DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?

The more difficult the problem is to solve, the more fundamental the error in the formulation of the question.

A restatement of the last line in my prior post.

Which is, in turn, a restatement of the Aldous Huxley quote.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. 

--Aldous Huxley 

I just made this post in another thread, about sibilance. It appears it actually belongs here:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It can start right at the source point itself. Issues in microphone power supplies, bad microphone circuitry, bad microphone choices, bad microphone preamps and circuitry, bad mixing board wiring, bad mixing board power supplies, bad mixing board circuitry, and so on, down the line. It’s a very involved set of subjects.

Certain aspects of the human voice can emphasize this, and if the recording engineers are not cognizant of this issue being possible in each stage as mentioned.... then each part of this chain can be bad. Then it all adds up... and we get "screech-mud" for a a sonic result.

How much music have you heard that sounds like ’screech-thump, screech-thump’, on and on and on?

Sometimes good recordings are an accident, sometimes it’s intentional.

It’s a crap shoot, as they say. Bad? Bad we can find anywhere.

Bad is so easy to find that people have come to think that gear and recordings all sound that way. That the distortions are inherent to the situation and they don’t actually listen, they project what they know into it. (the human body is wired for this automaton behaviour)

Teaching people otherwise is a monumental task.

It’s the very heart of the audiophile conundrum. Some get it, some don’t.

It’s why we have such threads as cable debates. Some people live with an outward projection only, and some have a two way path of awareness, which is what is required to build a self beyond the basics.

Life is too short and we are only marginally learning and cognition machines...... we are principally unconscious mimic, copy, and mirror -- absorption machines.

If you watch yourself carefully you can see it in action.

Thus: "Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man."

(Voltaire falsely attributed it to Ignatius of Loyola, as a barb at him - Voltaire was not fond of such, the correct origin is Aristotle)

Intelligence is a long slow walk back through the cluttered forest you came from.

I think that the most important thing for cable naysayers to understand is:

"Emergent science does not come out of the barrel of a textbook."

It’s important to understand that even Einstein received death threats, from within the world of science, from lesser minds.

Max Planck (the origin point for the quantum sciences) made a point of mentioning this problem, in his quote,

"Science advances -funeral by funeral".

What he meant...was that the non exploring dogmatic textbook waving and thumping types, when they die their grip is lessened and science can finally move on to where it should have been, if they had not been around... their inability to understand (and those who listen/gather to them) --being what held science and human advancement back.

@prof :

But what I haven’t actually seen from Teo is an actual cogent argument, that would show his points are directly pertinent to, or act as an actually justified critique, of anyone’s points. In other words: I've yet to see Teo do anything other than raise vague strawmen.

The above post addresses your desires directly. As did the issuance of the liquid metal cables themselves provide direct extant solution..or, as they say... "Res ipsa loquitur".

Audio Cable Distortion is Not a Myth!  AES E-Library

From the AES link:

"However, because the loudspeaker load is typically nonlinear and causes harmonic currents to flow, finite impedance in an audio cable does indeed cause harmonic voltages to appear across the loudspeaker."

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The signal level cables also have finite impedance. They also cause variance in signal distortion, distortion due to the signal source and the receiving impedance both not being perfectly exact and finite under complex dynamic conditions. Which is the description of an audio signal. A signal so complex it is considered, for the most part, to be non repeating.

There is only ONE cable type, both speaker and signal level types...that has a complex dynamic impedance that is varied by the signal load.

Only one cable type that solves the issue where it lives. That particular cornerstone of transmission line design is also unique enough to be patentable - and is indeed patented.

It’s been covered that due to how the human body works, hearing and mind aspects, that double blind testing for sonic comparison purposes...beyond a very few basic a-b switches... does not work.

Dig around on the forum. the data on the why is right there, in fully detailed and backed science in investigating the human function.

Who needs wire? I’m going to use troughs of mercury for all signal connections!

Some one tried that already. His name was Faraday. He found a complex rotation in 3 axis. It’s in a conductive fluid, but not in a solid conductor. The signal is still trying to do so when it deals with a solidus conductor, and situation is a major component of the origins of the thing called 'skin effect'.

Which they don’t bother to tell you, so it is generally misunderstood.

Electrical calculation formulas-- are not the underlying physics.

I'm aware of that, but the imagery helps frame things, a refresher of sorts, for some.

Don’t forget to add that when professional designers of testing regimens and studies... for drug approvals, big pharma and so on..when those people looked at Randi’s proposed testing regimen..they said it was not valid. Not valid at all.

That, if Randi’s proposed methodology was ever used in scientific circles, drug tests and so on..that not one drug would ever be approved for human use. Zero would ever pass if Randi’s proposed regimen was used.

You read that right. So off center and unfair and slated toward Randi’s desires, that the testing regimen was and is entirely invalid for any sort of real testing.

It’s not just about Randi’s claims, it’s about looking close enough at what Randi was trying to push.... to see that it was all a smoke show built out of an invalid model.

@geoffkait
I see where you’re going with that, yes. But..one step at a time...

First, get people to understand the actual reality of what Randi was doing in the whole test scenario....

"First they came for the cables, and I did not speak out—

Because I did not want the trouble.
... ... ... ...

Then they came for me—and there was only Julian Hirsch left to speak for me."

All reality ~IS~ subjective. Science knows this, and lives by it, even though it is rarely mentioned.

Objectivity is a subset of of subjectivity, a mental condition taken on to help frame a hopefully more useful position... or at least it helps parallax (inescapably paired with subjectivity) a position -- for placing it in framework.

Objectivity does not exist, it is a figment of imagination in a subjective reality. The only thing we know ---is that we don’t know. Paradox, just like the quantum world tells you.

Subjectivity can be proven out in logic. Objectivity cannot.

One cannot competently speak on the limits of science and complex situations that are to be explored, without being in mind of this all important inescapable fundamental.

Anything else, will, in the final analysis... end in flubbed incompetence.

But what is illustrated clearly, here, prof... is that you consistently argue from a position that you don’t even have the fundamentals of -correctly in hand and mind.

You’ve illustrated that you don’t know the difference between subjectivity and objectivity and what each are in the realm of science.

If that does not expose an underlying deep incompetence in the logic of your arguments.... I don’t know what does.

For a guy who likes to talk the idea of science you keep going back to trying to undermine another’s logic with feints into logic but they are actually your own circular hot air.

I don’t have to argue science and logic and data with you. No need, so far. You trip up and faceplant on the most obvious of the basics...all on your own. I merely point it out.
You decided to try and get personal, so there's some direct & personal -- for you.

....and their tweeters under $0.50

@dave_b:

"wire really is wire!"

There is only one thing out there that is an actual counterpoint to wire. The only thing that really shows you for the first time, what wire sounds like.

As... a fundamental difference, that this ’other’ possesses... is required for you to see or ’hear’ it. To finally stand far enough way from wire to really 'frame' it.

Just one technology.

So......music has built in condoms. I guess.

But Rap doesn’t -- as it’s not music?

Is that why audiophiles grimace if they have to listen to Rap?