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

With that being said, the first time this question was presented to me was at RMAF 7 (?) years ago when synergistic research was doing a demo on the sound quality of a particular set-up before and after the powercord for the amp was twisted and moved around.  It was very easy to tell a degradation in sound after the power cord was disconnected, twisted up and placed back in the system.

Perfect! Because it was moving a Synergistic Master Coupler that brought this to my attention back around 1994. I had two of them at the time and was curious to see if one sounded better than the other. So I swapped them. And sure enough the "new" one sounded worse. (It wasn't really new, had just been used somewhere else.) 

But then when the first one went back in it also sounded worse!

Then while I was sitting there listening and puzzling over what had happened a few minutes went by and I was quite sure it no longer sounded as bad. So swapped back. Same thing. 

This again was a long time ago. So much experience since then its now taken for granted any moving around at all will have an affect. The more violent the moving, the worse it is and the longer it takes getting back its equilibrium.

I’ve noticed this as well.  Even barely moving my speaker cables changes the sound for the worse.  I’m very skeptical and honest with myself so I’ve wondered if the change in sound that I’m hearing is just due to differing moods that I’m in.  I’m starting to realize that my mood, the time of day, whether or not I’ve exercised that day, all have an effect on how I hear.

With that being said, the first time this question was presented to me was at RMAF 7 (?) years ago when synergistic research was doing a demo on the sound quality of a particular set-up before and after the powercord for the amp was twisted and moved around.  It was very easy to tell a degradation in sound after the power cord was disconnected, twisted up and placed back in the system.

That was an interesting day for me because I could tell a positive improvement in all of synergistic researches products And until that day, I would have said that it was just snake oil.

On a side note, Geoffkait used to bug the crap out of me but not so much so lately.  I agree with more and more of his beliefs as time goes on but there are still some things he believes that I’m not in agreement with...yet

audiozenology"You are the running joke of this forum. Pretty much no one takes anything you write seriously. You refuse to engage in anything approaching a discussion. You are the king of logical fallacies especially calls to authority and ad-populum. You are a joke."

This is as abusive a post as I have ever read, encountered or seen on this site and I have accordingly alerted the moderators to you're behavior which shows a clear, consistent, uniform pattern of abuse, insult and personal attacks of course you'll be back under another user name soon because you are not in control of your self.

What about phono cables?  The very act of playing vinyl physically moves the phono interconnect which according to some of you should rob the music of dynamics.

But then again there is that story about Frank Sinatra.  The Man would always use a Telefunken U47 microphone which he would bring to a recording session.  He'd give it to his recording engineer who would set it up and they would run a few test.  It would look like this.  Nelson Riddle would be instructed to rehearse the band.  Then Frank would leave the studio, jump in his Ferrari and drive over the Ava Gardner's (or some other woman's) place and not come back to the studio for 2 to 3 days.  He'd come back into the studio with a big smile on his face ready to record and he'd only have one question:  "Has the cable settled in yet?"

Absolute Pitch vs Relative Pitch?      Semantic Gymnastics?      HILARIOUS!       The FACT remains; human senses, mental and physical abilities, WHATEVER the subject(ie: hearing, sight, reflexes, IQ, etc) vary dramatically, AT BIRTH, between individuals.        Some pseudo-intellectuals, refuse to admit the obvious, repeatable and observable, simply because they’re contrary to their own theories.      Such can generally be identified, by a preponderance of submissions, but a paucity of substance, in their efforts to discourage others, from trusting their own faculties, in their own rooms, with their own systems.       I maintain: such should be ignored.

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.”

The frequently wrong audiozenology writes:

I have yet to have someone show me to be "frequently wrong". 
I stick to claim that I can support with evidence based in research, science, and engineering.

Oh, really? Same guy:

My "intuition" does not suggest otherwise.
What seems to escape some people is the holes in their own knowledge and ability. 
there is no difference between "pseudointellectual" and "intellectual"

and my favorite:

I am not "average", I am Superhuman!! My words have far more value than anyone else's!

Well, all righty then.

