"Bob Latham" wrote in message


I'm happy to agree that in many cases a cable will sound
different simply because it is not a very good cable
electrically speaking but that its poor performance may
suit the balance of the speakers or the personal taste of
the owner/listener.

Thing is, you really have to do something exceptional to have a cable that
actually makes things sound different.

There are no such things as "many cases (where) a cable will sound different
simply because it is not a very good cable."

There are some cases where a good cable becomes a bad cable because of
issues like corrosion on jacks, and broken conductors in the cables,
particularly at the connectors.

For example, there are about 40 generic mic cables in a sound system that I
work with all of the time. Some might be up to 30 years old, but most are
less than 10 years old. Some are very cheap and some are well-known brand
names and advertised for rough service.

Over the 7 years I've been working with this system, a cable goes bad every
few months. In every case but one, the problem was a broken soldered
connection at a XLR connector. In the one exceptional case, the cable itself
ended up with many breaks within the cable due to being twirled incessantly
by a certain vocalist. All of the broken cables but that one were repaired
by completely redoing the attachment of the connector, and in some cases the
connector was replaced. Once repaired, the broken cables were put back into
the pool, where their reliability was about the same as all the rest.

This is very different from a typical home audio system.

I know that the maths predicts that differences in
frequency response of the speaker as a result of using
different cables is so small that they cannot be heard.

Depends on what you call "different". There are speakers like those that
Trevor Wilson likes to talk about, that are incompetently designed and have
such bizarre impedance curves that most common speaker cables can cause
audible differences. There is the matter of overpriced Monster cables that
are actually pretty thin-gauge wire, and may cause audible differences with
some speakers in a home environment. Ironically, less money spent on
competent commodity cables would solve the problem.

I agree, if you turn the volume up or down by 1dB you will
struggle to notice it.

In an ABX test, that is generally easy to detect.

However, turn the bass up or down
by somewhat less 1dB and leave the mid and tweeter where
they are and that is much more obvious, surprisingly so
because you have a reference and a balance to listen to.

In an ABX test, that is generally easy to detect. However you've made a
relevant point, and that is that the better job you can do of presenting the
alternatives so they are readily comparable, the easier it is to hear
differences. That's why those of us who have years of experience tend to
snicker about comparisons involving cable-swapping. You can't swap cables
manually and have a close comparison. Too much time elapses.

I think this is why speaker cables have a surprising
effect for many people.

No, the most common cause of audible differences in home comparisons of
audio gear are due to two things:

(1) A badly-done comparison that either adds trivial but highly audible
differences like level changes, and/or completely masks true audible
differences because its so awkward.

(2) The natural human tendency to hear differences where there are none.


I've never noticed a speaker cable have any effect on the
sound stage or the image presented by the speakers, it
only, for me at least, changes the tonal balance.

If I get to pick the cables and I get to pick the speakers, the answer is
either yes or no, depending on what I want you to hear.

Interconnects, for me do the opposite. I've never noticed
a tonal change but have noticed sound stage and imaging
differences. I've no idea why.

It's really tough for home audio interconnects in good shape to make audible
changes to sound quality.

But the same human imagination is engaged in any listening test. A lot of
setting up a listening test is ensuring that whatever results you get are
actually relevant to what you are changing.

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:
In article , Eeyore
wrote:

Electrical signals (including audio band ones) follow the laws of
physics and their behaviour is easily predicted. My belief is that
certain 'cable differences' are easily explained by those laws, rather
than any audio 'voodoo'.

Yes, I can go along with that. A lot better statement than the usual
'all competent cables sound the same'. Much as my electrical and
electronic knowledge would love to agree with the 'all sound the same'
argument my ears tell me (and easily) that they don't. No amount of
bullying from here will convince me otherwise.

No 'bullying' is required to point that there are a number of factors which
can cause a 'difference' that actually have zero to do with changing the
cable. So that unless your comparisons dealt with these, your conclusion
that the change of cable was the 'cause' for what you heard simply isn't
reliable.

I know that the maths predicts that differences in frequency response of
the speaker as a result of using different cables is so small that they
cannot be heard.

Not just 'maths'. Also measurements and experimental results when people
only have the sound to go on, and the results are done so we can check for
statistical reliability and exclude the main, well known, other factors
that would lead to a 'difference' for many other reasons.


Okay, now rip me apart, do your worst.

OK. Feel free to consider yourself terrorised by the above. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
news

But the same human imagination is engaged in any listening test. A lot of
setting up a listening test is ensuring that whatever results you get are
actually relevant to what you are changing.


When I did subjective listening tests for a living (OK it was telephone
transmission equipment, such as low-bit rate codecs, rather than Hi-Fi
equipment, but the principle stands) none of our listeners was allowed even
to know the purpose of the test. In a "HiFi" analogy might be that in a
listening test to compare CD players the listeners would not know that it
was a test of CD players rather than amplifiers, cables, or speakers let
alone which players were being tested. This rule was rigorously enforced.
Also there were at least 24 listeners per test (tested individually with no
opportunity to compare notes), who all got the various "conditions" in a
different order (to eliminate precedence effects). Even though some of these
conditions might actually be identical they could still get different scores
from some listeners. Volume levels were strictly controlled to ensure that
minor level differences didn't skew the results.

