to (see above) and/or their vote was stripped because they have not complied with the initial post requirements.*


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## brucek

> Do you agree... if not, then why not?


Well, I generally agreed with all of them except for the bi-wiring theory..... which said in part:



> - biwiring is pure voodoo. If you move one pair of speaker wires to the same terminals where the other pair is connected, absolutely nothing changes electrically. The law of physics that says so is called the superposition principle. In terms of electronics, the superposition theorem states that any number of voltages applied simultaneously to a linear network will result in a current which is the exact sum of the currents that would result if the voltages were applied individually.


True, of course, but it assumes that the bi-wire speaker cables present a zero impedance, and that distortion from one driver will not affect the performance of the other driver. 

Superposition only holds true for a linear system. Bi-wiring will only theoretically be a benefit when drivers distort and linearity is no longer maintained.

With sufficient voltage a driver can deviate from ideal linearity so the current in that connection between the low output impedance of the amplifier and the woofer (in this case), will carry harmonic distortion components which can create intermodulation products. In a simple non-bi-wire situation, the tweeter driver terminals will see these distortion components through the speakers low to zero impedance straps (when a single non bi-wire set of cables is used).

The theoretical advantage is now valid if you assume a set of bi-wire speaker cables has some finite impedance (obviously, the longer the cables, the more pronounced the effects will be). When bi-wire cables are used rather than single wires with straps, the distortion components (caused by the woofer driver) will have a lower impedance path to the amplifiers low output impedance sink, rather than travel back and down the tweeters speaker cable.

Yeah, you're right, it's a small advantage and you could argue that the tweeters crossover would help to reduce the problem, but I suppose you could argue that the harmonic and intermodulation products will be at a higher frequency and may pass through to the tweeter driver.

The entire advantage is gained by asking this question. From the perspective of the woofer driver terminals, which is the lower impedance path to the tweeters driver terminals? Is it a set of straps in a non bi-wire situation, or is it the route of a set of bi-wire cables that has a theoretical ideal voltage source (amplifiers low output impedance) in the path?.......... 

Oh, did I mention that the benefit would be about the same result as attempting to slow your car down by putting your hand out the window? I never said you could hear the benefits of bi-wiring, I just said that the theory is there to not vote yes to the poll question........

brucek


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## Guest

Although I'd have to agree with the "cable lie", I do think he should have mentioned something about the build quality may have an effect on the longevity of the cable. It doesn't take long for a cheapo cable to become worthless after a few twists, bends, etc. 


I'm also surprised we haven't heard more objections to the "burn in" myth. I've always been skeptical about it but on the other hand I've also had many people swear by it.


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## eugovector

I believe in Burn-in for mechanical devices, as he states. I'd heard the difference in headphones, using 2 brand new pair, listening to both, burning in for 2 days, and then listening again.


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## Guest

Great thread, great article. I disagree with many of the conclusions but still it was a good read.

Cables: Well, I believe the primary difference is psychological and as such is "real" to a different level for each individual. For instance, if I know which cables are in use and I favor their appearance, they will sound better to me than cables whose appearance I do not like. They could be identical in every way except the color, and it could skew my perception. We should not dismiss the power of the human psyche, it can (and does) create physical reactions.

So do some wires sound better than others? Yes, I believe they do.

Vacuum tubes: I like them better (for my music), they sound better to me. Everyone acknowledges there is a difference between the tube sound and the SS sound. I prefer the tubes for my music and the SS for my films. They both have a place and I'd hate to see either go away. I dont believe one is inherently superior.

Digital: Eh, bad digital sounds bad...bad analog sounds bad. They can both sound bad, or good. I dont think it is as much to do with the medium as it is with the mastering.

Listening Test: I've never put much stock in them. They seek to eliminate the psychological input mentioned above. In real world applications the psychological influence is unavoidable, so eliminating it from a test sort of makes the test unimportant to me. Not invalid, just unimportant.

Bi-wire: Bi-Wiring does no good that I could ever hear. Bi-amping is another story in my experience.

Power conditioners: I wouldnt be without them. I have many. They work for me...even if only psychologically. 

CD treatments: Never heard any difference. I thought I did once, but upon further listening...nope.

Golden ears: Barring any physical hearing impairment everyone should be able to hear the same things. The training is where the differences come in. Just as a layman may look at visual art and does not comprehend what is being conveyed while the schooled viewer does...so can the untrained listener miss many of the details in a music reproduction that a practiced listener will pick up on.

OK, my first "real" post....hope I did OK 

Mike


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## terry j

nahh, ya did good. A lot of what you say is true, and is certainly true for you and your listening. In fact, I doubt people could quibble with what you said and how you said it.

I think he (and certainly I) take exception to the push in high end audio/video that cables (for example) make an actual audible difference due to it's secret herbs and spices if you will - often violating the laws of physics mind - and often charging outrageous prices into the bargain.

I'm a definite cable skeptic......but I cannot find anything I disagree with in what and how you wrote your response.


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## Sonnie

Hmmm... psychologically speaking... I hope I never spend extra money just so I can psychologically believe there is a real difference when in reality there is no difference. That would make me psycho... :dizzy: 

I will be okay as long as others do not try to sell me on snake oil and myths. If someone wants to play-like they hear a difference, I do not have a problem with it. :bigsmile:


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## superchad

Mr. Mike said:


> Great thread, great article. I disagree with many of the conclusions but still it was a good read.
> 
> Cables: Well, I believe the primary difference is psychological and as such is "real" to a different level for each individual. For instance, if I know which cables are in use and I favor their appearance, they will sound better to me than cables whose appearance I do not like. They could be identical in every way except the color, and it could skew my perception. We should not dismiss the power of the human psyche, it can (and does) create physical reactions.
> 
> So do some wires sound better than others? Yes, I believe they do.
> 
> Vacuum tubes: I like them better (for my music), they sound better to me. Everyone acknowledges there is a difference between the tube sound and the SS sound. I prefer the tubes for my music and the SS for my films. They both have a place and I'd hate to see either go away. I dont believe one is inherently superior.
> 
> Digital: Eh, bad digital sounds bad...bad analog sounds bad. They can both sound bad, or good. I dont think it is as much to do with the medium as it is with the mastering.
> 
> Listening Test: I've never put much stock in them. They seek to eliminate the psychological input mentioned above. In real world applications the psychological influence is unavoidable, so eliminating it from a test sort of makes the test unimportant to me. Not invalid, just unimportant.
> 
> Bi-wire: Bi-Wiring does no good that I could ever hear. Bi-amping is another story in my experience.
> 
> Power conditioners: I wouldnt be without them. I have many. They work for me...even if only psychologically.
> 
> CD treatments: Never heard any difference. I thought I did once, but upon further listening...nope.
> 
> Golden ears: Barring any physical hearing impairment everyone should be able to hear the same things. The training is where the differences come in. Just as a layman may look at visual art and does not comprehend what is being conveyed while the schooled viewer does...so can the untrained listener miss many of the details in a music reproduction that a practiced listener will pick up on.
> 
> OK, my first "real" post....hope I did OK
> 
> Mike


Hey Mike I agree with you almost across the board and my experience mirrors yours but I do think before the loudness wars started Vinyl clearly sounded better but even some of my $30 new albums sound terrible because of balls out levels and compression.
Far too many wires are a joke and scam but there are clearly wires that alter the sound in a desired way (and thats what we are after) I too use tubes for music and also agree with you there, I am on the fence with Bi-Wire as it helped in my dad's system but I have failed to hear anything more times than not, I bi-amp with outboard crossover so I know that works great (second set of speakers I have bi amped...........everything else is spot on Mike, nice post!
Hey Mike whats in your rig? Mine is posted if you care to browse.........cheers


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## Guest

> If someone wants to play-like they hear a difference, I do not have a problem


Sonnie, Thanks for the reply.

I suppose my point is that if the belief system of the individual is strong enough, then they are not really playing (literally or figuratively). The changes are very real to them.

There are many things people believe in this world that would not hold up to the scrutiny of a DBT.

Psychology is a real science, as real as lab gear. Both should be considered and weighed accordingly.

Just my opinion, your mileage may vary. 

Mike


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## Guest

Superchad,

I'd like to wait a little while before posting my gear. In my experience, I have found the gear often speaks louder than the posts and I want to be known more for what I think before I am tied to what I own. 

I can give you a little of my history....

I have been into HT/Audio for over 35 years now and have been through just about every type of gear you can imagine. I have had every video format known to man....including a large CED collection.:yikes:

I currently have a turntable in use and at the other end of the audio spectrum I use a digital music server. So, extreme analog to extreme digital. I use a tube based pre-amp and digital amplifiers (for my audio system). I run two completely seperate systems for my music and my HT. They do not even share an electrical outlet.  I can watch an HD-DVD or a Blu-Ray disc.

I use a front projection system for my movies and I built my own HT speakers. I run seperate IB subwoofers for each system.

I have been on the internet participating in forums since 1997 and have learned many things, one of them being that people are often pre-judged by the equipment they use. I'd like to get to be known for what I know, or do not know  before I am known for what I bought. Gimme a few weeks and I will probably list my gear. 

And BTW, great stuff you have in your system there. I have personal experience with several of the pieces you are using. It looks like a fantastic space to indulge in the pleasures of film and music. Great job! :clap:

Thanks,

Mike


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## Guest

> I think he (and certainly I) take exception to the push in high end audio/video that cables (for example) make an actual audible difference due to it's secret herbs and spices if you will - often violating the laws of physics mind - and often charging outrageous prices into the bargain.


I agree, and I just chalk it up to marketing.

I dont believe dog food marketing that says their high dollar brand "tastes better" either, but most importantly I do not try to discourage people from buying that dog food. It is, after all, their money.

An economics professor once told me "There is no such thing as 'overpriced". It either sells, or it does not" This is true for wires as well. The 5000 dollar interconnects are not overpriced if they can sell them. They can't sell them to me  but someone selling 6 dollar HDMI cables can't sell those to me either (well, they did once...but never again).

The thing that is discouraging to me is the outrage from the scientific community that seems to become more vociferous as the price of the wire escalates. The "mystic claims" made by 30 dollar interconnects are not objected to nearly as loudly as the same claims made by the purveyors of the 5000 dollar ones.

This leads one to ponder if the true objections are targeting bad science, or price.

Something to think about.

Or not. 

Sorry for the lengthy posts, I am big on philosophy. 

Mike


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## terry j

Mr. Mike said:


> I agree, and I just chalk it up to marketing.
> 
> I dont believe dog food marketing that says their high dollar brand "tastes better" either, but most importantly I do not try to discourage people from buying that dog food. It is, after all, their money.
> Mike


Well, yes, I suppose.

But the real question (and I want you to report back) is can YOU taste the difference?:bigsmile::bigsmile:


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## Guest

Hahaha, That is why I don't believe the marketing ! 

Either they have someone that can talk to dogs  or they have a guy that samples the food to determine if it tastes better. :bigsmile:

Either way...something is amiss. 

Mike


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## terry j

funnily enough, the wife once left my meal on the counter as I was eating later..and yeah it turned out what I thought was my meal (which was actually in the oven) was a can of dog food with leftovers and gravy etc.

So I stuck 'my' meal in the microwave and heated it up, had a few mouthfuls and apologetically said to the wife that it wasn't very good ha ha ha.

She looked in absolute horror at what had happened.

i mean I can chuckle now...the worst part??

The after taste, uggh. stayed for hours too!


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## thxgoon

Mr. Mike said:


> I'd like to wait a little while before posting my gear. In my experience, I have found the gear often speaks louder than the posts and I want to be known more for what I think before I am tied to what I own.


I think you will find that not to be the case here. :T



> The thing that is discouraging to me is the outrage from the scientific community that seems to become more vociferous as the price of the wire escalates. The "mystic claims" made by 30 dollar interconnects are not objected to nearly as loudly as the same claims made by the purveyors of the 5000 dollar ones.
> 
> This leads one to ponder if the true objections are targeting bad science, or price.


Well, both. When you step to a $30 interconnect you'll probably get better connectors and a fat looking cable which will rule out any doubt that your audio is going to suffer on it's way through, even if it does not perform noticably better than the el' cheapo cables that came in the box. And the difference between spending $5 and $30 is not much for this improvement. 

When you step to a $5000 cable, you get into cables that do not perform any better even with sophisitcated test equipment. The problem I have, and for I think most, is that behind the scenes of these companies, the engineers and CEO's _have to know _that they are building a product that they are going to market for having superior performance even though it does not. After all it is just science. They _know_ that what will sell the cable is creative, exaggerated marketing along with its price tag. They know they are making money off of people who just don't know any better. IMO that is wrong. 



> funnily enough, the wife once left my meal on the counter as I was eating later..and yeah it turned out what I thought was my meal (which was actually in the oven) was a can of dog food with leftovers and gravy etc.


Too funny!!!


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## Guest

Thanks for the response THXGoon.

In my experience, anytime a "discussion" of anything (cables, CD players, turntables...whatever) starts to get into the price of the things being discussed, the debate loses its validity. 

Each person has their own threshold for how much they will spend on any given item. Its not my place to tell someone what is "too much". Too much for me may be their starting price point.

I can't tell a cheap bottle of wine from a good one, and I would never spend 400 bucks on a bottle, but I tip my hat to the guy who can tell the difference (or even just thinks he can) and indulges himself in his hobby. If the people enjoy their 5K cables and it adds pleasure for them, then it was money well spent. As long as it isnt my money....

Live life with zeal. Yes?

As usual, just my opinion YMMV

Mike


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## superchad

I understand your point in not posting as I have been atacked elsewhere for having what some forums push as over-priced gear but I dont think this site is that immature, I post my gear because I like to talk about others journey in this hobby and offer "ata boy's" for others efforts so why not share mine.
I knoiw my gear is pretty humble, I also know others think its too much money but we all can share what we have done and the paths we took to get where we are....cheers


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## Guest

Superchad,

Your stuff looks great to me. A very fine set-up. I loved my Phonomena phono stage. When I got my current pre-amp, it had a built in phono stage or I would still be using the Phonomena.

How I got here? Man, if I knew that I would have saved a bundle not buying stuff that didnt work out. 

Mike


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## superchad

"How we got here".............I give a big ole' Amen about the bad choices!


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## nathangilley

I agree with all, to an extent (there was a great deal of talk about "science", but the methods as listed were not controlled enough, at least not in the vague description given), except for the portions covering vacuum tubes, bi-wiring, and power conditioners. 
There is significant data available on the benefits of vacuum tubes (while they have higher distortion, it is even order distortion = pleasing to ear), although I would NOT go so far as to say it is better than solid-state, just different. Low power tubes are also equally valid, and not as expensive as some would have you believe (they can be built for $100-200 if you are savvy in parts acquisition).
Bi-wiring has so many installation applications that it can’t be considered a performance myth. For example, it may be easier to use two sets of 16 AWG cables than to use a single set of 12 AWG cable for a long cable run. Crossover networks can also come into play, especially if using an aftermarket network. Also, bi-amplifying is completely valid for speaker manufacturers to incorporate, and bi-wiring is just a possibility offered as a result. Increased SNR and available power if used with multiple low power amps does not sound bogus to me.
Power conditioners are over-hyped, but not unnecessary. It all depends on source voltage and the conditioner/stabilizer used. My old apartment had 119~121 V line voltage all the time, and I never felt compelled to use a line conditioner, nor would it have yielded any plausible results. However, at my current house (built circa 1960) the electrical system is sub-par, and my grid’s line voltage varies dramatically throughout the day (114~123 V). I also live near a lot of businesses that run interference-inducing equipment. This caused a lot of minor, but annoying, problems not only with the audio but also the video. All of this was alleviated when I inherited a Monster 3600 (I would never buy one, ridiculously over-priced).


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## thxgoon

Hey Nathan and welcome to the Shack! You bring up some good points there.

I also inherited a Monster 3600. About the only thing it did for me is give me a ground isolation circuit for cable. Pretty minor for the cost of those things. It is cool to watch the amp meter climb during loud scenes though!


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## ringbearer3791

I agreed with pretty much everything given the caveats presented except for the antidigital lie. I agree that I certainly can't tell the difference between the 2 given good/equivalent recording conditions. His claim though that there isn't a difference I can't quite get behind. I am an electrical engineer and am quite famililiar with the Nyquist theorem as digital sampling is something I do for work. The difference between analog and digital though is that while analog is a continuous spectrum of volumes and frequencies, digital is by definition a discrete set. Therefore it is possible (and in actuality nearly inevitable) that nearly identical frequencies and nearly identical volume levels will in fact be recorded as exactly identical in a digital environment. That said, I agree that even at 44.1 KHz the differences are likely indistinguishable and so it's probably a difference that doesn't make a difference.


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## lcaillo

The "lies," just like the opinion of any who take a hard line on one side or another of a generalization like they represent, are inevitalbly inadequate to decide any specific comparison that they attempt to inform. The fact is that most of them begin with some small grain of truth which gets taken out of context to create some monster (pun definitely intended). The real answer is "it depends" in each case, and any particular one of them is less interesting to me than a fact based exploration of a specific situation. The lesson that they should leave us with is that we can always find better ways to study these matters and that we should not make assumptions based upon either "conventional wisdom" nor the belief that we understand all of the variables involved in the perceived performance of the products and systems that we build and use.


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## DIGIT

Interesting poll! However, there are some holes in the Agree/Disagree option in that it's not always a matter of Y/N, B/W, etc... In a broad, general sense I find myself agreeing with all the points but, I could also argue for disagreement on at least half of them. I opted to disagree with TWO: no.2 (tubes) and no. 10 (Golden Ears).

Again, while I don't totally disagree with the writer's point I have to say TUBES are sometimes a better choice. The writer calls the sound of a tube a "a coloration introduced by the manufacturer to appeal corrupted tastes" - such a broad statement is also a bit egocentric. First of all, taste is subjective therefore we can argue at infinitum without going anywhere. In being so absolute in the arguing against tubes he then, elevates himself to the same 'Golden ear' pedestal he himself despise. Which brings me to the other disagreement I have...Golden Ears 

My ears are my work, that's how I make a living. Whereas we are all born with more or less the same apparatus, there is a HUGE difference in the way people hear things. You can have the same speaker components placed in different cavities and they will sound hugely different. We are pretty much the same.

In addition to that, there is a vast area dealing with neurological issues which we are just starting to tap into, at a research level. The brain!

Aside from having different levels of emotion and/or at least, different triggers, your brain also adapts your senses to whatever the current situation requires. You play music softly, the brain adjusts your hearing accordingly. If you very gradually increase the volume, over time, your brain will make relative adjustment so that you'll never noticed you doubled the DB level in the room, and viceversa. 

Then, as he mentioned, there is training but, he didn't mention it enough. Even if everything else were equal, and it's not, training is vital to being able to hear 'more than the average' person.

I can play a UNFINISHED mix of a score I wrote to my wife or my friends (even those who are professional instrumentalists) and none of them ever ear anything except what the average person would ear: "it sounds great!", they say. I ear a totally different thing and when I point each section out to them, they all invariably say "ah, you are right. I didn't hear that...or, I didn't catch that".

So, there is a huge difference in the way people hear things, both in nature and because of training. That is not to say that one can claim some sort of super-natural Golden Ear (or goose for that matter) and base all their findings on that claim.

Overall, I agree with his general assertions: it's good that all these (sometime nonsensical voodoos) are exposed...! Though, my audiophiles friends will no doubt disagree with all of it...I mean, try and tell someone who just spent 8K (!) in speaker wire that $100.00 would have been MORE than enough


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## acommonsoul

I believe that bi wiring is worthless in almost every situation. Bi wiring is suppose to improve audio quality by eliminating any electronic interference that could still exists. It splits the highs and mids on most speakers and is essentially just a waste of an extra set of speaker wire...I have tried it with dozens of speakers...in different setups and have never heard a quality difference


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## Guest

It' early here on the West Coast so I might have missed it. HIGH END POWER CORDS This is the snake that will kill you dead before you take a step.


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## Cincyborn

Wayne A. Pflughaupt said:


> Here’s my favorite quote from the article:
> I pretty much agree with all of it, except for the cables. I generally not a believer in that stuff, but I have seen two instances where I could hear a difference. Which was surprising, because I wasn’t expecting anything at all. So I’m hesitant to denounce the idea outright.
> 
> 
> Aesthetics that no one will ever see... Now _that_ I don’t get. :huh:
> 
> I never could figure out the ABX foes, with their complaints about additional switches, etc. How many switches and relays does the signal go through as it is? Let’s see, the pre-amp source selector, the amplifier relays (that many have), the amp’s speaker selector switch, etc. Silly, just silly. :dizzy:
> 
> Regards,
> Wayne


What about when your New Home Theater is finished and your giving your PROUD Private tours to the Envious Neighbors, Relatives, Friends, etc, and you take them into your Sound Equipment Room and show them the Neatly Routed, Color Coded, Low Resistant, Cables. There is something to be said for HIDDEN Aesthetics. If nothing else ..... for YOU the Installer.

Just an attempt at Realistic Humor. More laughing at myself than anything else. My step-daughter calls me MONK.
I personally have an Obsession with Cable Routing.

Order minimizes Confusion, and it looks Really Cool.

Thomas


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## Cincyborn

Many years ago, I was a salesman, at a, now obsolete, Hifi store in Southern California. Pacific Stereo, for the curious. Anyway, I have never bought into, or at least understood the concept of frequency response for speakers being advertised way beyond the realm of Human Hearing. I always thought. "Am I buying this for me, Or my Dog, which has much better hearing than I do?

Just another LIE

Thomas


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## Sonnie

I agree Thomas... and I cannot believe there are too many over 40 folks out there that can hear that well anyway... probably not many and much over 8-10KHz.


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## Cincyborn

Back in the days of Analog, I witnessed a person so obsessive with a perfectly flat response that he not only EQ'd his room flat, but also adjusted the EQ frequencies to include his own personal hearing test. I guess if you want it perfectly flat, that too must be considered. 

*Just a note off the subject... I am very happy to have found this forum. To all of you who welcomed me, my sincere thanks. Nice folks here!


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## hjones4841

RLA said:


> It' early here on the West Coast so I might have missed it. HIGH END POWER CORDS This is the snake that will kill you dead before you take a step.


I love that one also. What those folks that spend $500 for a 6 foot power cord don't realize is that on the other side of that wall receptacle is 10 cents a foot romex - and a lot more of it than 6 feet, too. Then there is the "audiophile" grade $50 wall receptacle, connected to, yep, the same cheap romex.

Then, let's go back to the power generating station itself. I have designed those for 38 years. Nothing "audiophile" about that atmosphere, I guarantee. Tens and hundreds of thousands volts and tens of thousands amps.

Like the old saying about a fool and his money...


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## HiTracey

A very interesting discussion, about much of which I have nothing worthwhile to add.

I would remark however that I've just set up a stereo system in my new games room (aka "The Shed"). This room does not have the best acoustic, therefore there was no point spending money "unneccessarily" (we'll come to that later). The system is based around a 1976 Pioneer receiver which has basically been out of action for most of the last twenty years, having gone through a dozen repairs for the same fault but it always failed again. Anyway, the last engineer (a brilliant one mind you, and I don't exaggerate ... in this case) insisted on having the unit back after it failed after his repair, as I was about to bin it, partly because I'd given up, and partly because the thing had got a lot heavier over the years. On getting it back, he asked "What speaker cable are you using?" After describing the massive diameter hawser, he said ... "There's your problem. Use lighting flex."

Well, that's not the point of the story, just an amusing aside, to anyone but me. I thought, "Well, if I'm using lighting flex, I'll search out all the tatty RCA interconnects I can find, clean the plugs, join it all up and hear what we shall hear." Nice. And not only did I not have to care which way round the little arrows on the cables went (there weren't any), the whole system cost less than one pair of speaker cables from my "reference" system, even though the receiver originally cost me more than a brand new car in the days when cars were expensive.

That said, some of the respondents are missing some of the point. If it makes you feel better spending $10k on a pair of cables, you'll get more pleasure listening to your system for having them. I have a "clean" supply, power conditioning, nice cables, and it all cost less than a year's depreciation on my car, so where's the harm? Actually it's the car that bugging me, not the claims of cable manufacturers and hi-fi cranks.

Can I hear the difference between the two systems? Well, my reference system may not be high end, but yes, and it pleases me, even down to the fact that I'm still happy with my behemoth CRT projector BECAUSE it's the pinnacle of the old technology, rather than a transient phase of the new. Can I put that difference down to cables and power supply? Who knows, but it can't be doing any harm. Apart from to my Pioneer ....


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## Sonnie

Good story Tim... thanks for sharing :T


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## hjones4841

HiTracey said:


> because the thing had got a lot heavier over the years


I love this part:jiggy: 

Funny how the weight of things increases as our age (and yes, our own circumference) increases. 

I have a 90 pound Denon receiver sitting about 5 feet up on a reinforced shelf. Many times I have thought about moving it to a lower shelf to make it easier to see the display and get to the connections on back. Then I think of the day my son and I hefted that thing up there and decide that it is fine right where it is:bigsmile:


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## salvasol

hjones4841 said:


> I love this part:jiggy:
> 
> Funny how the weight of things increases as our age (and yes, our own circumference) increases.
> 
> I have a 90 pound Denon receiver sitting about 5 feet up on a reinforced shelf. Many times I have thought about moving it to a lower shelf to make it easier to see the display and get to the connections on back. Then I think of the day my son and I hefted that thing up there and decide that it is fine right where it is:bigsmile:


What about removing the dust from the receiver and the load of the speakers :bigsmile: :rofl2:


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## tonyvdb

Dont forget to clean out all of the 0's and 1's that have gotten stuck inside the inner workings of the signal path usually a good abrupt thump with the fist jars them loose. you would be amazed as to how much better and lighter the receiver is after that:bigsmile:.


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## hjones4841

tonyvdb said:


> Dont forget to clean out all of the 0's and 1's that have gotten stuck inside the inner workings of the signal path usually a good abrupt thump with the fist jars them loose. you would be amazed as to how much better and lighter the receiver is after that:bigsmile:.


Does that work on cables also to free used electrons? Maybe I need to whack my interconnects with a yard stick tonight. Might need a hammer for the speaker cables, tho.

We joke about such things, but these are no more ridiculous than some of the stuff for sale. I saw a picture of a guy who put his single conductor speaker cables up on 12" or so "transmission towers" on the floor - bragged about how much better it sounded. Very large gauge wire, of course, for that 10 foot run...

A fool and his money... are soon departed.


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## gobrigavitch

I think the most common offender nowadays is the high end HDMI cables. Their adds will even say things as better picture clarity and definition along with more transparent sound. This despite extensive proof that an HDMI cable either works or doesn't at any particular resolution. How else can they get someone to spend 10x more money for an equal product.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## lcaillo

While I would not argue that the claims of high end cables are exaggerated, and many times very close to dishnonest, it is simply NOT true that HDMI cables either work of they don't. When you get to the limits of useful lengths, you can get symptoms that can get a number of symptoms while still getting a useable image. You may get intermittent signal or you may get none at all. Changing to a different brand of cable may get better results, though the correlation to price is not assured at all. I have had very good results with cheap HDMI cables at varying lengths.

Please don't propogate the naive assumption that HDDMI is an all or nothing matter. Like most matters audio and video, there is more to the story.


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## gobrigavitch

What you say is true. What I was getting at is that it is usually quite obvious when an HDMI cable isn't up to the task. There will be dropouts, sparklies, flashes, or even complete loss os picture. There really is no way that an HDMI cable can cause subtle variationd in picture quality such as "inproved detail and transparency" and the like. That's why I say it either works or it fails. The degree of failure may vary however
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## lcaillo

It can cause what appears to be a low level noise, somewhat like activation potential noise in a PDP or the "hash" that appears in low res color info in NTSC, or in early LCD panels. Some of the problems that I have seen have been somewhat subtle. It also seems to vary with source device. I have seen several situations with cables too long where I could hook my signal generator up and it worked fine, but a cable box or sat receiver looked horrible until a shorter, better, or less defective cable was used.


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## Zeiggie

O.K. So I disagree with the BiWiring and Power Conditioning items. That being said, I also agree with them.

BiWiring - In my personal experience and equipment, I own a pair of Original series Klipsch LaScalla speakers. The way the cross over is wired, you can connect a separate amplifier to each speaker. They end up being electrically isolated from each other. In this situation, BiWiring, or Wiring each speaker to a different amplifier can provide better sound. However, with a good quality amplifier, I doubt that anyone could hear the difference. But with a cheap amplifier ... That is a different story.

Where can I see the benefit - When pushing amps to their limits. If the amp driving the woofer were to clip, it would only affect the woofer while the amp driving the Mid and tweeter would (most of the time) have a lower power output and not be driven to the point of clipping resulting in cleaner audio and reduced chance of damaging the tweeter. When I bought these speakers I was in the military living in the baracks. I had A LOT of guys wanting to show off their amps by connecting to my speakers. So many of their "High Power" amps sounded horible - especially at very low and very high volume. At the time, I owned a clean 100 W Marantz amp that could blow theirs away - Why? It did not clip except af full volume, and I would stop before that point.