The question is, why are a certain groups of people so threatened by me?

Wrong again. Not threatened. Annoyed.

You nailed it @steakster !! Audiozenology and AtDavid is the same exact person. Likely AtDavid was kicked out, then immediately created a new handle, now Audiozenolgy. 
Now... prove me wrong @atdavid, and post here under your “old” handle. I will eat crow, and declare Ethan Winer right here as the best audiophile ever

I still fail to see what this ludicrous colloquy has to do with the topic of this thread. It has degenerated into ad hominem attacks, which have no place in this forum.

greatfuleric said, " I cant believe the esoteric nonsense contained in this thread, voodoo science at best. I think ill go watch another episode of "Ancient aliens" for a little grounding."
Ancient astronaut theorists say.........yes!

What is with the personal attacks on members here. If you can't deal stick to the content of the people's posts, then don't post. This is nothing but a deflection.

I have yet to have someone show me to be "frequently wrong". IMHO, which is what virtually all the claims on here are, is not proof of being right, or wrong. At least I stick to claim that I can support with evidence based in research, science, and engineering.

Not agreeing with statement's that actually are wrong is not argumentative, nor is it arrogant, nor dismissive. Pedantic would me I get caught up in small details, which is not true either. If detail is important to an point someone is making, and it is critical to the point, it is not pedantic to bring it up.


The question is, why are a certain groups of people so threatened by me? I clearly state my points. I stick to the topic (unless attacked). I don't hurl personal insults to make my point (but will give it back if it is thrown at me). I will even go out of my way and spend real time to help, calculating spring constants and setups for one OP, digging through old emails to find a link to a repair house for another op on an obscure (today) repair. Even in this thread, where many people have thrown personal insults at me repeatedly, I have stuck through it, tried to understand the ops situation, and believe based on significant experience (and knowledge) that there is actually something wrong with his system. What have all the people contributing to this thread done? ... just repeated their biases, when there could be a real problem. How does that help the op?

With regards to who you may think I am, or may not, what I do share with them is a pragmatic approach that recognizes human limitations and bias, and much of the same people attacking and trolling us. I am not at all surprised they stopped posting. It was probably out of frustration. Does that make you proud?   (p.s. I appear to make far fewer spelling and grammar errors, but you conclude what you want to conclude). What is funny is that someone actually accused me of being several people posting under one account as they could not fathom someone having such a wide/deep knowledge base.


I would worry less about other people and look at yourself and ask yourself why do I, and apparently others, make you feel so threatened? This is not about me, this is about you. I refuse to be crammed in the round hole, and some people here can't seem to deal with that.

steakster895 posts01-06-2020 5:56pmmember: atdavid
Joined: 10/30/2019 Last post 12/10/19
Total posts: 736 in 40 days
Average: 18.4 posts/day

member: audiozenology
Joined 12/14/2019 Latest posted 1/6/20
Total posts: 339 in 22 days
Average: 15.4 posts/day

Similar writing style:
- argumentative
- arrogant
- pedantic
- dismissive
- frequently wrong

What a coincidence!

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

Idle hands are the devil's workshop.👍

@steakster - good detective work! 

HEY MODERATOR, before deleting, note this is a reply to a post by Clearthink, unrelated to the topic, meant only to be a personal attack on me, one based on his lack of understanding of a previous post in a different thread. He has repeated this attack numerous times and on several threads.

Gee thanks for creating this link Clearthink and saving me the time. I mean I could have gone to the trouble of showing that you did not even attempt to read the whole thread or to understand what I was discussing in my thread before repeatedly attacking me with the same misrepresentation, but it was nice you did the work for me. Now everyone can follow the link and SEE WHAT I WROTE WAS A COMMENT ON ANOTHER POSTER’S POST, and that all these similar messages attacking me and hijacking threads by you, in an attempt to attack me, are like the other posts, misguided.

clearthink1,068 posts01-06-2020 12:45pmbecause you seem unable to accept corrections to you’re incomplete, inaccurate, and ignorant grasps of even elemental theories. And yet that does not stop you from proclaiming with self-appointed authority:

I am not "average", I am Superhuman!! My words have far more value than anyone else’s!

