ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

I KNOW I would win, but I would have to do it with my system and that don't
move (i.e. immovable object, speakers bolted into a concrete floor etc.),
and no one's coming here so that's that. I don't need his £1000 either, and
it doesn't really matter to me if no one believes me anyway.


"Fleetie" wrote in message
...
Unbelievers won't be heeded as usual as I know I'm right LOL.

"LOL" indeed!

Put up or shut up. Stew wants to give you 1000 pounds if you'll
show him you're not full of it, and can indeed reliably tell
the difference between 2 cables.

I think you would FAIL.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967
110890
Manchester, U.K.
http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=fleetie

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 May 2005 14:21:57 +0100, "Keith G"
wrote:


Ha ha! Trotsky! - I wonder where/how he is???

(I miss him - he had a great wit and and lovely line in ****-take!! :-)

He had wit like **** and didn't recognise a ****-take for days, which
is why he slunk off back under his rock.


You are entitled to your opinion, of course - *I* found him to be witty and
amusing and thought that the famous ukra ****-slinging had lost a 'certain
summat' when he left the group. Remember the evergreen 'How crap is your
hifi Pinky?' :-)

'slunk off back under his rock' ??? (Like the many others who no longer post
here for one reason or another...??)



If you want to see this in spades, look up the McGurk effect.


Yes, indeed:

http://www.media.uio.no/personer/arn...k_english.html

IMPORTANT - do *not* read the text before playing the video (hide it with
your hand) for best effect!

Actually, that turns out to be not at all important!


To whom?

Note the phrase 'best effect' - I played that clip to Swim last night and
she was quite amazed by it. More so (we both agreed at the time) because she
had not been 'primed what to expect'...


I watch the
video, hear what was predicted. I close my eyes, I hear what is really
being said. I open my eyes again, and I *still* 'hear' the wrong
thing!


As do I and as does Swim (I gather).....


Powerful thing, the human mind..........


No comment.... ;-)



Works the same with amplifiers - I *still* hear my Krell as having
sweeter treble than my Audiolab, even though I know it doesn't.


Ah, but do you *really* know that....???

:-)

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

That's already been stipulated.

Can you please point me at where.

And no, you don't get to pump 100 watts of 60kHz and 63kHz down the
cables

So the subject cannot choose the source?

This is supposed to be about the sound of cables in a high-fidelity
music reproduction context, so obvious and totally unrepresentative
cheats will be excluded.

I am not sure I fully understand the idea of cheating. If you require
the cables to have the same response from 100Hz to 10kHz then it is
hard to see an audible change coming from anything other than the
cables interactingly differently with a significant nonlinearity above
or below this range.

To avoid cheating does the source for driving the effect have to be in
the music or can one use, for example, "natural" audio phenomena like
cartridge/tonearm resonance, record warp, mechanical resonance and the
like? (I am not particularly interested in the electronics side).

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

On Tue, 31 May 2005 19:50:20 +0100, Signal wrote:

"Don Pearce" emitted :

I wonder why SP has not issued the challenge to the cable
manufacturers?

Already been done by Tom Nousaine, and they welched. I've tried it
with Ecosse cables in this country, and they ran away and hid. I've
tried it with Randy at BEAR Labs, and he ducked out as well.
Basically, they're just conmen, and they'll always duck a real test.

Yeah, but you and Tom are not scientists. On the contrary, the both of
you think you already know all the answers already and are far from
open minded or impartial to the results. The involvement of money or
betting means it's unscientific from the outset - basically it's a
dick measuring contest, not the honest persuit of science.

What are you talking about? The question is simple. Can they hear the
difference between two cables if they don't know in advance what cable
they are listening to. They can choose the venue, the other equipment
and the music.

The *question* may be simple, but if you think getting reliable data
is simple then you are approaching the subject too simplistically.
Removing bias without impinging on sensitivity is FAR from trivial.
Drawing conclusions from null results is a fallacy. Drawing
conclusions from results without paying due consideration to Type 2
statistical errors is a fallacy.

Don, I worked for a major Pharmaceutical company on proper scientific
double blind drug research trials, and by comparison the intellectual
effort... the scientific scrutiny.. the size and scale of the
so-called audio DBTs discussed in these groups are *laughable*. These
guys aren't grade A scientists, they are over-opinionated closed
minded wannabes. Stewart even thinks he can make global pronouncements
on audibility based on tests he's set up with his mates, but in
reality.. a few hours later he's doing what he *really* knows best -
maintaining a print room ;-)

Any poor design in the test will result in making it easier - not
harder- for them to hear a difference.

