What is interesting is a lot of these charlatans say they have
conducted there own blind trials and can pick these cables every time,
so why oh why dont they just take the test take Stewarts money and rub
his noise in it!???

You don't actually need to answer that as it is blinking obvious why.
:-)

"Joe Folly" wrote in message
oups.com...
What is interesting is a lot of these charlatans say they have
conducted there own blind trials and can pick these cables every time,
so why oh why dont they just take the test take Stewarts money and rub
his noise in it!???

Maybe it's because Stewart is a pretentious arsehole? Just a theory.

On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:09:36 +0000 (UTC), "neutron"
wrote:


"Joe Folly" wrote in message
roups.com...
What is interesting is a lot of these charlatans say they have
conducted there own blind trials and can pick these cables every time,
so why oh why dont they just take the test take Stewarts money and rub
his noise in it!???

Maybe it's because Stewart is a pretentious arsehole? Just a theory.

It's not even *my* test, you dumb prick, I'm just putting up the
money. What's 'pretentious' about that? What *is* pretentious is
pricks like you making ridiculous claims about cable sound, and then
running from a challenge to *prove* their case.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:09:36 +0000 (UTC), "neutron"
wrote:


"Joe Folly" wrote in message
roups.com...
What is interesting is a lot of these charlatans say they have
conducted there own blind trials and can pick these cables every time,
so why oh why dont they just take the test take Stewarts money and rub
his noise in it!???

Maybe it's because Stewart is a pretentious arsehole? Just a theory.

It's not even *my* test, you dumb prick, I'm just putting up the
money. What's 'pretentious' about that? What *is* pretentious is
pricks like you making ridiculous claims about cable sound, and then
running from a challenge to *prove* their case.

No what is pretentious is your attitude to people who disagree with you.

In article , Neutron
wrote:
Maybe it's because Stewart is a pretentious arsehole? Just a theory.

It's not even *my* test, you dumb prick, I'm just putting up the
money. What's 'pretentious' about that? What *is* pretentious is
pricks like you making ridiculous claims about cable sound, and then
running from a challenge to *prove* their case.

No what is pretentious is your attitude to people who disagree with you.

Maybe Mr. P has been driven to exasperation by people who continually
express their unfounded disagreement over a matter that is completely
factual and could be settled by a simple scientific test, but continually
refuse to take the test.

Rod.

Roderick Stewart wrote:

Maybe Mr. P has been driven to exasperation by people who continually
express their unfounded disagreement over a matter that is
completely factual and could be settled by a simple scientific test,
but continually refuse to take the test.

Maybe those of us that can hear the differences get driven to
exasperation by Pinkerton's name calling and juvenile insults, and
perhaps it's as a result of his attitude that nobody wants to have
anything to do with him outside the confines of Usenet.

Fact: Cables *do* make a difference to the perceived sound. (Note the
use of the word "perceived" - whether this difference is in the ear or
the mind is not the debate for this particular point.)

Fact: Many people can hear these differences.

Fact: Many other people can't hear any difference. The same way that
many people can't tell a £99 mini or midi system from a few grand's
worth of separates. My ex, for example.

Fact: I've heard huge differences at hi-fi shows when the exhibitor has
changed power cables on certain pieces of equipment. The cynic in me
wonders what they've done to the equipment to make it behave strangely
with the bog standard power cable. That definitely shouldn't make a
difference.

Fact: I've also heard what happens when you put a Naim CD player on an
equipment stand made of tubular steel. The sound goes very strange, and
sounds almost out of tune. Again, the cynic in me would think there's
something very wrong with the magnetic shielding on the CD player for
this to occur.

For the record, in my main system, I have an Arcam DV-79 and AVR-250
combo. The two are linked via SPDIF co-ax using a home made cable,
MIL-spec RG58 with gold plated plugs. Speakers connect using Audio
Innovations Silver Bi-Wire for the fronts (Mordaunt-Short Avant
908/905C) and a bulk equivalent to Gale XL-105 (actually some 105-strand
OFC cable sourced from CPC, looks identical to XL-105) for the rears
(Avant 903S bipolars). Sub-woofer (B&W ASW-1000) is connected using
another home made cable (some nice chunky stuff with gold phono plugs
again). And it sounds absolutely fantastic.

