On 1 Jun 2005 02:23:42 -0700, "andy" wrote:

Level-matched to +/- 0.1dB at 100Hz, 1kHz and 10kHz, pass criterion 15
correct out of 20 trials, your choice of ancillaries, of music, and of
location.

That is clear subject to some clarification of music.

Anything except 'progressive' French jazz. That's not a technical
point, I simply won't listen to that pretentious crap! :-)

That's pretty much it, unless you want to introduce
something very unusual and not relevant to a music system, in which
case a little negotiation might be in order.

Although I think I understand the gist this is a potential source of
problems. For example, is an ultrasonic tweeter (which appears to be
one of the current fashions) very unusual?

No, if you can find a music signal to drive it! :-)

Indeed - and it would not be applicable to listening to music. I can
very easily show differences among cables by introducing ultrasonic
(or of course video) signals, but this test is about *audible*
differences, not mere trickery.

One of us may be losing the plot here. If you require the cables to
have no significant difference over the audible frequency range then
they must interact with a nonlinearity in the range where they are
different in order to generate something audible. Meeting the challenge
surely rests on this?

Not if you believe that cables actually do sound different, without
introducing pathological signals to them. As noted, high power
ultrasonic intermodulating signals are out of order.

You guys claim 'night and day' differences when listening to music,
so why suddenly so coy?

I think you may be confusing me with someone else.

Possibly, it's me age, tha knows................

How about the source being in the conventional audio range,
and would typically (but not essentially) be music?

That would rest on what is meant by "conventional audio range".

20Hz to 20kHz is standard, but I've no objection to 25kHz if you have
a six-year-old girl handy.

If
there is to be no signficant difference in the cables over the audible
range and no signficant signal out of it the challenge would appear
almost impossible by definition.

That would depend on you holding the perfectly rational belief that
cables all sound the same. There are other, extremely vocal, opinions
out there, tha knows!

It might be possible to do something
with instabilities in the power amplifier but that side of things is of
no personal interest.

Indeed, and of little relevance to claims made for 'audiophile'
cables. Indeed, if you don't use Naim's own highly inductive cables,
you invalidate the warranty on their marginally stable amps. Talk
about incompetent design! :-)

If you're not happy with that,

Happiness comes from tough but achievable.

Or wanting what you have.

might one enquire the source of these 'night and day'
opinions about 'cable sound'?

I suspect we are in full agreement about the source. See elsewhere in
this thread.

There is a somewhat deceptive tone in your suggestions.

Far from it. I am being quite open about how one could go about meeting
the challenge.

OK, consider me to have been confusing you with someone else, and
apologies offered as necessary.

Ah yes, that would be Rob!

I want it tackled in the spirit of claims of 'night and day'
differences heard when *listening* to these cables.

Not sure about 'night and day' since this would imply to me the
difference between loud and quiet. I presume an audible difference
acceptable? Does the non-standard cable have to sound better or just
different?

Just different.

Not sure about *listening* to the cables either. Cables are relatively
insignificant passive components what would seem much more important is
the response of the active system to the differences in the cables.

No argument there from me!

Generating special
signals which have no relation to audio, typified by high-power
ultrasonic intermodulation, proves nothing.

Unless you explicitly forbid it in the rules then it is a very simple
way to demonstrate audible differences between cables and meet your
challenge.

That's why it's forbidden. I think I lefta 'duh' lying arpound here
somewhere. Kimber does not charge £1,000 a foot for Black Pearl on the
basis that it might sound different if you bang a kilowatt of 90/93kHz
down it.....................

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 13:28:23 +0000 (UTC), Rob
wrote:

Spending money on speakers makes a difference. But
everything else (cables, amps, TTs, CDPs etc) and *massive* diminishing
returns start to set in. And I actually think the satisfaction derived
is actually negative with really expensive stuff.

I'd be cautious about vinyl gear, up to about £5k or so, but otherwise
yes, just speakers.

The possible exception
here might be designer kit (B&O, Bose) - but people who buy that have
different priorities and expectations.

Well, I just paid nearly 30 grand for a Bose sound system, but it has
really fast bass.................. :-)

I just made up my mind a long time ago that speaker cables were unlikely
to have any effect that I could hear. The notion just seemed daft for
the reason you give. Having said this I have had issues with
interconnect - but that's various buzzes and hums - there with some
cables, gone with others. That strikes me as an engineering issue using
the same (or similar) materials.

Oh sure, interconnects can have real problems, but this has nothing to
do with exotic materials or constructions, any old microphone cable at
a quid a foot will do just fine, if it's used properly.

You're quite right. But what does bother me is the way some technocrats
in this group 1) pronounce fact

Indeed, facts *are* facts. I canna' change the laws o' physics, cap'n.

Nor can I change the much softer 'laws' of human psychology, but we
know enough about them to identify the problems.

and 2) attempt to patronise, humiliate
and offend at any opportunity. To think that opportunity arises when
some innocent asks about cables - sheesh.

Now, enough of this. I joke not - I'm throwing out/organising 2 bin
liners of cables I've accumulated over the past 10 years :-)

Replacing them all with Cardas GoldenCross, I trust? :-)

BTW, weren't *you* the guy who blew in here claiming that anyone who
could *not* hear cable differences must be deaf or using duff gear?
Talk about being patronising and offensive..............
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 16:59:09 +0300, "Iain M Churches"
wrote:


"Rob" wrote in message
...