A presumption... pretty far fetched IMO. A poorly designed test could
mask differences.

The money, far from invalidating the test, makes for even greater
incentive to hear a difference than personal pride alone.

"Incentive" = increased sensitivity?

Another presumption.

Tom Nousaine recently said in an ideal world test participants should
have a gun to their head, or words to that effect. Do you agree?

In fact the test regime bends over backwards to accommodate the
triallist.

That's debatable - but even if true, it doesn't substantiate the
unscientific position that a null results prove anything. That's just
opinion - an opinion that indicates a very clear bias on the part of
those making such statements.

OK. I'm happy to listen. Based on your experience with DBTs in a drug
company - what would be your protocol for a test?

And do remember that we are not dealing with subtle differences here.
We are dealing with "night and day" claims. Now I can tell night from
day under even the most unfavourable test conditions.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

On 2005-05-31, Signal wrote:
"John Phillips" emitted :

I wonder why SP has not issued the challenge to the cable
manufacturers?

Already been done by Tom Nousaine, and they welched. I've tried it
with Ecosse cables in this country, and they ran away and hid. I've
tried it with Randy at BEAR Labs, and he ducked out as well.
Basically, they're just conmen, and they'll always duck a real test.

Yeah, but you and Tom are not scientists. On the contrary, the both of
you think you already know all the answers already and are far from
open minded or impartial to the results. The involvement of money or
betting means it's unscientific from the outset - basically it's a
dick measuring contest, not the honest persuit of science.

You misunderstand the scientific method.

You misunderstood all the points I made above.

I'm sorry - I thought I did understand what you said. Maybe you could
explain.

FYI I ignored the bit about involving money as that would make a
"dick measuring contest" of vast proportions out of, for example, the
pharaceutical industry's muli-million pound research testing, which it
clearly does not.

Your remaining grounds for rejecting the test do not address the test
itself and are ad-hominem (e.g. "not scientists", "far from open-minded").
I chose to ignore that, deciding not to point out how unscientific such
arguments are and instead addressed the test method.

To continue, I believe the ABX test is more favourable to the hypothesis
"the difference is audible" and so is a good test for those who hold
this hypohesis. I will explain.

I have yet to hear any good reason for the error case where the difference
is audible but the test will not detect it (well, apart from listener
stress, which I think is not likely to affect all test subjects). If you
think the test is bad in this way I would like to hear your reasons.

There are better reasons, IMHO, for the other error (the difference
is not audible but the test detects differences). The levels could be
badly matched for example, the ABX switch may be faulty.

So I have to say the test looks more than fair to those who hold the
view that the differences are audible. Ignoring the case where there
difference is not audible and is not detected, just one good example of
the case where the differences are detected will provide a situation where
the doubters will have to argue that this is an error case. Yet there
have been still no public tests by those who hold this hypothesis.

--
John Phillips

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

On 2005-05-31, Signal wrote:
"Don Pearce" emitted :

Understand this - what people crow in the throes of pride of ownership
of something pretty and expensive is NOT evidence.

Another false premise.. more expensive cables do NOT necessarily sound
better to listeners who hear differences.

That's true but I have been looking for some time for a magazine review
which says of any epensive cable that it's different but bad.

Additionally in my philosophy of audio equipment a cable's job is to be
transparent and just transfer the signal unchanged (well, audibly so,
anyway) from one box to another. Show me two cables that actually sound
different and one (at least) must be failing to do its job.

--
John Phillips

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

On 2005-05-31, Signal wrote:
"John Phillips" emitted :

In this context I argue that it *might* be. Under normal (for now,
non-DBT) conditions some people claim difference.

So what? Once they can *prove* that they hear a difference when they
don't actually *know* what's connected, we'll continue the debate.

Fast-switching DBTs, the type practiced by some of the more outspoken
members of these groups, cause confusion and are based on techniques
which bear a remarkable affinity to established methods of trance
induction. Normal humans are not immune to this. ,,,

I thought the listener was in control of the ABX switch so I can't
understand why they would want to switch it fast if they thought that
would be detrimental to their ability to hear the difference.

