“Knowledge can be defined as what’s left after you subtract out what you forgot from school.” - Harpo Marx
So What Is Real?
There is a newsletter I subscribe to because the guy seems to talk about reality and not what some sales dude wants to sell you. [email protected] Now the funny thing to me is that all these cable specialists of high dollar remedies for flawed playback are somehow going to magically change what you hear and will then rise above the abilities of the music file limitations and recording engineers. A dumb wire that is used to create the hi-res recordings so sought after is not somehow suitable for the playback of the same. The following is from Waldreps newsletter and I fully agree. I love this guy and he is a light shining through all the smoke and mirror BS of high end audio. I confess I too am a cable denier and incapable of hearing "
further uptick in micro-dynamic jump
" but love the delicious word salad these guys create to try to describe something that is not there. I can see the cable guy sitting there with his buddy. Wow did you hear that uptick in micro-dynamics!! You just know that's how he would talk, right?
As an aside here how does one become a professional listener? What is the criteria for attaining this lofty goal? How do you know when you have arrived and what governing authority sets down the requirements for such a thing so you know you are not deceiving yourself and others? Is it a nebulous category that is assigned to you when you spend a certain level of money or do you have verifiable and provable abilities above the norm as recognized by a large group of people including recording industry engineers, professional sound installers and high end audio system owners? In other words anyone but cable sellers?
The following is from "Dr. AIX Post for January 25, 2020"
" Cable Nonsense
As an aside here how does one become a professional listener? What is the criteria for attaining this lofty goal? How do you know when you have arrived and what governing authority sets down the requirements for such a thing so you know you are not deceiving yourself and others? Is it a nebulous category that is assigned to you when you spend a certain level of money or do you have verifiable and provable abilities above the norm as recognized by a large group of people including recording industry engineers, professional sound installers and high end audio system owners? In other words anyone but cable sellers?
The following is from "Dr. AIX Post for January 25, 2020"
" Cable Nonsense
What is it that Art Linkletter used to say? Kids say the darndest things. Well, it seems some FB audio group administrators, audiophiles, high-end audio salespersons, audiophile society officials, and manufacturers also say things that make little or no sense when talking or posting about cables.
I usually steer clear of FB posts or online magazines that promote high-end audio cables. It's just never safe to present with science, established electrical engineering theory and practice, or objectiveness when cables are concerned. A recent exchange on a familiar FB audio group page resulted in a member calling me a "cable denier" because I advocated for science and physics in evaluating power cords.
The thread basically dismissed my comments because I'm a member of the professional audio engineering community. Audio equipment salespeople, FB administrators, high-end audio marketing managers, and the general audio buying public are claimed to be better and more reliable sources of information when it comes to recommending expensive accessories and cables. According to the gentleman below, they are capable of listening in ways that audio professionals can not.
One commenter wrote:
"Mark is a pro and speaks just like one, but he is not a professional LISTENER, like you (Writer's NOTE: the guy offering the ultra expensive power cords), I and so many others in the high-end industry. Interesting is that most so-called experts are also naysayers who work in the recording industry, not in the high-end industry."
What does this statement actually claim? That professional audio engineers and producers do not know how to listen? That spending one's professional life in front of speakers in a control room doesn't require listening?Maybe...just maybe...the engineers responsible for producing the recordings that are played back in these guys high-end systems are correct in their assessment of power cords and expensive USB/Ethernet cables. Image that!
Can you really trust a gentlemen that just launched a new cable company that offers a 6-foot power cord for $3150? Oh and this person also believes that cables are directional! BTW They are not.
Here's a couple of additional comments...
"Cables can make a difference. I’m glad I can hear those differences it truly enhances the experience. I have been a dedicated audiophile and in the industry for over 45 years and have been able to identify those differences since my first experience with Smog Lifters in the 70’s. I search for and usually discover great products that deserve special attention by people looking for the last bit of resolution and coherency. I’m truly sorry for those that wouldn’t hear the difference."
Here's a comment from an individual that swapped a normal Ethernet cable for an expensive one.
"...the Vodka seemed to remove a layer of film for superior textural reveal. There was also a shade more tonal depth and recording space ‘air’. Most noticeable of all was a further uptick in micro-dynamic jump."
I don't know about you but I cringe when I hear people talk about audio in such terms. And this after listening to a commercial album and then stopping, swapping the cable and relistening. It's unbelievable.
I could pull quotes from cable reviews all afternoon but I think you get the point. When anyone starts spewing nonsense about power cords, digital interconnects, or network cables, run away. Keep your wallet in your pocket and unsubscribe from that group or online magazine. Their motivations are suspect. They either want to sell you something (usually at very high cost) or are dependent on advertising dollars from the companies they write about or the individuals they interview.
