If you can hear it, it must be measurable

[grumpy]

Ya know I get approached quite a bit about reviewing pieces of equipment. Why in the world people want me too is way beyond me. I do not review equipment period. Whats this have to do with the topic at hand ?

What sounds good to me is all that matters to me. I don't care if anything is measurable except the enjoyment my system brings me

 

[JohnVF]

I suppose I could cart a lab full of test equipment into my already crowded apartment but I don't see the point when all I have to do to get an idea if I like it or not is hook something up for 10 minutes.

Measurements suggest that we all hear things the the same and like the same things and we don't. Just listen. If you can hear a difference, than who cares what the measurements tell you? Maybe you're imagining it but it still sounds better to you, as much of musical enjoyment lies in your imagination.

 

[Grainger49]

. . . What sounds good to me is all that matters to me. I don't care if anything is measurable except the enjoyment my system brings me

Amen... read the signature if y'all haven't.

 

[whoaru99]

The last few posts are all fine and dandy, and I don't disagree. But that's not the discussion the OP is seeking, is it?

 

[fotno]

The last few posts are all fine and dandy, and I don't disagree. But that's not the discussion the OP is seeking, is it?

If a particular individual were used as a test subject. and was asked to chose their favorite speakers from a large group. Then measurements could be used to better select (from an un-sampled group of speakers) a speaker that the test subject might also enjoy. The problem lies in that, as far as I know, that's not the way the technology is being used, and even if it were, it wouldn't mean that anyone else would prefer the speakers that the test subject did.

As I said earlier, it's not so much a question of "can it be measured" but "what do those measurements mean" if they don't translate into a pleasing experience for the human ear. In the end, as long as the human element is entered into the equation, this will always be a subjective/objective discussion.

 

[JonL]

whoaru99, I don't think we fundamentally disagree that anything that we can sense is due to some objective physical quantity. Where we may differ is in our opinion as to the state of understanding of what those physical quantities are and the availability of measuring techniques. I don't buy mumbo-jumbo explanations for why certain tweaks might make a difference, but I do believe that our ears can perceive things that result from complex interactions of physical phenomena. Perhaps we don't fully understand what or how we should be measuring.

 

[Grainger49]

I edited the OP:

. . I firmly believe that anything that can be heard can be measured. This goes for some of the, ahem, interesting adjectives that are applied to audio products.

I, of course disagree.

Think about it. If you perceive a difference, there must be some physical difference in the audio signal reaching your ears. That's a physical phenomenon with manifestations in the real world. As such, those physical differences must be detectable.

At least our ears can hear the differences. But I disagree that test equipment can measure it. Never with music. Which is the only thing that counts.

But, there are a few problems with this:

First, what do all those interesting adjectives mean? . . .

Interesting treatise on terminology. Yes explaining what orange means in words to a blind man is difficult.

Second, even though a quality exists in the physical world, and its presence there means it should be measurable, that doesn't mean that the actual means to measure that quality exists. Speaking of the openness of a system's sound.... we'd need some sort of audio openometer to measure that, and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't exist yet.

So there are lots of qualities of audio that may be affected by audiophile equipment, but the means to measure them don't exist.

I agree wholeheartedly. But seems to contradict the opening statement, "I firmly believe that anything that can be heard can be measured."

Third, we're all different. The physical structure of our ears varies from person to person. Just look at physical structure President Obama's outer ears versus that of his opponent's from last fall's election. You think those wings Obama sports don't make a difference in the way he hears things as opposed to how McCain hears them (we're not talking politics here, just the shape of the outer ear)?

Those physical differences aren't just limited to the outer ear. I'm sure there are all sorts of minute physical differences in our inner ears, too, based on the size of our heads, our age, any physical damage we may have incurred listening to music at extreme volumes, etc....

Beats me, and I studied perception.

So, here's the problem, even if we can agree on what these terms mean, we have no way of ensuring that we perceive these differences similarly.

But, we've hit standards like this for video. Audio is just a lot trickier to measure, I believe, so it'll be a while before we can get those measuring devices and the definitions of things they're supposed to measure.

Just hoping that this hasn't already been done to death.

The last few posts are all fine and dandy, and I don't disagree. But that's not the discussion the OP is seeking, is it?

Agreed, the thread took a skid sideways so I have clipped the OP...

