Timely tip: never get into any kind of technical debate with a history or English major.
Too good a post to waste
On a thread that is a running example of the textual equivalent of nonstop cat videos. So here it is again.
I could understand the cables are snake-oil doubters and take them seriously- in 1980. Back then there was no internet, Stereo Review was pretty much it, and Julian Hirsch was the Oracle of all things audio. Stereo Review and Julian Hirsch said if it measures the same it sounds the same. Wire is wire, and that was that.
Even then though J. Gordon Holt had already started the movement that was to become Stereophile. JGH took the opposing view that our listening experience is what counts. Its nice if you can measure it but if you can’t that’s your problem not ours.
Stereo Review and the measurers owned the market back then. The market gave us amplifier wars, as manufacturers competed for ever more power with ever lower distortion. For years this went on, until one day "measures great sounds bad" became a thing.
Could be some here besides me lived through and remember this. If you did, and if you were reading JGH back then, I tip my hat to you, sir! I fell prey to Hirsch and his siren song that you can have it all for cheap and don’t really have to learn to listen. Talk about snake-oil! A lot of us bought into it. Sorry to say.
But anyway like I was saying it was easy to believe the lie back then because it was so prevalent and also because what wire there was that sounded better didn’t really sound a whole lot better.
Now though even budget wire sounds so much better than what comes off a reel you’d have to be deaf not to notice. Really good wires sound so good you’d notice even if you ARE deaf! No kidding. My aunt Bessie was deaf as a stone but she could FEEL the sound at a high enough volume, knew it was music. The dynamic punch of my CTS cables is so much greater than ordinary 14 ga wire I would bet my deaf from birth aunt Bessie could "hear" the difference. Certain so-called audiophiles here, I'm not so sure.
Oh and not done beating the dead horse quite yet, according to my calendar its 2020, a solid 40 years past 1980. Stereo Review is dead and buried. Stereophile lives on. A whole multi-billion dollar industry built on wire not being wire thrives. Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial.
I could understand the cables are snake-oil doubters and take them seriously- in 1980. Back then there was no internet, Stereo Review was pretty much it, and Julian Hirsch was the Oracle of all things audio. Stereo Review and Julian Hirsch said if it measures the same it sounds the same. Wire is wire, and that was that.
Even then though J. Gordon Holt had already started the movement that was to become Stereophile. JGH took the opposing view that our listening experience is what counts. Its nice if you can measure it but if you can’t that’s your problem not ours.
Stereo Review and the measurers owned the market back then. The market gave us amplifier wars, as manufacturers competed for ever more power with ever lower distortion. For years this went on, until one day "measures great sounds bad" became a thing.
Could be some here besides me lived through and remember this. If you did, and if you were reading JGH back then, I tip my hat to you, sir! I fell prey to Hirsch and his siren song that you can have it all for cheap and don’t really have to learn to listen. Talk about snake-oil! A lot of us bought into it. Sorry to say.
But anyway like I was saying it was easy to believe the lie back then because it was so prevalent and also because what wire there was that sounded better didn’t really sound a whole lot better.
Now though even budget wire sounds so much better than what comes off a reel you’d have to be deaf not to notice. Really good wires sound so good you’d notice even if you ARE deaf! No kidding. My aunt Bessie was deaf as a stone but she could FEEL the sound at a high enough volume, knew it was music. The dynamic punch of my CTS cables is so much greater than ordinary 14 ga wire I would bet my deaf from birth aunt Bessie could "hear" the difference. Certain so-called audiophiles here, I'm not so sure.
Oh and not done beating the dead horse quite yet, according to my calendar its 2020, a solid 40 years past 1980. Stereo Review is dead and buried. Stereophile lives on. A whole multi-billion dollar industry built on wire not being wire thrives. Maybe the measurement people can chalk up and quantify from that just how many years, and billions, they are out of date and in denial.
