Speaker cables have shown to made a difference... does it matter?
- Thread starter VinylRob
- Start date
robgmn
Super Member
Exactly! (and I wonder if the debate is more about whether a difference exists versus whether a change is an improvement or not).
Exactly!
Really? If we can measure the full spectrum of sound (well beyond what we are capable of actually hearing or potentially sensing), how can we not prove that two sounds produced are identical or not?
Do you mean that even if speaker measures identically in an anechoic chamber with two different cables, it may still SOUND different, either in the chamber, or out (which would suggest that the room alters the signal before it reaches the speaker)?
Mr. Lin
Lunatic Member
I was wondering the same thing.
I built a "cable cooker" for about $100 from a half kit and wouldn't want to be without it now, incidentally.
To toss my general view about whether speaker wire making a difference really matters: absolutely yes. Your system is the sum of its parts, and seemingly small things like differences between wire add up to a lot, and from a certain perspective are part of the foundation of your system as well.
Wigwam Jones
Caesar non supra grammati
Yes, but I suggest that there are more ways that sound can be expressed than we can measure, primarily because the sound we listen to is a complex waveform (music).
Perhaps I should have said we cannot prove that any two sounds are identically heard, rather than identical. I believe that to the extent we are capable of measuring, we may find that any two sounds test identically, but are not heard (or experienced) identically.
Consider another sense; that of taste. We can measure all of the known attributes of food, but how does it taste?
Everything we experience is different than objective reality to one extent or another. We do not all have the same color perception - those to the extreme margins are known as color-blind. We do not all have the same hearing - those on the margins are known as tone-deaf. We do not all experience taste or touch or smell. It's all filtered through our differing physical capabilities, and influenced and interpreted by our mental processes.
We also do not always know what we can objectively measure actually means to the human experience.
For example, we can measure wine in a variety of ways. At some level, most wine is identical, but if you get very sophisticated in your testing, you can distinguish between even different bottles of the same wine. So you can say that no two bottles of wine are identical; or you can say that all wine is identical - depending upon what characteristics you test.
And the results?
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/should-we-buy-expensive-wine/
http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/handle/37328
Read this carefully - I think it reinforces the notion that what matters most is what happens inside the brain - not what reverberates through the air in our listening rooms. And the trained ear can, perhaps, hear what the untrained ear cannot - and prefer it. I see no reason why listening cannot be compared to taste in this manner; but I'd love to see a real scientific study that took this on in a rigorous manner.
That would be a fascinating result, but let's be clear that the reverse is far more likely, especially when we're talking about the level of measurements suggested by the poster you're responding to. Human testing neatly sidesteps the whole issue when it comes to testing for audibility / audible differences, which I know was part of your point in a previous post, just saying it again.
I also suspect it's very similar. On the other hand, I think it's much more rare in foods than in audio that two different products might actually be indistinguishable, which I think is when people really get riled up. I know of one: I've read that logic indicates no reason why different sea salts should taste different unless their crystals are significantly different in size, and that they should all taste the same once dissolved in water. Salt conventions make it clear that many chefs do not agree. I, for one, would not volunteer for the sea salt ABX. That would get painful in a hurry.
These wine tests were not put together to have a result for whether the wines actually tasted different. They surely did, but it wasn't related to the hypothesis either way.
VinylRob
Vinylphile
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This is exactly what plagues cable threads.
Our inability to (as most of the audiophile community, read other blogs, before you dispute this observation!) move beyond this "myth" that wire can't sound different or that far too many folks here have just not experienced it.
This is why I brought up ABX as a possible experience or learning tool to simply expose in mass.
If this paradigm were to shift, we could spend so much of our valuable time getting on to matters of greater import. We are utterly stunted in our evolution, and enlightenment would be yet another thing to dissect and pick apart with half baked logic and then argue about someone's choice of syntax.
Happy Listening?!
This is exactly what plagues cable threads.
Our inability to (as most of the audiophile community, read other blogs, before you dispute this observation!) move beyond this "myth" that wire can't sound different or that far too many folks here have just not experienced it.
This is why I brought up ABX as a possible experience or learning tool to simply expose in mass.
If this paradigm were to shift, we could spend so much of our valuable time getting on to matters of greater import. We are utterly stunted in our evolution, and enlightenment would be yet another thing to dissect and pick apart with half baked logic and then argue about someone's choice of syntax.
Happy Listening?!
Just to throw a curveball in, the brain does actually work differently when concentrating as compared to just relaxing. So, could it be that the act of concentrating on sound, like in a DBT, actually changes how we hear and process music? That the heavy concentration involved is physiologically not the same thing as when we are relaxed and listening to our stereo?
I would be very surprised if it didn't. Just one of many reasons why testing for "better" is more problematic than "different" (except when you're asking for "better", but really only looking for "different").
This has always been something I questioned. Add on top of the 'stress' of being in a test (however subtle) the idea that you're in a strange room with strange gear that you have no context for how it normally sounds, and I don't see how anything can really be tested for all that accurately. But it's no less accurate than not doing the test, so if anybody really wants to that's cool. I just don't believe the findings will be any more relevant to me than a friend who's ears I've come to trust over the years saying "these might tame the brightness you're having". Which has happened, and it worked. Swapping Audioquest Cheetah silver cables for Straightwire Crescendo. But..that was a balanced cable swap, not speaker cables.
As I said a long time ago, if somebody proves to be able to identify a difference where nobody has ever done so before, that's relevant to anyone who didn't think it was possible. To everyone else, there is little relevance, except as a fresh bit of ammo for online arguments.
VinylRob
Vinylphile
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Good point. I (we) get fooled all the time when trying something new in a "known" context (system) with short listens. What seems to be the acid test and really flush out the best long term results, is leaving it in and just enjoying the music for a while, and then at some point after an extended listen, trading back in the original component and see if in contrast, the virtues/short comings of the new component merit its return or dismissal.