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation

In article , Glenn
Richards wrote:
Maybe Mr. P has been driven to exasperation by people who continually
express their unfounded disagreement over a matter that is
completely factual and could be settled by a simple scientific test,
but continually refuse to take the test.

Maybe those of us that can hear the differences get driven to
exasperation by Pinkerton's name calling and juvenile insults, and
perhaps it's as a result of his attitude that nobody wants to have
anything to do with him outside the confines of Usenet.

A fair point. Name calling never settles an argument.

Fact: Cables *do* make a difference to the perceived sound. (Note the
use of the word "perceived" - whether this difference is in the ear or
the mind is not the debate for this particular point.)

Categorical statements don't settle arguments either. Simply declaring
something to be a "fact" will not make it into one.

Fact: Many people can hear these differences.

Well, many people *say* they can hear differences, but for some reason
none has ever taken up the challenge to prove this.

Fact: Many other people can't hear any difference. The same way that
many people can't tell a £99 mini or midi system from a few grand's
worth of separates. My ex, for example.

Certainly many people cannot hear any difference between cables, but this
is *not* the same as failure to hear genuine differences between very
different pieces of equipment.

Fact: I've heard huge differences at hi-fi shows when the exhibitor has
changed power cables on certain pieces of equipment. The cynic in me
wonders what they've done to the equipment to make it behave strangely
with the bog standard power cable. That definitely shouldn't make a
difference.

I don't doubt you can hear what you can hear, but that doesn't make it a
"fact". I was recently lent some cables that were purported to make a
dramatic difference to the sound, and heard no difference at all. Does
that make it a fact? Had the person who lent them not been a professional
sound mixer I've known for years, I wouldn't have bothered, but I thought
I'd nothing to lose by trying. These were phono cables, so it was possible
to replace the cable in one channel of the stereo pair between my CD
player and the amplifier and listen to a mono recording. As this is
effectively the same signal through two paths, one incorporating my
ordinary cheap audio cable and the other the "special" one that is
supposed to sound different, and each signal is fed to a different ear,
any difference between them should be clearly manifest as either spreading
or movement of the stereo image, which for a mono source is of course a
point source dead centre. What happened was that even on headphones, the
sound remained pin sharp and dead ahead throughout, regardless of what
instruments were playing and regardless of loudness.

So what am I to make of that? My little experiment would surely have made
clear the slightest mismatch between the two cables, but there was none,
and I am at a loss to understand how a professional sound mixer could be
led into thinking that there was one. The only imaginable rational
explanation is that the cables he actually uses were bought off a reel and
he put the plug on himself, whereas the ones in the demonstration that
initially convinced him to buy the stuff had been factory fitted with
plugs, so we don't know for certain what was in the plugs. I don't know
if anybody actually does fit extra components in the plugs, and I don't
suppose anybody who has purchased cables of this type at typical prices
will want to dismantle them to check, but it would be possible, and it
could make the sound genuinely different. The first thing I'd do if I
heard a difference on changing audio cables would be to make electrical
measurements of whatever could be measured externally, because that's the
only rational explanation for any real difference in what they conduct.
And that's a fact.

Rod.

Glenn Richards wrote:

Fact: Cables *do* make a difference to the perceived sound. (Note the
use of the word "perceived" - whether this difference is in the ear or
the mind is not the debate for this particular point.)

Fact: Many people can hear these differences.

Then why has no-one ever been able to demonstrate this in a scientific
test? Should be really simple, and there even seems to be money in it
for them. Try this:

Fact: People who claim they can hear a difference between
well-constructed cables are not sure enough of their convictions to but
it to the test.

--
Mark.
http://tranchant.plus.com/

In article , Glenn
Richards wrote:
Roderick Stewart wrote:

Maybe Mr. P has been driven to exasperation by people who continually
express their unfounded disagreement over a matter that is completely
factual and could be settled by a simple scientific test, but
continually refuse to take the test.

Maybe those of us that can hear the differences get driven to
exasperation by Pinkerton's name calling and juvenile insults, and
perhaps it's as a result of his attitude that nobody wants to have
anything to do with him outside the confines of Usenet.

Fact: Cables *do* make a difference to the perceived sound. (Note the
use of the word "perceived" - whether this difference is in the ear or
the mind is not the debate for this particular point.)