Power Conditioning - Once again, when I was in the military stationed in the middle of nowhere, the local power was so dirty that you could hear noise in your audio equipment. I did not have any high end equipment out there, but with a power conditioner or filter you could reduce or eliminate the noise. Then this leads to a question I have - Power Inverters. (I.E. running off of battery power, generators, camping, RV, etc.) There is a big selling point for the far more expensive "Pure Sine Wave" power inverters and that some A.V. equipment cannot work right off of a modified sine wave inverter. So far, I have not been able to tell a differenct with what I have run off the grid.

Zeiggie


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## kouack

Zeiggie said:


> O.K. So I disagree with the BiWiring and Power Conditioning items. That being said, I also agree with them.
> 
> BiWiring - In my personal experience and equipment, I own a pair of Original series Klipsch LaScalla speakers. The way the cross over is wired, you can connect a separate amplifier to each speaker. They end up being electrically isolated from each other. In this situation, BiWiring, or Wiring each speaker to a different amplifier can provide better sound. However, with a good quality amplifier, I doubt that anyone could hear the difference. But with a cheap amplifier ... That is a different story.
> 
> 
> 
> Zeiggie


This is called bi-amping not bi-wiring, bi-wiring you just 2 set of wires connected to one amp and the other end to the same speaker so 2X 12AWG=10 AWG


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## Zeiggie

kouack said:


> This is called bi-amping not bi-wiring, bi-wiring you just 2 set of wires connected to one amp and the other end to the same speaker so 2X 12AWG=10 AWG


Ah, that makes sense and clarifies the original document for me. Thanks - Zeiggie


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## Ledzeppac

CD treatement LIE!


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## enigmaticEntity.

When I wound my cable into a coil so it didn't tangle, the highs were gone... :huh:

I do believe that 44,100Hz digital is mathematically "inferior" to analog in a way, but since you can go up to 192,000Hz digital along with the fact that no-one is really going to notice a difference at 20kHz in their music, it's a matter of belief. Although, 11kHz digital wave files are grainy...:foottap:

"Golden Ears" - Yes, some people have better hearing than others, but can you hear the 1dB hiss among 100dB of music? 

With speakers, you can hear distorion easier than with those that have distortion at -60dB, but still not very noticable that far down.


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## JoeESP9

I'm just gonna' work my down the list

1.The cost of the cable really doesn't matter. There are differences though. My first wife had extraordinarily good hearing. She was able to identify cables in a level matched DBT using an ABX comparator about 90% of the time. She coached and taught me how to be a better listener. I don't claim to hear as well as her but I know it's possible to hear very small differences.

Every monoprice cable I've heard sounded awful. Blujeans cables are a very good buy for around the same cost.

2. I use tubed power amps to drive my ESL's I don't claim they sound better. They sound different. I believe a lot of that difference is in the overload characteristics of tubes. When overdriven transistors abruptly go from linear to non-linear (clipping) behavior. At which point they generate mostly odd order harmonics. Tubes when overdriven start compressing and slowly start generating even order harmonics. Odd order harmonics are much more unpleasant than even.

3. If you think that 44.1Khz captures all that's there, download the same 24/96 and standard 16/44 file from HD track's and listen for yourself.

4. See my answer to number one.

5. Too much feedback applied improperly is bad. Listen to a Crown IC-150 preamp and compare it to something like an Emotiva.

6. I have only anecdotal experience here. Around ten years ago I bought a very highly rated Technics portable CD player. I got it home and plugged the line out into my main system. Frankly, it sounded awful. It made me think of barbed wire. I put it on infinite repeat and let it run for a couple of days. When I listened again there was no change. On the verge of dismissing it as a bad buy it suddenly changed its sound in the middle of a song. It went from “barbed wire” to very nice and smooth. I had changed nothing. Until then I'd never really believed in “burn in”.

7. I biamp using an active electronic crossover. Consequently I have no experience here.


8. Power conditioners for power amps are mostly non existent. For sources and other low level components they can make a difference. The PS Audio power plants are a perfect example. One of my buddies has one and it made a difference in his system my ex-wife immediately heard. I trusted her ears.

9. The green pen works. By a Uni-Posca from an art supply store and try it yourself. It's only a couple of bucks ($2). that's cheap enough for everyone to try.

10. My first wife had golden ears. See some of my previous answers.

It has been my experience that women when they care enough to listen can regularly hear differences and nuances that most men can only imagine. The very few women I've met who are interested in this “obsession” all had very good sounding systems. I can't say this about a lot of men. They have speakers in the corners, no stands, smiley face equalizer settings and awful sound that they think is “good”. If the last sentance doesn't apply to you please ignore it.


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## JoeESP9

Cincyborn said:


> Back in the days of Analog, I witnessed a person so obsessive with a perfectly flat response that he not only EQ'd his room flat, but also adjusted the EQ frequencies to include his own personal hearing test. I guess if you want it perfectly flat, that too must be considered.
> 
> *Just a note off the subject... I am very happy to have found this forum. To all of you who welcomed me, my sincere thanks. Nice folks here!


I agree with getting the in room response as flat as possible. Eq'ing to make the response of your ears flat is just plain silly. What do you do when you go to hear any live music?


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## yukonwill

What do Monster Cables go for?


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## eugovector

yukonwill said:


> What do Monster Cables go for?


5-10x what they're worth.


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## zacheus83

I haven't read every post, but I did vote, so, 

I disagreed with the burn-in lie, but my experience is only with studio monitors. Every pair I had sounded better over a 2 week period. It is highly likely that it was actually my ears getting used to them.

Good day.


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## planetnine

I've read this thread with some amusement, it's brought back some memories of some of the things I was told when younger and very much "into hi-fi".

The one thing I will take exception to though is the trashing of the bi-wiring methodogy; it is definitely audible in some case and very easily measured. As well as the more-dubious interference and back-emf theories regarding bi-wiring, there seems to be missed the very basic fact that bass-drivers pull curent and drop voltage over long lengths of cable. Ok, I acknowledge that the significance of this is very small in cables shorter than 12-foot and diameters larger than 2.5sqmm, and if you're pulling less than 50-100W -but it is definitely not a myth. When Bi-wiring, any voltage-drops caused by the bass driver current over the speaker-cable will not be applied to the treble driver. End-of. Same reason that sensing wires are used in low-impedance measurement.

Ok, I bi, tri and quad-amp my cabiniets, and I know that active x-overs are the better way, but I still have to think carefully about voltage-drops over distance -I know I lose whole integer percentages on the cable to my bass drivers, and some installs are ridiculous with 50m+ runs of 2.5sqmm. But this is live reinforcement...


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## Dale Rasco

I disagree with the tube vs solid state. Of course my logic is based on my opinion that the tube amp has a much stronger sound to it.


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## merlin_666

I'm adding this to the cable lies but only cause I got the cable for free and didn't buy it. I have a 10-15' cable that I was given that has RCA plugs on both ends that I use for my subwoofer. The cable has arrows printed on it with labeling showing which way the signal path should go from the receiver to the sub. Come on like it matters. Who dreamed up this idea.

Again only adding for a laugh, i didn't buy the cable it was given to me. I know someone is going to ask whether I hook it up with the signal path going in the direction of the arrows and the answer is no. I do it the opposite way just to spite the cable.

One other thought I just had. I have heard this before and am looking for some input. I've heard that surge protectors "die" after a few years and need replacing because the insides stop working to protect from surges over time. Any truth to this?


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## lcaillo

Surge suppressors that use MOVs (most) can become less effective with repeated surges, and operate at higher voltages. This is rarely an issue however. Nearly all failures of MOVs occur as dead shorts which will open fuses or other protection devices or open a breaker. The bottom line is that it is unlikely to have a failure of protection that is not seen.


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## JoeESP9

Before I changed my IC's to Kimber Silver Streak I had made a bunch of cables that were designed to be directional. They had a signal wire, a ground and a shield. The shield was connected only at the end where the signal originated. The purpose of the construction was to reduce RFI.


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## MatrixDweller

planetnine said:


> The one thing I will take exception to though is the trashing of the bi-wiring methodogy; it is definitely audible in some case and very easily measured.


Isn't bi-wiring where you run two sets of wires off of the same amp terminals and split to the high and low terminals on the speaker (parallel bi-wiring) ? 

I bet most of the gains you could get from that would be the fact that you are probably increasing the wire gauge (ie: two sets of 14 gauge wire rather than just one). So that over longer distances it will have a measurable impact. It would be no different however than running a 14 gauge wire to the speaker, tying both ends together and splitting it with two sets of 14 gauge wire a foot away from the speaker. Which is really no different than connecting the high and low terminals together with 14 gauge wire and running tied 14 gauge wired to the amp from either the high or low terminals.

The effect of parallel bi-wiring two 14 gauge wires would be like running one 11 gauge wire to the speaker. The cross-sectional surface area of 14g wire is 2.08mm² and is 4.16mm² for 11 gauge. Two sets of 12 gauge wire would perform like one 9 gauge set.

Bi-amping I can see, bi-wiring no.


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## Equilibrium8

I had to disagree with the vacuum tube and golden ears "lies."

Vacuum tubes may not be superior to solid state, but solid state is not better than vacuum tube either. It all boils down to the application and the sound you are looking for. The statement "Whatever vacuum tubes can do...solid-state devices can do better" is definitely false.

The premise of the Golden Ear lie argument doesn't really disprove it. The fact that people with training and experience can hear and interpret the information is the point. There are people with varying degrees of ability; I have known some people who wouldn't hear the difference between a top quality hi-fi and a ghetto blaster with a blanket thrown over it. Just because there are many hacks out there doesn't mean there are not legitimate Golden-eared people. I have just run through the aptly named Golden Ears course again and my scores improved dramatically. Yes, this is from training my ears, but I can indeed hear differences clearer now than before, and I am sure there are many people who can hear them even clearer.


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## videobruce

A few of those I never heard of before including the one about breaking in cables. I can't imagine why/how anyone could come up with that illogic.

One that wasn't mentioned was oxygen free copper cables.


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## MatrixDweller

videobruce said:


> A few of those I never heard of before including the one about breaking in cables. I can't imagine why/how anyone could come up with that illogic.
> 
> One that wasn't mentioned was oxygen free copper cables.


I think that it would be covered under #1. In my opinion it doesn't make any difference. High end cables look nicer and that's about it. 

My pets like the added headroom above 16Khz however...

I think the breaking in of cables followed suit that other components, like speakers or amps, could be broken in (although that is another debate). I work int he IT industry and sell hardware on the side and have had people request that I break in (burn in) their computers. That's something that is a waste of time also.


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## gdstupak

I disagree with the Golden Ears lie.
Years ago at band camp, one of the instructors had perfect pitch, not that he could sing in a perfect pitch, but that he could hear any note from any intrument and know what note it is. Not only could he do it with one note, but you could play any 7 notes on a keyboard at one time, and he knows all 7 notes. 
He said that he didn't learn this ability, but as a young child, the first time he heard all of the notes played on a keyboard and knew their names, he had this ability.
I believe people with this gift can hear things either more accutely or somehow differently than normal hearing people.


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## Lucky7!

gdstupak said:


> I disagree with the Golden Ears lie.
> Years ago at band camp, one of the instructors had perfect pitch, not that he could sing in a perfect pitch, but that he could hear any note from any intrument and know what note it is. Not only could he do it with one note, but you could play any 7 notes on a keyboard at one time, and he knows all 7 notes.
> He said that he didn't learn this ability, but as a young child, the first time he heard all of the notes played on a keyboard and knew their names, he had this ability.
> I believe people with this gift can hear things either more accutely or somehow differently than normal hearing people.


I fail to see how perfect pitch is of relevance at all, except in determining if there is some pitch related anomaly such as wow and flutter. The possession of perfect pitch does not automatically make one a better listener to determine differences between gear.


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## gdstupak

As far the expensive speaker cables go, 
years ago I read an article from a company explaining why their cables are expensive and why they sound better. I don't know if this is bull or not.
Their story involves frequency time alignment. They said that when using stranded speaker wire, where all strands are of the same gauge, the higher frequencies will travel faster than the lower frequencies. They found out 2 characteristics of signal flow:
1. higher frequencies travel in the center of the cable, lower frequencies travel in the outer ring of the cable.
2. the larger the gauge of wire strands, the faster the signal flows.
So knowing these characteristics they engineered speaker cable that has larger wire strands around the outer ring (this will speed up the lower frequencies), and smaller wire strands in the center (this will slow down the higher frequencies). This will allow the high and low frequencies to arrive at the speaker at the same time. 
Also, bending normal speaker wire will cause the strands inside to deform and disturb the proper speed of signal flow. So their cable sheathing was lubricated inside and was designed specially to allow the wires inside to slide easily and not deform as much.


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## gdstupak

A9X said:


> I fail to see how perfect pitch is of relevance at all, except in determining if there is some pitch related anomaly such as wow and flutter. The possession of perfect pitch does not automatically make one a better listener to determine differences between gear.


It's not just the ability of perfect pitch, it's the ability to be able to hear a mess of a sound and seperate each sound and decipher it. I don't know about you, but if I hear a bunch of various keys pushed on a keyboard all I hear is noise. I couln't tell you for sure if it was 5,6,7, or 8 keys that were pushed. Not only does he know how many keys, but he knows exactly which ones. As far as I remember he can do this correctly 100% of the time. His brain processes sound differently than 99% of the people out there and I believe that he can hear differences in equipment that we could not.
To me, that's a Golden Ear, maybe not to you.


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## eugovector

gdstupak said:


> So knowing these characteristics they engineered speaker cable that has larger wire strands around the outer ring (this will speed up the lower frequencies), and smaller wire strands in the center (this will slow down the higher frequencies). This will allow the high and low frequencies to arrive at the speaker at the same time.
> Also, bending normal speaker wire will cause the strands inside to deform and disturb the proper speed of signal flow. So their cable sheathing was lubricated inside and was designed specially to allow the wires inside to slide easily and not deform as much.


I'm sure a technique which doubled their production cost, but increased their retail 20-fold. I'm also sure the specs for their cables included scientific measurements showing their cables provided better time alignment than a coat hanger, so you could see the difference even if you couldn't hear it.


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## gdstupak

eugovector said:


> I'm sure a technique which doubled their production cost, but increased their retail 20-fold.


Same line of thinking with drug companies. Everyone wants to complain how they charge $5 for a pill that cost 10 cents to make, but nobody cares to think how much the company spent to develop and market that pill.


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## eugovector

Yep, the poor drug companies that can't turn a profit for all the R&D expenses that they have. I'm sure these cable companies are similarly hard up.

Just to be clear, I have no problem with R&D, but if you have so much R&D you should be able to show, with scientific measurements, how your cables are better and how you will be able to perceive that difference. Relying on reviews from loony audiofools who describe your cables as "chocolaty" does not count.


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## Lucky7!

gdstupak said:


> As far the expensive speaker cables go,
> years ago I read an article from a company explaining why their cables are expensive and why they sound better. I don't know if this is bull or not.


It is....


gdstupak said:


> Their story involves frequency time alignment. They said that when using stranded speaker wire, where all strands are of the same gauge, the higher frequencies will travel faster than the lower frequencies.


Not at audio frequencies. 



gdstupak said:


> They found out 2 characteristics of signal flow:
> 1. higher frequencies travel in the center of the cable, lower frequencies travel in the outer ring of the cable.


This is skin effect and is a known phenomenon for a century or so. So long as the individual strands are <0.8mm or so then current density is even through the strand CSA at all audio frequencies. Even if the strand is larger, all it will mean is a slight increase in impedance as the frequency rises. As it is rare in stranded conductors used for audio interconnects or speaker cable, this is a complete non issue.


gdstupak said:


> 2. the larger the gauge of wire strands, the faster the signal flows.


No, the larger the CSA, the lower the series resistance.


gdstupak said:


> So knowing these characteristics they engineered speaker cable that has larger wire strands around the outer ring (this will speed up the lower frequencies), and smaller wire strands in the center (this will slow down the higher frequencies). This will allow the high and low frequencies to arrive at the speaker at the same time.


Nope. All of this is basic EE.


gdstupak said:


> Also, bending normal speaker wire will cause the strands inside to deform and disturb the proper speed of signal flow. So their cable sheathing was lubricated inside and was designed specially to allow the wires inside to slide easily and not deform as much.


Garbage.

All of the above is simply marketing designed to remove money from you for a higher priced product that will actually make a trivial, if any, difference for significantly more money.


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## tonyvdb

Agreed ^^, spend your money where it really counts and thats on the receiver, speakers and display. None of the items brought up above will make any audible difference.


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## gdstupak

OK.
My HomeDepot speaker wire from years ago has turn green and was looking for replacement wires, guess I won't get those...just kidding, lamp cord is fine with me.
Something that I did believe until recently was that bigger gauge wire was better for higher wattage applications, but understand it is unnecessary. It sounded plausible to me as an electrician, I thought maybe more wattage was a more intense signal that would need a bigger path. I guess wattage has no bearing on size, mostly only length has bearing on size.


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## tonyvdb

The general concenses is to use the largest awg wire that will cleanly fit inside the binding posts and that is usually 14awge. 12 or larger is un-necessary unless running very long distances and using outboard amps with high output 800watts+


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## buddf

The craziest thing about all of this is that there will always be a sucker somewhere or otherwise none of these products would exist/ methods exist. It is a shame really that such companies are out there giving people a bad taste for good audio.


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## buddf

gdstupak,

wattage can matter. But only at very high currents. The higher the current passing through a wire, the higher the gauge needed. If not sized proper you can burn up the wire through I²R losses.

For example you don't need 12awg until you get above 6amps continuous operation. At least that is what the chart said. I am sure an electrician can better state the true ratings.


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## phreak

Wow, where to start. Or, when to stop. Wire. I go with cheapest wire that I can find one size bigger than I require. If I calculate my biggest required size is 14 ga (for wattage and distance), I buy 12 ga and put it everywhere. Easy to run 1 cable size, and cost not a big deal if buying for $.30-.40/ft. I'll buy better if I can hear a noticeable difference but I'm not gonna hold my breath. As for interconnects, I don't like a lot of the cheapest cables for durability reasons, not the sonic characteristics. I get the highest quality cables offered by the lowest cost supplier, which I usually find to be Monoprice. Burn-in. Speakers - yes. Headphones - yes. Anything else - no (amps benefit from warm up - give them 15 minutes before getting critical). Golden ears. My hearing stinks. Left ear has 70 dB drop above 1000 Hz, yet I can tune a system decently knowing what to listen for. Many people with average hearing think it's fine, then I make it better. However I have met Golden Ears who notice problems that no one else do, make minor changes, and improve things for everyone. It is a combination of natural hearing ability and training. ABX - maybe. My rule of thumb is that if I hear a noticeable difference I am willing to spend a little more. I buy Paradigm speakers because I like the sound (personal preference) and I would have to pay at least double for anything else I like better. Monitor Audio and Boston Acoustics are arguable equally well built and priced slightly higher, but not my auditory pleasure. They don't sound inferior in quality, just different. I applaud those who listen to a variety of brands and choose MA, or BA, or KEF, or whatever. Where I draw the line is when "experts" argue over the merits of two different options. If "experts" can't come to a consensus, I'll take the cheapest option. Enough of my ranting.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## helen82

I agree with all of them. II think that they are worth receiving the first rank.
1. The Cable Lie: Agree

2. The Vacuum-Tube Lie: Agree

3. The Antidigital Lie: Agree

4. The Listening-Test Lie: Agree

5. The Feedback Lie: Agree

6. The Burn-In Lie: Agree

7. The Biwiring Lie: Agree

8. The Power Conditioner Lie: Agree

9. The CD Treatment Lie: Agree

10: The Golden Ear Lie: Agree

_________________
 Open Source Development


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## JBL Fan

*THX RATED*


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## gdstupak

How can "THX rated" be a lie or myth?
It's just a label confirming that a piece of equipment meets certain standards.


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## eugovector

gdstupak said:


> How can "THX rated" be a lie or myth.
> It's just a label confirming that a piece of equipment meets certain standards.


I think the question is, "What are those standards?" Without knowing what is being measured, how can you determine the worth of it's certification?


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## audiomediocrity

OK, start with my name. As for the Tube lie. I like tubes... granted for sound GENERATION (I play guitar), as far as sound reproduction, amps have come so far in recent years that I am shocked by sound quality. As far as analog - No recordings should be sampled/recorder in digital for the master. I will put an old reel to reel multichannel up against anything digital, and you be the judge of which recording is live.:neener:


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## JBL Fan

> I think the question is, "What are those standards?" Without knowing what is being measured, how can you determine the worth of it's certification? Today 7:24 PM


That's exactly right......

Ever heard of the statistician who died in a lake who's average depth was only 2 feet? It could be 100 feet in some sections!

85db certificate - where? in Redskins stadium 500 feet away or in a closet with your ear on the woofer?

PS - I should have added the 1 foot or so db standard that the industry measures things by....anyway...

If it's helpful to the masses...I'm on board!


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## gdstupak

THX certification:
There is no mystery as to what standards the equipment should produce with certain THX certification. But yes they do keep it a secret as to their measuring process.
Each level of certification is specific to a certain size room and listening distance from the source. So I don't know how you can say "85db certificate - where? in Redskins stadium 500 feet away or in a closet with your ear on the woofer?."
Either you need to read their website or I'm not understanding your comment.

I'm not a THX fanboy by the way. I don't believe in their set up (i.e. 80hz crossover for all systems), and I don't use any of their DP settings.
But customers who don't know what specs they need for their listening environment can follow the THX certification and know that it's the right size for their needs.


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## JBL Fan

> THX certification:
> There is no mystery as to what standards the equipment should produce with certain THX certification. But yes they do keep it a secret as to their measuring process.
> Each level of certification is specific to a certain size room and listening distance from the source. So I don't know how you can say "85db certificate - where? in Redskins stadium 500 feet away or in a closet with your ear on the woofer?."
> Either you need to read their website or I'm not understanding your comment.
> 
> I'm not a THX fanboy by the way. I don't believe in their set up (i.e. 80hz crossover for all systems), and I don't use any of their DP settings.
> But customers who don't know what specs they need for their listening environment can follow the THX certification and know that it's the right size for their needs.


Fair enough. 

For some years the idea of the 85db constant was a standard for "refrence" level in theater reproduction (on demand). So, for a given space the speaker system HAD to reproduce a minimum of 85db without distortion (whatever that means) on demand and continuous. This standard was set forth by THX - two guys from Berkley. The THX idea is to simply equalize the room influences. All THX testing and equipment, including speakers ran through the HK facility in Norhridge California (JBL) and used JBL equipment for it's standard.

Any questions?


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## gdstupak

JBL Fan said:


> Any questions?


Huh?
I didn't understand the point to any of that.
Maybe after I get some sleep it'll make sense.


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## MatrixDweller

Every 3rd party reveiw on a THX certified AVR seems to prove that a THX badge has some merit. It doesn't mean it's better than everything else, it just means that it has been tested and holds up to "a" standard.

What is a little bogus is THX rated cables.


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## gdstupak

MatrixDweller said:


> Every 3rd party reveiw on a THX certified AVR seems to prove that a THX badge has some merit. It doesn't mean it's better than everything else, it just means that it has been tested and holds up to "a" standard.
> 
> What is a little bogus is THX rated cables.


Yes.
I understood that statement.


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## JBL Fan

Huh?
I didn't understand the point to any of that.
Maybe after I get some sleep it'll make sense. Today 10:06 PM

Sorry gdstupak...

Some speakers by JBL are not THX qualified. Dr. Toole and his engineering staff personally got a belly laugh out of this and in front of all of us. THX- two guys from Berkley; did not give certain JBL speakers a "THX" rating...hahahaha....


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## torceador

Great article and mirrors a lot of what I've been telling people for 30 years. I did, however, disagree a slight bit with #8, the power conditioner lie. And yes, I see he mentioned it was more for computer equipment than well designed audio equipment.

The audio equipment I have runs on 60 Hz 120 Volt AC service supplied by my electric Co-Op. I don't worry about that part at all. I do live on a 900 foot mountain, which receives more than it's share of lightning strikes, and trucks hitting poles, dropping transformers to the ground. Either of those events can cause a severely high instantaneous event of voltage, current, or even high frequency in the event of lightning. I've lost equipment from low tech freezers and washing machines, up to a rather high tech network analyzer, from events that merely made the lights blink.

I am a firm beleiver in having some lumped impedances (read 'RF filter') as well as high voltage limiters such as MOVs and gas discharge tubes in power distribution ahead of sensitive equipment. I would rather have a cheaper device fail before my expensive ones. 

I CERTAINLY do not advocate esoteric power conditioners that promise voodoo-like qualities, merely something that is good at passing 60 Hz, and not so good at passing other frequencies. It should, at least offer some over-voltage protection. 

I am not selling anything, so this is not a lie, but merely an opinion. The Ten Biggest Lies are really tools used to attempt to close a sale. 

Carl


----------



## Lucky7!

torceador said:


> I am a firm beleiver in having some lumped impedances (read 'RF filter') as well as high voltage limiters such as MOVs and gas discharge tubes in power distribution ahead of sensitive equipment. I would rather have a cheaper device fail before my expensive ones.
> 
> I CERTAINLY do not advocate esoteric power conditioners that promise voodoo-like qualities, merely something that is good at passing 60 Hz, and not so good at passing other frequencies. It should, at least offer some over-voltage protection.


Hi Carl, in general I agree with what you are saying and the point is important, but MOVs and GDTs are _protection_ not _conditioning_. Everyone should have these installed, preferably at the switchboard/meter board/point of entrance of supply to the building as close to the main earth as possible and possibly some plug in devices near the equipment as a second layer of protection.

Installing something generic and industrial looking in the meter board does not give any audiophile kudos however, compared to a shiny thing with lights in your rack. But it's generally cheaper and far more effective.

RF filtering is only really useful at the point of entrance to the device's enclosure; putting it in one device that connects to another via a cable is fairly pointless. Good to have, but except in extreme circumstances, eg living next to a powerful transmitter, I'm yet to be convinced they make a scad of difference. Most mains borne pollution is low in frequency and well under the point of effectiveness of RF filters, typically under a few kHz.


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## MatrixDweller

torceador said:


> I did, however, disagree a slight bit with #8, the power conditioner lie.
> Carl


I think it's more in relation to the claim that a power conditioner will make the system sound better and the more expensive and fancy the power conditioner the better things will get.

I totally agree that surge/spike protection is important to protect your investment. I know where I work, when ever we have a power failure or brown out our helpdesk gets a flood of tickets related to blown power supplies. Of course the power supplies in a lot of computers are cheap chinese made units.


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## pioneerfreak

The HDMI lie astounds me the most I mean $1000 for a foot of Diamond Audioquest HDMI cable? I think it all looks the same to me.


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## Kral

:help:I can't find the document that defines the lies. I clicked on the attachment, but it contains a connection diagram.


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## peterselby7

Okay, the burn in lie is real for speakers -IMO. 

Please tell me I'm not the only person that notices a brand new speaker driver does sound different than when it has played a few hours. You'd have to be deaf not to hear that. And yes, this is more an issue with some drivers than others. Drivers with very stiff suspension systems tend to be worse for this.

New drivers even measure a bit different too. So not sure that one belongs on the list... let the flaming remarks begin.


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## lcaillo

There will be no flaming here. You should know that by now. 

If you have measurements that support your beliefs, that is very much encouraged. Otherwise, I tend to agree that there can be changes in suspensions, therefore resonant frequency of a driver. The changes are likely small. I have never been able to document them. I can recall in the early days of foam surrounds several vendors cautioned us about storing speakers in hot warehouses for long periods of time without rotating then because of the sag that occurred in the surrounds.


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## vann_d

peterselby7 said:


> Okay, the burn in lie is real for speakers -IMO.
> 
> Please tell me I'm not the only person that notices a brand new speaker driver does sound different than when it has played a few hours. You'd have to be deaf not to hear that. And yes, this is more an issue with some drivers than others. Drivers with very stiff suspension systems tend to be worse for this.
> 
> New drivers even measure a bit different too. So not sure that one belongs on the list... let the flaming remarks begin.


OK my flame is that your reading comprehension is poor. :devil: Sorry, don't worry about it.

The article clearly states that there is validity to break-in of mechanical systems such as loudspeakers. The lie refers burn in of electrical components such as capacitors, resistors, etc.

There is an article on audioholics that clearly shows break-in of suspension causes differences in behavior. Not many people debate this, just how audible it may be.


