Why Power Cables Affect Sound

@mkgus

This got me thinking as to how in the world a power cable can affect sound. I want to hear all of your ideas.

Ok. Here’s one: It could be your perception that changed, not the actual sound. Bias, expectation effect, imagination, etc. There are many biases - "expectation bias" being one well known bias where you expect the "better" or more expensive item to perform better and...viola!...it does!

But a very important point to absorb is that such expectation bias is not at all the whole story in terms of explaining perceptual phenomena. Even if you don’t go in with an opinion either way that A will sound better, or even different, than B, the mere act of focusing your attention to look for differences can in of itself cause the perception of the sound to "change." This is amply demonstrated by blind tests were you don’t switch between A and B but the subject thinks you are switching. Often enough they’ll choose one as sounding better than the "other" even though they are listening to the same thing.

And you don’t even have to be in the mindset of looking for a difference to go awry in your inferences. Again, our minds and nervous system are quite plastic and for a myriad of reasons something can please one day, but not another. So someone can put on his system and find "I like the way it sounds today better than I did yesterday." And then he can *presume* that this alteration in perception had an objective source, so "something changed in the system, not me." "Oh...little did I know I’d left X tweak on the component" or whatever, so THAT must have caused the system to sound better *even though I wasn’t trying to perceive any differences!*

Our senses and cognition are amazing. But far from perfect. And unfortunately they introduce these types of variables in to the problem of trying to ascertain what’s happening in any perceptual pursuit. You can just ignore this, as many do. But if we want to really be careful about trying to understand the nature of an apparent change, the ideal method takes perceptual bias and error into account.

As I’ve written before several times: I once thought an expensive power cord "obviously" changed the sound of my system.

But...I knew that as compelling as my subjective experience was, I could be in error. When I blind tested it against a cheap power cord, every "obviously different" aspect of it’s sound from the cheap power cord vanished. Trying to tell a difference was utterly random. To engage in blind testing is to get a real lesson in the power of perceptual bias.Many assume perceptual biases produce only very subtle effects. No, they can be quite profound.


Now...that ISN’T to say other explanations aren’t correct, and that the power cord did in fact alter the signal audibly in the way you perceived.

But, if you are really that interested in the truth of your experience, I think the above is well worth considering.

Personally, though I am open to the idea of AC cables changing the sound, I am at this point skeptical due to my own experience with them, particularly the lessons learned blind testing those and other items, and because the claims made by manufacturers are of a frankly suspicious nature - claims made about technical problems in AC causing audible problems, but virtually never objective evidence for the product’s claims in the audio domain.And over the years I’ve seen electrical engineers (who don’t have a vested interest in selling cables) eviscerate many of the fishy claims by AC cable manufacturers.

Hey...you asked... ;-)

Cheers.

@mrdecibel

As a member of the professional audio community, I was always able to get " loaners ", and never imagined anything I heard. None of that psychobabble bs, that what I was hearing is all in my head.

That’s amazing!

I guess all the scientific evidence for human bias doesn’t apply to you.

How’s the weather on whatever planet you are from? :)

" There are different kinds of us audio guys / gals ( consumers ). *** Those that are open minded, and use their ears ( like myself ). And of those, some who hear differences, and some who do not. *** Those that have never tried to listen ( experimented ), and are somewhat clueless to the audible effects of such devices. ***

I’m glad you exhibit such virtue! That of being so "open minded."
Can you tell me: How "open minded" are you to the possibility that you are wrong in perceiving any of those differences you think you heard?  Because you certainly don’t come off as "open minded."

There is after all endless reams of scientific evidence concerning human bias and perceptual error, that you seem to be ignoring. Are you open minded to what humans have learned about perceptual biases?

mrdecibel
I have borrowed and tested various higher end AC cables.

And I hugely enjoy listening to my system, as I am in the background right now - some great new vinyl I picked up.

We can all fully enjoy music, and our stereo systems, while having diverging viewpoints.

mrdecibel

I have tried a variety of Shunyata cables.  I have friends who have loaned me other cables over the years (mostly...if I happen to need a power cable).  I believe Audioquest was among them.

Not used on my CJs of course, but on CD players (e.g. Meridian 508.20, 508.24 DAC, Meitner DAC, Bryston amplifier, an older tube pre-amp.....
Cheers!

djones51,
I agree; nothing wrong with the placebo effect!  (And that btw is not presuming everyone here is just experiencing something like the placebo effect!).
I have no problem with the idea I may be indulging in perceptual biases myself.  I certainly find the looks of a speaker enhance my enjoyment of the sound.  I've had tweaks in my system that seemed to make a difference.  I kept them in because, hey, if they are helping me perceive better sound, I'm good with that.   But I would be cautious about claiming from my experience objective truths.  And when I am more motivated to know what's really likely, then I may just read more about the phenomenon and/or indulge in some blind testing.

mrdecibel,

So prof, it seems that you did not hear differences in the pcs you tried. If you did, or thought you did, you doubted yourself as a listener, and claim placedo effect. That is a problem right there,

I detailed the situation earlier in the thread. Did you read it?  In a nutshell, I did not perceive any obvious difference with a couple Shunyata power cables.  But in the most expensive (and biggest, thickest) one I was given, I thought I heard an obvious difference.  The system seemed to become more lush, darker, smoother.   It seemed so obvious I wondered if I actually liked my system with that cable in use. 