There are two linked problems with the above statement,

One is that it uses the term 'fact', when 'belief' may be more accurate.

The second is that it uses the term 'perceived' in an ambiguous manner. It
may mean 'detection of a real change of some kind' or 'a belief that
something has changed when it has not'. Thus all it does it tell us that
some people think they have heard a difference. Not that the difference
actually occurs as a result of anything in the physical world. Nor, if
anything in the physical world *has* caused the 'perception' ambiguous
*what* has caused it.

It may be a 'fact' that various people believe various things, and
do so for all sorts of 'reasons'. But in itself, this tells us
little or nothing about if any of their ideas are reliable, or
if the 'reasons' they would offer are actually a cause...

Fact: Many people can hear these differences.

Comment parallel to the above. It might be a 'fact' that many people
*think* they can hear the claimed 'differences'. But that then takes us
back to the problems mentioned above.

Fact: Many other people can't hear any difference. The same way that
many people can't tell a £99 mini or midi system from a few grand's
worth of separates. My ex, for example.

The problem here is with a false attempt at an 'analogy'. By saying "in the
same way" you insert assumptions which may not be correct about a different
situation which may or may not be analogous.

Also "the same way" might mean that in both the cases no actual audible
difference existed. Depends entirely on circumstances which you omit
from your assertion.

Fact: I've heard huge differences at hi-fi shows when the exhibitor has
changed power cables on certain pieces of equipment.

s/fact/belief/ in line with the above.

The cynic in me wonders what they've done to the equipment to make it
behave strangely with the bog standard power cable. That definitely
shouldn't make a difference.

Well, the 'cynic' in me makes me wonder why people seem so willing to go on
assert their beliefs as 'facts', yet then refuse to engage in tests that
would have the ability to provide evidence that either supported or
undermined their belief. :-)

[snip]

For the record, in my main system, I have an Arcam DV-79 and AVR-250
combo. The two are linked via SPDIF co-ax using a home made cable,
MIL-spec RG58 with gold plated plugs. Speakers connect using Audio
Innovations Silver Bi-Wire for the fronts (Mordaunt-Short Avant
908/905C) and a bulk equivalent to Gale XL-105 (actually some 105-strand
OFC cable sourced from CPC, looks identical to XL-105) for the rears
(Avant 903S bipolars). Sub-woofer (B&W ASW-1000) is connected using
another home made cable (some nice chunky stuff with gold phono plugs
again). And it sounds absolutely fantastic.

No doubt it does. I also have audio systems which I am fairly happy with.
However I do try to distinguish between beliefs for which I have little or
no evidence, and ideas for which I have some relevant and reliable
evidence.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

Glenn Richards wrote:
Maybe those of us that can hear the differences get driven to
exasperation by Pinkerton's name calling and juvenile insults, and
perhaps it's as a result of his attitude that nobody wants to have
anything to do with him outside the confines of Usenet.

Fact: Cables *do* make a difference to the perceived sound. (Note the
use of the word "perceived" - whether this difference is in the ear or
the mind is not the debate for this particular point.)

Fact: Many people can hear these differences.

I've stopped beating this horse to death but you have a point - the
attitude of some who ridicule and insult others makes me want to have
nothing to do with them or this issue at all. The dabates on wigwam are
far more reasonable and friendly. I know a fact is that I can hear a
difference between different interconnects and speaker cables. I can
prove that to myself and I have no need to prove it to others. Others
can think what they want. I can't explain the *massive* difference
swapping the single ended cables out for balanced cables of the
same/type/manufacturer between my CD player and power amps made.
Granted, this isn't like for like exactly, but I mean its like night
and day. Fact also, is that others make these sorts of claims and we
can't all be deluded, can we? Some have implied I'm religous when in
fact thats as far from the truth as possible! I'm an extremely logical,
rationale and analytical person. I listen to reason, logical and
scientific argument and what others have experienced but I'm not so
daft to instantly believe or disbelieve any of it.

I would quite like to undertake a double blind listening test in the
calm of my own home with a few like minded friends to make the
experiment work. The money doesn't interest me. I'm not clear tho how
you would realistically swap out one set of speaker cables for another,
safely, and without powering down the equipment everytime. Can amps
withstand having the cables unplugged, being open circuit, and then
having the connection remade again?