The scientific community says audio memory is short - a few seconds at
best. So you might say a properly designed test shouldn't afford
participants the opportunity to switch slowly, such that their memory
fades. Or do you think they should be allowed to modify the test such
that it no longer conforms to scientific principles and is thus
invalid?

I agree audio memory is reported to be short (and seems to be in truth
from my experience). Nevertheless the reviewers and others say they hear
"night and day" differences between cables. If they are not relying on
audio memory when they say that then they need not rely on audio memory
in the ABX test.

I see no utility in stopping the tester from listening for a day to A,
a day to B and a day to X if that's how they listened earlier when they
heard "night and day" differences in their sighted swapping of cables.

That does not seem to be to "modify the test" but perhaps I have not
understod what you meant.

--
John Phillips

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

On Tue, 31 May 2005 20:06:01 +0100, Signal wrote:

"Don Pearce" emitted :

Good. Got there. The reason for the claims of superior cable sound is
'pride of ownership'. Phew. Now, evidence please.

Rob

No, Rob. What we need is evidence that this is NOT so.

Hello.. you made an assertion, have you nothing to back it up with?

No, I provided plenty of backup - you'll need to dig back through the
posts to find it, I'm afraid.

And if you think about it, my way is the only way a proof makes sense.
Rob says a difference exists, and that is easy to prove. He only has
to demonstrate an ability to tell one cable's sound from another - job
done. I can go on providing null results until I'm blue in the face
and you could go on saying that this is just my cloth ears, or
whatever.

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

On Tue, 31 May 2005 20:04:53 +0100, Signal wrote:

"Don Pearce" emitted :

Understand this - what people crow in the throes of pride of ownership
of something pretty and expensive is NOT evidence.

Another false premise.. more expensive cables do NOT necessarily sound
better to listeners who hear differences.

Then why on earth did they buy the things?

d

Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

ZU Wax Speaker Cable (a Kimber basher?)
 

On 2005-05-31, Don Pearce wrote:
On Tue, 31 May 2005 14:18:30 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Don Pearce
wrote:
On 31 May 2005 11:03:38 GMT, John Phillips
wrote:

I guess you take issue with "The capacitive component of the cable is
too small to have much influence at audible frequencies, and is thus
omitted from the model."

No. The point is that in a cable (and this is where the lumped model has
problems) the capacitance tends to flatten the HF response, not further
reduce it. A cable is not a lowpass filter.

I've not checked so perhaps I am mis-remembering. Is not the Davis paper
on LS cables as distinct from signal interconnects?

If so, it seems a reasonable assumption to tend to neglect the shunt
capacitance for domestic LS cables. (Assuming the amp is stable, etc.)

I'd agree that such a cable is "not a low pass filter". However it is
generally pretty 'short' in terms of audio signal wavelengths, so a lumped
model is one I'd take to be OK for most purposes.

I appreciate that you were trying to illustrate the point that cables
don't have audible differences, but I had to point out that Fred's
article, by way of its errors, actually understates this case.

Is this an actual "error" in the sense of omitting something important?

I can see that shunt capacitance may be quite significant with
interconnects due to the (relatively) high source impedances often used.
But I would not normally expect this with LS cabling in domestic cases.

For the most part, and certainly for the purposes of assessing cables,
yes you can ignore the capacitance. But the argument here (and in
Fred's paper) is over fractions of a dB at the high end, and for that,
no you can't. It makes a difference.

So in brief, if one argues that cables sound different, you need to
consider the capacitance in analysing the claim. Fred did so argue,
but failed to consider capacitance. So his paper was flawed.

I have done some calculations based on the fact that a loudspeaker
terminates the cable and an amplifier drives it.

In the case of the two most capacitive cables of the 12, I agree that the
error due to ignoring the capacitance may be of the order 0.2 dB and 0.1
dB (the highest and second highest respectively). For all other cables
the likely error is smaller. (I did the maths quickly and I admit I
will have to check again to be absolutely sure.)

Even if the error is of the order of 0.2 dB and makes a bigger difference
(actually I think you are right that it reduces the differencce) then
the differences shown still do not stray into the audible regions of
the graph whose URL I posted.

From that point of view the paper seems to be rather less flawed than
you propose.

--
John Phillips