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## peterselby7

vann_d said:


> OK my flame is that your reading comprehension is poor. :devil: Sorry, don't worry about it.
> 
> The article clearly states that there is validity to break-in of mechanical systems such as loudspeakers. The lie refers burn in of electrical components such as capacitors, resistors, etc.
> 
> There is an article on audioholics that clearly shows break-in of suspension causes differences in behavior. Not many people debate this, just how audible it may be.


Point taken; I didn't' read it. :heehee: I just read the list of 'lies'.


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## jaymz

2-3 years back, I subscribed to _Stereophile Magazine_. Lots of reviews on equipment that was totally beyond my budget and understanding.

In one issue there was an ad for some sort of "blocks" that kept your speaker cables off the floor, and claimed to be a huge improvement in sound.

Because of this ad, I let my subscription lapse. Any mag that would accept totally bogus, "VooDoo" ads like this ain't gonna get my $$$$$.

Update: Googled these "Lift Blocks" and came up with lots of hits

http://www.elusivedisc.com/prodinfo.asp?number=OSACLB6
http://www.dedicatedaudio.com/isolation
http://www.elusivedisc.com/prodinfo.asp?number=OSACLB6
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/archive/index.php/t-145763.html

Now, you just stay tuned, someone here will swear to God that raising your speaker cables off the floor really works.

OK...gotta go adjust the tin floil on my windows....

Jim


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## vann_d

jaymz said:


> 2-3 years back, I subscribed to _Stereophile Magazine_. Lots of reviews on equipment that was totally beyond my budget and understanding.
> 
> In one issue there was an ad for some sort of "blocks" that kept your speaker cables off the floor, and claimed to be a huge improvement in sound.
> 
> Because of this ad, I let my subscription lapse. Any mag that would accept totally bogus, "VooDoo" ads like this ain't gonna get my $$$$$.
> 
> Jim


Congrats Man. You foiled a snake oil salesman.

BTW, if someone tries to sell you something that is "beyond your understanding", be very cautious...

Oh, and please PM me if you'd like to buy some peppermint flavored speaker cables. :devil:


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## parsley

I wanted a choice to agree +1111!!!!!!11!!eleven with some of them...

I'm happy to trust the feedback one - for opamps it dramatically improves many aspects of their performance - but I've not _heard_ the results.

I disagreed with cable and valve lies only in a tiny way:
(1) At the time I thought you could make cables whose resistance varied more or less strongly as a function of frequency, due to the skin effect. (Sorry i didn't take the time to do the maths before clicking though :nono: - maybe if you get the resistance the same using low and high resistivity materials, the skin depth effects work out equally in the end) . If it can occur, I suspect it would be insignificant. Otherwise, I agree with R, L, C at a single frequency being enough to define cables for audio.

(2) I don't think valves are magic. But maybe the distortion they produce is pleasant. It'd be neat to ABX compare a valve amp with a solid-state amp + nonlinear filter that introduces valve-like distortion.


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## Oktyabr

I wanted to agree with all of them but in good conscience I cannot... if there is substantial room for doubt then I choose to play the devil's advocate and not allow one or the other side of a polarized argument make decisions for me. Part of the problem is how that list is worded. There are several places where the specific "lie" is spread over a broad spectrum of possibilities only muddling the argument further. A good example is also the first one I disagreed with. 

*"The Antidigital Lie"*... Disagree. "To wit: Digital sound is vastly inferior to analog." I disagree with this statement. By definition there is no reason why a digital recording cannot accurately reproduce the full acoustic spectrum of a live performance... if the bandwidth and sampling rate are high enough. "The 44.1 kHz sampling rate of the compact disc cannot resolve the highest audio frequencies..." I agree with this statement, there by making it impossible to agree with this "lie" taken as an absolute, as written.

Is this "lie" concerning 44.1 kHz sampling rates, the compact disc medium, the accuracy found in the majority of CD recordings due to mastering conventions or something else entirely different? "The most ludicrous manifestation of the antidigital fallacy is the preference for the obsolete LP over the CD." Ahh! Perhaps this is the crux of the matter? A high end turntable system with an appropriate recording (and associated speakers, etc.) can cover many more octaves than are available in the 20Hz-22kHz frequency range defined by the 44.1 kHz CD specification. Don't think there is energy below 20Hz or above 22kHz in a live orchestra? Music contains transient information and rich harmonics beyond the range of human hearing for pure tones. Even low frequency notes have leading edge transients reaching 30kHz. By recording and reproducing a frequency range broader than a conventional CD a very good "analog" system will more accurately reproduce the leading edge of individual notes allowing the listener to experience more of the entire bandwidth information of the instruments.

Never mind the arguments about jitter, dithering, clock timing, latency and the role of various DACs in accurate reproduction. Can a digital recording contain the majority of information found in a broad band analog recording? Yes. Are digital recordings and playback, in general, acoustically superior to a high quality analog system? Unfortunately, in most cases, no.

*"The burn in lie"* Yes, I know that this is not in regards to mechanical moving components, specifically speakers and headphones, but the author should have clarified that in the title of the "lie" or at least moved that disclaimer to the beginning of the argument, rather than at the end. Also I can disagree with some of the statements made in that very disclaimer. "Loudspeakers, however, may require a break-in period of a few hours, perhaps even a day or two..." and "That doesn’t mean a good loudspeaker won’t “sound good” right out of the box..." Statements such as these made with such authority run the risk of only creating more tangential arguments further complicating an already well muddled topic. There are headphones that require hundreds of hours of "burn in" to sound correct and some examples of drivers, specifically low xmax full range speakers, can sound absolutely terrible "out of the box". In this case the "new car with 10 miles on it" is a poor analogy... A good pair of dress shoes or boots might be more fitting (no pun intended) as they certainly can improve a great deal with plenty of time to "burn in". It's picking nits, I know, but I find it hard to give an absolute "yes, I agree".

*"The Bi-wiring lie"*. I disagreed with this one too. If you have biwire/biamp capable speakers I suggest that you take the time and expense to try it for yourself. Why might biwire sound better? Well the first two possibilities are easy... You are running twice as much wire, in effect simulating a larger gauge. Sometimes this might be beneficial. Secondly many speakers designed for this option use metal jumpers that connect the woofer section and the mid/high section in a single wire configuration. Not only are they often made from cheaper materials but they are exposed to the elements and relatively frequent adjustments as speaker wires are connected and disconnected. Over time, from oxidation, corrosion, and build up of foreign materials (or simply from a loose binding post) these jumpers can become the weakest link in the signal path. Single wiring a bi-wire capable speaker? Try the single wire at the "high" and the "low" side of the jumpers, in turn, and see if you detect a difference. But the real question seems to come in regarding any _significant_ electro-acoustical differences between running a single wire or two, from the same amplifier. There seems to be a lot of documentation supporting both sides of the argument and I'm led to believe that there are documented differences in measurements, in some cases. For me the hard evidence either way is too non-conclusive to simply say "Yes, I agree with the bi-wire lie". From personal experience I know that speakers with relatively large woofer sections, such as dual 12" in the vintage Teledyne AR9, or the bi-wire/bi-amp ONLY Vandersteen 2C versions (they don't even have a jumper provision from the factory... you have to make your own!) definitely benefit from a bi-wire solution, enough that I am reasonably accurate in ABX testings of such speakers. Two-way systems, covering fewer octaves with smaller woofers, might benefit less from bi-wiring.

Just my opinions.


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## J&D

Very interesting to see the split regarding tubes. It is surprising that so many people still prefer distortion being added to their recordings. The mind is more powerful than any of the lies and it can make you feel anything at any given time. The placebo effect is real. I know I am not the only one that thinks my car drives better when it is clean. 

I personally prefer to not buy in to the myths primarily because it has saved me tens of thousands of dollars over my listening years. Enough to pay for college tuition for my two children. That makes me smile more than any glowing tubes could ever hope to. 

JD


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## Oktyabr

J&D said:


> Very interesting to see the split regarding tubes. It is surprising that so many people still prefer distortion being added to their recordings. The mind is more powerful than any of the lies and it can make you feel anything at any given time. The placebo effect is real. I know I am not the only one that thinks my car drives better when it is clean.
> 
> I personally prefer to not buy in to the myths primarily because it has saved me tens of thousands of dollars over my listening years. Enough to pay for college tuition for my two children. That makes me smile more than any glowing tubes could ever hope to.
> 
> JD


Just curious... but what company has been selling you these zero distortion solid state amps?


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## megageek

Totally agree with all of it!! Its like any marketing, the main goal is to take your money. So create a problem to sell the solution! Easy money! There was a time when this was called robbery....


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## robbo266317

Oktyabr said:


> Just curious... but what company has been selling you these zero distortion solid state amps?


Currently no-one can create zero distortion amps! be they solid state, valve or digital. Like all things in life we produce the best we can and if acceptable, appreciate what we have.

However the quest to improve will go on, thankfully.


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## KenC

This is as funny as a color TV antenna!

Long live zip cord. :rofl:


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## The Prof

I will let you into a little secret. Mostly cable salesmen are snake oil salesmen. I personally assisted in the demonstration of some very grand cables ranging from a few hundred pounds to over £2000 per metre! I could not tell the difference. But there were a few people who thought they could, because the salesman uses psychology to make you feel there is something wrong with your ears if you can't - its the Emperor with no clothes story. 
Now there can be differences with long lengths of line level cable due to capacitance, which can roll off the high frequencies. I had this problem once, and had to replace it with low capacitance cable, and drive it with a low impedance pre-amplifier. This is why we use powered pre-amps. If you use a 'passive' preamp, it is high impedance and therefore may suffer from the capacitance of interconnects. But for short lengths the effect is tiny. 
There does seem to be some sense in using the Litz concept - using thin individually insulated strands to reduce the skin effect of copper conducters. This is real. But the good news is, you can make your own Litz cable which will sound just grand, for a few bucks. Its called telephone cable - I kid you not. I used a variety with 8 separate cores. Another cable that would work is any computer cable like cat5 cable with individual insulated wires. Try it! You might be suprised..! And its low cost.


----------



## planetnine

J&D said:


> Very interesting to see the split regarding tubes. * It is surprising that so many people still prefer distortion being added to their recordings.* The mind is more powerful than any of the lies and it can make you feel anything at any given time. The placebo effect is real. I know I am not the only one that thinks my car drives better when it is clean.
> JD


This is a very misunderstood area of recording and mixing. I often intentionally add distortion to vocals or instruments to add harmonics that did not previously exist, to give the part more "bite" or definition without increasing its level, resorting to changing it with EQ or altering the dynamics with compression. In fact some "character" compressors and EQs are used because the distortion they add gives a "sound", a character to a vocal or instrument part. 

I suspect that the aspect under scrutiny is the use of valves in playback power amplification, in which case this is blanket change in addition to the vision of the mixer and the mastering engineer of the source material, but the intentional addition of distortion artifacts to audio at the recording and mixing stages is a very common practice 


>


----------



## climber07

I've had sounding albums and CDs, I will never pay $1000 for a ten foot speaker cable, tubes are too expensive for me, and at my age, most of the high freqs are invisible to me and almost everyone else over 30... LOL

If you don't believe me about the high freqs, download the mosquito ringtone for an iPhone and play it near a teenager or young adult. They will hear it every time and you'll swear there,s nothing there (I think it's 17 KHz)...


----------



## Jef Bardsley

lcaillo said:


> Most of the "lies" I generally agree with, but nearly all of them has some caveat that needs to be considered or some degree of truth to it. The problem is that rather than getting to the bottom of why people experience what they feel they do, one side wants to promote the idea as the be-all and end-all and the other side is bent on proving them wrong.
> 
> Science that starts with the goal of disproving lies is as wrong as the lies themselves. It may seem to justify self-righteousness, but it simply polarizes. In most of the debates and arguments about these issues that I have experienced, there is more interest in proving one's point than interest in learning, discovery, and the search.


The above I *do* agree with.

To accord with my checkmarks, I offer the following to balance the arguments a bit:

I like vacuum tubes because I believe in euphonics. I remember wandering in to The Natural Sound and finding a pair of B&W 801s set up in the middle of the floor, wired and ready to go. No one was around, so I cued up a copy of "Let It Bleed". Yuch! Really, I didn't want to know the Stones were recorded that poorly.  If tubes can make bad stuff sound good, so I can concentrate on the performance and ignore the recording, that's worth a little accuracy in my book, and goes at least double for home theater.

Antidigital lie?!? What about the digital lie, "Perfect sound forever!" It's been shown CDs are not archival, and may not even last ten years. And once "digital" became a buzzword, they foisted MP3s on us, and an entire generation swallowed them without flinching. lddude:

True, if you have $8000 monoblocks, you don't need power conditioning _for your amplifiers_. But I think most people's gear, in most parts of the world, might benefit from a little voltage regulation and filtering.

As far as Golden Ears go... sure, there are folks in the business that set themselves up as cult leaders. But everyone does not hear the same, nor respond the same to what they do hear. I noticed long ago, flat frequency response is totally lost on some people, while others are not impressed by time alignment. Apparently our ears are not only sensitive to different things, they also auto-correct different things. As I implied earlier, while perfect reproduction is the goal, we're not there yet, and what's "best" for each of us will depend on what allows us to maintain our personal "suspension of disbelief". Me, I like big and I need loud. My wife on the other hand, is perfectly willing to believe there's an orchestra in that little box, and it's playing the fortissimo parts softly. :innocent:


----------



## hjones4841

Jef Bardsley said:


> It's been shown CDs are not archival, and may not even last ten years.


I had heard that about laserdiscs several years ago and knew that CD-Rs may not last. However, I still have a few of the CDs that I purchased with my first player in 1982 (Sony CDP-100) - they play fine. 

I surely don't miss the pops and ticks of vinyl. I cringe when I hear a pop or R&B song that intentionally added that stuff in. I use to spend much time trying to eliminate that and don't understand why someone thinks it is "cool" now:scratch:


----------



## fusseli

hjones4841 said:


> I had heard that about laserdiscs several years ago and knew that CD-Rs may not last. However, I still have a few of the CDs that I purchased with my first player in 1982 (Sony CDP-100) - they play fine.
> 
> I surely don't miss the pops and ticks of vinyl. I cringe when I hear a pop or R&B song that intentionally added that stuff in. I use to spend much time trying to eliminate that and don't understand why someone thinks it is "cool" now:scratch:


That sounds exactly like something else I have heard about rap/r&b songs. I remember reading something about intentional bass distortion being added in to mimic the sounds of old boomboxes from the early rap days. Rediculous!


----------



## Jef Bardsley

hjones4841 said:


> I had heard that about laserdiscs several years ago and knew that CD-Rs may not last. However, I still have a few of the CDs that I purchased with my first player in 1982 (Sony CDP-100) - they play fine.


I have some CDs from the '80s that no longer play (and I always treated them as carefully as vinyl). Hardly a 'significant statistic', though. You prompted me to do some research, and it seems the "ten year" projection _does_, as you suggested, apply to CD-Rs. Commercial CDs are obviously more durable, but while the material of the disc itself may be bullet-proof, the information on it isn't child-proof. 

Anyway, hope I didn't scare anyone unduly.


----------



## hjones4841

I have some DVD-Rs of home video that no longer play. Thankfully I have them backed up to two external hard drives.


----------



## bangga12

Some item I can't agree it.
Because sound feel the emotion. So for example, the music played by vacuum is so wram and feels good.
Feeling id different between golded ear and Usually people. we have to assent it.


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## cdunphy

I guess I didn't get the poll... I dont think cables can make a difference so I voted I dissagree with the cable lie.Did I vote right,according to my belief
CD


----------



## NotBananas

I have a BSEE (Electrical Engineering) and one thing that cannot be overridden is Ohms Law! It's a simple concept. The larger the conductor diameter, the less resistance, therefore it can carry more current with less losses. This is true up to a point, then you reach a point of diminishing returns. The only way to get zero losses is to have a superconductor cooled to absolute zero temperature (not possible) so the closer you get to absolute zero, the less losses. 

I (current) = V (voltage) / R (resistance) 

So the less resistance, the more current passes through the conductor.
All this nonsense that made Monster Cable rich is bunk! If you use a 14AW (American Wire) gauge size wire instead of 18 gauge (zip cord), you will have less current losses. Most wire from the amp to the speakers are about 10ft. run. If you use a 16 or 14 gauge wire, it will have a minimal effect on this short of distance. 

As far as the skin effect, it applies mostly to high frequency RF. I was a amateur radio operator and the skin effect starts taking into consideration in megahertz ranges. At audio frequencies, it absolutely has no effect! At higher frequencies (in megahertz and gigahertz range) electrons migrate towards the surface of the conductor, so the diameter of the conductor has a larger effect. This is why you see hollow tubes (called waveguides) used as conductors in the gigahertz range, such as radar. They are actually hollow, since there's no reason to have a center conductor in these frequency ranges.

As far as interconnect, "The Prof" is correct. All interconnects present a combination of inductance and capacitance called reactance, to the two units coupled with them. If anyone hears a difference, it's only because each cable has different reactance (capacitance and inductance) value which makes the amp or preamp sound different. It all depends what sound you favor as to what you hear, better or worse, it's just an opinion.

If you all remember the fairytale about the Emperors New Clothes: nobody wanted to admit he was naked for fear of other's thinking they are not knowledgeable.

My 50 years of knowledge of physics and electronics and common sense (not so common anymore) had saved me countless thousands of dollars over the years.

The final judge is what the music sound like compared to live source. Comparing it to another audio system is not valid because they all have colorization to the sound. It's just which one you prefer over the other, not which one is better or worse.


----------



## climber07

NotBananas said:


> I have a BSEE (Electrical Engineering) and one thing that cannot be overridden is Ohms Law! It's a simple concept. The larger the conductor diameter, the less resistance, therefore it can carry more current with less losses. This is true up to a point, then you reach a point of diminishing returns. The only way to get zero losses is to have a superconductor cooled to absolute zero temperature (not possible) so the closer you get to absolute zero, the less losses.
> 
> I (current) = V (voltage) / R (resistance)
> 
> So the less resistance, the more current passes through the conductor.
> All this nonsense that made Monster Cable rich is bunk! If you use a 14AW (American Wire) gauge size wire instead of 18 gauge (zip cord), you will have less current losses. Most wire from the amp to the speakers are about 10ft. run. If you use a 16 or 14 gauge wire, it will have a minimal effect on this short of distance.
> 
> As far as the skin effect, it applies mostly to high frequency RF. I was a amateur radio operator and the skin effect starts taking into consideration in megahertz ranges. At audio frequencies, it absolutely has no effect! At higher frequencies (in megahertz and gigahertz range) electrons migrate towards the surface of the conductor, so the diameter of the conductor has a larger effect. This is why you see hollow tubes (called waveguides) used as conductors in the gigahertz range, such as radar. They are actually hollow, since there's no reason to have a center conductor in these frequency ranges.
> 
> As far as interconnect, "The Prof" is correct. All interconnects present a combination of inductance and capacitance called reactance, to the two units coupled with them. If anyone hears a difference, it's only because each cable has different reactance (capacitance and inductance) value which makes the amp or preamp sound different. It all depends what sound you favor as to what you hear, better or worse, it's just an opinion.
> 
> If you all remember the fairytale about the Emperors New Clothes: nobody wanted to admit he was naked for fear of other's thinking they are not knowledgeable.
> 
> My 50 years of knowledge of physics and electronics and common sense (not so common anymore) had saved me countless thousands of dollars over the years.
> 
> The final judge is what the music sound like compared to live source. Comparing it to another audio system is not valid because they all have colorization to the sound. It's just which one you prefer over the other, not which one is better or worse.


Nicely put. :T


----------



## mpesik

lol


----------



## 3dbinCanada

Oh wow...what a controversial subject and being an electrical engineer, its my professional opinion that most are lies. Also have read a few exerpts from Dr. Floyd Tool confirms my suspicions on many a subjective claims... 

*runs and hides*


----------



## planetnine

There are things that affect signal integrity in cabling, but they are well understood things like capacitance in signal cables (esp if a high-impedance source) microphonics due to static effects and voltage generation, or even plain old insulation breakdown, noise pickup due to unbalanced runs, etc, etc.

I use high quality cables and make up most of my own so that I know they are high quality, but I work in audio, and know that the little differences soon stack up when you have long cable runs. I use star-quad microphone cabling for microphone runs when recording low-level stuff (eg voiceovers) and I will spend money on good preamps for this purpose.

But, there are a lot of practices that make either none or very little difference, and it galls me that the marketing for these items concentrates on getting the fool to part with his money rather than find the genuine weak point in the setup (usu acoustics) and help improve it.

It is inescapable that if people are willing to believe in these things, then people and companies will exploit this.


>


----------



## planetnine

Jef Bardsley said:


> The above I *do* agree with.
> 
> To accord with my checkmarks, I offer the following to balance the arguments a bit:
> 
> I like vacuum tubes because I believe in euphonics. I remember wandering in to The Natural Sound and finding a pair of B&W 801s set up in the middle of the floor, wired and ready to go. No one was around, so I cued up a copy of "Let It Bleed". Yuch! Really, I didn't want to know the Stones were recorded that poorly.  If tubes can make bad stuff sound good, so I can concentrate on the performance and ignore the recording, that's worth a little accuracy in my book, and goes at least double for home theater.
> 
> Antidigital lie?!? What about the digital lie, "Perfect sound forever!" It's been shown CDs are not archival, and may not even last ten years. And once "digital" became a buzzword, they foisted MP3s on us, and an entire generation swallowed them without flinching. lddude:
> 
> True, if you have $8000 monoblocks, you don't need power conditioning _for your amplifiers_. But I think most people's gear, in most parts of the world, might benefit from a little voltage regulation and filtering.
> 
> As far as Golden Ears go... sure, there are folks in the business that set themselves up as cult leaders. But everyone does not hear the same, nor respond the same to what they do hear. I noticed long ago, flat frequency response is totally lost on some people, while others are not impressed by time alignment. Apparently our ears are not only sensitive to different things, they also auto-correct different things. As I implied earlier, while perfect reproduction is the goal, we're not there yet, and what's "best" for each of us will depend on what allows us to maintain our personal "suspension of disbelief". Me, I like big and I need loud. My wife on the other hand, is perfectly willing to believe there's an orchestra in that little box, and it's playing the fortissimo parts softly. :innocent:



The system didn't sound so good because it had valves, it sounded so good because it was very well designed, engineered, built and set up. This _can_ be acheived with valves or "solid state".

"Perfect Sound Forever" was a lie in terms of the CD, but that was marketing and the weakness is in the medium, not the method. 

CD and digital are not one and the same thing. Once the accuracy of digital had been improved (yes, many early ADCs and DACs were not nice), there was a huge learning curve about what we actually like about music -and one thing found repeatedly was the distortions inherent in analogue gear (valve amplification, valve preamps, impedance and isolation transformers, tape heads and mechanisms and magnetic media itself, etc, etc) were part of the sounds we liked and helped make the mixes sound warm and pleasing.

With oversampling and 24-bit resolution, digital has now come of age, and with well designed, engineered, built and set-up equipment is about as perfect as you can acheive -whether you want that perfection without the familiar organic sounds of the various distortions you are used to is another matter...  I can record more accurately than the very best in professional equipment could 20 years ago, but that will not make the results sound more pleasing.

mp3s, well I agree with you for the most part. They are clever, but they are not accurate, or even good or close to it in many cases. They serve a purpose, they filled a gap when digital storage was too expensive and internet transfer was incapable of delivering the bandwidth. The technologies are very good at delivering audio and video with a fraction of the storage and bandwidth required if it was uncompressed, and digital TV, DVDs and Blue-Ray would not exist if not for the methods.

The sourest part of the mp3 debate is that most users, consumers, do not care; in many cases they probably cannot actually tell. I use them at elevated bitrates for demo and example stuff and as I said, they serve a purpose. Nobody should be under the impression that they are high fidelity carriers though.

What you should be aware of though, is the horrific things done to artistic audio creations over the last twenty years due to the perceived need to make the recording "louder", despite the obvious ceiling of digital full-scale. The mangling done by mixers and masterers at the behest of artistes, A&R, Producers (or even themselves) in the loudness anxiety illness is unbelieveable and is worthy of some study; I can assure you that you will stare in disbelief if you understand what has been done as a result of this quest.

Luckily it seems that with high bitdepth uncompressed delivery at last seeming a reality, and the wonderful concept of normalising to loudness and not digital peak level when mastering content now set out and being accepted (EBU R128), dynamic music as it used to be mixed will soon be the norm for you high-end boys (and girls) to exercise your audio systems with.

As I'm sure you will agree though, the most significant factors to affect audio quality is the acoustics and the setup of home systems, it doesn't (to a degree) matter how much you spend on the gear if this is not attended to 



>


----------



## 3dbinCanada

planetnine said:


> There are things that affect signal integrity in cabling, but they are well understood things like capacitance in signal cables (esp if a high-impedance source) microphonics due to static effects and voltage generation, or even plain old insulation breakdown, noise pickup due to unbalanced runs, etc, etc.
> 
> I use high quality cables and make up most of my own so that I know they are high quality, but I work in audio, and know that the little differences soon stack up when you have long cable runs. I use star-quad microphone cabling for microphone runs when recording low-level stuff (eg voiceovers) and I will spend money on good preamps for this purpose.
> 
> But, there are a lot of practices that make either none or very little difference, and it galls me that the marketing for these items concentrates on getting the fool to part with his money rather than find the genuine weak point in the setup (usu acoustics) and help improve it.
> 
> It is inescapable that if people are willing to believe in these things, then people and companies will exploit this.
> 
> 
> >


They are so good at their marketing that they have their customers believe it hook line and sinker. The other thing I find really funny is interconnects. Most of them are single ended, not differential so what is actually being bought is simply a visual thing, not an audio thing. The visual que is what makes people believe in the audio que but are not aware of the influence of sight bias. IHO, any audio leaders who perpetuate that interconnects and cables are sonically different espicially in these short runs are in fact perpetrating fraud of sorts.


----------



## planetnine

I don't know how this sits with the rules, esp if they might be an advertiser here, but I wouldn't buy that particular companies products if you gave me the money. They have a very dubious moral standing in many people's eyes and engage in quite predatory and unethical behaviour regarding the trademarking of anything with a similar name to theirs, and patent cases which they have had their legal knuckles rapped for.

I have refused entry to that brand of cable in my studio and refuse to connect it to my equipment on live stages. It might seem to be an extreme reaction, but people remember, and I'm aware of several people who have changed their minds after researching the company's practices. If _people_ behaved like some companies, they would be ostracised as utter pariahs. Too much is accepted under the escape clause of "it's business".

Anyway, another conversation for another time, but yes, too much is put into looking pretty and inferring amazing qualties in the interconnect world. I roll my own where I can -it gives you much better quality and confidence for the same money or cheaper...


>


----------



## Jef Bardsley

planetnine said:


> What you should be aware of though, is the horrific things done to artistic audio creations over the last twenty years due to the perceived need to make the recording "louder", despite the obvious ceiling of digital full-scale. The mangling done by mixers and masterers at the behest of artistes, A&R, Producers (or even themselves) in the loudness anxiety illness is unbelieveable and is worthy of some study; I can assure you that you will stare in disbelief if you understand what has been done as a result of this quest.


What many reporters of the "Loudness Wars" seem to overlook is a lot of (most?) music these days is listened to through earbuds in a noisy urban environment. It's not dissimilar to the "AM radio mix", from back when most teens listened to rock and roll on their car radios.



planetnine said:


> Luckily it seems that with high bitdepth uncompressed delivery at last seeming a reality, and the wonderful concept of normalising to loudness and not digital peak level when mastering content now set out and being accepted (EBU R128), dynamic music as it used to be mixed will soon be the norm for you high-end boys (and girls) to exercise your audio systems with.


Perhaps what we'll see is the distribution of a "home mix" and a "mobile mix", though it would seem to me a better choice to let the DSP of the mobile device do the compression.



planetnine said:


> As I'm sure you will agree though, the most significant factors to affect audio quality is the acoustics and the setup of home systems, it doesn't (to a degree) matter how much you spend on the gear if this is not attended to


Absolutely. It doesn't take much "problem fixing" in terms of upgrading gear before the biggest problem that remains is the room, itself.


----------



## planetnine

Jef Bardsley said:


> What many reporters of the "Loudness Wars" seem to overlook is a lot of (most?) music these days is listened to through earbuds in a noisy urban environment. It's not dissimilar to the "AM radio mix", from back when most teens listened to rock and roll on their car radios.
> 
> Perhaps what we'll see is the distribution of a "home mix" and a "mobile mix", though it would seem to me a better choice to let the DSP of the mobile device do the compression...



Yes Jef, but there is a whole world of difference between merely reducing dynamic range and performing the iterative lumphammer mangling that is found in almost every mainstream CD release. There surely can be no excuse for repeatedly and deeply clipping the signal, just because you're scared that one of the "competition's" CDs will appear louder at the same playback gain.