Unless these sorts of precautions are taken listening tests are valueless.

David.

Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
Eeyore wrote:

Electrical signals (including audio band ones) follow the laws of physics
and their behaviour is easily predicted. My belief is that certain 'cable
differences' are easily explained by those laws, rather than any audio
'voodoo'.

Yes, I can go along with that. A lot better statement than the usual 'all
competent cables sound the same'. Much as my electrical and electronic
knowledge would love to agree with the 'all sound the same' argument my
ears tell me (and easily) that they don't. No amount of bullying from here
will convince me otherwise.


Trouble is that statement is not true. What would be true is that to
your ears in YOUR SYSTEM, different cables sound different.

The generalisation you made is certainly not proven.

Cheers

ian

"David Looser" wrote in
message
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
news

But the same human imagination is engaged in any
listening test. A lot of setting up a listening test is
ensuring that whatever results you get are actually
relevant to what you are changing.

When I did subjective listening tests for a living (OK it
was telephone transmission equipment, such as low-bit
rate codecs, rather than Hi-Fi equipment, but the
principle stands) none of our listeners was allowed even
to know the purpose of the test. In a "HiFi" analogy
might be that in a listening test to compare CD players
the listeners would not know that it was a test of CD
players rather than amplifiers, cables, or speakers let
alone which players were being tested.

I've heard about tests like this. It's probably not a bad idea to conceal
the nature of the test as it surely leaves even less to doubt.

This rule was
rigorously enforced. Also there were at least 24
listeners per test (tested individually with no
opportunity to compare notes), who all got the various
"conditions" in a different order (to eliminate
precedence effects). Even though some of these conditions
might actually be identical they could still get
different scores from some listeners. Volume levels were
strictly controlled to ensure that minor level
differences didn't skew the results.

Sounds like pretty good tests.

Unless these sorts of precautions are taken listening
tests are valueless.

That might be an exagerration.

Some of the better tests we did involved about the same number of people.
The purpose of the test was known to all. Levels were matched within 0.1 dB.
Listeners were not allowed to compare notes. Scores varied because after
all, different listeners are different.

Ian Thompson-Bell wrote:

Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
Eeyore wrote:

Electrical signals (including audio band ones) follow the laws of physics
and their behaviour is easily predicted. My belief is that certain 'cable
differences' are easily explained by those laws, rather than any audio
'voodoo'.

Yes, I can go along with that. A lot better statement than the usual 'all
competent cables sound the same'. Much as my electrical and electronic
knowledge would love to agree with the 'all sound the same' argument my
ears tell me (and easily) that they don't. No amount of bullying from here
will convince me otherwise.


Trouble is that statement is not true. What would be true is that to
your ears in YOUR SYSTEM, different cables sound different.

The generalisation you made is certainly not proven.

One's ears however may behave differently from day to day if not hour to hour.

Graham

Arny Krueger wrote:

Scores varied because after all, different listeners are different.

Because they have different ears of course !

Graham

"Eeyore" wrote in
message
Arny Krueger wrote:

Scores varied because after all, different listeners are
different.

Because they have different ears of course !

Well yes, but the differences in the brains are at least as large.

Listener training has a huge effect on listener sensitivity.

I have worked with people who initially could not sense a difference at all,
but rather quickly learned how to achieve at least typical levels of
sensitivity. BTW, ABX tests are very helpful for conducting this kind of
training.

Eeyore wrote:

Ian Thompson-Bell wrote:

Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
Eeyore wrote:

Electrical signals (including audio band ones) follow the laws of physics
and their behaviour is easily predicted. My belief is that certain 'cable
differences' are easily explained by those laws, rather than any audio
'voodoo'.
Yes, I can go along with that. A lot better statement than the usual 'all
competent cables sound the same'. Much as my electrical and electronic
knowledge would love to agree with the 'all sound the same' argument my
ears tell me (and easily) that they don't. No amount of bullying from here
will convince me otherwise.

Trouble is that statement is not true. What would be true is that to
your ears in YOUR SYSTEM, different cables sound different.

The generalisation you made is certainly not proven.

One's ears however may behave differently from day to day if not hour to hour.

Graham


Not to mention that your head won't be in EXACTLY the same position when
you do the second test after changing the cables.

Cheers

Ian

Glenn Richards wrote:
Something struck me the other day whilst reading this group.

All these "do they/don't they" arguments about speaker cables and
interconnects... if there is a difference then the likes of Pinkerton,
Phil Allison, Krueger etc are so busy trying to out-Tourettes each other
that they wouldn't be able to hear it over the swearing anyway.

And these people expect us to take one word they say seriously?

We are still waiting for you to publish a couple of short wav files to
demonstrate the difference between interconnects.
Or have you tried the experiment and found that the results don't
support your prejudices?
It would probably be best to agree a testing method in advance.

--
Eiron.