I'll go to the mantra I used in the 70s. Testing uses one frequency at a time for the most part. There is IM, a whopping two frequencies. And square wave tests (no objective measure made here).

Music is thousands, possibly millions of frequencies all at once at incredibly different levels. There is no device (and still isn't today) that can test a piece of equipment playing music. And as cwall, the OP, points out, what we hear from our stereos include two channels portraying soundstage that a "one channel at a time measurement" can't possibly address.

Our ears test our stereos every time we make an evaluation.

 

[sheltie dave]

I respectfully disagree with the premise that we cannot measure and quantify cables in similar fashion to what is contained in a review standard to amplifiers and speakers.

I contend we could use the same equipment reviewers like John Atkinson already have to illuminate differences between cables, and how these differences affect amplifier output and speaker output, both using test tones and music.

If our ears can hear differences, and the test equipment, mics, plotters, and RTAs have a measurement capacity a hundred-fold more accurate than our ears, then we can BEGIN to measure differences and posit good/bad ledgers. The published data would have the same relevance that our current speaker reviews and data have - it is all a scientific wild ass guess(SWAG) as to whether anyone can read a review and claim they know they will like THAT speaker. Same for cables.

The fact this does not occur is evidence of collusion between the manufacturers eating at the profit trough, and audio magazines that love advertising revenues and malarkey.

There are good cables, average cables, and poor cables, but a review of cables in audio magazines is only a guarantee of sales, not science. I still stand with one foot firmly planted in the measure and record data camp, and one foot in the listen and buy camp.

 

[Mr. Lin]

And just because you or I don't know exactly how to do it doesn't mean it can't be done.

The factors of R, C, and L are the influences. I'd be willing to wager that on any two cables where a difference can be heard, there will be a measurable difference in one, two, or all of those three properties.

Yes, that was implicit in my comments that you just quoted, I never said it can't be done, but it seems we don't currently know how to. Sorry, I don't buy into the audio magazine and cable manufacturer conspiracy theories. To suggest that they all have some silent agreement not to perform a secret testing method that only they know about, or release data from such a test as it would discredit their products, that's a little ridiculous.

As for R, C, and L, it seems clearer all the time from my own listening experiences that those are only part of the story. The type of conductor is critical, for example, of all the wire I've used, ohno continuous cast copper and silver clearly produce better results. Dielectric absorption is another important aspect, as is cable design, ie braiding method, that sort of thing. These are things that involve electromagnetic theory, among other things, and as of now it doesn't seem that anyone has a clear way to demonstrate it scientifically, but that certainly doesn't discredit these theories. I hear a difference listening to cables with various types of conductors, design, and dielectrics, all other things being equal.

Are we getting off topic? Maybe, but at the end of the day my response is that I don't really care about whether or not the differences I hear can be measured, because I don't need proof on paper to enjoy it.

 

[marc mc]

I suppose I could cart a lab full of test equipment into my already crowded apartment but I don't see the point when all I have to do to get an idea if I like it or not is hook something up for 10 minutes.

Measurements suggest that we all hear things the the same and like the same things and we don't. Just listen. If you can hear a difference, than who cares what the measurements tell you? Maybe you're imagining it but it still sounds better to you, as much of musical enjoyment lies in your imagination.

I agree 100% but remember John that last sentence is what some believe to be the enemy of true audio.

marc mc

 

[luvvinvinyl]

At the Fest, last May, Dr. Joe D'Appolito, Chief Design Engineer at Snell Acoustics, spoke at length about his techniques wrt speaker design. Driver design, T-S parameters, modelling, on and on. Last step was voicing, by ear, by his 'control group', which included himself. His stated goal was to develop a speaker, quickly, to bring to market, which would appeal to a broad sector of potential customers. He said that he had access to design criteria which had been demonstrated, through field testing, to be judged 'pleasing' by a majority of persons in the customer demographic. He also said that the problem was that the statistical predictors had no relevance in the individual case.

This is the problem. A manufacturer can design for a particular group, but cannot guarantee that 'Sam Johnson' will think the item is any good, no matter what the specs/measurements/models say. The root cause is that the two sides of the equation are both variable. The behaviour of a large group of people can be predicted with a reasonable to fairly high degree of accuracy, even when dealing with subjective matters like audio. But the degree of variability between individual members of that group make it impossible for any single member to rely on those predictions, unless he or she has determined that his individual perceptions lie very close to the mean values for the group.