I made that a link to the actual page to remind other’s hear of you’re expertness! You have allso claimed a "moral authority" to post hear and I’m not even sure what that is about!

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? ☕️

Posting some of Nassim Taleb’s definitions again. You know that guy who wrote a book considered one of the most influential in the 20th century, and has held many distinguished posts, not some guy who has no science training, never worked in the sciences, and has no scientific accomplishments, but seems upset that actual scientists don’t take him seriously so wrote a blog only geoff quotes. Now let’s look at who Taleb considered "Intellectual yet Idiot". There were maybe 15 points, but I thought these were the most salient.

• doesn’t know that there is no difference between "pseudointellectual" and "intellectual" (cough cough -- remind anyone of someone we know??)
  
• has mentioned quantum mechanics at least twice in the past 5 years (cough cough -- remind anyone of someone we know??)

Confucious say, "Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change."
I am sure you will attempt to come back with some "witty" retort, but I did not write those words, Taleb did ... oh, and so did you. Guilty by your own actions. You also quoted someone who is literally a joke within any "normal" community, i.e. one that is not laden with tin-hat conspiracy theorists. I didn't quote him, you did. Guilt by association. If that is the type of person you want to be associated, have at it. It's far more a compliment to me than an insult.

My "intuition" does not suggest otherwise. A huge base of knowledge, experience, and actual scientific/engineering facts w.r.t. cables and the effects of what can/cannot happen with a cable when you connect it, disconnect it, and move it around rules out stated effects. I appear to be the only person actually "thinking" and trying to help the OP out with what is highly likely an issue as opposed to "ya, that must be it".

Perhaps if you were not so pedantic, misinformed and misdirected, you would stop your trolling, obsessive, and compulsive behaviour and stop misstating, misrepresenting, and misquoting me, in a failing attempt to discredit, embarrass, and denigrate, while only repeatedly kidnapping threads.

clearthink1,067 posts01-06-2020 2:11pmAudiozenology I heartily suggest you Google "scientific method" and read some authoritative information on its standards, theories, and practice because you can not with a broaad sweep of you’re hand rule out a factor as being an influence simply because you’re intuition suggests otherwise.

Hey moderator, can you give me some license here. Someone decided to attempt to insult me with a Nassim Taleb quote, so I would like to expand on his (Taleb's) quote. Let's look at who he considered "Intellectual yet Idiot". There were maybe 15 points, but I thought these were the most salient.

• doesn't know that there is no difference between "pseudointellectual" and "intellectual"  (cough cough)
• has mentioned quantum mechanics at least twice in the past 5 years (cough cough)
• has attended more than 1 TEDx talks and watched more than 2 TED talks
• never curses on twitter  (how about we interpret that as always trying to police other's language on audiogon? .. cough cough)
• has The Black Swan on his shelves but mistakes absence of evidence for evidence of absence
• has a cousin who worked with someone who knows the Queen   (or maybe name drops higher ups at Shunyata repeatedly ... cough cough)

audiozenology "You are too wrapped up in your own high sense of self worth"


You are simply going to have to eventually accept that not everyone agrees with you, that you are not always right, and that this forum has rules.

" The post I am responding to was clearly made in an attempt to denigrate and embarrass me"

audiozenology"I want you (and everyone else) to understand that I am not implying you are lying or dishonest. I am going over all that you have wrote and trying to understand what is happening...I am just not going to accept that it is anything to do with the cables"

Audiozenology I heartily suggest you Google "scientific method" and read some authoritative information on its standards, theories, and practice because you can not with a broaad sweep of you’re hand rule out a factor as being an influence simply because you’re intuition suggests otherwise.

There is nothing wrong with having intuition, acting on it or pursuing where it leads but to do this while dismissing other potential variables is not scientific even remotely.

