Moving cables around killed dynamics for days anyone else experience this?

Take your pick, Benito or Adolph. 🤗

I’m sure Toronto is a lovely city. The problem is it’s in Canada. 😛

Ludwig must be listening to something other than what is available to everyone else. What everyone else has does not sound like the original recording. That’s just the way things are. Of course, he has a lot of money on the line to make such a pronouncement. 🤗

As Bob Dylan said when a disgruntled fan pointed out how crappy some of his more recent albums sounded, especially with respect to dynamic range but also generally speaking, “It sounded good when we recorded it.” Therein lies the rub, you can’t get there from here. It’s the playback system, stupid! Hint - it ain’t the converters.

Ack-chew-ally, the quote oft attributed to PT Barnum was not said by him at all but most likely by some dour pseudo skeptic cluck. What PT Barnum in his infinite wisdom did say though is that, generally speaking, people would be much better off if they believed in too much rather than too little.

Knowledge is what’s left after you forgot all that rubbish you learned in school.

Pro audio rears is semi-handsome head. 🦸‍♂️ Can controlled blind test ranting be very far behind? Perhaps some of his patented sweet tweakaphobic pseudo-philosophy...

Good one, prof! Textbook pseudo-scientific anti-audiophile screed with a little pseudo-philosophy thrown in for good measure. Filled to the brim with non-sequiturs and strawman arguments. 

All I did was utter the word pseudo-skeptic and one suddenly pops up. Am I psychic? 😳 Give my regards to Davy Crockett.

Actually, this thread should serve as example to newbies that there are indeed determined glib pseudo skeptics right here on this forum and on this thread who would have you believe it’s best to be closed-minded and pseudo-skeptical when it comes to anything that is half way controversial in this hobby.

I believe that’s a logical fallacy.

I like hominy and grits.   

audiozenology
“And some of us, like douglas_schoeder and myself, have been involved in the setup, design, and testing, of 100’s of audio systems”

- Logical Fallacy of quantity and logical fallacy of experience. The attempt to use large quantities or years of experience to win arguments.

“or maybe analyzed high hundreds of variants of audio products during the R&D phase (or both),”

- Logical fallacy of using technical terminology to snow the audience + quantity argument again. R&D phase. Gimme a break!

“and back it up with a solid technical background,”

- Logical fallacy of technical superiority. Not all technical people agree, for one thing, that would be silly. “Solid” is not a technical term anyway

“keep up to date on related topics including psychoacoustics”

- The Appeal to other sciences, my knowledge trumps your knowledge. Logical fallacies.

“and developments in understanding human hearing and processing,”

- Ah, neuroscience, too. This could also be called, “throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the argument.”

“and engage a broad technical community.”

- I’m not sure what illogical fallacy this is but it’s something

Maybe we have been doing that for decades.

- Logical fallacy of experience; similar to: “I’ve been in this hobby for 40 years and blah, blah, blah.”

Let the Crusades begin! Onward pseudo philosophers! 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♂️🦸🏻‍♂️

@steakster - good detective work! 

Is somebody looking in the mirror? 😳 One assumes Nassim Taleb was one argumentative son of a gun. 😡 One can’t help wondering why no one has ever heard of him. 🤔 I award you a D in name dropping. Have you considered cutting back on the Joe? ☕️

audiozenology
And some of us, like douglas_schoeder and myself, have been involved in the setup, design, and testing, of 100’s of audio systems, or maybe analyzed high hundreds of variants of audio products during the R&D phase (or both), and back it up with a solid technical background, keep up to date on related topics including psychoacoustics and developments in understanding human hearing and processing, and engage a broad technical community. Maybe we have been doing that for decades.

>>>>>I stopped reading right there. Was that wrong of me? 😛

Cables are a dodgy subject. They require break-in. They require settling in. Their connectors even require settling in. They require correct direction. They should be isolated from vibration and static electric fields. They should be demagnetized. They should also be de-staticized. They should be cryo’d. Any objections? Let ‘er rip!

Uh, the claim was 10dB. Who cares about 1 dB? Answer at 11.

Who cares? Most systems are too bright anyway.

Humidity effects (Attenuation of high frequencies) on the sound in a room are very minimal. Just like temperature effects. Over very long distances they add up, though. Now, electric static charge is certainly an audiophile issue and related to humidity. I can’t help notice nobody’s answered by question why bowls of very cold water placed out in front of the speakers improve the sound.

taras22
Yup, humidity changes can produce 10 db swings in sound level. That being said the body does adjust somewhat so most of the time its not that obvious.

>>>>>Yeah, right. Maybe if you live in the Okefenokee Swamp. 🐊

delkal76 posts01-05-2020 11:58am

geoffkait- Another “audiophile oddity” is that unused cables in the listening room hurt the sound. Take them out of the room ASAP. Unused electronics in the room and musical instruments in the room also hurt the sound. No, I’m not hot doggin’ ya!

I would say that if someone thought having an unplugged cable sitting on a table would change the sound of their system it would be more than "odd". Same with unplugged components as long as they are not stacked high. But there is some truth to this statement when it comes to unused speakers. The cones can start moving "sucking up" some of the sound. While I don’t think this matters if it is just a small speaker or two in the back of the room........But people that have a "wall of speakers" set up and only listen to one at a time might be compromising their system.

>>>>>While those may be pretty thoughts they don’t happen to be true. Speakers are with certain rare exceptions too insensitive to respond to acoustic waves in the room. The reason having unused speakers in the room can be explained by the same theory why musical instruments or spare cables in the room degrade the sound. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “Are you out of mind?” The same for having cellphones in the room.
People proposed a long time ago that the tiny speaker in telephones was responsible for degrading the sound. But that can be easily disproven by removing the tiny speaker. You will find that the sound is still degraded by the speaker less phone. Cellphones degrade the sound too. Check it out. As for electronics sitting around unused, it’s easy enough to take them out of the room, no? 

The other thing that often happens when switching cables around is that cables that were, perhaps accidentally, in the right direction find themselves quite by accident in the wrong direction. What are the odds? Gotta be 50%. Or even just one cable of the pair. 

Another “audiophile oddity” is that unused cables in the listening room hurt the sound. Take them out of the room ASAP. Unused electronics in the room and musical instruments in the room also hurt the sound. No, I’m not hot doggin’ ya! 🌭

Handling or moving cables, plugging and unplugging cables, changing cables can often change the sound. That is why I take cable comparisons and evaluations with a grain of salt. It is best to wait for the cables and the delicate electrical/mechanical connections to “settle in” once the cables are connected, maybe a few days. You have to consider the system as a whole. It is also suggested to clean all electrical contacts and use a contact enhancer of your choice. If the cables are NEW you might have to wait quite a while before they sound their best. Of course, as oft mentioned, for best results cables should undergo some advanced break-in procedure. You’ve also got cryogenics and cable elevators to consider.