Showing 50 responses by geoffkait
Al, I was not criticizing your system, I was complementing your writing style, which can sometimes constitute an illogical argument in itself. It’s the art of the legal mind to sway audiences with language. Sometimes it’s just too good to be true. Unemotional, careful, logical, courteous, friendly. 😃 Johnny Cochran springs to mind. As I said you almost had me going on your excellent by fallacious argument that fuse directionality is actually produced by the fuse holder. Kudos on that one! It was very convincing! 🤗 |
jetter Actually I just looked at my last 5 posts, they did not fester on: Wire directionality Stray CD laser light Vibrations Transportation or Cryogenics Does that make me a bad person? >>>>I’m pretty sure you used the word fester incorrectly and the word transportation. That probably makes you an example of the failure of the school system. No offense. Now if you had said your brain is festering that would be the correct usage, see? |
jetter @geoffkait For U I only need half wit comebacks.Now I’m confused, I will have to do a search as I only remember half witted comebacks. In fact, I am waiting for one now. >>>Copy your last 5 posts and send them to yourself. Your wait is over. |
That makes us even since I never expect anything from you, U. And I’m never disappointed. Probably a huge failure of public school system. I have no idea why you even try to tangle with me, it must because you enjoy being kicked in the head, which if you don’t mind my saying so too much happened one too many times. 🤕 |
As I’ve oft opined, all things being equal - I.e., for the 🔜 exact same cable 🔙 - the one with the WHITE jacket will sound better than the one with a BLACK jacket. Anyone who believes cables all sound the same or that L, R and C and even length are the only parameters that count, that determine SQ, has only skimmed the surface or has not advanced past Base Camp ⛺️ It’s not all black and white. 🐄 Suspending the cables, using contact enhancers, exotic cable wraps, colored cable ties, etc., all the tricks of the trade, you know, the ones advanced audiophiles keep secret from the average Joe Blow. It’s very hush hush, we keep in close to the vest. It’s a weird trip if you can handle it. 🤗 |
millercarbon, is it true when you lie your pants really are on fire? 👖🔥 I don’t blame you for feelings of inferiority since your degree is from 4H Club. 🐄🍀 Apparently all you have to do around here is utter the word pseudo-scientist and millercarbon shows up. It’s uncanny! Maybe I really do have ESP. 😳 |
Dirty contacts? Yeah, right! Geez, what other ridiculous claims will these pseudo skeptics make? It would actually make more sense to claim the cables were backwards. https://youtu.be/w3sLzmmejCA |
Roberttdid But hey, I seem to have triggered the rath (Sic) of the Pet Audio Rock dude, so I must be doing something right? >>>>>Is your auto spell check function on the fritz or is that you? 🤗 |
Roberttdid But hey, I seem to have triggered the rath of the Pet Audio Rock dude, so I must be doing something right? >>>>Watch it dude, I’ll be over you like ugly on an ape. 🦍 |
millercarbon This comes up in x-ray school. An x-ray is nothing more than a 2 dimensional gray scale representation of a 3 dimensional object. When you first look at one its hard to make any sense of it at all. >>>>>>X-rays themselves are made of the same particles that the audio signal is made of, only higher energy. Did that ever come up in x-ray school? One wonders of it comes up in audio engineering school. |
Double blind testing is oft embraced by audiophiles as a scientific methodology guaranteed to yield correct results. Nothing could be further from the truth. A double blind test doesn’t mean anything, it’s only one data point, so stop pretending that it does. Too many things can go wrong in any audio test - and usually do. Conclusions might be drawn after a Sufficiently large number Independent tests have been performed, I.e., preponderance of evidence. I’d opine many if not most audiophiles are blissfully unaware of many variables involved in audio tests anyway. |
roberttdid 40 + years, and not one, yup not one that I can find, demonstration by a cable vendor that definitively shows an audible difference, let alone an improvement between good wire (low resistance, reasonably low capacitance/inductance), and their uber-expensive wire. >>>>I got as far as “40 + years” then I stopped reading as I was confident some lengthy chest-beating was about to occur. If number of years of experience actually meant anything we’d all be geniuses. Around these parts that is considered an appeal to authority anyway. |
I had some seven nines Japanese cables twenty five years ago, the ones with the silk jacket. On the Kalahari you don’t have to be the swiftest wildebeest, only faster than the slowest one. I also had some of Bob Crump’s TG Audio speaker cables and P.W.B. speaker cables, the ones you can’t buy, the ones with full sets of Colored cable ties on them 🌈 |
jetter Actually, deer are more my style. >>>>I’ll bet they are, do you take them out to dinner first? 😬 |
Intro to scattered light problem in CD players, New Dark Matter White Paper The Quicker Picker-Upper Copyright January 2019 Geoff Kait Have you ever wondered why so many CDs sound thin, metallic, dynamically compressed, bland, generic, congealed, uninvolving, whimpy, electronic, analytical, two dimensional, lifeless, distorted, sour, synthetic, rolled off, thuddy, strident, and like paper mache? All of that is about to change. New Dark Matter NDM, the newest product from Machina Dynamica, is the only audio product that absorbs both visible scattered laser light and invisible scattered light in CD players, thereby improving optical signal to noise ratio, thus improving sound quality. The CD laser nominal wavelength is 780 nm, which is about 80 nm longer than the longest visible red wavelength, 700 nm. The laser is not monochromatic but has an effective wavelength range of around 650-850 nm. This means most of the laser light, and scattered light, is INVISIBLE. The portion of the laser light below 700 nm is visible red, presumably as a safety feature. The scattering of the laser light occurs when the laser beam strikes the physical nanoscale data on the CD. Then, scattered light reflects off surfaces inside the CD transport container, lighting up the interior like a Christmas tree. The Green Pen and other similar audiophile products (including our own Codename Turquoise tray treatment) affect the sound because they absorb scattered visible RED light. But most of the scattered light - around 75% - is INVISIBLE and not amenable to absorption by ANY color, including green, turquoise, or even black. |
Just to clarify for those who or either slow or pretending to be slow buffering the data doesn’t prevent all errors any more than Reed Solomon error codes do. When the data is buffered it still contains the errors that occur right when the laser reads the data. Either the industry is unaware of these issues with CD players, or they chose to ignore them. Take your pick. If you don’t remember these conversations keep a log, eat more fish. |
You’re not following, glubson. Not a wise move on your part, as usual. If buffering solved the sound quality issues with home audio I have been talking about lo these many months they would have implemented buffers in expensive CD players a long time ago. Sure it sounds OK to you, you don’t know the difference. |