What seems to escape some people is the holes in their own knowledge and ability. You obviously do care, or you wouldn't have felt the need to post this, which it turns out is completely wrong. It turns out we are all born with perfect pitch, however, some of us keep it, and some do not. There may even be some good reasons not to keep it.

Apparently: the definition of, "aural acuity" even escapes some geniuses.     As with EVERY sense; abilities/sensitivity levels vary, widely.     ie: Some are born with perfect pitch and others, tone deaf.     The first can’t be taught, or- the second, corrected.      Some will wrestle with the concept.    I couldn't care less!

https://news.wisc.edu/born-with-the-perfect-pitch/

Paulcreed,  when you read what I wrote below, I want you (and everyone else) to understand that I am not implying you are lying or dishonest. I am going over all that you have wrote and trying to understand what is happening, and why. I am not going to tell you you were imagining things that the system seemed to "collapse" after swapping cables. I am going to work from the position that that is absolutely what happened. I am just not going to accept that it is anything to do with the cables (unless they or the connections are faulty).

My personal opinion, based on a lot of experience and knowledge is that something is "broken", and/or there is a design flaw in some of your equipment. 

1) It could be a poor connection that is impacted by movement. ICs can have seriously poor connections before it is obvious they are broken. Poor soldering and soldering debris can make a parasitic connection between pins/conductors that can impact performance in ICs as well, and would be affected by movement. You also noted an external cross-over. This would be my first guess.

2) My second guess is a bias issue induced by turn on / turn off of the equipment, but potentially by simply connecting and disconnecting interconnects while the units are on. This could be from an equipment fault or a design fault. By bias, I mean an operating point of your amplifier, but also DC bias across a capacitor (which is still an operating point). This can especially be an issue with DC floating grounds. Turning off/on the amplifier, even disconnecting and reconnecting cables, can induce a DC bias across capacitors. One would expect with input impedances that are low, at least w.r.t. to capacitor sizes (i.e. 1uF into 100K ohms) that the bias will quickly disappear, but I am working from the broke/design flaw angle. Fully differential and pseudo differential circuits will work just fine with a reasonable amount of DC bias, but that can change their sonic character.


When you first set your system up, you seemed to be quite happy with it, even more when you got your acoustics, then you seemed to start hating your system. That sounds like something is broke to me. Given you just moved, it is a reasonable conclusion as well. It sound from your other post you have some extra equipment. I would swap out equipment related to the cables you are swapping out including the cables and see what happens.


**************************************

This is what you said about listening to your system before and after letting the cables settled in a few days:

There is no bass and boring, highs are okay but life is gone from system. So I flipped everything back the way it was still sound horrible. Ran everything 24/7 for a couple days still no go. Let it run a couple more days dynamics are back and bass is full big and has tone again and enjoyable to listen to.

This is what you posted w.r.t. this system (which is your small room system), perhaps a day, or maybe hours after you installed it.

After all I have read over the years how bad a square room and chair up against wall is I was very surprised how good it sounded. Speakers totally disappeared, that was big concern. I wanted to try the most bass dominate recordings I could think of so I put on Herbie Hancock Head hunter and Allison Krauss/Robert Plant Rasing Sand first. The bass is fairly tight but there can definitely some boominess with the bass but it's not bad at all. I did not find it to be overly bright which was a little shocking, I think the copper foil Jupiter and Miflex in Preamp and speakers may have helped. I was very happy with highs very airy and detailed with out being fatiguing in the slightest.  I do have rear firing tweeters, I did notice it was very sensitive when turning the dial vs the previous room.

So with a new system with cables that would have had little time to settle:

• "surprised how good it sounded"
• bass is fairly tight
• did not find it to be overly bright
• very happy with the highs ... very airy and detailed without being fatiguing in the least

Contrast that later with:

This is now making sense why every time I try to change things up to improve sound I get discouraged and can't enjoy listening to this system. I told my son yesterday I'm thinking of selling off this system or throughing it in closet that I just can get it to work right and don't even want to look at it anymore. I get mad at it and leave it alone ( I still leave it on 24/7) for 4 or 5 days come back and it sounds great.

audiozenology:

The evidence does not support your position. Trained listeners of no particular experience or skill, other than no hearing defects, are better able to detect differences than untrained listeners and though they want to think they are, most audiophiles are not trained listeners. One of the more successful training methods is rapid A/B switching to illustrate differences, something many audiophiles refuse to participate in.