It is so extreme that many releases have to be mastered as a second, separate "radio mix" _without_ the hpercompression and brickwall limiting (yes those are real audio terms, not hyperbole) as the public release will sound horrifically distorted if passed through most radio stations' broadcast processors...

It's gone a bit far, hasn't it..? :rubeyes:



>


----------



## Jef Bardsley

planetnine said:


> ... the iterative lumphammer mangling ...


:rofl:

Brilliant!


I suppose I'm lucky because I have a friend with a massive vinyl collection who's side business is making CDs for people.

But you might think, with falling CD sales, it would occur to them that the (ahem!) _quality_ of the product had some small part in it all.


----------



## CamZH

OK,
So i disagreed with the tube amp one.
But I've got a bit of a different spin.
I dont think I'd ever use a tube amp for a HT or Music playback application.
But for playing guitar, there is no comparison.
I like a lot of over drive and distortion and solid state amps just dont do it the same.


----------



## wagdad

I voted and it said You must explain if you disagree. Well I only disagreed with the anti-digital
one and that was because there are some very real differences in the execution of analog
and digital conversion and the way a lot of the early digital recordings were made. I can hear
the difference between certain old CD players and the many of the early digital recordings lacked
depth and realism. I think the first really good CD I bought was a Denon Luis Conte called Black Forest
that really showed me what CD could be. So I guess this is a qualified disagree. I was in the audio
business for many years and grew up loving music in the fifties and sixties. So only the earliest
Altec and Electro-Voice systems escaped my initial experience. Good clean power is so cheap compared
to what was available to me when I was young. And I usually made my own cables from copper
wrapped RG-6. But, I sometimes used decent quality manufactured calbes. I think optical is very cool.
I do like a heavy duty speaker cable for the mains just to carry decent current. In the old days you
had to watch how you matched amps and speakers, cables were secondary. I had some old Magneplanars
that you better have a decent current capable amp to run with or they sounded awful. I believe that
is still true with them. I do have some hearing impairment, but my ear is trained and I always told the
customer "if you can't hear the difference why would you want to spend the money?" But, there are
and probably alway will be people that want to spend the MONEY!


----------



## PC509

I have to say that I agree with them all. However, I think that some of them are opinions (the article just shares my opinions). For something to sound good is dependent on the listener. For some, "good" may bring back memories of their childhood listening to their dad's records, so that's what they are associating and comparing it to. For others, they want the most accurate reproduction of the original recording. 

Some prefer the sound of tubes vs. transistors. I don't. I wouldn't say that the other guy was wrong, though. I am sure my ears aren't the de facto ears when it comes to audio reception. Even with a microphone and a high tech comparison to the original media - I think it would still come down to personal preference, not which one was technically accurate compared to the original recording. 

Others are a bit more black and white.


----------



## Douglas_Doherty

I have just joined and may be being thick; there are references to an article in this thread - where is it and how can I get to read it?

D


----------



## lcaillo

The first post on the first page has this link:
http://www.hometheatershack.com/audiolies.pdf


----------



## Douglas_Doherty

Thanks. Interesting.

D


----------



## Douglas_Doherty

I have just been perusing the results. The Valve lie appears to be one holding sway, and it is a weird one. People talk about 'warmth' and even harmonic distortion etc. I think that this is fairly classic rubbish! Valve guitar amps, oh yes, the feel of them is very different, and the sound of overdriven valves has a detail and texture that it is hard for digital processing to emulate. But in terms of hi-fi I think it is really not a question of levels and types of distortion but basically well designed equipment. A well designed hi end op-amp/transistor based pre-amp will sound good, so too will a well designed valve amplifier. I would be very interested to hear an ABX test on a valve and an op-amp/transistor pre amp (or even amplifier) if we were looking at two hi end units, especially if we were listening to instruments and comparing the apparent reality of the resulting sound.

D


----------



## mlundy57

I don't know if my disagreement with the power conditioner lie is actually disagreement or ignorance. My concern lies with a situation that I know is deadly to computers and that is low power situations or brownouts. While I have never lost any A/V equipment to power situations I have had computers fry before so all of my computers are connected to battery backup systems that provide a consistent voltage to the computer regardless of what the incoming power is doing and continue to provide the consistent current even after the power has gone out for a long enough period of time to safely shut everything down.

So my concern is wouldn't A/V equipment benefit from similar protection? Not the battery back up since I no longer have a projection TV with a lamp that needs to cool down but from brown outs and spikes.


----------



## NotBananas

mlundy57 said:


> ..... all of my computers are connected to battery backup systems that provide a consistent voltage to the computer regardless of what the incoming power is doing and continue to provide the consistent current even after the power has gone out for a long enough period of time to safely shut everything down.
> 
> So my concern is wouldn't A/V equipment benefit from similar protection? Not the battery back up since I no longer have a projection TV with a lamp that needs to cool down but from brown outs and spikes.


I have a battery backup on all my electronic equipment, A/V and computer. The standard battery backup does not supply constant power to the equipment. It is a backup that switches instantly (less than a 1/4 cycle of the loss of AC with my APC brand). The type you are describing is not a backup, it's a constant voltage power source which continuously runs off the battery so there's no switching time is the power fails. The batteries are always charging from the line voltage while it supplies power to the equipment. There's no real benefit to this arrangement, because you are now relying on the electronics of the constant power source to continue to operate. Like any other electronic equipment, it's not "if it fails" it's "when it fails". 

You are also now relying on the power inverter to convert DC voltage to AC that powers the equipment. Rarely battery backups provide true 60/50 Hz sine waves to the equipment. Most provide a sawtooth wave which emulates a sine wave closely, others a square wave or a modified form of wave that crosses the zero base line 50/60 times a second. 

If your equipment has a power transformer in the power supply, it provides 99.9% of the isolation between the power source and the equipment. If it has a switching power supply, all the line noise and the switching circuitry itself generates a huge amount of noise.

I've been in electronics since the early '60s and through experience, degree in EE, and a lifelong verification of "audio myths" and half truths (like global warming) I came to the realization that whatever sounds good to the listener is the ultimate sound for them, but maybe not for you (emperor's new clothes).


----------



## lcaillo

mlundy57 said:


> I don't know if my disagreement with the power conditioner lie is actually disagreement or ignorance. My concern lies with a situation that I know is deadly to computers and that is low power situations or brownouts. While I have never lost any A/V equipment to power situations I have had computers fry before so all of my computers are connected to battery backup systems that provide a consistent voltage to the computer regardless of what the incoming power is doing and continue to provide the consistent current even after the power has gone out for a long enough period of time to safely shut everything down.
> 
> So my concern is wouldn't A/V equipment benefit from similar protection? Not the battery back up since I no longer have a projection TV with a lamp that needs to cool down but from brown outs and spikes.


I am not sure what kind of problems you have had due to low voltage, but most power supplies in computer and AV equipment should not be damaged by brownouts. Most use switching power supplies that do run less efficiently at lower voltages and can get hot, but should shut down at voltages below their operating range. Running on low voltage for extended periods might be a problem for some power supplies, but if this is the case, you have more serious problems that should not rely upon a UPS to resolve.

Conventional power supplies like found in most amps and AVRs will not regulate to their normal voltages at low source voltages. Again, for brownouts, this does not typically cause damage. Sustained low voltage situations need to be fixed by the utility company or your electrician.

What usually causes damage in power situations are when transients occur due to switching in the supply system or when one leg goes down. A UPS or surge suppressor can be helpful, but more sophisticated power conditioning is usually not going to provide a meaningful benefit.


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## pharoah

i agree'd with all of it except one.the one thing i didnt agree with is burn in.the reason why is from my diy amp building.specifically some t-amps swapping input coupling caps.i have heard some difference after 100 or so hours of use.


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## Danny Richie

I can't believe people are still talking about this 13 year old article.

Oddly, in that same publication the Audio Critic reviewed a pair of speakers that I designed for AVMS. It was a good review that ended with "definitely recommended".

After all these years that 10 biggest lies story is even funnier now than it was back then. What's sad is how many people went for that stuff. The real lies are not in the audio industry as much as they are in the article. I won't call the writer a lair though. He is not intentionally telling a lie. He is just ignorant. 

This whole thread reads like a poll as to whether or not there is a Big Foot. Everybody is talking about what they believe verses what someone else believes. Does it exist or does it not? Some say they have seen it, but they have no proof.... All the while there are groups of people that have some in their freezer and aren't saying anything. The guys that have one in their freezer don't really care what everyone else thinks. They know the answer. It is a fact for them. Okay no one really has a Big Foot in their freezer (that I know of). But for those of us in the audio industry that do this for a living... We have some of these answers. For some of us this stuff is a matter of fact. It doesn't matter what everyone else believes. We already have the answers. Some of them anyway....

It is just really sad to see more people here being mislead by this stuff. More people here taking this poll bought into the lies of Peter Aczel than know the truth.


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## phreak

Which lies?

(Tries to light fireworks)


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## Danny Richie

phreak said:


> Which lies?
> 
> (Tries to light fireworks)


I knew someone would try to add a few sparks. 

There is some truth in three of the ten things he listed. The rest really just shows his ignorance.


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## lcaillo

The problem with the article and the poll is that it paints everything as a dichotomy. The fact is that there is some truth in most lies and misconceptions in most things that are assumed to be true. You have to qualify virtually every one of the "lies" to get at the truth. The only true statement for nearly all of them is, "it depends." It is where we challenge our own assumptions, do the research, discuss and debate, and do real analysis of data that we learn. Most of what we get with regard to these "lies" is belief or opinion of one flavor or another.


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## pharoah

a major problem with alot of net based info.there is alot of fud with no fact checking.


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## Danny Richie

When I get a chance I'll try to hit these one by one.


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## mlundy57

Danny,

Don't know about anybody else but for someone who is not in the industry or have unlimited funds to experiment with all possible combinations & permutations that can affect sound perception I would appreciate that.

I can always draw on experience and knowledge from my own fields and even "common sense" to evaluate claims. However, there are many things in my field that, while true, seem counter-intuitive if you don't fully understand the mechanisms involved. I suspect the same is true of audio.

Mike


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## chashint

Hummm
Danny you have certainly piqued my interest.
Waiting to see exactly where you stand on the myths.
Cannot tell for sure if you intend to debunk the myths or the article that is debunking the myths.
Popcorn is definitely on the stove though.


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## lcaillo

Danny Richie said:


> When I get a chance I'll try to hit these one by one.


Please start a new thread for each topic and refer to this one in the first post of each.


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## NotBananas

Perception is reality. If you believe the $500 a/c cable will improve the low bass sound, it will. If you believe a $50 rubber ring around a tube will improve the high end, it will. If you believe a set of four $200 speaker stand spikes will improve the low end, it will.

True story from my youth ('60s): I worked in a TV repair shop where I went on service calls to fix TV's. One old lady kept repeatedly complaining about bad picture quality in an old (even then) b&w tv. My boss asked me to do something when I arrived at her home. In those days, tv's had horizontal hold, vertical hold, etc. controls. I asked her to tune to the channel with the bad picture. Then I adjusted the vertical hold until the picture started to vertically roll slowly. I asked her to let me know which picture was good. She spent 10 minutes looking at all the images (obviously all were the same), and then she yelled "stop, that's it!". I then locked in the vertical hold and never heard back from her again.


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## Danny Richie

Okay, almost done. I will make a new post for each "lie". You guys can copy or quote them individually if you want to add comments to them.


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## Danny Richie

1. The cable lie.

This one shows complete ignorance. There is much more to cables than simple resistance, inductance, and capacitance.

All cables have attributes of being an antenna and a filter to some degree. And some lean much more one way than the other. They can pick up EMI and RFI or reject or block it.

There is also a big difference it type and purity of the wire itself. Think of the signal being placed on the wire like the swinging kinetic balls. See some of them here: 



 Whatever you hit on one side transfers to the other. However, put a bunch of impurities in the wire (low purity Copper) and it will block or disrupt the signal. It would be like sliding a piece of paper between a couple of those swinging balls. So what you get off of the other end is not quite the same as what you hit it with.

Different types of speaker wire react differently when the speaker loads change as well. 

The dielectric material or jacketing also has a big effect on the signal transfer. Differences from PVC, polyethylene, or Teflon all have some effect, and a character to their sound. This is very easily heard.

Braiding or shielding effects the sounds as well. Braiding will have a filtering effect by canceling out noise. Shielding works very differently, but can have a similar effect sometimes. You can even effect the sound of a cable by adding a Copper sleeve around it like a Z-Sleeve. You can just wrap a little bit of Stillpoints ERS cloth around the end of a cable and clearly alter the sound without changing anything about the way the wire measures. For that matter just twist or braid your speaker cables and notice the difference.

All cables have some effect or a difference in sound compared to cables of a different type or typology. I find it hard to find two that sound alike than to find any that sound different. They all sound a little different. And this is true for speaker cables, interconnect, and power cables.

For those of you that really do believe that a coat hanger with the ends scraped off or some 16 gauge lamp cord is just as good as anything else (as per the article), then I have some beach front property I'd like to sell you in Nebraska. Okay that was a little jab and I wasn't going to do that. But really, if you consider the system that the writer likely uses then is there any surprise to his conclusions?

Really though, if you use a $79 CD/DVD player and a $200 receiver with Bose speakers then do you really think you'll hear a difference if you drop in a $1,200 set of speaker cables. Possibly, but probably not. And that would be kind of silly. But could one then conclude fancy cables make no difference. Certainly not. You could conclude "I don't notice a difference in MY system".


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## Danny Richie

2. The vacuum tube lie.

To come out and knock tube gear and claim that "whatever vacuum tubes can do in a piece of audio equipment, solid state devices can do better", is just a false statement.

In this case you can't just throw a blanket over the whole thing either. There are tube amps and tube pre-amps out there that will do everything as well as any solid state amp. And there are some that aren't that great. The same can be said for many solid state amps or pre-amps. There are good ones and bad ones.

And the lush musical richness of some tubes amps has nothing to do with added coloration or distortion.

The funny thing is that since this article was written this whole debate has almost gone away. It is hardly even worth mentioning.


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## Danny Richie

3. The antidigital lie.

This has to be one of the funniest ones because so much has changed since then.

Digital has come so far since this article was written that there is really no comparison to where it was. It is not just about 1's and 0's, and never has been. In the new world of computer based audio even the playback software makes a difference. Differences in D/A converters are heard easily as well. Only now does digital come close to the best analog or vinyl playback systems. Back when this article was written digital was still a long way from the best vinyl systems.

To state "the 1's and 0's are incapable of being distorted in the signal path" shows much ignorance. Even changing out digital cables makes a difference. Noise on the line is noise on the line, and RFI and EMI is picked up on the digital cable as well. The quality of the USB cable can even make a notable difference. And yes it is just carrying 1's and 0's. Ever hear of jitter error? And that one is quite basic and a common type of filtering now used. That bit stream has to be properly clocked, and converted....

The problem with the top level analog or vinyl playback systems at that time was the cost of them. It was so expensive and still is so expensive, that most people have never heard them. The new problem of today with those systems (besides the cost still being high) is that they are too inconvenient to use. People want to press play and get instant satisfaction. Most of the people of today are much like the writer of this article way back the year 2000. They have never heard serious analog playback systems. So they really don't know.

The same is true from the recording end of it. An acoustic instrument for instance produces an analog sound. It does not produce numbers (ones and zeros). If that sound is recorded with a high quality analog recorder it stands the best chance of being a copy that more closely matches the original. Added an analog to digital conversion for the consumer to then then add a digital to analog conversion is not an improvement. That is like taking a photo with real film, printing it, and taking another photo of it with a digital camera, then printing it off, and thinking it will be as good or better than the original. One can of course take a digital picture of the original or likewise a digital recording of the music. That is very common today and much easier to store. But just like digital cameras the digital recording quality can vary. And it is not just about the bit rate. Once a picture is stored digitally it still has to be printed off to be appreciated. So the quality of the printer can also vary quite a bit. Likewise to hear the digital recording a D/A converter must be used and the quality can vary a LOT. D/A converters can range from $49 to $24,000.

Digital is more marketable, more convenient, less expensive, portable, and in recent years the quality has gotten very good especially on the playback side. Is it better now than vinyl? No, but close. In the year 2000, it wasn't even close.


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## Danny Richie

4. The listening test lie.

The writer would have you believe that the only valid subjective comparisons are double blind A/B/X comparisons. Not true at all. And those tests can be conducted to sway results based on how the tests are given. I have conducted them to prove points in two different directions proving outcomes in both directions. It all depends on how they are conducted.

I'll give you an example. I did this. I had a group of people in a room with a system that they did not know, with music that the did not know, and played an entire song all the way through then made a switch. Then played the song all the way through again. No one could tell a difference. And these were audiophiles. Take a group of people off the street not well trained in listening and the results will certainly be that no one hears a difference in this test. Too much information over too long of a period is a problem. It is not about audibility at that point.

Next I took the same group of guys and played a 5 to 10 second piece over several times. It was an acoustic intro. Then a switch was made. Low and behold everyone heard a difference. Sometimes it is as much about memory retention as hearing a difference, and the shorter sample time makes it much easier. When I moved to a new piece of music the same thing happened. Everyone notices the difference and can identify the difference. Pretty soon they notice the things that one does over the other and can pick which is which on a new piece of music without A/B switching. They have learned the differences.

The thing that we compared that day was two different types of capacitors in the output stage of a DAC. One was an Axon poly cap and the other a Sonicap.

I could have just as well repeated the test many times to show that no one could hear a difference. It is depends on how the test is conducted. 

And often differences between whatever is being compared is readily apparent. You don't need a well documented A/B/X test to confirm a difference. When you can hear a repeatable difference there is a difference.


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## Danny Richie

5. The feedback lie.

This is another one that in this day and age we look back on it and wonder why it even made the list. Using some negative feedback in some amps designs have become common place. Some amps were designed around a no negative feedback typology and sound very good. But this is not a rule and really never was. So I can agree with him on this one, but the topic is not really worth discussion.


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## Danny Richie

6. The burn-in lie.

He really misses the boat on this one. Everything goes through mechanical and electrical forming periods. At least he admits to mechanical burn in effects of speakers, but again misses the boat when he claims it takes only a few hours. This effect is well documented. And mechanical burn in effects can still be seen in some drivers 100 hours or more later.

Here are some examples: http://www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm

http://www.gr-research.com/myths.htm

All signal carrying devices from cables to connectors go through a settling or burn in period. Some devices even take quite a bit of time. Capacitors are especially sensitive to the time needed to form the dielectric materials and settle in. Most polypropylene caps need a good 100 hours or so. And caps with Teflon film can take as long as 500 to 1000 hours to finish settling. They don't form in a few seconds as the writer claims. And some go through quite a swing during those times and the sound can vary quite a bit.

The same is true for any piece of gear and includes speaker cables, interconnect, and power cables.

To think otherwise shows a complete lack of experience with such. This is understandable though if the writer truly uses zip cord and coat hanger wire for speaker cables. His reference system my not allow such differences to be heard.

In my system it is not hard to notice burn in effect differences even in cables. I had a handful of guys over once doing some listening and swapped out one pair of interconnects from my DAC to my pre-amp. I swapped in an identical fresh pair just like the other pair that had been in the system for a long time. So I only dropped in one pair of interconnects that had not been burned in. The difference was subtle but could clearly be heard and identified by all present. Trailing edges of a piano were held a little longer and had a little bit of an edge or ring to them verses the well burned in cables. No question about it.

Here is pic of my listening system. Speakers change regularly depending on what I am working on.


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## Danny Richie

7. The bi-wiring lie.

There is some truth to this one. Bi-wiring does not separate the signal in any way. It really does not put lows on one cable and highs on another. Electrically the load is still the same. It can and does change the sound, but not because of any signal separation. Often the change can be an adverse change especially if dissimilar wire types are used. A slight phase shift can even be introduced with dissimilar wire. Usually one can get better sound by using a bi-wire style cable as a single standard cable using both ends together. It just depends on the typology.

Bi-amping has some advantages in some circumstances and the writer acknowledges that as well.

And in most cases the speakers that use a bi-wiring binding post adds some flat piece of tin between the two for normal wiring. This is not something that should be in the signal path. You can even hear a difference depending on whether you plug into the top or bottom binding posts. Moving it from post to post determines if your highs or lows pass through the tin (gold coated) jumper. Getting that out of the path always sounds better.

Bi-wiring is not voodoo as the writer suggests, but all things being equal you don't gain a performance advantage from two sets of speaker cables over one. You are introducing changes that have effect, but for other reasons.


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## Danny Richie

8. The power conditioner lie.

This one is another complete lie on the part of the writer. And this is one of the easiest of all to hear and notice differences. AC noise and everything else that has attached itself to the miles of power lines terribly contaminates the audio signal and creates an undesirable noise floor. It doesn't matter how good your source gear is. It is not immune to AC noise.

When I'd exhibit at a show (somewhere in a hotel room) the AC noise on the lines are really bad, different from place to place, and at different times of the day. We always have to focus some attention to this problem. Otherwise we have a high noise floor.

Good power conditioning can really drop the noise floor. It can improve the efficiency of power supplies in amps and pre-amps, and improve low level clarity and imaging. Even a good power cable can filter out a lot of garbage and make notable improvements. 

By leaving all settings the same on the gear and making back to back A/B comparisons, using some power conditioners, will show a change in loudness. Yes the system with conditioning actually plays louder without touching a volume control. This is because the transformers operate more efficiently. The noise floor is lower too.

And anyone that has ever listened to one of our displays at a show can easily note the low noise floor compared to other rooms. We have blacker blacks, more clear space between notes, better resolution, and great levels of detail. Other rooms not putting forth as much effort to address this problem clearly do have get the same results.

Again the writer shows a complete lack of experience or just ignorance on this topic. And it is indeed a shame that so many people here taking this poll have bought into the lie perpetuated by the writer.

There are companies that will send out free power conditioners and power cables for a free trail. Get some and try them out. I have even sent some out on a demo tour free of charge just for education and enlightenment. In other words, don't take my word of it. Let me show you.


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## Danny Richie

9. The CD treatment lie.

Wrong again Peter. These things clearly work. Give them a try. Here is a very good one: http://www.affirmaudio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=145&Itemid=124

Can you see just as well through a dirty window as a clean one? That laser is having to read through the plastic disc to get to the bits stored below. And there are things we call read errors.... CD treatments can work very well.

Then again, with a $79 CD/DVD player will you notice the difference. Maybe not. But that doesn't mean CD treatments don't work.


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## Danny Richie

10. The Golden Ear lie.

There is some truth to this in that there are not those that "hear" better than the rest of us. Much like the writer suggests, it is not so much about ability to hear as memory retention and recognition of differences. And there is a lot to be said for one that has "trained ears". If you have experience in listening then you recognize problems quickly and what might be causing them. But anyone can be trained to listen for and understand causes for differences. Setting up a listening room properly is pretty easy if you know what to listen for and understand what to do to change things. So I am with him on this one. I will also add that I rarely hear of such a claim made that certain audiophiles have golden ears. I certainly can't see it being one of the biggest lies in audio. I don't even recall seeing any debates over it.


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## 3dbinCanada

Danny Richie said:


> 1. The cable lie.
> 
> This one shows complete ignorance. There is much more to cables than simple resistance, inductance, and capacitance.


Really? Do you have any qualifications to make that statement? As an electrical engineer, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the three properties you've listed maps a cable completely. 



Danny Richie said:


> All cables have attributes of being an antenna and a filter to some degree. And some lean much more one way than the other. They can pick up EMI and RFI or reject or block it.


Please elaborate on this. You have peeked my curiosity.



Danny Richie said:


> There is also a big difference it type and purity of the wire itself. Think of the signal being placed on the wire like the swinging kinetic balls. See some of them here: Kinetic balls - YouTube Whatever you hit on one side transfers to the other. However, put a bunch of impurities in the wire (low purity Copper) and it will block or disrupt the signal. It would be like sliding a piece of paper between a couple of those swinging balls. So what you get off of the other end is not quite the same as what you hit it with.


I'm afraid to tell you that your kinetic ball model is far from an accurate to describe conduction.



Danny Richie said:


> Different types of speaker wire react differently when the speaker loads change as well.


Speakers are the load and its the amplifier that reacts to the load, not the speaker and not the wire.



Danny Richie said:


> The dielectric material or jacketing also has a big effect on the signal transfer. Differences from PVC, polyethylene, or Teflon all have some effect, and a character to their sound. This is very easily heard.
> 
> Braiding or shielding effects the sounds as well. Braiding will have a filtering effect by canceling out noise. Shielding works very differently, but can have a similar effect sometimes. You can even effect the sound of a cable by adding a Copper sleeve around it like a Z-Sleeve. You can just wrap a little bit of Stillpoints ERS cloth around the end of a cable and clearly alter the sound without changing anything about the way the wire measures. For that matter just twist or braid your speaker cables and notice the difference.


Please elaborate on the principles behind this one. 



Danny Richie said:


> All cables have some effect or a difference in sound compared to cables of a different type or typology. I find it hard to find two that sound alike than to find any that sound different. They all sound a little different. And this is true for speaker cables, interconnect, and power cables.


It behoofs me that cables can rectify the many miles of house wiring that the electronics are plugged into and can miracously clean up all that noise.



Danny Richie said:


> For those of you that really do believe that a coat hanger with the ends scraped off or some 16 gauge lamp cord is just as good as anything else (as per the article), then I have some beach front property I'd like to sell you in Nebraska. Okay that was a little jab and I wasn't going to do that. But really, if you consider the system that the writer likely uses then is there any surprise to his conclusions?


I believe you just purchased the entire coastline of the state :T


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## 3dbinCanada

Danny Richie said:


> 8. The power conditioner lie.
> 
> This one is another complete lie on the part of the writer. And this is one of the easiest of all to hear and notice differences. AC noise and everything else that has attached itself to the miles of power lines terribly contaminates the audio signal and creates an undesirable noise floor. It doesn't matter how good your source gear is. It is not immune to AC noise.
> 
> When I'd exhibit at a show (somewhere in a hotel room) the AC noise on the lines are really bad, different from place to place, and at different times of the day. We always have to focus some attention to this problem. Otherwise we have a high noise floor.


Tell me something, do the electrical components that comprise an am or a CD player run off of AC or DC? 



Danny Richie said:


> Good power conditioning can really drop the noise floor. It can improve the efficiency of power supplies in amps and pre-amps, and improve low level clarity and imaging. Even a good power cable can filter out a lot of garbage and make notable improvements.


That is technically incorrect. Power supply efficiency can't be changed by simply cleaning up the noise. 



Danny Richie said:


> By leaving all settings the same on the gear and making back to back A/B comparisons, using some power conditioners, will show a change in loudness. Yes the system with conditioning actually plays louder without touching a volume control. This is because the transformers operate more efficiently. The noise floor is lower too.


Have you measured the results? I don't believe in subjective perceptions as humans are fraught with inaccuracies in hearing memory and accuracy.



Danny Richie said:


> And anyone that has ever listened to one of our displays at a show can easily note the low noise floor compared to other rooms. We have blacker blacks, more clear space between notes, better resolution, and great levels of detail. Other rooms not putting forth as much effort to address this problem clearly do have get the same results.
> 
> Again the writer shows a complete lack of experience or just ignorance on this topic. And it is indeed a shame that so many people here taking this poll have bought into the lie perpetuated by the writer.
> 
> There are companies that will send out free power conditioners and power cables for a free trail. Get some and try them out. I have even sent some out on a demo tour free of charge just for education and enlightenment. In other words, don't take my word of it. Let me show you.


This is post is typical of sales talk that I warn all my friends about. Its all marketing hype with afew buzzwords thrown in an attempt to make it sound technical. There are so many technical holes in your arguements that the coastline is beginning to erode.


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## Danny Richie

Hey, thanks for responding. I will try to answer some of your questions below each question. 



> Really? Do you have any qualifications to make that statement? As an electrical engineer, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the three properties you've listed maps a cable completely.


Oh, I am just a guy that has been designing loudspeakers for a while. You might look me up. You can see some of the services I offer here: http://gr-research.com/services.aspx And you'll see posted there a few of the awards that I have been given for my loudspeaker design. I think maybe more industry awards than any other company or designer in the last five or six years. 

You can try Googling me if you like. I just did and got 11,600,000 hits. They can't all be me, but the whole first page was full of audio related hits about me. 

There is much more to a cables properties than LCR. That's just the extent of what you can measure with basic tools. 



> Please elaborate on this. You have peeked my curiosity.


About cables being having properties of being an antenna and a filter? 

Simple. Just split them into a T and you have an antenna. Braid them and you have some RFI filtering. That is why braided cables like these are so popular. 












> I'm afraid to tell you that your kinetic ball model is far from an accurate to describe conduction.


I think it gives people a good general idea of how AC current works. Oddly many thing it runs through wire like water through a garden hose. 



> Speakers are the load and its the amplifier that reacts to the load, not the speaker and not the wire.