In other words, you can't solve a system of equations with more variables than equations.

At least, not yet. The day may come when we eliminate some of the variables, so that the system becomes solvable. That day is not yet here.

 

[sheltie dave]

Luvinvinyl, using that logic, a reasonable person would never be able to select a pair of cables, as there are more variables than equations. However, like with all stereo gear purchases, we use a rather simple set of algorithyms in a decision tree process to arrive at the keep and use/get rid of decision.

My order generally goes bass, soundstage, clarity, brass, oboe, and violin instrument presentation, vocals. I always pull the same reference recordings and accomplish any serious judgmental music listening at night, when environmental noise is low. It seems that most of the audiophile community intuitively does the same, as there are quite a few threads about everyone's reference recordings used to test their systems.

IT would take very little time to winnow a testing program to those tests that readily demonstrate differences, and then develop some thumbrules regarding an additional branch on the decision tree. When I go visit the remaining brick and mortar stores in town, and they are asking for the same amount of money for cables as I have spent for my entire main system, it makes sense to expect to read a spec sheet and reviews in 2009. The industry does it for so many things - why not cables?

 

[Grainger49]

Wait! I think I got it. Maybe this is to say that if you can hear it should be measurable even if we can't measure it now. Or ... don't know how to measure it now. That I might agree with. But don't agree that we do measure it now.

 

[whoaru99]

... But don't agree that we do measure it now.

Again, yes and no.

You and I may not, but others do calculate and measure.

 

[Mr. Lin]

The industry does it for so many things - why not cables?

Again, because no one is currently able to do so. You may or may not believe the high end cable thing is "snake oil," I don't because I've used multiple cables from many manufacturers in several of my systems, none of which would really be classified as anything more than mid-fi, if such a category exists. And there are clear differences between most of them. All are the same length, 1 meter, some a half meter. My point is that, considering what I've experienced, if there were ways to measure much of what we hear when using these cables it doesn't make sense that manufacturers wouldn't want to use that to their advantage. It seems to me that your argument is based on a conspiracy theory, that they're all hiding something.

Again, yes and no.

You and I may not, but others do calculate and measure.

Those measurements tell us nothing we don't already know about, we're talking about ways to measure what some of us hear using different cables, beyond the standard inductance, capacitance, resistance, etc.

 

[whoaru99]

... beyond the standard inductance, capacitance, resistance, etc.

Such as?

Here's another example, this one on skin effect.

 

[Grainger49]

John Adkinson believes he can gather enough data to make conjectures about measurements correlating with specific sonic attributes. He hasn't been able to do that yet but is still collecting data, for the last 10 years or so.

 

[sheltie dave]

Mr. Lin and others, the audio rags already are measuring cable performance, every time they do a speaker, amp, preamp, turntable, and cd player review. The only caveat is they only are doing it for a reference set of cables. It would not be hard for them to compare Heyser nodal plots, waterfall 3Ds, and Nyquist plots, or to publish some of their archived data captures and create an ongoing conversation about a part of the industry still in the Dark Ages.

Why generate all these data captures and publish them for speakers costing $3000, but issue a free pass for the $3000 speaker cables? Let's see the same report on ten leading speAker cables on the same system.

Sound is a phenomina that has measurable speed, energy, intensity, frequency, attack, decay, timbre, et al. These all are properties we can measure, with instruments both readily accessed, widely understood, and two decades more accurate than the human ear. All cabling, no matter how many hootchie coos are put in the stuff by witch doctors at the factory, are then relegated to producing these everyday properties for the rest of their days. Measure it and we can see if we are delusional, or if $3000 is money well spent, or if $20 will suffice.

 

[Grainger49]

Just looking at Belden's specs for 89259 the data it is manufactured to includes specs like:

Conductor gauge stranding and material
Insulation type and thickness
Shield type and percent coverage
Outer jacket type
Inductance per foot
Capacitance per foot
Velocity of propagation
Nom. delay
Nom. resistance
Voltage rating

Belden isn't concerned about anything else.

 

[sheltie dave]

Neither is the military, and they use Belden because the published specs meet their stringent requirements for sonar, radar, navigational, communications, and satellite wiring.

I wonder how many expensive audio cables can meet milspec criteria?