You're quite right. But what does bother me is the way some technocrats in
this group 1) pronounce fact and 2) attempt to patronise, humiliate and
offend at any opportunity. To think that opportunity arises when some
innocent asks about cables - sheesh.

Rob

Hmm. Now you come to mention it,
I think I may have noticed that also:-)

Yup, those recording 'engineers' sure can be patronising! :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 15:53:16 +0100, "Keith G"
wrote:

You want *exclusive*? You go into any 'high-end' 'hifi' store and ask for a
pair of 'Black Hand Decca' speaker cables like mine - you won't find any!!
;-)

(You might get them in B&Q though.... :-)

Add a couple of baked bean tins, and you can have your own Orange
mobile phone system..........

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 07:01:29 GMT, (Don Pearce)
wrote:

On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 02:07:48 +0100, Signal wrote:

"Stewart Pinkerton" emitted :

Prove it, when you don't *know* what's connected.

Stewart, show some integity here. Put your car, your home and any
savings on the line. If you truly believe 100% what you say then it's
risk free.. right? If they lose, have them pay costs and admit to
being silly on usenet. Perhaps give 'em some abuse and that. If they
fail - which THEY'RE NOT GONNA DO COS YOU **KNOW** YOU'RE RIGHT - they
keep the lot - but remember there's NO RISK for you AT ALL! Go on...
*prove* what a man you are LOL ;-)

You know nothing about statistics, do you? The conditions Stewart has
published in the past are in fact extremely lenient, and will result
in him losing about one time in twenty on pure guesswork by the
triallist.

Nobody is going to risk his all on those odds.

Thanks, I was about to point out that this is of course a 'bet' that
will lose from time to time by sheer force of chance (and nothing to
do with actual sonic differences). Of course, as happened in the TAG
Mclaren experiments, if you *repeat* the test, then the odds of that
happening twice in a row become astronomical.

The only time I actually got involved in a serious money bet was my
fifty grand against Graham 'The Devil''s half a million, but he slid
out of that one. That was the time where body parts got factored in at
one point!
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

On 2005-06-01, Don Pearce wrote:
I must say that when I model cables properly as distributed
transmission lines, I get rather different results at the important
"top end" than with a lumped model. ...

At 20 kHz lambda = 15 km. Allowing for the velocity factor of a PVC-clad
cable of about 56% we come down to lambda = 8,400 metres. A 3 metre cable
is therefore 0.036% of a wavelength. I admit to some surprise that this
makes a significant difference. In picky moments I might think of 5% of
a wavelength (1/20th lambda) as being the borderline, but 1/2,800 lambda?

I would model it myself but haveing changed OS kernel recently, SPICE
now segfaults and I have not yet re-compiled it with the new libraries.

--
John Phillips

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 16:54:44 +0000 (UTC), Stewart Pinkerton
wrote:

Thanks, I was about to point out that this is of course a 'bet' that
will lose from time to time by sheer force of chance (and nothing to
do with actual sonic differences). Of course, as happened in the TAG
Mclaren experiments, if you *repeat* the test, then the odds of that
happening twice in a row become astronomical.

Well, I don't know. If you find yourself in a position where you are
repeating a test, then the odds against it happening again are still
twenty to one.

But you are right, stats say that the test WILL be passed by chance,
and in that circumstance it is vital to test whether you are
witnessing a genuine ability, or merely a member of a statistical
clump. If there is nothing special going on, you can expect - as you
say - reversion to the mean (to quote the proper phrase). I hope you
build that requirement into your protocol.

To guard your pocket against this, perhaps you could invite triallists
to put up a 5% fee (£50) which they forfeit if they fail.

d

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

Don Pearce wrote:

As for the importance of capacitance in speaker cables, I would ask
you to consider the Goertz cable, which has a characteristic impedance
of about 8 ohms. What that says to me is that in this case the
capacitance and inductance are absolutely equal in determining the
cable's characteristics.

A cable's transmission-line impedance only applies above a certain
frequency.
What are the specs for Goertz cable? I bet it only works as a TL at RF.

--
Eiron.

On 01 Jun 2005 16:59:44 GMT, John Phillips
wrote:

On 2005-06-01, Don Pearce wrote:
I must say that when I model cables properly as distributed
transmission lines, I get rather different results at the important
"top end" than with a lumped model. ...

At 20 kHz lambda = 15 km. Allowing for the velocity factor of a PVC-clad
cable of about 56% we come down to lambda = 8,400 metres. A 3 metre cable
is therefore 0.036% of a wavelength. I admit to some surprise that this
makes a significant difference. In picky moments I might think of 5% of
a wavelength (1/20th lambda) as being the borderline, but 1/2,800 lambda?

I would model it myself but haveing changed OS kernel recently, SPICE
now segfaults and I have not yet re-compiled it with the new libraries.

Bear in mind that we are talking about small changes in response, and
basically if the inductance of the cable matters, then the distributed
model will do a better job of indicating by how much.

d

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

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Rob
wrote:


What I am (or am not) is irrelevant. The fact remains that quite a few
people spend a lot of money on wire.


Many people also pay money to cover their gardens with wooden 'decking' as
well. However I am less than convinced this is a good idea. :-) Seems to
me to be a 'fashion' promoted by gardening programs on TV.

Slainte,

Jim

Wouldn't even *whisper* that round these parts [border Essex] ...

:-)

Rob