You better check this data out: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1274851



> Please elaborate on the principles behind this one.


Dielectric materials, shielding, or braiding? 



> It behoofs me that cables can rectify the many miles of house wiring that the electronics are plugged into and can miracously clean up all that noise.


Actually there is no mystery there at all. The cable becomes a filter.


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## Danny Richie

Yes, a lot of gear flips between AC and DC. I even have tube amps, tube pre-amps, a DAC, and a Mac Mini running on a DC source for low noise benefits. Some of that gear converts back to AC...



> That is technically incorrect. Power supply efficiency can't be changed by simply cleaning up the noise.


Actually it can and it is easily demonstrated. You don't even need to use a meter. It is enough to easily hear it. 



> Have you measured the results? I don't believe in subjective perceptions as humans are fraught with inaccuracies in hearing memory and accuracy.


I haven't and felt no need to. When I noticed it with the PI Audio Majik Buss that I was trying out I did contact the manufacturer regarding it and they did confirm that to be the case. 



> This is post is typical of sales talk that I warn all my friends about. Its all marketing hype with afew buzzwords thrown in an attempt to make it sound technical. There are so many technical holes in your arguements that the coastline is beginning to erode.


But I don't sell power conditioning products. I am a loudspeaker designer. And there are no holes in anything I state. I can understand your position to some degree though. These things aren't taught to you in school when you get that EE degree. In fact very little about this industry is taught in school. Acoustics or loudspeaker design is a dying art. Almost none of it is taught in school. Hang in there though, and don't knock the guys that have practical experience in their fields of expertise.


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## chashint

Oh my oh my.... Danny I never expected that.


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## 3dbinCanada

Danny Richie said:


> But I don't sell power conditioning products. I am a loudspeaker designer. And there are no holes in anything I state. I can understand your position to some degree though. These things aren't taught to you in school when you get that EE degree. In fact very little about this industry is taught in school. Acoustics or loudspeaker design is a dying art. Almost none of it is taught in school. Hang in there though, and don't knock the guys that have practical experience in their fields of expertise.


Loudspeaker design is an art in balancing and marrying of some mechanical, acoustical, and electrical principles which I don 't have to tell you. Lots and lots of science which I assume you use on a daily basis. I would like to believe what you have posted but I can't. My training as an EE and the physco acoustical work of Dr Floyd Tool prevents me from buying in. So if your game, lets talk about the cables and the power conditioners and discuss the points that we disagree on. I apologize for the earlier snide remarks but I mirror back what I read. If you are game, I need to see proof of tests done in order to validate it in my mind. I can't accept anything less. I can understand if you find that last remark insulting but its not my intention to be insulting. If what you hold to be true is your subjective gut feel, I can understand it but there will be no point in arguing the subjective. Its like trying to change my mind towards the driving quality of American cars.


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## Danny Richie

3dbinCanada said:


> Loudspeaker design is an art in balancing and marrying of some mechanical, acoustical, and electrical principles which I don 't have to tell you. Lots and lots of science which I assume you use on a daily basis. I would like to believe what you have posted but I can't. My training as an EE and the physco acoustical work of Dr Floyd Tool prevents me from buying in. So if your game, lets talk about the cables and the power conditioners and discuss the points that we disagree on. I apologize for the earlier snide remarks but I mirror back what I read. If you are game, I need to see proof of tests done in order to validate it in my mind. I can't accept anything less. I can understand if you find that last remark insulting but its not my intention to be insulting. If what you hold to be true is your subjective gut feel, I can understand it but there will be no point in arguing the subjective. Its like trying to change my mind towards the driving quality of American cars.


I am not really out to make a "believer" out of you or anyone else. I admit to have developed quite a following of happy customers, but I am not a cult leader. 

But if you love music and in some way I can make that experience even better for you then that's a bonus for you and makes me happy too. 

I did not take your remarks insulting and I hope no one took mine that way either. I am a very honest guy and sometimes that honesty can sound less than tactful from typed words on a page. If you know me then you know how to take me and if you don't then I could be painted in a way that is not really me. So I do make some effort to be a little less as a matter of fact when I can. Still I am from Texas. :bigsmile:

I am game for a talk about cables and power conditioners. 

Like you I will not argue the subjective. What someone hears or does not hear can't be argued. But I won't discount the subjective either. Things often start there. And then the "why" is asked pursued and learned. I have an objective side and all the tools necessary for my job. And I measure everything that I can. 

Some of this craziness involving power cables and conditioners started in 2001 when my friend Dave Elledge showed up at GR Research and dropped one of his power cables into my system. And then another one... I was stunned. :yikes: How was that possible? I didn't need a double blind test with a panel of college students to recognize what just happened. It was very obvious. Then another level of learning began. I should ask him if he'd like to join in on this chat. He is way more of an expert in this area than I and fun to have around.

Then I tried one of Gary Dodd's balanced power supplies. Oh boy. He became a good friend too. 

I then made a bunch of various cables just for fun and learning... Now all these years later doing this day in and day out and I my experiences have lead me to where I am now.

So you don't like the ride of American cars. Do I have to change that too? Come on down and we'll go for a ride or two.


----------



## dBe

I have been watching this thread for a while. A whirling dervish of visiting family and some life experiences has kept me from responding until ... uhm... almost now. We have a couple of things to do this morning, but I'll be back to add my $1.98 later today.

A preview: This ALWAYS happens when someone opens the Grand High Audio god's "10 biggest Lies in Audio" topic...

Stay tuned.

**************************************************************************************************************************************

OK, oldest daughter and family are headed back to Portland, had a good morning at the range, so here we go.

This will not be too lengthy as I will weigh in in each of the individual threads as I see fit. I do need to add that i generally disagree with all of the "lies" except for #7 - Biwiring. While it can be beneficial on rare occasions to individually voice each driver, (talk about 'wire', here). mostly it is more of a pain than a boon.

Audio is much like everything else in life where making categorical pronouncements will get the mouth in charge into more trouble than not. Best to stay away from absolutes in efforts by human beings and leave those to the realm of divinity, methinks.

People are wrong, everyone.... at least some of the time. Making the blanket statement, especially as made by Peter Aczel, is simply ignorant. Ask anyone in the semiconductor industry if wire is wire. Not only that, but they will tell you that the orientation of the conductor (direction) is absolutely critical to signal flow. There is a reason why most implant (PHI) is done at the "critical immersion angle"...Way too esoteric for this discussion, but it has a bearing (inadvertent pun) on this discussion. More about wire, later.

Engineers come in several flavors: Practical, design and research to name three. Each one operates in his or her own universe of experience. Doesn't make on smarter depending upon their application, but is relevant because of their sphere of experience or empiricism.

Audiophhols like us come in a wide variety of flavors, too. I'll limit my discussion to just a few because I have a job and I'm not an audio journalist. Besides, I rarely trust "journalists" anymore, but that is a topic definitely not for HTS. Let's just deal with the oblivious (sometimes a newbie, often not), the content, the argumentative, the inquisitive and the wacko. Most of us a some degree of all of these types depending upon their schtick in audio. I operate freely in all of these regimens depending upon the phase of the moon, my bias current and my I/O derivative. People are boring when they are all in one camp. Too placid or zen for me.

I am one of the few people in this thread that ever met Mr. Aczel. I will refrain from comments about him other than to use his own words. He was an audio curmudgeon... on a good day.

I said this would be short... uhm, I was wrong. See how easy that is: I was wrong.

In my posts to come I will try to be as concise as possible And try very hard not to be an argumentative jerk. If I do, I apologize in advance and feel free to rein me in. Arguing is a worthless occupation unless one wants to go into some professions that elude all reason to me. I will tell you all this: I do not suffer agendas born out of a lack of experience easily; I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you; I aim before I shoot; and we all tend to mock what we do not understand.

I'll be back later. It is time to make the donuts.

Dave


----------



## lcaillo

I hear just as many assumptions about what is not possible in terms of effects of cables etc as I do with respect to differences. With all due respect, Danny, I hear lots of personal experience from you that you suggest supports effects that are not well explained within our understanding of physics and electrical theory. Similarly, our friends on the engineering side of things seem to oversimplify and make just as bold assumptions that they understand all of the variables and interactions involved.

It can be demonstrated easily that there are differences in cables, as the article Danny linked shows, but whether these effects are as significant as portrayed by many believers in the audio business is doubtful. There is clearly benefit to the high end industry to exaggerating the differences and leading people to believe that they are substantial to their experience of music reproduced through expensive systems. That much of the difference is due to expectation bias is almost certain. What remains to be done is to quantify effects and map those effects onto perception and qualify what can be actually distinguished with the many variables that affect this ability. It has not happened to the satisfaction of many of us.


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## dBe

pharoah said:


> a major problem with alot of net based info.there is alot of fud with no fact checking.


What kind of fact checking do you propose? Purely scientific methodology or repeatable empiricism?

Legitimate question. Are the senses trustworthy when everything comes to push and shove?.

Dave


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## lcaillo

This debate often goes bad because the sides are often not asking the same question. For many, that they perceive a difference is enough to justify what they believe about how something sounds. It does not need to be checked with scientific methodology. for others, even if they perceive a change, they want to know why and whether it was due to actual changes in the sound or psychological factors. The former are after an experience and are willing to not ask questions at that level. The latter are after experience as well but have to understand it. Then there are busy bodies that are out to force others to justify every belief. Debating, discussing, and disagreement are OK, just remember to be respectful. Nothing else will be tolerated here. That is not directed at any one person, just a reminder that this is a contentious subject and that we will maintain civil discourse at HTS.


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## NotBananas

Isn't the whole purpose of any music reproduction is to come as close to a live performance as possible?

Why aren't we comparing everything to live performance? Oh, I forgot! Most likely 90% of us has never heard live performance of acoustic music or the piece we are listening to performed live. Comparing one set of equipment to another without referencing either to live music is futile.

How can anyone state that his magic elixir, be it cables, tube rings, etc., makes it sound more real, without ever listening to the original live performance of the piece being played? 

Obviously any live performance, other than pure acoustic performance of acoustic instruments without the aid of electronics (mike, reverb, amps, speakers, etc.), is also invalid, since the electronics that was used to record the performance affect the resulting sound. In this case, how do you know when you reached Nirvana (not the group) and you have reproduced the original performance sound?

Back in my formative years (early '60s) when I heard my first mono tube amp, I thought it sounded fantastic. Then I started to attend live concerts and wanted to ask the conductor if he can turn up the volume and increase the bass, because it didn't sound as good as my system.

My point being, what are we comparing it with? Live music or one set of equipment with another?


----------



## Tonto

I disagreed with the listening test lie. While many listening test are conducted poorly, when done correctly it allows for one to compare two or more models. And after all, I've always felt that we should buy what we like & not what others like. Just need to be aware that comparisons need to be set up correctly.


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## dBe

lcaillo said:


> This debate often goes bad because the sides are often not asking the same question. For many, that they perceive a difference is enough to justify what they believe about how something sounds. It does not need to be checked with scientific methodology. for others, even if they perceive a change, they want to know why and whether it was due to actual changes in the sound or psychological factors. The former are after an experience and are willing to not ask questions at that level. The latter are after experience as well but have to understand it. Then there are busy bodies that are out to force others to justify every belief. Debating, discussing, and disagreement are OK, just remember to be respectful. Nothing else will be tolerated here. That is not directed at any one person, just a reminder that this is a contentious subject and that we will maintain civil discourse at HTS.


A perfect response to the topic. I've been doing the audio thing for longer than I want to admit and I know that I don't know a lot about this topic. The man singularly responsible for my transformation from a staunch objectivist to a fascinated subjectivist was a theoretical physicist at Los Alamos National Labs. I got my first " better" capacitors from him. I objected and he looked me squarely in the eyes and said "Dave, we understand the whys and how's of many things in physics. Seldom do we understand the why and the how of individual aspects of physics." Of course this was many years ago and our knowledge base is expanding at a base 2 rate. Still, there are things that elude us. Human perception is one - the arrogance of man as a species is another.

A few things that need to be remembered about the listening experience:

It is wholly a perceptual experience based upon individual preference, i.e. bias.

Perception is wholly an individual experience with the emphasis upon experience.

Every person hears differently due to individual ear structure and HRTF.

Different is only different. Better is better. As always, YMMV

Dave


----------



## lcaillo

NotBananas said:


> Isn't the whole purpose of any music reproduction is to come as close to a live performance as possible?


I don't agree with that premise. I think the purpose is to give people pleasure mostly. But for different people there are different purposes and priorities. That is why there are so many perspectives on these "lies".


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## dBe

NotBananas said:


> Isn't the whole purpose of any music reproduction is to come as close to a live performance as possible?
> 
> Why aren't we comparing everything to live performance? Oh, I forgot! Most likely 90% of us has never heard live performance of acoustic music or the piece we are listening to performed live. Comparing one set of equipment to another without referencing either to live music is futile.
> 
> How can anyone state that his magic elixir, be it cables, tube rings, etc., makes it sound more real, without ever listening to the original live performance of the piece being played?
> 
> Back in my formative years (early '60s) when I heard my first mono tube amp, I thought it sounded fantastic. Then I started to attend live concerts and wanted to ask the conductor if he can turn up the volume and increase the bass, because it didn't sound as good as my system.
> 
> My point being, what are we comparing it with? Live music or one set of equipment with another?


i think you make a couple of questionable assumptions. One of which is that 90% of us have never hears a live performance. I think this has to do with your assumption of orchestral music being "live performance" as YOUR reference. Every perceived sound is live performance. The birdsong in the morning is live performance. A passel of rowdy kids singing Happy Bithday is live performance. Only the scale of performance and the venues are different.

The Telarc recording of the 1812 Overture reproducing the body of the music on a loudspeaker with 87dB sensitivity at an average listening level of 2 watts requires 10,000 watts instantaneously to "accurately" reproduce the power envelope of the cannon. That is why I prefer high sensitivity loudspeakers. 

I was on the recording team that had the contract to record the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra years ago. Popejoy Hall was so bad that we used microphones throughout the orchestra to help even out the performance so that the performance all through the house was acceptable. Thes mids, known as "specials" in an orchestral context are used in most halls. They are used not only for recording purposes, but through the sound reinforcement system to attain venue balance. They are found in most symphonic venues to assist in sense of scale for full versus partially filled space. So your orchestral live performance may or may have not been artificially augmented.

Conversely, during Jeff Beck's tour with SRV in 1990 Gayle and I were seated in row 4 right in front of Terry Bozzio. The left stack was to our left about 15' away. Bozzio's concert opening kick drum stroke was a visceral experience I would prefer not to experience again. It is amazing how such air 8 McCauley 18"s in horn loaded enclosures can move with 30KW of power per side can move. We always take ear plugs to concerts JIK.

Dave


----------



## gdstupak

dBe said:


> i think you make a couple of questionable assumptions. One of which is that 90% of us have never hears a live performance.
> Dave


I don't think NotBananas was meaning that 90% of us have not heard a live performance. I wonder if he is meaning that most of us have not heard the same performance live and recorded. Such as that Jeff Beck concert you attended. You got to experience that performance live, then if you could play that same recorded performance through different playback systems and listen for which system comes closest to the live event. Of course it goes without saying that the quality of the recording plays a major role in this.


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## dBe

gdstupak said:


> I don't think NotBananas was meaning that 90% of us have not heard a live performance. I wonder if he is meaning that most of us have not heard the same performance live and recorded. Such as that Jeff Beck concert you attended. You got to experience that performance live, then if you could play that same recorded performance through different playback systems and listen for which system comes closest to the live event. Of course it goes without saying that the quality of the recording plays a major role in this.


I think he was talking about both examples. That is why I referenced the opening live kick drum in the Jeff Beck song "Guitar Shop". However, his primary reference was to live symphonic music. That was the main thrust of my reply. I hope he responds.

Dave


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## dBe

Danny Richie said:


> 1. The cable lie.
> 
> This one shows complete ignorance. There is much more to cables than simple resistance, inductance, and capacitance.


I will never forget the look on your face the night we met and I changed your world. lddude:


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## Almadacr

I could really tell about what i found a lie or not but after seeing someone defending that there's " There is much more to cables than simple resistance, inductance, and capacitance. " and that user name having the " Sponsor " all over it ... i might believe that Santa really exists .


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## dBe

Almadacr said:


> I could really tell about what i found a lie or not but after seeing someone defending that there's " There is much more to cables than simple resistance, inductance, and capacitance. " and that user name having the " Sponsor " all over it ... i might believe that Santa really exists .


Oh, good grief! Do you think that a person that does not believe/know this to be true would have a company building cables?

The reason that there is "Sponsor" on his post is because he (and I, for whatever it is worth) has built a business that relies on customer satisfaction to survive.

I can't speak for Danny. I can tell you that I have built a company selling proprietary power conditioners that took me years to develop. I also sell power cables, some of which are very expensive. My products have a Lifetime Warranty and a 30 Day Unconditional 100% Moneyback Return Policy. My TOTAL product return percentage is less than 0.4%. What does that tell you? Are hundreds of satisfied customers completely daft?

One of the reasons that sites like HTS exist is due to the sponsorship and donations from small business men like Danny and me. This gives everyone a chance to share experiences or merely have an opinion.


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## Almadacr

dBe said:


> Oh, good grief! Do you think that a person that does not believe/know this to be true would have a company building cables?
> 
> The reason that there is "Sponsor" on his post is because he (and I, for whatever it is worth) has built a business that relies on customer satisfaction to survive.
> 
> I can't speak for Danny. I can tell you that I have built a company selling proprietary power conditioners that took me years to develop. I also sell power cables, some of which are very expensive. My products have a Lifetime Warranty and a 30 Day Unconditional 100% Moneyback Return Policy. My TOTAL product return percentage is less than 0.4%. What does that tell you? Are hundreds of satisfied customers completely daft?
> 
> One of the reasons that sites like HTS exist is due to the sponsorship and donations from small business men like Danny and me. This gives everyone a chance to share experiences or merely have an opinion.


You know .. you just have lost your argument by stating " I also sell power cables, some of which are very expensive " sorry to tell you but this is the same marketing line has Bose or Monster Cables . It's funny that you bring the " One of the reasons that sites like HTS exist is due to the sponsorship and donations " Let me ask you the other way around would your company existed without marketing ? Big companies invest today more in marketing that they invest in product development but i can understand this since its simple economics .

Now i ask you ... are the costumers that buy truth Monoprice or Blue Jeans Cable wrong ? It's up to us as consumers to decide what's best for us and that will work ( BTW i never bought nothing on Monoprice or Blue Jeans but i know a lot of guys that did it and are very happy with it ) , if your product return is less than 0.4% good for you .

I do believe that are company's that build better cables or power cables but that they will have a influence how the sound or the power reaches from point A to B ..... no . 

As guitar player and being around recording studios i can only give you my experience and has i read somewhere around this same tread can confirm this . In a studio all the cables used will always be the same we just want them to last since they can be dragged around stepped on it pulled and so on . the same cable will be used to last not because they sound " better " but because they last and i can tell you that they don't cost a harm and leg, in a recording studio wile recording instruments or voice the only thing that will be changed are the ..... instruments ( depending on the artists ) and .... microphones . 

The thing is ... the so called audiophile world will always believe in what they want to believe they really need a reality check in what was done with the HDMI cables . When presented with blind test's they contest the test's itself has flaws :scratch: . 

My opinion is ... if someone want's to improve the sound they should invest more in room treatment rater than cables .


----------



## NotBananas

Yes folks, I was referring to listening to a live symphonic performance and comparing it to the recorded version of the same performance. I did this many years ago in Lincoln Center in NYC when Leonard Bernstein was the conductor. It really opened my eyes to what reproduced music should sound like. My ultimate objective since then was to try to have reproduced music sound like live.

Listening to live music at a rock concert and trying to reproduce that experience at home is almost impossible, because unless you have the same equipment as the performers, you can never reproduce the same sound. Nor do I want to in my house to have dozens of power amps producing 10,000 watts RMS and a dozen folded horn or bass reflex speakers.

So, my question is still, are we trying to reproduce music as it was originally performed, or to make is sound "good" to our ears.


----------



## 3dbinCanada

NotBananas said:


> Yes folks, I was referring to listening to a live symphonic performance and comparing it to the recorded version of the same performance. I did this many years ago in Lincoln Center in NYC when Leonard Bernstein was the conductor. It really opened my eyes to what reproduced music should sound like. My ultimate objective since then was to try to have reproduced music sound like live.
> 
> Listening to live music at a rock concert and trying to reproduce that experience at home is almost impossible, because unless you have the same equipment as the performers, you can never reproduce the same sound. Nor do I want to in my house to have dozens of power amps producing 10,000 watts RMS and a dozen folded horn or bass reflex speakers.
> 
> So, my question is still, are we trying to reproduce music as it was originally performed, or to make is sound "good" to our ears.


I would say the latter because its extremely difficult to reproduce the acoustic properties of a venu in our listening space.


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## 3dbinCanada

dBe said:


> I will never forget the look on your face the night we met and I changed your world. lddude:



Are people aware that the wire connecting the semiconductor to the lead of power transistors is a single piece of wire, no thicker than one's hair. What magical qualities could speaker wire posses that would could clean up the signal coming from the lead of the power transistor? IHO, I think that sight bias is far more influential in what a person hears than the ears themselves. To eliminate any sight bias, a SBT test is all that's need to eliminate sight bias but so many audiophiles "poo-poo" this test. Fact is, if one cannot reliably pick the same result from repeated blind tests but can when sighted, then we have proof positive how much sight influences what one hears. The math is complete in describing the propagation properties of cables/interconnects. What is also complete is the inability for people to consistently choose the same result in a blind listening test.


----------



## dBe

Almadacr said:


> You know .. you just have lost your argument by stating " I also sell power cables, some of which are very expensive " sorry to tell you but this is the same marketing line has Bose or Monster Cables . It's funny that you bring the " One of the reasons that sites like HTS exist is due to the sponsorship and donations " Let me ask you the other way around would your company existed without marketing ? Big companies invest today more in marketing that they invest in product development but i can understand this since its simple economics .
> 
> Now i ask you ... are the costumers that buy truth Monoprice or Blue Jeans Cable wrong ? It's up to us as consumers to decide what's best for us and that will work ( BTW i never bought nothing on Monoprice or Blue Jeans but i know a lot of guys that did it and are very happy with it ) , if your product return is less than 0.4% good for you .
> 
> I do believe that are company's that build better cables or power cables but that they will have a influence how the sound or the power reaches from point A to B ..... no .
> 
> As guitar player and being around recording studios i can only give you my experience and has i read somewhere around this same tread can confirm this . In a studio all the cables used will always be the same we just want them to last since they can be dragged around stepped on it pulled and so on . the same cable will be used to last not because they sound " better " but because they last and i can tell you that they don't cost a harm and leg, in a recording studio wile recording instruments or voice the only thing that will be changed are the ..... instruments ( depending on the artists ) and .... microphones .
> 
> The thing is ... the so called audiophile world will always believe in what they want to believe they really need a reality check in what was done with the HDMI cables . When presented with blind test's they contest the test's itself has flaws :scratch: .
> 
> My opinion is ... if someone want's to improve the sound they should invest more in room treatment rater than cables .


Ahhh, yes: the evil businessman - I eat babies, too :unbelievable:

All of my marketing is done by word of mouth

Belief systems are self perpetuating. Empiricism is the qualifier and/or quantifier.

There is no wrong choice when it comes to an individual's preferences. I have a Blue Jeans digital cable that is a very competent cable.

*"if your product return is less than 0.4% good for you ."* A thinly veiled question to my integrity, eh? Too bad. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is true.

My first trip to the studio was at age 15 in Norman Petty's Clovis, NM studio (my home town). Norman was my Godfather. 

http://www.santafecenterstudios.com/ One of the recording studios that I designed back in the mid '90s. Grammy winner, Dove winner, Addy winner, home of many movie soundtracks and , oh, yes: Breaking Bad, etc, etc. I'll go on record as to hating the color scheme -. It is way too Santa Fe for me. The entire space was designed by me. All of the diffusers absorbent panels room configurations and geometries are mine and copyrighted There is 3.5 miles of technical wiring in the studio. Most of it is Mogami (high conductivity OFC copper, spiral shield) chosen for its SOUND - Whirlwind, Belden, Carol and Canare didn't cut it. 

All of the mic cables are cryogenically treated cables, each chosen specifically for its' task. Most of the gear has been modified for better SQ... a lot of it by yours truly. I have 35 years experience behind a mixing or mastering desk. I get it. Perhaps you and I can have a meaningful discussion of side chained trigger frequency dependent delay panning someday.

I'm not explaining this in a "mine's bigger" context, but as a note that there are people with years of real world EXPERIENCE that know some things to be true because our livelihoods depend upon those realities and the product is better for their use. 

If you want a mic cable for live - it is hard to beat Canare... bulletproof.

I build my own guitar cables. Go figure..........


----------



## dBe

3dbinCanada said:


> Are people aware that the wire connecting the semiconductor to the lead of power transistors is a single piece of wire, no thicker than one's hair. What magical qualities could speaker wire posses that would could clean up the signal coming from the lead of the power transistor? IHO, I think that sight bias is far more influential in what a person hears than the ears themselves. To eliminate any sight bias, a SBT test is all that's need to eliminate sight bias but so many audiophiles "poo-poo" this test. Fact is, if one cannot reliably pick the same result from repeated blind tests but can when sighted, then we have proof positive how much sight influences what one hears. The math is complete in describing the propagation properties of cables/interconnects. What is also complete is the inability for people to consistently choose the same result in a blind listening test.


"Are people aware that the wire connecting the semiconductor to the lead of power transistors is a single piece of wire, no thicker than one's hair." Much smaller than that these days. New technology is 12 angstroms or better.

"What is also complete is the inability for people to consistently choose the same result in a blind listening test." Depends upon the person and the test.


----------



## 3dbinCanada

dBe said:


> "Are people aware that the wire connecting the semiconductor to the lead of power transistors is a single piece of wire, no thicker than one's hair." Much smaller than that these days. New technology is 12 angstroms or better.
> 
> "What is also complete is the inability for people to consistently choose the same result in a blind listening test." Depends upon the person and the test.


Level matched simply switching between speaker wires or interconnects of identical length with the listener not being able to see whuch speaker wire or interconnect is selected.


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## dBe

3dbinCanada said:


> Level matched simply switching between speaker wires or interconnects of identical length with the listener not being able to see whuch speaker wire or interconnect is selected.


Do it all of the time. How do you think we arrive at products that are better? I have a focus group of brutally honest people as my goto bunch. Identification has to be 100% concurrance with better than 80% accuracy on 3 or more separate sessions to avoid fatigue and boredom. Sighted tests are worthless for this type of testing.


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## Danny Richie

dBe said:


> I will never forget the look on your face the night we met and I changed your world. lddude:


Yeah, I didn't expect what happened. I had no reason to believe anything would happened, but trusted you that there must be some difference to you anyway. 

We swapped out one power cable on my 30 watt pure class A stereo amp. It was some super cryo'ed 14 gauge cable with some special voodoo for all I knew. 

The difference was apparent and immediate. I didn't need a back and forth to decide if there was a difference or not. It was like I had been listening to a cassette tape player and you just hooked up a CD player. The bass was deeper and much more solid. Vocal ranges improved. Clarity improved. The whole thing sounded cleaner. And I was stunned at the difference in bass impact. 

Then you swapped in a 12 gauge version. I was expecting more of the same and thought the bass might improve even more. The surprise this time wasn't in the bass region. The bass was the same. It was in the mid-range where things got better. The vocal range was clearer. 

Yep, I was stunned. And thus the beginning of a journey, and over a decade now of an education into the effects cables can have in the system.


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## 3dbinCanada

dBe said:


> Do it all of the time. How do you think we arrive at products that are better?


I'm not sure that you do  . I apologize for my skeptism and it should not be taken as an insult. I'm trying to figure out how your group embarks on product improvement when its claimed that there is more than LCR properties.


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## dBe

3dbinCanada said:


> I'm not sure that you do  . I apologize for my skeptism and it should not be taken as an insult. I'm trying to figure out how your group embarks on product improvement when its claimed that there is more than LCR properties.


How rude. The green smiley doesn't make up for your implication.

Like I said in another post. I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you. I will make one pass at this for you and then I am done.

First, we have to differentiate the differences between wire, cable and audio interconnects and power cables.

Wire:Noun - Metal drawn out into the form of a thin flexible thread or rod. 

Cable - Noun - An insulated electrical conductor, often in strands, or a combination of electrical conductors insulated from one another

Audio Interconnect - A system of connectors, wire, and insulation that connects two devices for broadband transmission of a low current, low voltage signal - this also includes data transmission. DT is a much more involved process with different wire parameters needed, especially in the context of insulation.

Power cable - A system of connectors, wire, and insulation that connects two devices for narrowband transmission of high current and moderate voltage fixed frequency alternating current power.