"Showing 38 responses by geoffkait
Welcome to my world, grasshopper. By the way, I urge you to consider adding a new embedding: you can call it information fields, mind-matter interaction or extra-sensory perception, as I use those terms interchangeably for the purposes of the discussion of sound and it’s perception. I am channeling Peter Belt as we speak and to a lesser extent Good old Rupert Sheldrake, who never really got on board the whole audiophile train 🚂 He was more interested in how dogs sense when their owners are returning home. Also, I’m not sure which embedding the CD fluttering belongs in, maybe that’s a new embedding. And the scattered CD laser LIGHT could be a new embedding too. Magnetic fields might be a new one too. Finally, save an embedding for good old Quantum Mechanics. This should be a separate embedding, more things are wrought by Quantum Mechanics than this world dreams of. 🤗 And wire directionality 🔛 should have its own place in the scheme of things. |
dynaquest44 "....any silver version of AQ’s interconnects vs the corresponding copper version will change the character of a system greatly."Please! Greatly.....greatly? Perhaps there might be a subtle difference but it would be hardly audible; and that difference might not even be a pleasant change. >>>>Oh, like you know. That’s so funny I almost forgot to laugh. |
It’s not how MUCH you spend on the room, it’s HOW you spend it. Knowledge is what’s left after 🔜 you subtract out all you’ve forgotten from school - which I dare say in this particular endeavor - high end audio - ain’t going to help you that much anyway. 🤗 Example - most people are blissfully unaware of the impact on the sound of the very high sound pressure levels SPLs found in room corners and other locations on walls and in the 3 dimensional space of the room. It’s like having an army of narrow band speakers beaming down at you from all around the room, interfering with the pure signal from the main speakers. Comb filter effects up the wazoo! These locations are room and system dependent and can only be identified by the relatively time consuming method using a SPL meter and test signal. Another example - John A Public still doesn’t know how to set up speakers. And frankly, I’m getting a little tired of telling them. 😛 |
fleschler @geofkait I’ve outlined the construction of the listening room several times in these forums and I sure you’ve read them. No springs but 12" thick, 3000 psi, steel reinforced concrete foundation for the room. The room was designed by Acoustic Fields and has 16" multi-layered, activated carbon bass filtered walls/doors (no other openings). >>>That’s certainly one strategy - to try to make the structure as strong 🏋🏻♂️and non-resonant as possible, to try to prevent vibrations from interfering with the sound. it’s only fair to point out that seismic very low frequency vibration will still affect the sound inasmuch as the entire building is subject to Earth crust motion in all six count em! Directions. There is no escaping seismic type vibration without decoupling. Steel reinforced Concrete is no match for the strength of seismic vibration, which force the entire building to shake. That’s why the system should always be decoupled from building, even a room that’s very strong and rigid. Rigid is the enemy of sound, not it’s friend. Your friends are actually flexibility and ease of motion. The easier a component can move in a particular direction the better it’s isolated in that direction. Ironic, huh? The project to observe gravity waves constructed out in the middle of nowhere would have been very unsuccessful had it built an extremely strong structure in which the detector was placed, rather than take enormous pains to decouple the detectors and mirrors from the environment. Yes, there are two paths you can go by But in the long run There’s still time to change the road you’re on - Led Zeppelin |
fleschler @geoffkait I’ve outlined the construction of the listening room several times in these forums and I sure you’ve read them. No springs but 12" thick, 3000 psi, steel reinforced concrete foundation for the room. The room was designed by Acoustic Fields and has 16" multi-layered, activated carbon bass filtered walls/doors (no other openings). >>>>Wow! What a coincidence! My cigarettes have activated charcoal filters! Actually I must have missed your outlines of the construction of your listening room. Oops! |
dynaquest4 Not sure the point of the poem...but it does rhyme. +1 for that Mr. Geoff. >>>>I’m a poet and don’t know it. |
Did you get any splinters? 😬 Even more confusing to the public-at-large is that the sound per se is completely vulnerable to things that are not even remotely connected to the audio system - Not the house AC, the house wiring, cabling, electronics or room treatments. Since perception is to a large degree subconscious there is nothing you can do about this insidious problem as long as you’re blissfully ignorant of it. RF treatments, vibration control and isolation are so old school. The real challenge for John Q Public is to get beyond those old school ideas, as charming as they are, even oft times effective. “Sometimes to create you must first destroy.” - Robot David in Prometheus ”Everything is relative.” - A. Einstein The pistols are poppin’ and the power is down I’d like to try somethin’ but I’m so far from town The sun keeps shinin’ and the North Wind keeps picking up speed Gonna forget about myself for a while, gonna go out and see what others need Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches I’ll recruit my army from the orphanages I been to St. Herman’s church and I’ve said my religious vows I’ve sucked the milk out of a thousand cows |