In my experience, the people certain audiophiles make fun of, the ones you claim "can't hear", the "propeller heads", who have far more actual diverse experience with a variety of systems, not only can "hear", but understand far better what they are hearing and are much more likely to point out an issue if one exists. But feel free to keep believing what you want to believe. I know I am willing to test my claims day in and day out, but can others say the same?

Nassim Taleb:

What's a IYI?

Intellectual Yet Idiot: semi-erudite bureaucrat who thinks he is an erudite; pathologizes others for doing things he doesn't understand not realizing it is his understanding that may be limited; imparts normative ideas to others: thinks people should act according to their best interests *and* he knows their interests, particularly if they are uneducated "red necks" or English non-crisp-vowel class.

We report. You decide.

Apparently: the definition of, "aural acuity" even escapes some geniuses.      As with EVERY sense; abilities/sensitivity levels vary, widely.      ie: Some are born with perfect pitch and others, tone deaf.      The first can’t be taught, or- the second, corrected.       Some will wrestle with the concept.     I couldn't care less!

I recently purchased a new RCA interconnect cable from a buyer on E-Bay to go between my pre-amp and my amp. Reason for this is that I have identified that particular cable as a potential "weak link" in my system, and want to see how big of difference a new (better?) cable makes in the overall sound of my system. The existing cable is a $20 mono-price cable.

The cable arrived, I swapped it out, fired up the system, and immediately I could hear a negative impact compared to what my system sounded like before.  Bass was not as low, and the high's not as bright.

1) Based on what I have read in this thread, should I suffer through a week or so of listening to see if "burn in" of the new cable makes a difference? 

2) The new homemade e-bay cable was $20; shielded cable, quality end connectors, it looks like a good quality cable.

3) I'm tempted to purchase another cable, something a little pricier from a regarded cable manufacturer / supplier, someone that has a good return policy, so that I can try another cable and see what kind of difference it makes. 

So should all cable changes be given adequate time for burn-in before a cable's sound can be judged?

audiozenology"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"

That does not matter so much in this group where many of us like to listen, assess, and evaluate for ourselves within our own Music Reproduction Systems rather than follow you’re pronouncements which seem to often be based on intuition derived after reading a wikipedia entry or other basic source and why you would discourage anyone from conducting their own such evaluation may be is attributed to you’re fear of again being corrected for any of the patently false, misleading, and misinformed claims you have made hear. I have lost count of the times I have come here to correct you and when that happens you often make this claim:

" a troll is just a troll"

because you seem unable to accept corrections to you’re incomplete, inaccurate, and ignorant grasps of even elemental theories. And yet that does not stop you from proclaiming with self-appointed authority:

I am not "average", I am Superhuman!! My words have far more value than anyone else’s!

I made that a link to the actual page to remind other’s hear of you’re expertness! You have allso claimed a "moral authority" to post hear and I'm not even sure what that is about!

The evidence does not support your position. Trained listeners of no particular experience or skill, other than no hearing defects, are better able to detect differences than untrained listeners and though they want to think they are, most audiophiles are not trained listeners. One of the more successful training methods is rapid A/B switching to illustrate differences, something many audiophiles refuse to participate in.

In my experience, the people certain audiophiles make fun of, the ones you claim "can't hear", the "propeller heads", who have far more actual diverse experience with a variety of systems, not only can "hear", but understand far better what they are hearing and are much more likely to point out an issue if one exists. But feel free to keep believing what you want to believe. I know I am willing to test my claims day in and day out, but can others say the same?

Something I did learn, in the over four decades spent professionally, in devotion to helping others better enjoy their music(live or at home): While you can teach others how to listen more closely, no one/nothing can improve another’s aural acuity.  