LCR is the driving force in audio cable design, no doubt. I include power cables in this group for purposes of discussion. By definition every audio cable is a filter with the characteristic impedance determined by LCR. In addition it is a system of materials, geometries and terminations. Sidebar [The sound of poorly terminated connections is a major source of noise in recording studio applications.] 

SQ in cabling is a strange animal. To put it as succinctly as possible: everything effects everything else. The minor players are: dielectrics, conductor purity, crystalline structure of the conductor and termination type. A cold weld is the best possible connection. Solders are basically metal glues. Corrosion of any sort is the enemy. Cleanliness is godliness in audio.

A cable designer takes all of this and puts in the blender that is the brain, adds a pinch of experience, applies solid engineering practices and ends up with a cable that SOUNDS different from another cable using the same materials. "How can that be?' - you may ask. Try it for yourself. Do the work. Do the materials and process research and you will then know. It is not a simple task. The product is the result of an inquisitive mind wondering why and how.

Why are there still research engineers? How do they do what they do?


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## Danny Richie

Okay, I am pretty sure this was directed at me. 



Almadacr said:


> I could really tell about what i found a lie or not but after seeing someone defending that there's " There is much more to cables than simple resistance, inductance, and capacitance. " and that user name having the " Sponsor " all over it ... i might believe that Santa really exists .


And this was directed at Dave...



Almadacr said:


> You know .. you just have lost your argument by stating " I also sell power cables, some of which are very expensive " sorry to tell you but this is the same marketing line has Bose or Monster Cables.


Most of you don't know either of us very well so please let me share a few things with you. 

Let me start with something about Dave. Dave is the kind of guy that would like to show you something really cool, because it's really cool to him, and he wants you to see or hear it too. Maybe you can't afford what he has to show you. That's okay. He still wants to show you. And if you like something he does and want to buy it then that's cool too. He is not a salesman and is not here to make a sale of cables or something. But if he can share something with you that makes what you love sound better, then it's worth it for him. I know this about him. I have known him for nearly 15 years. 

I am the same way. If I can just get a few of you to be open minded and give something a shot, then you might just be really happy with the outcome. I get nothing out of coming into a thread and telling someone they're wrong. I am not that kind of guy. There is no joy in an argument for me. But it is worth it if I can make your system sound better. 

Here is an example. Dave sent me a new conditioner that he was working on. It was a new product or soon to be new product. It was a power conditioner that he called the Majik Buss. What it did was incredible. I loved it. And in the world of high end audio it was very inexpensive for what it did. It was WELL worth the money. I also thought that this was something my customers would be interested in trying. So I bought ten of them from Dave. And even though I don't do power conditioning or offer any products like that, I put it on my web site. You can see it here: http://gr-research.com/majikbuss.aspx

I then contacted my friends at Electra Cable (they are just down the road) and ordered 10 of their best B-7 power cables in a 4 foot length. See them here: http://www.electracable.com/powercables.htm

I then sent out (free of charge) a Majik Buss and a power cable to anyone that wanted to try them. I posted it in my forum at the Audio Circle and let people know they could try them out. If they wanted to keep them I'd sell it to them and if not I had them send them to someone else waiting to give them a try. The two together listed for $924. For what they did, that was cheap. And if anyone wanted to keep them I discounted them down to $795. I got a little bit of a break on the Majik Busses from Dave and I got a little bit of a break on the power cables. So I passed it on. I wasn't looking to make money on them. I made very little if anything especially considering the time I spent with it. However, it allowed some people that were somewhat skeptical to find out for themselves if there was anything to this stuff or not. And not to any surprise it was quite clear to all that there was indeed quite a bit to all of this. 

Now I am not suggesting that someone with less than $1000 in their whole home theater system is going to notice a huge difference with better power cables and AC conditioning. They likely might notice some difference, but might not. And it would be silly to spend more on cables and conditioning than in all the rest of your system. I would never suggest that. But if you are trying to reach audio nirvana then you need to consider this stuff. The differences become more apparent as the quality of the system goes up. 

In short, I will do just about anything to allow someone to see the light (in more ways than one). And Dave is exactly the same. 

Find out why for yourselves.


----------



## dBe

Danny Richie said:


> Okay, I am pretty sure this was directed at me.
> 
> 
> 
> And this was directed at Dave...
> 
> 
> 
> Most of you don't know either of us very well so please let me share a few things with you.
> 
> Let me start with something about Dave. Dave is the kind of guy that would like to show you something really cool, because it's really cool to him, and he wants you to see or hear it too. Maybe you can't afford what he has to show you. That's okay. He still wants to show you. And if you like something he does and want to buy it then that's cool too. He is not a salesman and is not here to make a sale of cables or something. But if he can share something with you that makes what you love sound better, then it's worth it for him. I know this about him. I have known him for nearly 15 years.
> 
> I am the same way. If I can just get a few of you to be open minded and give something a shot, then you might just be really happy with the outcome. I get nothing out of coming into a thread and telling someone they're wrong. I am not that kind of guy. There is no joy in an argument for me. But it is worth it if I can make your system sound better.
> 
> Here is an example. Dave sent me a new conditioner that he was working on. It was a new product or soon to be new product. It was a power conditioner that he called the Majik Buss. What it did was incredible. I loved it. And in the world of high end audio it was very inexpensive for what it did. It was WELL worth the money. I also thought that this was something my customers would be interested in trying. So I bought ten of them from Dave. And even though I don't do power conditioning or offer any products like that, I put it on my web site. You can see it here: http://gr-research.com/majikbuss.aspx
> 
> I then contacted my friends at Electra Cable (they are just down the road) and ordered 10 of their best B-7 power cables in a 4 foot length. See them here: http://www.electracable.com/powercables.htm
> 
> I then sent out (free of charge) a Majik Buss and a power cable to anyone that wanted to try them. I posted it in my forum at the Audio Circle and let people know they could try them out. If they wanted to keep them I'd sell it to them and if not I had them send them to someone else waiting to give them a try. The two together listed for $924. For what they did, that was cheap. And if anyone wanted to keep them I discounted them down to $795. I got a little bit of a break on the Majik Busses from Dave and I got a little bit of a break on the power cables. So I passed it on. I wasn't looking to make money on them. I made very little if anything especially considering the time I spent with it. However, it allowed some people that were somewhat skeptical to find out for themselves if there was anything to this stuff or not. And not to any surprise it was quite clear to all that there was indeed quite a bit to all of this.
> 
> Now I am not suggesting that someone with less than $1000 in their whole home theater system is going to notice a huge difference with better power cables and AC conditioning. They likely might notice some difference, but might not. And it would be silly to spend more on cables and conditioning than in all the rest of your system. I would never suggest that. But if you are trying to reach audio nirvana then you need to consider this stuff. The differences become more apparent as the quality of the system goes up.
> 
> In short, I will do just about anything to allow someone to see the light (in more ways than one). And Dave is exactly the same.
> 
> Find out why for yourselves.


 onder: I guess I should have talked to you before I did this:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/av-home-theater/68846-interest-satisfying-discussion.html

heh, heh


----------



## Almadacr

*Spoiler* 





dBe said:


> Ahhh, yes: the evil businessman - I eat babies, too :unbelievable:
> 
> All of my marketing is done by word of mouth
> 
> Belief systems are self perpetuating. Empiricism is the qualifier and/or quantifier.
> 
> There is no wrong choice when it comes to an individual's preferences. I have a Blue Jeans digital cable that is a very competent cable.
> 
> *"if your product return is less than 0.4% good for you ."* A thinly veiled question to my integrity, eh? Too bad. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it is true.
> 
> My first trip to the studio was at age 15 in Norman Petty's Clovis, NM studio (my home town). Norman was my Godfather.
> 
> http://www.santafecenterstudios.com/ One of the recording studios that I designed back in the mid '90s. Grammy winner, Dove winner, Addy winner, home of many movie soundtracks and , oh, yes: Breaking Bad, etc, etc. I'll go on record as to hating the color scheme -. It is way too Santa Fe for me. The entire space was designed by me. All of the diffusers absorbent panels room configurations and geometries are mine and copyrighted There is 3.5 miles of technical wiring in the studio. Most of it is Mogami (high conductivity OFC copper, spiral shield) chosen for its SOUND - Whirlwind, Belden, Carol and Canare didn't cut it.
> 
> All of the mic cables are cryogenically treated cables, each chosen specifically for its' task. Most of the gear has been modified for better SQ... a lot of it by yours truly. I have 35 years experience behind a mixing or mastering desk. I get it. Perhaps you and I can have a meaningful discussion of side chained trigger frequency dependent delay panning someday.
> 
> I'm not explaining this in a "mine's bigger" context, but as a note that there are people with years of real world EXPERIENCE that know some things to be true because our livelihoods depend upon those realities and the product is better for their use.
> 
> If you want a mic cable for live - it is hard to beat Canare... bulletproof.
> 
> I build my own guitar cables. Go figure..........





I guess we don't know what we are talking about and we are wrong even this guys are wrong ... go figure :unbelievable:


----------



## dBe

Almadacr said:


> *Spoiler*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I guess we don't know what we are talking about and we are wrong even this guys are wrong ... go figure :unbelievable:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ


Whatever.

I'm tired, this is a circular discussion (?) and I have a lot of work to do.

See this: http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/av-home-theater/68846-interest-satisfying-discussion.html


----------



## PC509

Danny Richie said:


> Let me start with something about Dave. Dave is the kind of guy that would like to show you something really cool, because it's really cool to him, and he wants you to see or hear it too. Maybe you can't afford what he has to show you. That's okay. He still wants to show you. And if you like something he does and want to buy it then that's cool too. He is not a salesman and is not here to make a sale of cables or something. But if he can share something with you that makes what you love sound better, then it's worth it for him. I know this about him. I have known him for nearly 15 years.
> 
> I am the same way. If I can just get a few of you to be open minded and give something a shot, then you might just be really happy with the outcome. I get nothing out of coming into a thread and telling someone they're wrong. I am not that kind of guy. There is no joy in an argument for me. But it is worth it if I can make your system sound better.


And you debunked another big lie in audio - people will show off stuff in their own environment to con you into paying a fortune for something that you don't need. A lot of us (most?) love to show things and get excited over those things. It's not work - it's fun. For me, it's with computers. I love showing off computer stuff and graphics and cool things. I also do computer work for a living. It's fun, and I don't consider it work. That's how you guys sound - enjoy the hobby so much and you get to work with it for a living. After some big-box stores, and some smaller shops, I get the impression that most people are in it for the $$, not because they love doing what they do. Thanks for showing that not everyone is like that. 

I always like the guys that say "Come check this out. It's new and awesome!" and never ask for the sale. They are showing how cool the new toys are... I guess a better word would be sharing. We're all in this hobby because we love it. We love talking about it (or arguing!), checking out the new stuff, and watching movies and listening to music. If I had the newest, coolest thing, or just something awesome, I'd definitely share it with anyone remotely interested! 

A bit more on topic - with cables and such, I'm a bit of a skeptic. They do matter up to a point. After that point, it's either a difference when using a spectrum analyzer or psychological (I WANT to hear a difference, but is there really a difference?). So, as it's my system, if I can't hear a noticeable difference, I may not go for it. Other people might hear a difference, but they aren't in my room listening to my system. I want the best, but eventually I'll hit the point of diminishing returns. Whether that is at a 14 gauge gold plated, twisted pair cable or a $20 vs $200 HDMI cable, I'm not sure.


----------



## lcaillo

There is nothing wrong with being passionate about what you experience and showing off cool technology and toys. Whether much of the audio industry is more like a jeweler or art aficionado showing off things some think are fantastic, even essential to have or showing off a unique application of technology that not only enhances experience but can be demonstrated to be well grounded in science is the question. For many, the former is enough. For others there needs to be some solid science to justify expense. Where most of the latter get frustrated is with those who claim a scientific basis but only present a superficial analysis and lip service to the scientific method. Similarly, the need for such justification seems silly to those whose experience is the only evidence needed.

Experience is not a concrete and easily definable quantity, but for many it is all that is needed. There is no reason that the two need to be juxtaposed in conflict, however. They can coexist easily if one respects the views and the right of others to hold those views. Both perspectives have much to learn from the other. The way the debates are generally framed, e.g. the very premise of this thread, the notion of "lies" and whether they might be "debunked" and statements like "This one shows complete ignorance" simply serve to enhance conflict rather than expand knowledge.


----------



## Danny Richie

> A bit more on topic - with cables and such, I'm a bit of a skeptic. They do matter up to a point. After that point, it's either a difference when using a spectrum analyzer or psychological (I WANT to hear a difference, but is there really a difference?).


Psychological expectations work both ways. Sometimes I don't expect to hear a difference and then I do. Sometimes I want whatever I just tried to do what I expected and it doesn't. I am always a little skeptical about some tweaks but try to remain open minded. Sometimes I am surprised. 



> So, as it's my system, if I can't hear a noticeable difference, I may not go for it. Other people might hear a difference, but they aren't in my room listening to my system. I want the best, but eventually I'll hit the point of diminishing returns. Whether that is at a 14 gauge gold plated, twisted pair cable or a $20 vs $200 HDMI cable, I'm not sure.


Hey man, we are all like that. Sometimes the gain just isn't worth the cost.


----------



## Danny Richie

Almadacr said:


> *Spoiler*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I guess we don't know what we are talking about and we are wrong even this guys are wrong ... go figure :unbelievable:


I don't even have to play it. I know who they are and what stance they take. They don't get it. And there are people like that. Sadly, they may cause many to never explore areas that will yield great improvements.


----------



## dBe

Danny Richie said:


> I don't even have to play it. I know who they are and what stance they take. They don't get it. And there are people like that. Sadly, they may cause many to never explore areas that will yield great improvements.


this one is always brought up, Danny. When you devise a test to fail and go into it with the expectation that what you are testing is hogwash and then perform the test with questionable equipment, what results can one expect?

Duh.


----------



## lcaillo

So how about a DBT with additional conditions where the cables are also compared when the listeners are told which cables are being used, with conditions of random presentation that is true and false with respect to which cables are being played. This would inform the question of expectation bias.

Another testing pathway would be to sample runs of the same music played with different two different conditions that are being questioned for differences. Using an extremely high sample rate and a variety of analysis let's determine what the differences are that people are hearing, if any, and try to identify the nature of the difference, starting with the assumption that their is some difference. Once the data is collected at some sufficiently ridiculously high sample rate we can throw a variety of tools at it until we find differences. Wavelet analysis, autocorrelation, etc...we have tools and pervasive computing power now that we could not dream of a couple of decades ago. If we really try to find differences and there are none, this is very different than what has been done to date.


----------



## dBe

lcaillo said:


> So how about a DBT with additional conditions where the cables are also compared when the listeners are told which cables are being used, with conditions of random presentation that is true and false with respect to which cables are being played. This would inform the question of expectation bias.
> 
> Another testing pathway would be to sample runs of the same music played with different two different conditions that are being questioned for differences. Using an extremely high sample rate and a variety of analysis let's determine what the differences are that people are hearing, if any, and try to identify the nature of the difference, starting with the assumption that their is some difference. Once the data is collected at some sufficiently ridiculously high sample rate we can throw a variety of tools at it until we find differences. Wavelet analysis, autocorrelation, etc...we have tools and pervasive computing power now that we could not dream of a couple of decades ago. If we really try to find differences and there are none, this is very different than what has been done to date.


How about just keeping it simple and setting up a valid DBT without added complexity using good gear with the appropriate time slices and source material appropriate to the test? Like I said: it is easy and typical to set up bad regimen.

I'm just sayin'.


----------



## 3dbinCanada

dBe said:


> How rude. The green smiley doesn't make up for your implication.


The implied part is all in your interpretation. It was meant as a joke.

Unless you can mathematically model all the various components that make up a power cable, interconnect, or speaker wire, and tweek them, then all I see is a bunch of alchemy used to achieve some audio nirvana. Better time is spent in fixing the acoustic environment and selecting the proper speaker for the intended room then it is to play with power cable, interconnect, or speaker wire. 


Not one arguement which favors cables, power chords, and interconnects have any supporting documented evidence that would indicate why. All I have seen in this thread is "subjective" opinions. Well intentioned opinions but opinions nevertheless. 

We have sent man to the moon, have elaborate communication systems whose physics and scientific principles far exceed HIFI and audio. Please don't use the "golden ear" approach to validate a subjective result that cannot be documented. I'm so thankful that Dr Floyd Tool took the time to dispell audio myths and to validate blind listening tests.


----------



## 3dbinCanada

*Power Chords as Filters*

Danny,

In one of your arguements, you stated that power chords can act as filters and that it has an ability to clean up the miles of noise found in the miles of wires in which the chord plugs into the wall. I can understand if the power cable was enveloped in a conductive shroud which would bleed of induced EMI and RFI fields to ground. I also understand how common mode rejection works in differential inputs/outputs. But how exactly does it filter the noise it conducts on the hot and neutral lines?


----------



## dBe

3dbinCanada said:


> The implied part is all in your interpretation. It was meant as a joke.
> 
> Unless you can mathematically model all the various components that make up a power cable, interconnect, or speaker wire, and tweak them, then all I see is a bunch of alchemy used to achieve some audio nirvana. Better time is spent in fixing the acoustic environment and selecting the proper speaker for the intended room then it is to play with power cable, interconnect, or speaker wire.
> 
> 
> Not one argument which favors cables, power chords, and interconnects have any supporting documented evidence that would indicate why. All I have seen in this thread is "subjective" opinions. Well intentioned opinions but opinions nevertheless.
> 
> We have sent man to the moon, have elaborate communication systems whose physics and scientific principles far exceed HIFI and audio. Please don't use the "golden ear" approach to validate a subjective result that cannot be documented. I'm so thankful that Dr Floyd Tool took the time to dispell audio myths and to validate blind listening tests.


OK. Haha.

The key word here is "argument". The scientist will follow the math. The researcher will do the empirical testing. It is the difference between "I read it in a book somewhere" and "I did it myself". One cannot argue with reality. One can argue that the math is incomplete. Great sounding audio is not rocket science, it is real world application of clearly defined techniques that work. There is no snake oil or opinion involved here. What is involved is the part that of scientific practice that is most often overlooked by the math guys: observation: I did 'A'; I did 'B'; I added 'C'; I observed the results. There is no golden ear approach. There is trained observation. Golden ears are like the golden cow - False. There are ear training courses available. You can find them online. Education comes in many ways. The best education is the 'cut and try' or as the Aussies say: 'suck it and see'. People argue about concepts. It is part of the Arrogance of Man to think we "Know" everything. We don't.

I agree with you in that the most important interconnect in an audio system is the room. Without an optimally treated room that balances absorption and diffusion to the listening area everything else is throwing good money after bad. Fix the room first. Gotta do that. Then you start picking off all of the impediments between - the Band is over 'there' > the Band is 'RIGHT HERE'. It is a process. Everything effects everything else. Sometimes introducing a new component means you have to reposition the speakers to get the image back. Recovering objectivists such as I are inveterate tweakers. That is a fact. Call me OCD, but don't call me Golden Eared. I ain't.

There is a great saying: Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.

<><

Dave


----------



## Almadacr

dBe said:


> this one is always brought up, Danny. When you devise a test to fail and go into it with the expectation that what you are testing is hogwash and then perform the test with questionable equipment, what results can one expect?
> 
> Duh.


This is what i don't get , well me and others , so basically and quote you " Without an optimally treated room that balances absorption and diffusion to the listening area everything else is throwing good money after bad. Fix the room first " but before you dish one of the guys that is on the video and people really listen to him regarding acoustics you say " perform the test with questionable equipment " ??? So what is it ??? 

This is also the other lie regarding cables " You only hear the improvement if you have some high end gear " If there's a improvement it doesn't matter if you have a $100 dollars speakers or a $10 000 ones since you are looking and expecting a audible improvement ... no ????


----------



## dBe

Almadacr said:


> This is what i don't get , well me and others , so basically and quote you " Without an optimally treated room that balances absorption and diffusion to the listening area everything else is throwing good money after bad. Fix the room first " but before you dish one of the guys that is on the video and people really listen to him regarding acoustics you say " perform the test with questionable equipment " ??? So what is it ???
> 
> This is also the other lie regarding cables " You only hear the improvement if you have some high end gear " If there's a improvement it doesn't matter if you have a $100 dollars speakers or a $10 000 ones since you are looking and expecting a audible improvement ... no ????


Yes, there are some systems that resolve more than other systems.. No, you don't have to have one of the high rez systems to hear 'some' changes. When it comes down to hearing the ant fart in the corner in the Cowboy Junkies original release, well you figure that one out. An MP3 through an iPod or a 352.8Khz/32bit recording through a 96dB sensitivity system with a minimalist signal path and battery powered tube monoblocks with good cabling... pick yer poison, kiddo.

Circular discussions lead nowhere. We are in a continuous loop and I am opting out. Objectiveists that are not willing to do the work to see... or rather, hear the differences hold nothing but their (i guess 'your') belief systems. I'm good with that. I don't care what you think. I just don't like being called, or inferred to as, a liar. You know what you think and I know what I know. Let's just leave it at that. You can'y even accept an agreemnent from me without a slam.

Buh-bye.


----------



## dBe

PC509 said:


> And you debunked another big lie in audio - people will show off stuff in their own environment to con you into paying a fortune for something that you don't need. A lot of us (most?) love to show things and get excited over those things. It's not work - it's fun. For me, it's with computers. I love showing off computer stuff and graphics and cool things. I also do computer work for a living. It's fun, and I don't consider it work. That's how you guys sound - enjoy the hobby so much and you get to work with it for a living. After some big-box stores, and some smaller shops, I get the impression that most people are in it for the $$, not because they love doing what they do. Thanks for showing that not everyone is like that.
> 
> I always like the guys that say "Come check this out. It's new and awesome!" and never ask for the sale. They are showing how cool the new toys are... I guess a better word would be sharing. We're all in this hobby because we love it. We love talking about it (or arguing!), checking out the new stuff, and watching movies and listening to music. If I had the newest, coolest thing, or just something awesome, I'd definitely share it with anyone remotely interested!
> 
> A bit more on topic - with cables and such, I'm a bit of a skeptic. They do matter up to a point. After that point, it's either a difference when using a spectrum analyzer or psychological (I WANT to hear a difference, but is there really a difference?). So, as it's my system, if I can't hear a noticeable difference, I may not go for it. Other people might hear a difference, but they aren't in my room listening to my system. I want the best, but eventually I'll hit the point of diminishing returns. Whether that is at a 14 gauge gold plated, twisted pair cable or a $20 vs $200 HDMI cable, I'm not sure.


You would love our room at RMAF. Normally it is GR Research (Danny), Dodd Audio (Gary Dodd - the wizard of battery powered tube amps), dB Audio Labs (Eric Hider), and Triode Wire Labs (Pete Gryzbowski) because there are no "one size fits all" power cables or speaker cables. Every year we have killer sound. This year will be no different. There will be new gear from all of us. Come and enjoy yourself. No high pressuer "YOU GOTTA!!!" stuff there. We all love music and it is a fun time. Lots of friends come to hang out. You are all welcome.


----------



## Almadacr

dBe said:


> Yes, there are some systems that resolve more than other systems.. No, you don't have to have one of the high rez systems to hear 'some' changes. When it comes down to hearing the ant fart in the corner in the Cowboy Junkies original release, well you figure that one out. An MP3 through an iPod or a 352.8Khz/32bit recording through a 96dB sensitivity system with a minimalist signal path and battery powered tube monoblocks with good cabling... pick yer poison, kiddo.
> 
> Circular discussions lead nowhere. We are in a continuous loop and I am opting out. Objectiveists that are not willing to do the work to see... or rather, hear the differences hold nothing but their (i guess 'your') belief systems. I'm good with that. I don't care what you think. I just don't like being called, or inferred to as, a liar. You know what you think and I know what I know. Let's just leave it at that. You can'y even accept an agreemnent from me without a slam.
> 
> Buh-bye.


Do i have to agree with you because you say so .... sorry buddy but society doesn't agree with you . What your computer says is correct but what others computers say is .... incorrect ?????? And i am sorry since you can call other's liars but if the coin flips to your side it's wrong ????

Have a good one and good luck with your product .


----------



## 3dbinCanada

dBe said:


> OK. Haha.
> 
> The key word here is "argument". The scientist will follow the math. The researcher will do the empirical testing. It is the difference between "I read it in a book somewhere" and "I did it myself". One cannot argue with reality. One can argue that the math is incomplete. Great sounding audio is not rocket science, it is real world application of clearly defined techniques that work.


Scientists will conduct emprical experiments to validate the math. Take a look a hard look at Paul Barton's work at PSB. Total science with subjective listening groups involved. Where improvements can be made, he makes them based on the math. However, unlike some, he's able to do the math and come out with stellar products again and again. Everything in his designs are accounted for and modelled. None of this black hole stuff. People who can do and with repeatable predictable results time and time again.

Do you apply testing procedures to your end products? What do the tests consist of? Do they meet spec? How do you make up for variances in your supply chain?


----------



## dBe

3dbinCanada said:


> Scientists will conduct empirical experiments to validate the math. Take a look a hard look at Paul Barton's work at PSB. Total science with subjective listening groups involved. Where improvements can be made, he makes them based on the math. However, unlike some, he's able to do the math and come out with stellar products again and again. Everything in his designs are accounted for and modelled. None of this black hole stuff. People who can do and with repeatable predictable results time and time again.
> 
> Do you apply testing procedures to your end products? What do the tests consist of? Do they meet spec? How do you make up for variances in your supply chain?


Somehow you have the idea that all I do is shoot from the hip in product design. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Product design always begins with the math. to do it any other way would be foolish. I have design parameters that serve as the basis for each product. When they are completed I qual test each one to make sure they fall into the range of design target. Standard deviation must be less than +/- 2%. For testing I use a Techtronix scope and various and sundry Fluke and B&K meters. Testing begins with visual inspection of all of the solder connections, a strain test on cables to insure structural integrity (on the cables) LCR measurements, bandwidth, etc. etc, etc. Then everything is given a short burn-in and retested for qual validation. There are a couple of other tests that are proprietary and are no one's business, but mine. Then cables are cryogenically treated (yeah, I know) and finally retested to check for drift and to insure that they are still within spec. Just FYI, LC remains the same, but R decreases by ~.8% - 1% after cryo in power cables, a tad less in interconnects.

My supply chain is a consistent one and chosen for that consistency. All of my components are mil spec or better and testing is done on individual wire batches to insure consistency. Besides that, I know the guy and he tells me of any changes. There have been none in 5 years.

My soldering station is a Hakko and my reflow iron is a Chinese cheaper because I seldom use one. Solder is an SnAgCu alloy.

I hope that satisfies you, I'm getting weary about now of this whole topic.

In closing let me relate an experience. I built 3 cables that had LCR within .5% of each other. We had a listening session using a switch box that I build with identical runs, components, yada yada.... Testing was DB. see, even us tweaks use it. This one is set up not to fail but yield usable results because I haven't got the time to waste.

Over three successive sessions results were unanimous (5 participants to eliminate a tie) and repeatable. Each cable was chosen from the other two as having specific sonics unique from the others. The difference between the cables was simply insulation type. 

THAT is why we do empirical (subjective listening) testing.


----------



## lcaillo

What is the mechanism that explains the difference in the cables? What mathematical model do you have for the differences in the sound?


----------



## Danny Richie

*Re: Power Chords as Filters*

Sorry fellows. I have been a little busy and haven't been able to reply for a few days. 



3dbinCanada said:


> Danny,
> 
> In one of your arguements, you stated that power chords can act as filters and that it has an ability to clean up the miles of noise found in the miles of wires in which the chord plugs into the wall. I can understand if the power cable was enveloped in a conductive shroud which would bleed of induced EMI and RFI fields to ground. I also understand how common mode rejection works in differential inputs/outputs. But how exactly does it filter the noise it conducts on the hot and neutral lines?


There are a lot of ways the cable can become a filter.

Let's say for instance that we did add a conductive shroud around the wiring to act as a shield since you say that you can understand this working or having some effect. Did or does the shielding change LCR? It might be implemented in a way that has no effect on LCR yet it is shielded and sounds different. Why?

Braiding can also cause a cancellation effect that becomes a filter. This can be seen though in capacitance. Some might not see this added capacitance if they don't measure up high enough to see it. Works great though.

ERS cloth is like a RFI and EMI sponge. It not only has a filtering effect but can have an over filtering effect. One has to be very careful not to use too much of this stuff in some applications or it can have some adverse effect. You'd have to hear it to know how much is too much. It can suck the life out of the music if you are not careful.

I have some power cables with small capacitors built into the ends themselves. That one should be easy to grasp. It is an added filter. One cap goes from hot to neutral and another from neutral to ground. It makes a path of least resistance to ground for high frequency ranges.