drbarney1 The most esteemed and marketplace successful cable designers turn out to have little or no education in physics or relevant engineering in the way cables or conductors work but they have a smattering of knowledge about some of it. For me it takes only one fraud to discredit them completely. Many cable designers describe skin effect as a grievous source of distortion in speaker cables. They minimize the skin effect by reducing the distance from the surface of the cable to the center by either using a bundle of many insulated thin conductors or ribbon cables. If they really knew their physics and calculated how much the effective cross section of current carrying conductor is diminished by skin effect at 20 kHz for 8 gauge speaker wire that diminution would be a fraction of a percent. >>>>>That’s pretty funny stuff. You obviously must think the signal is the audio waveform. That’s gold, Jerry, gold! |
Anyone who has read a review of the AudioQuest Hurricane power cord and not (rpt not) come away thinking, well, maybe there really is something to all this power cord stuff - you know, polishing the surface of the conductor and honoring the inherent directionality of wire - yes, gentle readers, even in an obvious case of alternating signal 🔛- must be in some sort of catatonic state. 😳 |
darkstar The most important aspect of any power cord, interconnect or speaker cable is conductivity. All other properties are secondary. >>>>That can’t be true since copper cables frequently sound better than silver cables. Furthermore, since copper and silver are only 5% different in terms of conductivity you can probably eliminate conductivity entirely from consideration. Since virtually all cables are either copper or silver it looks like you choices of conductor material is rather limited anyway. 😛 |
hombre A long time ago Julian Hirsch founder of "Stereo Review" set up a test in which he invited twenty experienced high-end audiophiles to audition a very expensive high end system. Mark Levinson, Linn Sondek TT, Dahlquist, etc. Over 10K in gear (which was really big bucks 50 years ago). After listening all the participants waxed enthusiastically about how excellent the sound was. The best they ever heard. Hirsch then informed them that, in fact, they had been listening to a $300.00 Pioneer receiver which he had hidden from view. They were furious. This tells us a lot about things like the sound of speaker wires. >>>>Chances are excellent you just made all that up. Apologies for using a preposition at the end of a sentence. Besides, blinds tests don’t mean anything. Didn’t you get the memo? |
It was all rigged so in fact the details don’t matter. Nobody’s going to give a million dollars away to anybody for any audio related test. If Kramer was supposed to the Randi Foundation’s key to audiophile myths they were barking up the wrong tree. Randi just needed stuff to publish in his newsletter since he was apparently unable to find any more spoon benders or ghost whisperers. |
Randi went after several audiophiles, including your humble scribe and audio insider. There was going to be a Million Dollar Challenge for the Intelligent Chip circa 2005 but it fell through due to considerable distrust on both sides. That’s when Kramer formerly of Butthole Surfers was the middle man between the chip challenger Wellfed and Randi. Someone actually signed up for the Million Dollar Challenge for the Intelligent Chip but flunked the test. Duh! Regardless of whether Johnny Carson gave Randi any money, Randi was definitely not a pauper. He was almost certainly able to back up his Million Dollar Challenge if he lost, which I don’t think he ever did. Of course, his blind tests were fairly well rigged to prevent such an occurrence. 1986A $273,000 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship was awarded to James Randi for his investigations of the claims of Uri Geller and TV "faith healers"[152] Honorary membership, Israeli Society for Promoting the Art of Magic.[150] |
Randi got the million from Johnny Carson when he died to go after spoon benders and dowsers. A quick search turns up Randi’s net worth at 1.5 Million. Most likely Randi got cold feet thinking, gee, I know the Challenge is rigged but maybe these crazy audiophiles really can hear the difference between $25,000 cables and bog standard cables. After all, Randi didn’t know anything whatsoever about audio. He just saw audiophiles as a rich source of entertainment and self promotion. Besides, he didn’t run the James Randi Educational Foundation and host retreats on his yacht in the Caribbean on just his looks. Of course Randi would say it was Fremer who got cold,feet. Duh! |
Levitating objects with sound is kind of passé ever since they levitated a frog 🐸 in a magnetic field. https://youtu.be/KlJsVqc0ywM |
glupson "Sorry, dude, but Monster Cable were never high end."Until I bought them and connected them between an Onkyo receiver and Mission 761i. They stayed high end for decades, even after those two were long gone. Report this >>>>>Everything’s topsy turvy, glubson. Me topsy, you turvy. |
amg56 I am so disappointed that this forum, and in fact much of the posted subject matter in the forums are so bad. I originally came to this forum to commune and learn from the people who know about the subjects who we, want to learn about and from those we expected to learn from. I am very disappointed the see that this forum (and of all subjects) are full of vitriol, sarcasm, commentary that is so off subject, and the ever destructive trolls big noting themselves that the conversation and subject matter becomes irrelevant. To those who what to learn, I am sorry for you that the knowledgeable persons are shut down by ignorant big noters, and those that want to learn are shut out by big nobodies. >>>>>>Hey, that’s kind of the way it goes on these troll threads sometimes. Maybe best to relax and enjoy the ride. |