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? 😛

@paulcreed - It sounds as though audiozenology’s time in the audio business, mirrors my own, though I may have had opportunity, to have designed more live venues.      Something I did learn, in the over four decades spent professionally, in devotion to helping others better enjoy(or produce) their music(live or at home): While you can teach others how to listen more closely, no one/nothing can improve another’s aural acuity.      Picture attempting to teach a person, blind from birth, the color red.      The number of those involved in sound, encountered in those decades, that had absolutely no concept of sound quality, was an education.      Of course; their opinions/biases were based on their own abilities and- the level on Dunning- Kruger Effect they embraced.      No level of formal education(Degrees/certificates/certifications) can improves one’s hearing.      Bottom line: TRUST YOUR EARS and your own experience/experiments!

Audiozen with all respect you can't be more wrong. System sounded great for 3 weeks without tampering with it. Within the 2 minutes it took to flip cables around dynamics were reduced highs were still there but refined sparkle was gone. Preamp is filled with Jupiter copper foil and I know there sonic signature very well and all there attributes were gone within that 2 minutes period. This is not a Illusion I experienced it is fact. Im sorry but if you had a 1000 years experience I would still have to tell you wrong on this subject. 

... and a troll is just a troll.

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.

We can also conduct our own empirical listening tests while drawing our own conclusion's without the lecturing, insult, and misinformation that so commonly springs forth from those who's knowledge is mostly confined to developing intuitive conclusions based on the research of others without any first hand experimentation!

Maybe, just maybe, anything interpreted as an insult is a response to an insult directed their way. Maybe they know the difference between a properly implemented experiment and one that carries limited value.

Maybe they consider the use of your term "misinformation" without backing it up as inflammatory and abusive, and certainly without merit. Saying "misinformation" without identifying where would be interpreted by many as dishonest and misleading.


Communicating knowledge that is the result of people experienced in the field obtained through proper research is not lecturing.

audiozenology"You can listen to Miller and believe his guesses at how things work, or you can verify what I have written is what has been learned by people who actually have spent years, decades researching these things"

We can also conduct our own empirical listening tests while drawing our own conclusion's without the lecturing, insult, and misinformation that so commonly springs forth from those who's knowledge is mostly confined to developing intuitive conclusions based on the research of others without any first hand experimentation!

You don’t lose bass when moving cables. It just does not happen. If you truly lost bass, you have some corrosion issues or as Erik_Squires pointed out, a piece of equipment that has warm-up issues, though that seems unlikely unless you are using tube-equipment and something is out of whack / tubes are getting old.

After moving interconnects around that’s when bass and air was lost.

Thinking about this another way, you may not be loosing bass, you may have a high frequency emphasis that is going away which also happens with equipment warm-up.  An initial high frequency emphasis will make the bass seem weak.  Again, taking cables on/off, unless you have serious corrosion issues will make almost no difference in frequency response (think small fractions of a db).

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!

Audiozen with the problems setting up this system and adding panels was tricky I did finally correct the sound. Bass was full and highs detailed and airy. I decided to add silver interconnect between tube pre and amp, change to copper between phono pre and Preamp and leave digital as is. I never moved the speakers. After moving interconnects around that's when bass and air was lost. So only conclusion I can come to is moving wire around did affect the sonics of this system.

You can listen to Miller and believe his guesses at how things work, or you can verify what I have written is what has been learned by people who actually have spent years, decades researching these things whether in psycho-acoustics or other fields of human perception. Unfortunately, some people refuse to learn from or accept the knowledge that academic oriented researchers generate (except when it helps their point of view).

YES soundstage is a macro effect. Soundstage comes predominantly from timing, but also from relative loudness. Timing is picked up from the leading edge of the loudest sounds. Even relative loudness is based on current loudest sounds. This is going to all be in the top 20-40db of your dynamic range, not buried 70,80+db down (or more) in some effect that may or may not exist with cable settling.

I am sorry this is a first for you Miller. I have not seen much evidence you keep up on the latest in psycho-acoustics, so that could be the reason for that. Others are not are uninformed.