Most people are aware of surge suppressors. Miles and miles of cable bring power to the home, then there is a bunch of cable in the home, and then a little piece of four foot cable with a little power strip on it will filter out a voltage spike. And everyone accepts that.

Power cables often work the same way. Miles and miles of cables bring power to the home carrying with it RFI. All the cabling in the house does the same. Then in that last four feet of cable the power cable can be configured to filter some of that out. That's not so hard to understand.


----------



## Danny Richie

Almadacr said:


> This is also the other lie regarding cables " You only hear the improvement if you have some high end gear " If there's a improvement it doesn't matter if you have a $100 dollars speakers or a $10 000 ones since you are looking and expecting a audible improvement ... no ????


Please let me illustrate this effect. 

Here are some speakers that I sent around for a free demo. Read the thread. http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...ire-capacitors-resistors-make-difference.html This was done for educational purposes. 

In the speakers there is the stock crossover and an identical higher quality crossover. It allows anyone to A/B or blind A/B (with the help of a friend) the two crossovers. So one can hear the differences the higher quality components make. With both networks the two speakers measure exactly the same. But they sound quite different. The stock crossover uses parts that cause a smearing effect. Music sounds more blurred together. The higher quality parts allow more space between the notes. It is cleaner and easy to hear greater levels of detail. And the higher quality parts allow one to hear the differences in imaging and sound stage. Layering of instruments in the sound stage are much more apparent, and the sound stage is deeper. The stock crossover creates a more two dimensional effect of everything being in the plane of the speakers. 

This is the effect of cheaper parts used in budget systems. The same holds true for electronics. And it is a cumulative effect. You can have a LOT of adverse things effecting the sound. So improvements made in cleaner power are less noticed. This is especially true for cheap gear using somewhat noisy power supplies to begin with. 

Strip away all of that with higher quality gear and differences between anything become much easier to hear and discern between. 

The same is true regarding the speakers. On budget system the differences are less apparent. On a really high end system the differences are very apparent and noticed very quickly. 

I can still send those Behringer speakers around for you guys if you want to learn for yourselves the differences higher quality crossover parts can have. Another funny thing is that I sent those speakers around with some really good speaker cables. Many that have demo'ed the speakers tried the speaker cables in their system with their current speakers. And many are stunned at the difference the speaker cables make. You can get two A/B comparisons in from one demo. And it is free. Well, almost free. You have to cover the shipping to the next guy in line.


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## dBe

locally said:


> What is the mechanism that explains the difference in the cables? What mathematical model do you have for the differences in the sound?


That is exactly the point. There is none. They simply sound different. That is what Danny and I are trying to convey. The math falls apart when faced with the reality of perception. There are some things That either can't be measured or are poopooed as insignificant by the math. Dielectric absorption of the insulator is just one example. Quite frankly speaking, I don't care about the math involved much any more. Certainly it is the starting point from which a good cable is designed. It is the foundation upon which the cable voice is built. Yes there is a process there, too. Some things sound bad, some things sound good, others fall somewhere in between. Building a "good sounding" cable is a cut and try process. Basically it comes down to whether we believe our ears or not. I do. I am a certified trained listener because I took the course in ear training and I passed the tests. I even have a certificate around here somewhere stating that I did. That is unless Gayle threw it away in one of her "cleaning and clearing" binges. Don't care much about the awards. I just do what I do. I'm not out to try to impress anyone. I do what I do for the love of the music. I had a career in the semiconductor industry ended when Philips Semiconductor pulled up shop in the USA. As an Implant Technician I worked on what we call the death ray and I learned a lot about how things really do work down to an atomic scale. I know materials, material purity, cryogenics and changes of energy states very well. I am not an electrical engineer. I build things that work. I know how they work, why they work and can predict what the effects of a particular cable will be on a given piece of gear because I have done the work to find out the hows', whys' and wherefores' of my gig. My son in law Brian is a lead engineer for ASM. They provide tools and services for the semiconductor industry, primarily Intel. He calls me a Mad Scientist. Maybe so. Call me crazy. Maybe so.


----------



## Danny Richie

Almadacr said:


> Do i have to agree with you because you say so .... sorry buddy but society doesn't agree with you . What your computer says is correct but what others computers say is .... incorrect ?????? And i am sorry since you can call other's liars but if the coin flips to your side it's wrong ????
> 
> Have a good one and good luck with your product .



I am not Dave but I'd really like to take this one.

Please don't believe me. Please don't take my word for it. Please allow me to show you that differences and cables and conditioners are easily heard and make a positive difference in your listening experience.

Yes guys like Peter Aczel and Ethan Winer can tell you whatever they want. And I can tell you without question that they don't know what I know. They don't have the experiences that I have. They don't have the type of system that I have. And what they have said is very much untrue. They may not think they are lying when they say what they do, but it is out of ignorance. And I don't say that to be mean or take a shot at them. I say that because it is true. And I know it to be true.

So don't believe those guys. Hey don't believe me either. Find out for yourself. I'll help you!

And if one guys hears no difference then he can say he hears no difference. No problem. But he cannot conclude there is no difference because he doesn't hear one.

To go back to humorous illustration, that would be like going out to look for Bigfoot, not finding one, and declaring there is no Bigfoot.


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## chashint

There continues to be the perception that electrical engineering as an industry has not given much thought to how wire, interconnects, insulation / dielectric materials, and transmission line design and how discontinuities in materials or the transmission line design affects the propagation of electrical signals.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If anyone is interested in this sort of thing here is some real information.
http://www.simberian.com/AppNotes/ModelingConductorLoss_2007_02.pdf 

You also cannot simply ignore orders of magnitude when you want to debate this topic.
The smallest valued component in a speaker, power supply, amplifier output....absolutely dwarfs the largest electrical parameter of a power cord, interconnect wire, or speaker cable.
I am not an acoustics guy so sound may be magic (probably not though), I am an electrical guy and I know that when the audio frequency signal is still electricity it is not magic.

I love "HiFi" and home theater, if people want power line conditioners, fancy power cords, cryogenic treated speaker wires, I say get them....but these are the play things of the well heeled audiophile.

Here is a article that will appeal to a cable salesman or audiophile.
http://www.lessloss.com/docs/high-end-audio-interconnect-cable.pdf 
While the author is mostly correct with the presentation, 75 MHz and 20 KHz have little in common as far as the lumped element components of a 1 meter transmission line.
See for yourself the electrical wavelength of different frequencies, http://www.csgnetwork.com/freqwavelengthcalc.html 

Dog-gone-it I promised myself I would not post in this thread.


----------



## lcaillo

dBe said:


> That is exactly the point. There is none. They simply sound different. That is what Danny and I are trying to convey. The math falls apart when faced with the reality of perception. There are some things That either can't be measured or are poopooed as insignificant by the math. Dielectric absorption of the insulator is just one example. Quite frankly speaking, I don't care about the math involved much any more. Certainly it is the starting point from which a good cable is designed. It is the foundation upon which the cable voice is built. Yes there is a process there, too. Some things sound bad, some things sound good, others fall somewhere in between. Building a "good sounding" cable is a cut and try process. Basically it comes down to whether we believe our ears or not. I do. I am a certified trained listener because I took the course in ear training and I passed the tests. I even have a certificate around here somewhere stating that I did. That is unless Gayle threw it away in one of her "cleaning and clearing" binges. Don't care much about the awards. I just do what I do. I'm not out to try to impress anyone. I do what I do for the love of the music. I had a career in the semiconductor industry ended when Philips Semiconductor pulled up shop in the USA. As an Implant Technician I worked on what we call the death ray and I learned a lot about how things really do work down to an atomic scale. I know materials, material purity, cryogenics and changes of energy states very well. I am not an electrical engineer. I build things that work. I know how they work, why they work and can predict what the effects of a particular cable will be on a given piece of gear because I have done the work to find out the hows', whys' and wherefores' of my gig. My son in law Brian is a lead engineer for ASM. They provide tools and services for the semiconductor industry, primarily Intel. He calls me a Mad Scientist. Maybe so. Call me crazy. Maybe so.


I am open minded but this is where I have to question the veracity of what you are saying. If there is indeed a difference in the sound and not just a difference in what you believe you are hearing, it should be measurable and there MUST be a mechanism in the properties of the components and their interaction with the signal that can be studied, discovered and quantified. To argue otherwise completely destroys any credibility in the science that is purported to be behind your claims. I am stunned that you would say that there is no mechanism that results in the differences you claim. If there is not then there is no physical difference in the sound. Your statement is a complete rejection of the possibility of any science being involved here. 

If there is a difference that is not just belief or psychological in nature, then we have to be able to map it to the physics and electrical theory. If you are not willing to attempt to do so, I see nothing interesting about your arguments.

Frankly, I believe there are more differences in components than most "objectivists" would believe, but most are not meaningful in most cases. If there are, they may be hard to measure, hard to define, and obscure, but that does not mean it can't or shouldn't be done. We have some extremely powerful tools these days that should be able to measure and model such differences, if anyone really wanted to do so. The belief of many is that those who promote the mysticism of audio have no equity in the actual facts because many of their claims will be proven either false or meaningless. Based on your argument above, I'd say that perspective is gaining credibility. You are your own arguments best antagonist with statements like this.


----------



## Almadacr

Danny Richie said:


> I am not Dave but I'd really like to take this one.
> 
> Please don't believe me. Please don't take my word for it. Please allow me to show you that differences and cables and conditioners are easily heard and make a positive difference in your listening experience.
> 
> Yes guys like Peter Aczel and Ethan Winer can tell you whatever they want. And I can tell you without question that they don't know what I know. They don't have the experiences that I have. They don't have the type of system that I have. And what they have said is very much untrue. They may not think they are lying when they say what they do, but it is out of ignorance. And I don't say that to be mean or take a shot at them. I say that because it is true. And I know it to be true.
> 
> So don't believe those guys. Hey don't believe me either. Find out for yourself. I'll help you!
> 
> And if one guys hears no difference then he can say he hears no difference. No problem. But he cannot conclude there is no difference because he doesn't hear one.
> 
> To go back to humorous illustration, that would be like going out to look for Bigfoot, not finding one, and declaring there is no Bigfoot.


Sorry Danny you look like a nice guy and capable of having a conversation but what you are saying to me i did it . I used speaker cables and power cables from Nordost ( if we can use them as reference ) with several brands of speakers , amps and receivers from extremely high priced speakers , amps to lower as polk speakers . 

All that started because one guy in a circle of 5 guys bought them and he went WoW . Of course we all wanted to have that effect only one didn't believed in that so we putted to the test for several weekends with each one of us blindly changing as we pleased cables and the only power cord that we had . At the end 4 of us didn't notice any difference only the guy that paid for them still well till this day that he believes that there's something different . 

On a side note i can tell you that guy from then ( about 9 years ago ) till today he changed his gear several times and for me that's the difference .... having deep pockets you can do whatever rocks your boat .


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## dBe

chashint said:


> There continues to be the perception that electrical engineering as an industry has not given much thought to how wire, interconnects, insulation / dielectric materials, and transmission line design and how discontinuities in materials or the transmission line design affects the propagation of electrical signals.
> Nothing could be farther from the truth.
> 
> If anyone is interested in this sort of thing here is some information.
> http://www.simberian.com/AppNotes/ModelingConductorLoss_2007_02.pdf
> 
> You also cannot simply ignore orders of magnitude when you want to debate this topic.
> The smallest valued component in a speaker, power supply, amplifier output....absolutely dwarfs the largest electrical parameter of a power cord, interconnect wire, or speaker cable.
> I am not an acoustics guy so sound may be magic (probably not though), I am an electrical guy and I know that when the audio frequency signal is still electricity it is not magic.
> 
> I love "HiFi" and home theater, if people want power line conditioners, fancy power cords, cryogenic treated speaker wires, I say get them....but these are the play things of the well heeled audiophile.
> 
> Dog-gone-it I promised myself I would not post in this thread.


Frankly speaking, I could not agree more with your post and link. I am an electrical guy, too and I understand and concur with what you are saying. Thing is that many people believe that everything that applies to the lGHz realm is irrelevant to audio. Fractal theory teaches that this is not the case, but everything is simply a product of scale. Skin effect, conductor gauge and geometry, insulation... all of this is relevant.

One of the things that you are overlooking is the effect that the AC sewer that we have coming into the house that supplies the system. Commercial power supplies are incapable of negating this crapola that rides on what 'should be' pristine 120VAC @ 60Hz. Stick a good scope in the wall and take a peek sometime. The power supply is the first place the bean counters go to suck $$$ out of manufacturing costs. SMPS that are poorly designed are really bad. How many wall warts do you have plugged into the wall? Bad juju.

Nothing in the realm of audio is magic. It can all be explained by the math as a basis, but must be tempered by the reality that some things are simply unexplainable with the mathematic paradigm as it exists today. It is guys like me that are doing the research trying to provide that explanation. I don't just build them and sell them. I am seriously trying to find an explanation for the whys' and hows'. I think I am getting close to understanding and defining the impact of dielectrics on the equation in total. My mathematical skills are simply not up to snuff. That is why I am working with a young college grad who lives and breathes numbers. So does his significant other. She makes me feel stupid. The question is: why does the dielectric constant have the effect on the audio frequency band when common knowledge and current mathematical theory says that it should not? Dunno, but we are working on it.

There is more to all of this than meets the eye....eerrrr.... ear. Not all of us are snake oil salesmen or crooks.

When it comes to buying power conditioners, power cables or speaker cables only buy from a seller that offers a 100% Moneyback Guarantee that is a no quibble guarantee. Do not let the fact that something is cryoed or has other special materials processing be an impediment. Those things should NEVER be a selling point, but merely one of the many tools that a manufacturer uses to get the end product. Way too many people are gullible and buy the buzzwords associated with a product. These are the same people that wil buy the new iPhone97 or whatever. Don't condemn the entire high end industry for the gullibility of the masses.

I'm just sayin'.


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## dBe

lcaillo said:


> I am open minded but this is where I have to question the veracity of what you are saying. If there is indeed a difference in the sound and not just a difference in what you believe you are hearing, it should be measurable and there MUST be a mechanism in the properties of the components and their interaction with the signal that can be studied, discovered and quantified. To argue otherwise completely destroys any credibility in the science that is purported to be behind your claims. I am stunned that you would say that there is no mechanism that results in the differences you claim. If there is not then there is no physical difference in the sound. Your statement is a complete rejection of the possibility of any science being involved here.
> 
> If there is a difference that is not just belief or psychological in nature, then we have to be able to map it to the physics and electrical theory. If you are not willing to attempt to do so, I see nothing interesting about your arguments.
> 
> Frankly, I believe there are more differences in components than most "objectivists" would believe, but most are not meaningful in most cases. If there are, they may be hard to measure, hard to define, and obscure, but that does not mean it can't or shouldn't be done. We have some extremely powerful tools these days that should be able to measure and model such differences, if anyone really wanted to do so. The belief of many is that those who promote the mysticism of audio have no equity in the actual facts because many of their claims will be proven either false or meaningless. Based on your argument above, I'd say that perspective is gaining credibility. You are your own arguments best antagonist with statements like this.


I understand your position because I share it, too. I am at a complete dead end as to why things sound different. See my post below. This does not preclude me from working with the tools of empiricism and putting out a product when I don't fully understand it. Dude. I have to make a living, too. The thing that you do not recognize is that I am diligently trying my hardest to find an explanation. I am paying people to help me to do so.

Let me be quite frank and honest with you and the rest of the people that may be viewing. While you all sit there and judge me, you do not know me. You have made assumptions as to what kind of person I am without doing due diligence and finding out anything about me or my company. Frankly speaking I am offended. You assume things that are not true. I am a Christian man of integrity. I will not lie. I will not misrepresent myself or my products. I am doing the heavy lifting and doing the research to understand how God's creation works. I am not so arrogant as to suppose to think that we know everything. Far from it. We know very little about how and why all of this works. I do my research diligently, prayerfully and with no presuppositions. How many times has the Arrogance of Man and his "knowledge" been proven wrong. The scientists said the world was flat, for crying out loud! What are you doing?


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## NotBananas

I repeat my earlier question: I am still puzzled by all the arguments and disputes as to whose methodology is superior and what magic elixir we can concoct which will make my system sound better than yours. 

Are we looking to replicate the music as it was originally performed at whatever venue that may be (chamber music quartet or Iron Maiden concert), or are we comparing one method of reproducing music with another, ignoring the quest to come close as possible to the original live performance?

If we just want to reproduce music that sound great to you, then there isn't any system that's better than another. They just sound different. Whatever tweak you add to your system makes the music sound better to you, then by all means, it's the best for you. If you can't hear the difference, then what you currently have is the best for you.

How can anyone possibly know when the music sounds the best it can, when you never heard the original performance to compare it with?

Remember the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes".


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## Danny Richie

Almadacr said:


> All that started because one guy in a circle of 5 guys bought them and he went WoW . Of course we all wanted to have that effect only one didn't believed in that so we putted to the test for several weekends with each one of us blindly changing as we pleased cables and the only power cord that we had . At the end 4 of us didn't notice any difference only the guy that paid for them still well till this day that he believes that there's something different .


I believe you and won't dispute with you what you do or do not hear.

Some cable swaps though are a lateral movement. I have had a guy bring in some latest high dollar power cable that is suppose to work great with DAC X but in my system is was a backward move. It didn't work well with my power conditioning, but in a head to head comparison coming out of the wall it did come out on top. It depends on system synergy. 



> On a side note i can tell you that guy from then ( about 9 years ago ) till today he changed his gear several times and for me that's the difference .... having deep pockets you can do whatever rocks your boat .


I do this for a living. My system changes all the time, especially speakers. Listening comparisons are a lot of fun for me and sometimes very enlightening.


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## Danny Richie

NotBananas said:


> Are we looking to replicate the music as it was originally performed at whatever venue that may be (chamber music quartet or Iron Maiden concert), or are we comparing one method of reproducing music with another, ignoring the quest to come close as possible to the original live performance?


In my opinion, no. Live music often doesn't sound that great. In many venues the SPL level overpowers the room. The mix is no where near as good as a studio recording. There is crowd noise. There are room reflections. Horrible sounding stage monitors. Bad seating.... And rarely are live recordings very good. Some are, but most are horrible compared to a controlled studio recording. 

I would rather reproduce the studio recording is a way that emulates a live personal performance. 



> If we just want to reproduce music that sound great to you, then there isn't any system that's better than another. They just sound different. Whatever tweak you add to your system makes the music sound better to you, then by all means, it's the best for you. If you can't hear the difference, then what you currently have is the best for you.
> 
> How can anyone possibly know when the music sounds the best it can, when you never heard the original performance to compare it with?


We CAN make it sound better. And better than live. These "tweaks" can strip away the noise floor, the RFI and EMI issues, reduce smearing, etc. It isn't the notes we change or manipulate. It is the space between the notes. Blacker blacks we call it. Cleaner, clearer, resolution man. We don't change the recording. We allow it to be heard as recorded. 

It is like going to a live show and stripping away the audience, the bad stage monitors, the amplification, poor microphone placements, all of the room related effects, and listening to a real live performance just for you. 

We CAN make it sound more true to the original recording.


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## 3dbinCanada

dBe said:


> Somehow you have the idea that all I do is shoot from the hip in product design. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Product design always begins with the math. to do it any other way would be foolish. I have design parameters that serve as the basis for each product. When they are completed I qual test each one to make sure they fall into the range of design target. Standard deviation must be less than +/- 2%. For testing I use a Techtronix scope and various and sundry Fluke and B&K meters. Testing begins with visual inspection of all of the solder connections, a strain test on cables to insure structural integrity (on the cables) LCR measurements, bandwidth, etc. etc, etc. Then everything is given a short burn-in and retested for qual validation. There are a couple of other tests that are proprietary and are no one's business, but mine. Then cables are cryogenically treated (yeah, I know) and finally retested to check for drift and to insure that they are still within spec. Just FYI, LC remains the same, but R decreases by ~.8% - 1% after cryo in power cables, a tad less in interconnects.
> 
> My supply chain is a consistent one and chosen for that consistency. All of my components are mil spec or better and testing is done on individual wire batches to insure consistency. Besides that, I know the guy and he tells me of any changes. There have been none in 5 years.
> 
> My soldering station is a Hakko and my reflow iron is a Chinese cheaper because I seldom use one. Solder is an SnAgCu alloy.
> 
> I hope that satisfies you, I'm getting weary about now of this whole topic.
> 
> In closing let me relate an experience. I built 3 cables that had LCR within .5% of each other. We had a listening session using a switch box that I build with identical runs, components, yada yada.... Testing was DB. see, even us tweaks use it. This one is set up not to fail but yield usable results because I haven't got the time to waste.
> 
> Over three successive sessions results were unanimous (5 participants to eliminate a tie) and repeatable. Each cable was chosen from the other two as having specific sonics unique from the others. The difference between the cables was simply insulation type.
> 
> THAT is why we do empirical (subjective listening) testing.


Thank you for the response. Finally there is some real meat in this discussion other than experience. You gave me some tangeable arguements and desciptions. Again, please don't take that as an insult because its very difficult to accept another's experience when it goes against every grain of what has been learned in school. 

I do understand mil-mpec very well having worked for Lockheed here in Canada for 7 years. I'm beginning to understand the cost of cables now when mil-spec components are being used. The paper trail is very expensive and the cost gets passed onto the components. 

Its interesting that after cryo, the cable resistance decreases. I would have thought an increase initially as one is seriously dropping the energy levels on the free electrons but the resistance would decrease back to the original state as the cable warms up. 

I would love to A/B the cable. I'm not a believer but have opened my mind that maybe there is something more.


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## Danny Richie

3dbinCanada said:


> I would love to A/B the cable. I'm not a believer but have opened my mind that maybe there is something more.


Hey man, that's all we are really asking for. Be open minded... :T

And I really wish I could have all of you guys over for some fun comparisons.


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## 3dbinCanada

*Re: Power Chords as Filters*



Danny Richie said:


> Sorry fellows. I have been a little busy and haven't been able to reply for a few days.


Yeah I hate it when work gets in the way. 





Danny Richie said:


> Let's say for instance that we did add a conductive shroud around the wiring to act as a shield since you say that you can understand this working or having some effect. Did or does the shielding change LCR? It might be implemented in a way that has no effect on LCR yet it is shielded and sounds different. Why?


Shielding prevents RFI from penetrating the conductors and is usually tapped to a ground. I don't know how shielding could remove artifacts already present in the electrical current.



Danny Richie said:


> Braiding can also cause a cancellation effect that becomes a filter. This can be seen though in capacitance. Some might not see this added capacitance if they don't measure up high enough to see it. Works great though.


 Braiding acts like twisted pair so I understand that. 




Danny Richie said:


> ERS cloth is like a RFI and EMI sponge. It not only has a filtering effect but can have an over filtering effect. One has to be very careful not to use too much of this stuff in some applications or it can have some adverse effect. You'd have to hear it to know how much is too much. It can suck the life out of the music if you are not careful.


ERS cloth??? Q'est que c'est? (what's that) 



Danny Richie said:


> I have some power cables with small capacitors built into the ends themselves. That one should be easy to grasp. It is an added filter. One cap goes from hot to neutral and another from neutral to ground. It makes a path of least resistance to ground for high frequency ranges.


No problems with that one. :T



Danny Richie said:


> Most people are aware of surge suppressors. Miles and miles of cable bring power to the home, then there is a bunch of cable in the home, and then a little piece of four foot cable with a little power strip on it will filter out a voltage spike. And everyone accepts that.
> 
> Power cables often work the same way. Miles and miles of cables bring power to the home carrying with it RFI. All the cabling in the house does the same. Then in that last four feet of cable the power cable can be configured to filter some of that out. That's not so hard to understand.


Surge suppressors act differently than what you are explaining to me. Surge suppressors usually clamp the voltage at a safe level that that prevents damage to the down stream components. They are usually made of semiconductor which acts much faster than metal strips in fuses. Many have to be tossed out after they get used.


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## 3dbinCanada

Danny Richie said:


> Hey man, that's all we are really asking for. Be open minded... :T
> 
> And I really wish I could have all of you guys over for some fun comparisons.


To be fair, until dbe threw out some concrete stuff, there was no merrit to the arguements presented. No offense. 

dbe....

Stop taking things personal. No one is accusing you off swindling people. I've not made any judgement calls against you personally. You are the first person in all of my years debating this stuff that is actually trying to model what you appear to hold as truth. I believe that you are honest in your beliefs. I salute your effort. :clap: However, I'm still on the fence.


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## ajinfla

Wow,

Thread like this and I'm not involved?:rofl2:
Dave, Dan, really opened up a can-o-worms here eh? heh

General observations:
This *never* ends with a SBT, much less a DBT (which obviously, folks don't understand what's involved).
If anyone is remotely serious about rigor (rather than pathological ad-hoc science), I'll try to involve SY (from DIY Audio).
Now, be aware than all previous attempt with rigor have resulted in nulls (NOT the same as "no difference exists").
I am squarely in the scientifically educated/rational/logical/reasoned camp (the "Objectivist" side of the false dichotomy). But I have Dave's Uberbuss and MGAudio cabling in my system, at home and during demos . , AJ, you hypocrite, you sellout, you...
Nope.
It's just that all is done *non-blind*, purely for pleasure. So it matters scant that I cannot hear either a benefit, nor (more importantly) anything deleterious with these items. All I have to do, is think that they make my system more enjoyable. That's it. True subjectivity.
Trouble can only arise, if I attempt the ascribe this to a change in the (pardon the pun) soundfield/pinna method of "sound" conveyance.
I would certainly not be foolish enough to do so.



Danny Richie said:


> Live music often doesn't sound that great.


Dan, you really need to visit me. I'll take you here. Even the recital rooms are fantastic! You can sit within feet of the instruments and performers, for some serious acoustic calibration and memory training. 
There is not an amplifier or wire in sight!

cheers,

AJ


----------



## chashint

dBe said:


> 1)
> Thing is that many people believe that everything that applies to the lGHz realm is irrelevant to audio. Fractal theory teaches that this is not the case, but everything is simply a product of scale.
> 
> 2)
> Skin effect, conductor gauge and geometry, insulation... all of this is relevant.
> 
> 3)
> One of the things that you are overlooking is the effect that the AC sewer that we have coming into the house that supplies the system.
> 
> 4)
> Commercial power supplies are incapable of negating this crapola that rides on what 'should be' pristine 120VAC @ 60Hz.
> 
> 5)
> Nothing in the realm of audio is magic. It can all be explained by the math as a basis, but must be tempered by the reality that some things are simply unexplainable with the mathematic paradigm as it exists today.
> 
> 6)
> There is more to all of this than meets the eye....eerrrr.... ear. Not all of us are snake oil salesmen or crooks.
> 
> 7)
> I'm just sayin'.


1) My take on this is the audiophile community uses microwave theory incorrectly to support the various mysterious unexplainable and or imaginary affects cables and wires have on a system.
I agree that that the effects of parasitics are scaled with frequency and current and if there is ever a speaker wire that approaches 11000 ft then we can start considering lumped element components.

2) The first link i posted was specifically chosen because of the explanation of skin effects beginning at 10Hz. 

3) A better measurement would be to put scope probe 1 on the AC input and scope probe 2 on the output of the power supply AC coupled and compare any noise/ripple on the output to see if there is any correlation to the AC noise.
Save channel 2 to memory, install power conditioner, remeasure the output of the power supply and compare to the saved scope capture.
With even modest AVR's achieving SNR >75 dB my guess is there will be no difference between the two measurements.

4) See #3 response, I simply disagree that the power supplies in a AVR do not negate the crapola on the AC line voltage.

5) If it is not magic and it can be explained, how can it be unexplainable? HAHA sorry just messing with ya on that one

6) I do not think you are a crook, in fact I don't have any opinions about you at all.
There is obviously a market for the products you offer. 
Truly the high end audio industry is one of the best examples of free enterprise I can think of.
Virtually all the money involved is discretionary, there is no leverage to be gained by any businessman over any consumer, participation by both parties is completely voluntary.

7) I am just sayin' too.

These errrr 'discussions' are always somewhat volatile, in no way is my participation intended to come off as mean spirited and if it has I sincerely apologize to both you and Danny.

One of my buddies is an audiophile and when we talk audio he suddenly forgets everything he knows as an engineer .... yes I tease him about it ... but I do not criticize him ... we both go out and listen together when one of us is shopping ... all the rest of our friends think we are both crazy and they are probably right.


----------



## Danny Richie

AJ, what's up buddy? ... How do you find these threads? 



> Dan, you really need to visit me. I'll take you here. Even the recital rooms are fantastic! You can sit within feet of the instruments and performers, for some serious acoustic calibration and memory training. There is not an amplifier or wire in sight!


Oh, that looks awesome. I'd love to check that out. 

