John Dunlavy On "Cable Nonsense"

Kelly -

At shows, Dunlavy uses his own design of cable (Z6 at CES 2001). And yes, he feels that there is (in the overwhelming majority of real world systems) little to zero AUDIBLE difference between his technically superior cable and zipcord.

If you ask John Dunlavy (and he'd be most happy to answer), you'd find out that they use both measurements and listening tests when designing and testing speakers. And he feels that buyers must listen; and that measured accuracy is a means towards superior audible results. He is honest, though, and admits that some of the measured results (phase accuracy, in particular) may have little sonic benefit.

John's forgotten more about speakers and electronics than any given dozen posters (almost typed "posers", might've been more accurate at that) on this site will ever know.

JHunter

Sugarbie -

Trotting out this analogy again? Your strawman has no bearing to anything Dunlavy has said.

JHunter

Or to rephase Doc's statement, for some reason tests based on SOUND ONLY are suspect amongst a large proportion of "cable believers". Let everybody know which component is being tested and it becomes a meaningful test????

Not in my book.
JHunter

Jadem6 -

If you don't understand what JD was talking about, maybe there's a reason?? ;-)

JHunter

Sqjudge -

My EE class showed the same thing - and it's correct. JD knows this also; he designed the Z6 primarily as a technical exercise and to give people the theoretically best possible solution. Reflections are not significant at audio frequencies (unless you've a much bigger living room than I!!), but the impedance matching buys a trivially small - and audibly undetectable by anyone - margin.

WHY do you think he acknowledges that there's no difference between his cable and zipcord? Hint: because the job of a cable is to have the same signal at the output as at the input - nothing more, nothing else. Barring some grossly overpriced tone controls masquarading as cables (or grossly undersized wires), the overwhelming majority of cables do an equally good job to the human ear.

Anyone disagreeing with this is welcome to demonstrate it in a double blind test.

Cheers,
JHunter

Bear is up to his usual "debating" tactics. If decades+ of established acoustics methodology and all the evidence (from scientifically valid testing) goes against you, then just claim that the testers don't have a system with sufficient resolution. Could you give us an example of a system that you feel does have sufficient resolution?

BTW, this is not to say that people don't get more enjoyment from their system from various cables even without any audible difference. I use Nordost from my DAC to amp just because I like knowing that it's extremely low capacitance, and almost bought Straightwire Rhapsody speaker cables just because they look great! In neither case did I hear a difference from the previous cable, but maybe my system just doesn't have enough resolution, eh?

Cheers,
JHunter

Bear -

2 points:

First, while you're new to Audiogon I've followed some of the many discussions on rec.audio.high-end between you and folks such as Dick Pierce and JJ. If I recall correctly, there was quite a thread involving the topic of system resolution.

Your argument would be stronger were there a number (say, anything more than 1) of double-blind test showing differences between cables of similar electrical characteristics; surely not ALL of the test systems are so inadequate??? Incidently, I believe that these systems have in fact revealed differences if the cables have grossly different properties, so the systems used can't be hopeless.

Second, from your post can I assume that you don't object to the basic double-blind test methodology? If so, it might be interesting to try it out on your system using a pink noise source. Have you given this a try?

Cheers,
JHunter