Happy Listener!
Good point. I (we) get fooled all the time when trying something new in a "known" context (system) with short listens. What seems to be the acid test and really flush out the best long term results, is leaving it in and just enjoying the music for a while, and then at some point after an extended listen, trading back in the original component and see if in contrast, the virtues/short comings of the new component merit its return or dismissal.
Happy Listener!
robgmn
Super Member
I find I like to listen in a darkened room.
I guess the reduction in info. reaching my brain from visual input helps me to process what I'm hearing better.
That said, wouldn't the "stress factor" affect the entire test (thereby balancing out it's effects)? Or, do you think it may eliminate the ability to actually perceive differences that may be there?
Hmmmm....
That's where I'd fall back on signal analysis.
I've been told I'm wrong, but I just can't wrap my head around the idea that two identical signals/waveforms, etc. can somehow be different.
Yes, they may be PERCEIVED as different, but they are technically the same (my system may sound entirely different to me tomorrow due to a humidity spike. this doesn't mean the signal has changed in any way).
So, if two cables/etc. deliver an identical signal to a speaker which results in an identical output but they are PERCEIVED as different, are they indeed different?
Vice versa, if the two signals/etc. ARE different but are PERCEIVED as the same, are they indeed the same?
Both questions are posed within the realm of audibility for humans.
VinylRob
Vinylphile
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And again... why should anyone have to prove anything?
If you (or anyone) choose to "believe" what I (we) see as a myth, knock yourself out. But to turn it around on us with "burden of proof", I have no stock in it and quite frankly could not care less what people care to believe (for whatever reasons). Maybe if I sold cables for a living I would feel different.
IMHO arguing the point, is a waste of valuable time and energy. I'm personally looking for a way to move beyond that and I was naive enough to think an ABX might help in that effort.
No offense meant, I'm fine with us seeing things from different view points.
Happy Listening!
And again... why should anyone have to prove anything?
If you (or anyone) choose to "believe" what I (we) see as a myth, knock yourself out. But to turn it around on us with "burden of proof", I have no stock in it and quite frankly could not care less what people care to believe (for whatever reasons). Maybe if I sold cables for a living I would feel different.
IMHO arguing the point, is a waste of valuable time and energy. I'm personally looking for a way to move beyond that and I was naive enough to think an ABX might help in that effort.
No offense meant, I'm fine with us seeing things from different view points.
Happy Listening!
And yet we do so, almost nonstop, with little or no change in entrenched positions from either side.
Oh well, I guess it passes the time....
In the really old Nelson Pass exploration I linked to, the measurements were not the same. There was nothing mystical going on, but the signals were not the same.
Ding ding ding! I spend ALL DAY in front of a computer at work and work in short bursts then get mentally tired and come back online but like to keep my brain going instead of watching cat videos, so I argue about cables.
Right now i'm in a coffee shop looking out upon a rainy city street. Somehow this debate is comforting in all this.
What everybody needs to remember is that however we differ on the cable debate, we're all kind of in the same nerdy corner of the party talking about stereos. We have more in common than our differences would suggest.
Wigwam Jones
Caesar non supra grammati
No one does have to. Perhaps more to the point, no one can, with regard to the superiority of one speaker cable over another, because there is no testable objective reality to be proven.
However...
Those who believe that speaker cable makes a difference, and who spend what others consider a great amount of money on them, are often held up to ridicule. That can tend to make those who spent the money feel defensive.
On the other hand, those who claim they cannot hear a difference are often likewise held up to ridicule. That can tend to make those people defensive too.
I like to do what I like to do. But I also like to know that others agree with me, it gives me validation and feels good. Not everyone has this need, but those who do sometimes have it to a greater or lesser extent, about one thing or another.
With regard to speaker cable, I am relatively immune to not being part of the 'in' crowd. But not everyone is. And I've certainly felt slighted from time to time with regard to other things - not speaker cable, but other things - which have caused me to lash out defensively. It happens. I get it. Speaker cable discussions may not cause me to lose my chit, but other things do and have.
Why can't people just enjoy what they enjoy and not feel a need to prove things one way or another? I dunno. I guess because that's how humans are wired.
I certainly did not say anyone should.
If by "myth" you mean the concept that all remotely adequate speaker cables sound the same, that's not something I "believe", it's something I think is probably true because I don't see a reason to suspect otherwise. The "burden of proof" is only on you if you want to convince me that your opinion is fact.
Though I did not go back and read the posts, I think the "burden of proof" concept was kind of poorly described previously. Here's an example:
Person A thinks telepathy is not real. Person B thinks it is.
- If person A says "I see no good reason to think telepathy exists, so I do not", then the burden of proof is on person B if they want them to think that telepathy does exist.
- If person A says "Telepathy does not exist. Period. You are wrong." Then, the burden of proof is on person A if they want person B to agree with them.
Well, that is what is happening with the speaker cable debate. I honestly DO NOT see the posts where people that run expensive cables are trying to push them on anybody else. It has always been just what is described here. Somebody barging in and telling everybody that their couldn't possibly be a difference. And thus the burden of proof rests squarely on them, because they are making the stand.
TerryO
Super Member
That's a fair question and may be an area worthy of exploring. I will say that I wouldn't be surprised that within the context of these conversations that the meaning will be subjectively interpreted.
Some will say that the concentration required during a test may interfere with actual hearing to the extent that a person won't be able to hear an actual difference.
OTOH, it can be argued that man's "survival mechanism" heightens one's ability to discern sound during a concentrated effort and one is able to perceive that there is, in fact, a difference..........or perhaps, no difference.
Best Regards,
TerryO