One of the times that I went to see Bela Fleck and the Fleckstones was in a small venue that seated about 900 people. It was an old theater that had great sound. Mid-way through the show they lost all power to the stage and all of their gear. So they just pulled up stools to the front of the stage and broke out their acoustic instruments. They did about four pieces of music that way until the power was restored. It was the best part of the show. :T

My kids play instruments at home too. We have a piano that they play here and a baby grand around the corner at my folks house. Bells, drums, xylophones and anything percussion has been here. It does give some nice perspective.


----------



## ajinfla

Danny Richie said:


> AJ, what's up buddy? ... How do you find these threads?


I think they find me!
Actually I blame HAL. 
It's sorta a seven degrees of Kevin Bacon thing. I clicked on the site, saw HAL had posted in the CapFest thread, which jogged my memory to post my 2 bits about the show.
Low and behold, below in the "AV Home Theater" forum I see the latest post is by dbe, so I click that and well....here I am.
Needless to say, I didn't read the whole thing.



Danny Richie said:


> Oh, that looks awesome. I'd love to check that out.


One of the main contributors to the acoustics was a Texan! (BAI)

It always amazes me at shows, how few people bring or request, acoustic music. I have absolutely no clue what their "reference" for reproduction is, other than it clearly isn't something I could know, or possibly design for.

cheers,

AJ


----------



## 3dbinCanada

ajinfla said:


> It always amazes me at shows, how few people bring or request, acoustic music. I have absolutely no clue what their "reference" for reproduction is, other than it clearly isn't something I could know, or possibly design for.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> AJ


We have a great facility up here in Ottawa which I attend regularily to check out classical music concerts


----------



## NotBananas

ajinfla said:


> It always amazes me at shows, how few people bring or request, acoustic music. I have absolutely no clue what their "reference" for reproduction is, other than it clearly isn't something I could know, or possibly design for. AJ


Finally another soul agrees with my contention from day one. If you don't compare your system to live performance of the same composition and recording of it, then whatever you think sound good to you, it does. 

I remember the first time I listened to Heifetz's violin solo on a friend's system in the early '60s, it blew me away. Then I heard a live performance of a violin solo and all of a sudden my friend's system sounded like an Edison acoustic phonograph. Could it be because now I had a frame of reference to what live music sounds like? Hmmmmm.....

IMHO live performance should always be the benchmark.


----------



## 3dbinCanada

NotBananas said:


> I remember the first time I listened to Heifetz's violin solo on a friend's system in the early '60s, it blew me away. Then I heard a live performance of a violin solo and all of a sudden my friend's system sounded like an Edison acoustic phonograph. Could it be because now I had a frame of reference to what live music sounds like? Hmmmmm.....
> 
> IMHO live performance should always be the benchmark.



Hearing memory is the most inaccurate memory that humans posses, hence your recollection of it being that way. There's a reason blind audio tests are supposed to be short. Its because of inaccurate hearing memory.

Live performances in a bad acoustic environment is NOT how I want to remember how music should sound. I totally disagree with your assertion based on that.


----------



## Danny Richie

3dbinCanada said:


> Live performances in a bad acoustic environment is NOT how I want to remember how music should sound. I totally disagree with your assertion based on that.


There are exceptions like the ones you and AJ posted links to, but they are rare. In most cases the venues are not good, and I total agree with your statement. 



> Hearing memory is the most inaccurate memory that humans posses, hence your recollection of it being that way. There's a reason blind audio tests are supposed to be short. Its because of inaccurate hearing memory.


I agree with this as well. It usually has little to do with a persons ability to hear a difference or not. It is about recognition and recollection. Memory is the key. 

I have met a few guys that are exceptional in this way though. I remember Gary Dodd coming over one time and listening to my system after he had heard it about three or four months before. He had no idea that I had made change in the system of some kind. He picked up on it right away and described it to T. I think it might have been a cable change (ironically enough). His memory recall in that regard was incredible. 

I am a bit that way myself, and I think it comes from lots of time subjectively listening.


----------



## lcaillo

dBe said:


> How about just keeping it simple and setting up a valid DBT without added complexity using good gear with the appropriate time slices and source material appropriate to the test? Like I said: it is easy and typical to set up bad regimen.
> 
> I'm just sayin'.


So give us your specifications for a fair evaluation. We will do just that.

My approach has always been to eliminate as many variables as possible, then change only one thing at a time, giving ample listening time for comparisons. 

I used to believe that there were many more differences than I believe exist now. Once I started doing blind testing, I discovered that no matter how I changed the conditions, many of the differences that I heard previously were not sustained. Please don't assume that everyone who challenges your beliefs is out to set up a bad test to prove you wrong. If you do, then you are making the very judgments about others that you have complained are being made about you. 

This forum will be fair. Sonnie and John are dedicated to that and so are the staff.


----------



## lcaillo

dBe said:


> Frankly speaking, I could not agree more with your post and link. I am an electrical guy, too and I understand and concur with what you are saying. Thing is that many people believe that everything that applies to the lGHz realm is irrelevant to audio. Fractal theory teaches that this is not the case, but everything is simply a product of scale. Skin effect, conductor gauge and geometry, insulation... all of this is relevant.


Please explain how fractal theory applies and how the effect is audible. I do not disagree that most effects are scalable, but the degree of the effect is a meaningful consideration.



dBe said:


> One of the things that you are overlooking is the effect that the AC sewer that we have coming into the house that supplies the system. Commercial power supplies are incapable of negating this crapola that rides on what 'should be' pristine 120VAC @ 60Hz. Stick a good scope in the wall and take a peek sometime. The power supply is the first place the bean counters go to suck $$$ out of manufacturing costs. SMPS that are poorly designed are really bad. How many wall warts do you have plugged into the wall? Bad juju.


SMPS actually are more likely to produce more noise than is on the a.c. line and are usually incapable of passing line noise. I have tested this many times. Conventional power supplies are far more likely to pass line noise, but not to the degree many suggest. Again, I have tested that as well and rarely been able to find it, other than in the case of common mode noise. There are effects than can be measured in many line conditioning and filtering systems, but rarely does this noise pass through a power supply, IME. Again, tested this many times as a former tech over more than a couple of decades of work with everything form high end audio to video products with SMPSs.[/QUOTE]



dBe said:


> Nothing in the realm of audio is magic. It can all be explained by the math as a basis, but must be tempered by the reality that some things are simply unexplainable with the mathematic paradigm as it exists today. It is guys like me that are doing the research trying to provide that explanation. I don't just build them and sell them. I am seriously trying to find an explanation for the whys' and hows'. I think I am getting close to understanding and defining the impact of dielectrics on the equation in total. My mathematical skills are simply not up to snuff. That is why I am working with a young college grad who lives and breathes numbers. So does his significant other. She makes me feel stupid. The question is: why does the dielectric constant have the effect on the audio frequency band when common knowledge and current mathematical theory says that it should not? Dunno, but we are working on it.


WE appreciate the research, but I would like to see the actual data and analysis. Research is something I know a bit about. I have seen quite a bit of it and most does not support many of the assumptions and beliefs of the high end audio markets. I was once one of those believers until I learned just how much my own expectations and prior experience biased my listening. If the theory is not sufficient to explain what you can document, I would enjoy the challenge of trying to model the effects. The tools ARE available. You mentioned fractals earlier. Wavelet analysis can achieve precisely the kind of scalable analysis that will quantify such phenomena. With the high gain and high sampling rate acquisition devices available, there is no reason we cannot achieve models of any audible effect. Carver did this with very crude tools a couple of decades ago. We can do much better now with the computing power that is pervasive and the analytical tools that did not exist at the time.



dBe said:


> There is more to all of this than meets the eye....eerrrr.... ear. Not all of us are snake oil salesmen or crooks.


Asking for your research and challenging your assumptions is not the same as calling you a crook. That simply is not what we are about here. If anyone does so, report it. It will stop. At the same time, some who share your views have suggested that those with other views are ignorant. We have been tolerant, but neither side will be allowed to make such suggestions and assumptions about others. Everyone will be expected to be respectful of the views of others.



dBe said:


> When it comes to buying power conditioners, power cables or speaker cables only buy from a seller that offers a 100% Moneyback Guarantee that is a no quibble guarantee. Do not let the fact that something is cryoed or has other special materials processing be an impediment. Those things should NEVER be a selling point, but merely one of the many tools that a manufacturer uses to get the end product. Way too many people are gullible and buy the buzzwords associated with a product. These are the same people that wil buy the new iPhone97 or whatever. Don't condemn the entire high end industry for the gullibility of the masses.


I was part of the high end industry for years, selling some pretty expensive products, and believed what I suggested to customers. I found over many years of testing and research that many of my beliefs were not well founded. I remain skeptical about much of the industry, but rarely do I consider those involved to be dishonest. Most believe in what they sell. That does not make what they believe necessarily accurate, nor does it make the differences they experience meaningful to other people.



dBe said:


> I'm just sayin'.


And you can say whatever you believe and relate your experience. As long as you show respect to others. Others, such as myself, can do the same, and we should challenge each other to make a good case for our perspective and we can discuss, debate, and disagree without attacking others. Just remember that challenging ideas is how we learn and share knowledge. That is very different than challenging someone's ethics.

With respect,


----------



## dBe

Before I go any farther let me make a blanket apology to everyone involved here at HTS. I am not telling you this as an excuse. Quite frankly, there is no excuse or good reason for me getting my back up over this discussion. There have been some intense family issues here in Albuquerque and I am emotionally, physically on spiritually exhausted. I should have been more in control. It is my bad and I take full responsibility for my actions and reactions. I hope that you all will find me to be an honest, open and honorable man. I will tell you what I know, what I think and what I believe. I won't make stuff up and I will admit when I don't understand the how's and whys of what I hear. I am seriously trying to figure out why we ca't quantify some aspects of audio. These things drive me nuts. I'm pretty smart, but math is not my strong suit. I have enlisted the help of a young couple from church to help me in this. They are recent college grads and besides being in love with each other, they love math. Better for me this way.

I would ask you all to bear with me as I trundle down the road to quantifying all of this. Meanwhile I will carry on doing what I do.


----------



## lcaillo

I am sorry if I pushed you over the edge. I really would like to find where we have common understanding and would like to collaborate to better model the differences that you believe to exist. To me it is a challenge that has not been sufficiently engaged by either side in these debates.

I sincerely hope that your personal challenges become easier and that you have the support of family and friends that you need, Dave.

None of the topic here is personal, nor is it as important as family.

Be well.


----------



## dBe

lcaillo said:


> I am sorry if I pushed you over the edge. I really would like to find where we have common understanding and would like to collaborate to better model the differences that you believe to exist. To me it is a challenge that has not been sufficiently engaged by either side in these debates.
> 
> I sincerely hope that your personal challenges become easier and that you have the support of family and friends that you need, Dave.
> 
> None of the topic here is personal, nor is it as important as family.
> 
> Be well.


The only person that pushed me over the dge was me. No worries... Bygones.

I wil be posting observed effects that exist without supporting math here in a couple of days. 

I'll also respond to your post above.

Tight now I'm just toast.


----------



## dBe

3dbinCanada said:


> Thank you for the response. Finally there is some real meat in this discussion other than experience. You gave me some tangeable arguements and desciptions. Again, please don't take that as an insult because its very difficult to accept another's experience when it goes against every grain of what has been learned in school.
> 
> I do understand mil-mpec very well having worked for Lockheed here in Canada for 7 years. I'm beginning to understand the cost of cables now when mil-spec components are being used. The paper trail is very expensive and the cost gets passed onto the components.
> 
> Its interesting that after cryo, the cable resistance decreases. I would have thought an increase initially as one is seriously dropping the energy levels on the free electrons but the resistance would decrease back to the original state as the cable warms up.
> 
> I would love to A/B the cable. I'm not a believer but have opened my mind that maybe there is something more.


Since you have hung in here through all of insanity (be it temporary or not on my part) I have a proposal for you. A while back on another forum, I ran a tour of the the effects of cryogenics on the digital audio standard reference - CD We got great data back in the beginning until that was absolutely DBT agreement until the Cd's went through one particular participants hands and the Cd's just got trashed. There is even some material on one of the Cd's that looks like blobs of wax. I chose CD as a medium because it was also a test on my part to see what people thought the test was about. I didn't tell anyone why I chose it just to see what the reaction was to the test. You should see the initial reactions... pretty funny. Most people thought that te testing of cryo was on the data. Nuh-uh. Data is data. What we were really looking at is the effects of cryogenics on the polycarbonate medium the CD is built upon.

Cryogenic treatment of bench optics is a standard manufacturing process presently in HQ glass. The crystalline structure is normalized and realigned which reduces light scatter through that lens. The people that built Hubble knew that this would happen as a function of deployment and actually entered that into the calculations for that mirror, If they had only ground it correctly in the first place, then.... well, that is a different story. The trick in SQ of CD is getting the data off of the disc as accurately as possible. Encoding the data is not that hard, It is in the reading of that data that the equation becomes more complex. There are just too many variables involved. Anyway, I digress..

Cables are funny animals. They are the product of their parts and pieces and the way they are assembled. I had devised another test concerning wire that might find a better home here than at AC. I built three sets of identical interconnect cables. I shipped them to "Control" over there and USPS lost them. I have since built three more sets of cables. I used Furutech FP126(G) connectors and Dayton Audio [http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=100-220] microphone cable. It makes very good quality interconnects BTW. Drop the shield at the destination use the two conductors for hot and ground and you've got a great bang for the buck cable. All of the cables are the same wire. All of them are constructed identically. They are 'A', 'B' and 'X' with the 'X' cable easily identified by the fact that it is the only cable with a TechFlex jacket. Each set sounds different. The differences are small, but they are there. I am doing the burn in on them now. Would you like to be the Primo Guinea Pig? If so, PM me your mailing info and I'll send them to you. Others can then listen to them if they wish and upon listening you can PM me and I will tell you what the differences in the cables are. The ONLY rule here is to not divulge your results to the other players. You all can determine who gets what, when. If you want to play, it is your responsibility to pay the postage to the next victim. What do you think? 

Remember: I am a 2channel fish swimming in a home theater pond. I'm probably out of the mainstream. Go easy and report what you report if you choose to. If you don't hear a difference, that is OK. I do. I am not a high end proselytizer. I'm just Dave, the baffled and searching for the answers.


----------



## NotBananas

3dbinCanada said:


> Hearing memory is the most inaccurate memory that humans posses, hence your recollection of it being that way. There's a reason blind audio tests are supposed to be short. Its because of inaccurate hearing memory.
> 
> Live performances in a bad acoustic environment is NOT how I want to remember how music should sound. I totally disagree with your assertion based on that.


So, what do you consider bad acoustic environment? I guess Carnegie Hall at Lincoln Center in NYC is bad acoustics, or the Merola Opera House in San Francisco also has bad acoustics (moved to Silicon Valley in 1978)? The worst acoustic environment is better than the best audio system attempting to reproduce live performance.

I also disagree with hearing memory. I've heard that argument for decades, but for some reason I can remember the acoustic environment every time it's repeated. A long time a go the local audio shop (good 'ole days) demoed several turntables in a double blind test where the owner had it behind curtains. Whenever he played the same LP on both, even after a 2hr lunch break I was consistently able to pick out the same turntable/cartridge combination. I remember returning a few weeks later and he still had both systems setup. He played both with the same LP and I asked him if this is the one most everyone liked, which he said yes.

If we have such a bad hearing memory, why do we recognize a voice on the phone from someone we haven't heard from in years?


----------



## dBe

NotBananas said:


> So, what do you consider bad acoustic environment? I guess Carnegie Hall at Lincoln Center in NYC is bad acoustics, or the Merola Opera House in San Francisco also has bad acoustics (moved to Silicon Valley in 1978)? The worst acoustic environment is better than the best audio system attempting to reproduce live performance.
> 
> I also disagree with hearing memory. I've heard that argument for decades, but for some reason I can remember the acoustic environment every time it's repeated. A long time a go the local audio shop (good 'ole days) demoed several turntables in a double blind test where the owner had it behind curtains. Whenever he played the same LP on both, even after a 2hr lunch break I was consistently able to pick out the same turntable/cartridge combination. I remember returning a few weeks later and he still had both systems setup. He played both with the same LP and I asked him if this is the one most everyone liked, which he said yes.
> 
> If we have such a bad hearing memory, why do we recognize a voice on the phone from someone we haven't heard from in years?


I would like to respond here if you two don't mind.

First I think that you are trying to incite dissection by your first comment which is obviously inflammatory. Of course those are great acoustic venues, even though they are both 'assisted' venues. See my earlier response.

Second your next statement concerning the worst acoustic venue is seriously flawed and a bit silly when one stops to consider the implications. If this is true, then why would we spend the $$$ to create a well balanced listening environment. Even the kludged together space that I built when we first moved into our current home will support a 180 degree soundstage beyond the rear wall. Seriously? Think about what you wrote.

Second, I concur with your assessment of experiential auditory memory. I know people that have great recall of auditory events. Doug Geist of Santa Fe Center Studios is one. He can also nail the frequency of a tone or other sonic event within 1/16 octave. I've tested him because I was in awe of his ability to call it in real time. He is the Reigning Master of EQ in these parts. Another one is Gary Dodd of Dodd Audio. I am no slouch at this either. I can hit a frequency within an eighth octave and have relative pitch. This ability is partially trained and partially natural in my case. Of course the use of th term "partially" in this context is partially a pun in itself.


----------



## dBe

dBe said:


> Cables are funny animals. They are the product of their parts and pieces and the way they are assembled. I had devised another test concerning wire that might find a better home here than at AC. I built three sets of identical interconnect cables. I shipped them to "Control" over there and USPS lost them. I have since built three more sets of cables. I used Furutech FP126(G) connectors and Dayton Audio [http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=100-220] microphone cable. It makes very good quality interconnects BTW. Drop the shield at the destination use the two conductors for hot and ground and you've got a great bang for the buck cable. All of the cables are the same wire. All of them are constructed identically. They are 'A', 'B' and 'X' with the 'X' cable easily identified by the fact that it is the only cable with a TechFlex jacket. Each set sounds different. The differences are small, but they are there. I am doing the burn in on them now. Would you like to be the Primo Guinea Pig? If so, PM me your mailing info and I'll send them to you. Others can then listen to them if they wish and upon listening you can PM me and I will tell you what the differences in the cables are. The ONLY rule here is to not divulge your results to the other players. You all can determine who gets what, when. If you want to play, it is your responsibility to pay the postage to the next victim. What do you think?
> 
> I'm just Dave, the baffled and searching for the answers.


The offer stands. All you have to do is take it.

Anyone?

Dave


----------



## 3dbinCanada

NotBananas said:


> So, what do you consider bad acoustic environment? I guess Carnegie Hall at Lincoln Center in NYC is bad acoustics, or the Merola Opera House in San Francisco also has bad acoustics (moved to Silicon Valley in 1978)? The worst acoustic environment is better than the best audio system attempting to reproduce live performance.


I guess you don't see very many bands at a pub? Poor acoustical facilities




NotBananas said:


> I also disagree with hearing memory. I've heard that argument for decades, but for some reason I can remember the acoustic environment every time it's repeated. A long time a go the local audio shop (good 'ole days) demoed several turntables in a double blind test where the owner had it behind curtains. Whenever he played the same LP on both, even after a 2hr lunch break I was consistently able to pick out the same turntable/cartridge combination. I remember returning a few weeks later and he still had both systems setup. He played both with the same LP and I asked him if this is the one most everyone liked, which he said yes.
> 
> If we have such a bad hearing memory, why do we recognize a voice on the phone from someone we haven't heard from in years?


Dr Floyd Toole differs from your opinion on memory hearing. Its the accuracy that's being questioned. I cannot dispute your hearing claims nor can I vouch for them.


----------



## lcaillo

Hearing memory has much to do with context and bias. Voices are recognized not just because of their sonic qualities but phrasing, timing, inflection, etc.

The level of detail that memory can accommodate for hearing varies greatly with how those memories are stored and how meaningful the experience is. The accuracy is highly variable, as with all other memory, and can be affected by context.


----------



## dBe

lcaillo said:


> Hearing memory has much to do with context and bias. Voices are recognized not just because of their sonic qualities but phrasing, timing, inflection, etc.
> 
> The level of detail that memory can accommodate for hearing varies greatly with how those memories are stored and how meaningful the experience is. The accuracy is highly variable, as with all other memory, and can be affected by context.


This is exactly why using familiar pieces of music is necessary for ABX testing. Without that frame of reference (that is what reference is all about) there is little chance of success for an untrained listener.


----------



## Sonnie

I agree... I think the only way I would have a chance to hear a difference is using the same listening material over and over... stuff I am familiar with.

I plan to have about 10-12 songs for my listening evaluation that will be consistent. I will no doubt listen to a lot more, but I need those consistent songs that I really like so that I can hear how the speakers take care of my favorite parts of the song.


----------



## dBe

Sonnie said:


> I agree... I think the only way I would have a chance to hear a difference is using the same listening material over and over... stuff I am familiar with.
> 
> I plan to have about 10-12 songs for my listening evaluation that will be consistent. I will no doubt listen to a lot more, but I need those consistent songs that I really like so that I can hear how the speakers take care of my favorite parts of the song.


Back in the early 80's when I became a recovering objectivist a group of us at the old QUINCY STREET SOUND recording studio set about what it took to make our relative low dollar gear sound better. Our studio tech built a random switch that would choose up to five parts with no sequence. We quickly found out that five was way too many and narrowed it down to the classic choice of three. We tested anything and everything we could try for SQ - caps, resistors, transistors, opamps, switches... The whole gamut. We quickly determined that caps, resistors and the active devices were the major players.

The best way we found to get repeatable results in excess of 80% was to let the participant choose the music and the switching times. Turned out that short snippets of relatively sparse arrangements of acoustic music worked the best. The whole bundle of snakes that is wire came 10 years later.

AJ and Danny can tell you that my mantra is this: getting the notes right is easy. It is the space between the notes that is hard. In the last few years I have added timbral accuracy to that qualifier. Black backgrounds will reveal the harmonic series of triangles, female voices, strings, etc. Also, reverb tails and other spatial clues live in that background.

The other thing about critical listening is that short periods are much better than trying too hard, too long. Take it easy and enjoy the experience... Who knows what will happen?


----------



## dBe

dBe said:


> The offer stands. All you have to do is take it.
> 
> Anyone?
> 
> Dave


Seriously???

Nobody??? :unbelievable:

Hmmmmmmm................


----------



## Sonnie

I would do it during our speaker evaluation if I had time, but we already got a fully load. Maybe later on down the line we can work it out.


----------



## dBe

Sonnie said:


> I would do it during our speaker evaluation if I had time, but we already got a fully load. Maybe later on down the line we can work it out.


I bet you do!

I really meant this for the lay people here at the Shack. The ones that are in the discussion. All it takes is the willingness to do the listening, be intellectually honest and report their findings and to pay the postage to the next victim. Cheap education, I would think.

We'll see.


----------



## Sonnie

I would still like to do it some time in the future... seems like it would be interesting enough.


----------



## dBe

Sonnie said:


> I would still like to do it some time in the future... seems like it would be interesting enough.


Any time...................


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## Abdul Rehman

A perfect crossover, ,,,,,,, in my speaker is the biggest lies becouse
A perfect crossover, in essence, is no crossover at all. It would be one driver that could reproduce all frequencies equally well. Since we cannot have that, second best would be multiple speakers, along the same axis, with sound being emitted from the same point, i.e., a coaxial speaker that has no time shift between drivers. This gets closer to being possible, but still is elusive. Third best, and this is where we really begin, are multiple drivers mounted one above the other with no time shift, i.e., non-coincident drivers adjusted front-to-rear to compensate for their different points of sound propagation. Each driver would be fed only the frequencies it is capable of reproducing. The frequency-dividing network would be, in reality, a frequency gate. It would have no phase shift or time delay. Its amplitude response would be absolutely flat and its roll-off characteristics would be the proverbial brick wall. (Brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?)


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## Danny Richie

> Third best, and this is where we really begin, are multiple drivers mounted one above the other with no time shift, i.e., non-coincident drivers adjusted front-to-rear to compensate for their different points of sound propagation. Each driver would be fed only the frequencies it is capable of reproducing. The frequency-dividing network would be, in reality, a frequency gate. It would have no phase shift or time delay. Its amplitude response would be absolutely flat and its roll-off characteristics would be the proverbial brick wall. (Brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?)


The problem with that is that the time arrival aspects are only in phase at a very narrow point in space. Up or down an inch or so and you'd get cancellation effects that will start to create holes in the response. It also will only work where there is no floor or ceiling reflection. Ceiling and floor reflections will have a very uneven response.


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## ErinandJeffsDad

I have been interested in high end audio since the mid 70s, I was never comfortable with "any cost for an audible difference". I bought and played with many of these tweaks, most don't exist any longer, and none were really worth it or are still in use with me. It always comes down to a quality source, amp and speakers in a well set up room.


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## Redmed

Definitely agree with the cable snake oil lie!


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## belgica

hi,
I agree with all of the Audio Lies with the exception of bi-wiring, particularly when we talk about bi-amping

in rare but existing "real" bi-amping amplifiers there are different amplifiers for lower frequencies and higher frequencies

when we have this kind of equipment bi-wiring is mandatory!

this is also true for [even more rare] tri-amping and quad-amping where tri or quad wiring is needed ...

I have already built tri-amping amplifiers myself and it's a complete different world using active crossovers perfectly tuned for the corresponding speakers instead of the regular passive crossovers ...

in bi, tri, or quad-amping, speakers are directly connected to the amplifiers outputs and there are no passive components (except for the wires ...) between them

to be noted that these amplifiers have complete different power outputs! for example in tri-amping bass could be 100W, mid-range 25W, and treable 8W

of course at the same time we can mix together a 1000W sub-woofer ...



br
Belgica


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## stiffandcold

Good read.

I agree with all of them.

But in the anti-digital section, I wouldn't necessarily say that digital is _better_. Well, in terms of transparency, yes, but not always in terms of flavour. I like a lot the color added by tape on some older records.


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## torspeed

Hi all,

I didn't agree with all the lies, since some of the stated arguments, in my opinion, are explained a bit too simple.

- cable lie: for many years now, I own the same basic electronics (pre amp, power amps, cd player) and speakers (more than 14 years). So I 'know' very well how the combination sounds; it's engraved into my memory. I'm not a guy that changes electronics just because they are not up-to-date. As long I'm touched by the sound and I feel satisfied, I don't need to change anything. On the other hand, my curiosity and an opportunity to test another interconnect/speaker cable combination (owned by a friend) showed me that there can be more... For about 20 years now, I have been listening to the CD Misa Criolla of Ariel Ramirez (Phillips No. 420955-2) with José Carreras. I know every part of the cd very well and there are some instruments (sounds) on that cd that are very unusual and absolutely non-mainstream. So what happened with the new set of cables: suddenly I was able to identify the origin of a certain sound, that I was not able to do so before! So at least this set of cables provides some additional information (or resolution) in comparison to my old set. The thing is, that this part of Misa Criolla cd can distinguish between 'the good and the bad'. So it would be a perfect test, if you just would ask the members of this forum to identify the origin of that particular sound. No ABX test is needed, just listen and tell us what you think you're hearing :wink2:. If you're not able to identify it correctly, you could ask yourself why not.

- bi-wiring: can you hear the difference? I don't know, since it didn't work for my set (bi-amping on the other hand was a big difference). But in the referenced article it is stated that, as a whole, there's no electrical difference and that's just not the case. If you replace the speaker cables by equivalent LCR components, even I, who studied mechnical engineering, have learned what the changes in the electrical diagram have to be. Have a look at this link, it explaines the technical side of bi-wiring: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/audio/biwire/Page1.html . So I cannot agree with this lie of the poll.

- the power conditioner lie: if a Bryston is able to do some perfect filtering than that's awesome. Maybe I should switch to their components, because my very well designed Camtech pre and Quad power amp (not my claim) obviously do not the trick! If I switch on a simpel light dimmer in a room next to our living room, the humming frequency is sounding clearly audible through my speakers. Anything wrong with my components or the cables? At least not that I'm aware of. All the components are attached to a separate power line that comes straight from the domestic electrical distribution box and it has it's own fuse. Do I use a conditioner then? No, I haven't found a reasonably priced power conditioner, that doesn't influence the (bas) dynamics, yet.

Sven

PS: I really like this forum and it's discussions. In my country the forums are too much hijacked by some aggressive preachers :frown:.


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## Douglas_Doherty

It seems to me the bigges problem lies in differentiating (no puns intended!) between a 'difference' and an 'improvement'. Any change may have subtle effects that emphasise one thing rather than another. Like directional cables...


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## chashint

Disregard


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## Mariadesuja

Yes, These are the ten biggest lies in audio. Most people are confused about this.


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## 3dbinCanada

Unless one can reliably detect differences through controlled blind listening tests with enough statistically significance, then the choice was made either on sight or knowledge bias that the new component is in play.


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