Wow. So when you haven’t heard it in a while you forget what you learned so when you hear it again you have to learn it all over again but this time it happens instantly because, magic. Fascinating.

I knew my statement would give certain people "difficulty". Today you are accustomed to one form of "crap" for lack of better term. If you look at most people’s room response, "crap" is probably an appropriate term. Change something and you have a new form of "crap" which is significantly different from the old "crap", and it is made worse by the expectation often of "better". Human psychology does that to us. Our disappointment is influenced by our expectation. Don’t listen for a while and the brain goes back to a baseline that is somewhere in the middle of "crap-1" and "crap-2" so does not sound as bad. We have also had time to get over our initial disappointment. Now that we start to actively listen to this "new" system, our brain has the ability to start adapting and we start liking it more.

Douglas_Schroeder is 100% correct, and likely

"You may disagree, but I am not going to argue about it. :) "

because he is tired of people who have relatively little experience setting up a diversity of systems and refuse to learn or accept how we as humans behave. I can certainly understand his frustrations.

Nobody is saying we "believe" what we are saying is WE HEAR! "WE" hear.

No, what you are saying is your brain takes in all this auditory sensory data, adds in visual data (and other senses), compares it to highly faulty memories, then attempts to arrive at a perceptive result that is influenced by your biased interpretations of knowledge you have been exposed to which includes biases however developed, emotional attachment to a desired result, influence by people you choose to believe, peer influence, etc. and then add on top of that the modifiers of mood that day, stress level, etc. etc. .... and the end result is a claim "I hear this". What exactly did you hear? It is like proudly proclaiming to have taken the navy sock out of the sock drawer, only to find out they are actually black when in different lighting, and not only claiming they are navy blue, but the exact match to the other navy blue sock you took out 10 minute ago ... which they turn out not to be when you see them side by side.

It gets tedious having to set the record straight like this, but I guess as long as the hearing impaired keep trotting out the same old same old then its only fair to keep skewering their lame stories. To wit:

Your brain becomes "accustomed" to your system, essentially trying to, at some level, correct the frequency response to what feels right.

Yes, the old "your" when they mean "their". This is the writer admitting HE can’t hear. Never argue when someone tells you they can’t hear. I totally believe this guy cannot hear. You should too. We all should.

Technical term is neural adaptation.

If you say so.

It is real, and you ignore it at your peril.

Stop. You’re scaring me. Stop. Please.

You will frequently hear real acoustics experts discuss this.

Yes. Well its a first for me. But if you say so. You go, girl!

It is a learning process so it does not happen instantly.

I see. Just a minute... taking notes...

(There are other processes that occur more "real time" as well). You can both "learn" and forget ... hence when you come back to your "new" system after not listening for a week, things are magically better .... bass response is back, soundstage seems more "normal", dynamics are right. It is probably still not "perfect", but listen more and things fall into place (to a point).

Wow. So when you haven’t heard it in a while you forget what you learned so when you hear it again you have to learn it all over again but this time it happens instantly because, magic. Fascinating.

Moving cables, if it makes any difference at all, is going to make difference at only the finest details,
uh huh
and things like dynamics, perceived bass response, soundstage, are not fine details, they are macro properties.

Wait- what? Soundstage is macro? Words fail me. Well, words that wouldn’t get this post removed, anyway.

If you continue believing that simply moving cables (with the exception of significant electrical interference) is going to significantly impact your system to the level you describe, then you are going to have a hard time ever being really happy.

Yeah well and if you’re gonna continue making stuff up instead of reading you’re never gonna understand. Nobody is saying we "believe" what we are saying is WE HEAR! "WE" hear. Not you. I’m perfectly content to accept that when you say you can’t hear you know what you’re talking about. You can’t hear! There. Happy? You can’t hear. Yes. I’m quite sure of it. You’ve convinced me.

Congratulations. You win.

Except, well, one small thing. I just spent a couple hours listening after pasting TC all over my panel and it just keeps sounding better and better and tonight I am happier than ever.

This I think is what they mean by you can’t win for losing.