Then I had a friend help me blind test it against a cheap stock power cord.  In which case, all the sonic characteristics I felt so sure I'd heard disappeared and I couldn't for the life of me distinguish the sound from the cheap power cord.

In other words:  when I actually decided to just trust my ears, not my eyes, the high end cable didn't pass that test.

This is not surprising, if you know anything about the nature of how fallible our subjective inferences are. 


I have no problem admitting I'm human and fallible.   I feel that is actually being open minded, vs vs insisting that my subjective assessment just "absolutely, can not ever be wrong!"

You didn't answer my question:   Are you open minded to being wrong about what you believe you have heard in your system? 

 Are all of your buddies who loaned you cables, experiencing the placedo effect? Are you saying that everyone is experiencing the placedo effect, in this particular instance.

As I already stated: I am not claiming everyone here is just experiencing a bias or placebo effect.

But the method used by most audiophiles to test gear - with particular relevance to controversial tweaks - is not, unfortunately, well suited to distinguishing between bias effects and the real thing.

mrdecibel

Again, congratulations on never having suffered perceptual bias when listening to a sound system. Something of a miracle!

Are you sure you haven’t fallen in to just another form of dogmatism, in this case, an almost perfect confidence in your own perception?

Anyway...enjoy your cables. When they finish breaking in....;-)

geoffkait wrote:

"Psychological bias cannot be used to explain all positive results." ......
"But to claim it explains all controversial or mysterious audio phenomena is pretty absurd."

That poor, poor strawman geoff, won’t you ever stop beating it? Have some mercy on the thing!

@cleeds

Even though the test wasn’t scientific, you can’t accurately say that the cable "failed" the test.

Obviously I was speaking colloquially. But the point expressed is certainly correct: The cable "failed the test" in the sense that I could not distinguish it from a cheap cable, hence for the proposal "there is an audible difference between the expensive cable and the cheap cable" I was left with the null hypothesis.

That doesn’t sound like a double blind test, so the results aren’t scientifically valid.

1. Of course double-blind tests are the gold standard. But in case you are implying that single blind tests are not "scientific," that would be incorrect. Single blind tests are often used where double blinding is not feasible.



2. Double blind testing in my case was not feasible (at least for the power cables) so all I could do was attempt single blind, to at least control for some variables. A friend helped me by being the cable switcher. I wore a blindfold. Of course one of the variables are confounding cues - e.g. from the tester to the subject - that can influence or give "tells" for a false positive result. As I usually do if I’m single-blinding, we did some pre-tests to establish whether this was a factor. So we first did some testing for that variable. I was blindfolded and the switcher did not speak to me, only switched when I said "switch." The switcher did not speak to me even to say "ok" that he was finished switching - just my noting the activity involved with the switching, and waiting an appropriate amount of time, sufficed between switching.


We did some randomized testing (tester coin-flipped before-hand to establish pattern) in which no music signal was played. With blind-fold on, I would say "switch" and the tester would simply switch between the cables (or not switch but pretend to by still unplugging and plugging the same plug in). In this way we established that my guesses for which cable was being used, or even when one was switched, were random. Suggesting that I was not able to get cues from the switcher as to which cables were being swapped, or if a cable was being swapped.


Then we proceeded to the music trials, which were done in the same way, and the results for my trying to discern between the Shunyata and cheap AC cable were random.


In this way, not only was I blinded, but we tried to control for a type of experimenter bias (where the experimenter subtly influences the outcome) to the degree possible. Given during the trials, there was no verbal communication from the switcher to me to add that influencing variable, and our pre-trials suggested we had eliminated a confounding variable of whether I was getting some other extraneous cue via the sound of the cable switches themselves, then I think we did a pretty good job of controlling for variables given our resources.


3. The conclusions and claims I draw from my own blind testing such as the above are modest. Both in terms of the modest level at which I can blind test audio gear, and in terms of inferences from bind testing in general. I do not claim from my own attempts to blind test: "therefore there IS no audible difference between the power cables in question."


Only that I was not able to discern any when I attempted to control for other variables. Of course my own experience influences my purchases (if I’m not able to demonstrate to myself I heard a difference, I’m not going to buy the cable). And given the well-established problems of subjective bias, it makes more sense to put more emphasis on the trials where I attempted to control for such variables - as well as introduce faster switching - vs the causal sighted trials with no attempt whatsoever to control variables.


Nor do I claim from my own tests, of course, "therefore NO audible differences exist between AC cables, and every positive anecdote is due to subjective bias." That would be far too rash and unwarranted.
BUT....I put my own experience in the context of the bigger picture.For one thing, whatever the status of my blind tests, one thing is clear:In the sighted trials I perceived specific difference between the two cables. In the "blinded" trials, I simply did not perceive that difference any more. That in of itself is telling about the variable nature of perception.

And this fits well with all the scientific understanding on how variables can influence perception. And that this ought to be taken in to account especially when trying to discern if there are even differences existing in the first place.

Then I put that together with the fact that the claims about audible differences between AC cables in the audiophile world are pretty much all uncontrolled anecdote. I have yet to encounter blind testing data of any kind, validating the claim that a boutique audio cable produces audible differences from a cheaper (competent) ac cable.

And then I add in all the debates I’ve observed where qualified electrical engineers weigh in on the claim made by audiophiles and high end cable companies, in which the engineers seem to me to make the more convincing case against the high end cable claims.

Finally, one doesn’t even have to be a qualified electrical engineer to notice that the very nature of the claims made by high end AC cable manufacturers are extremely fishy in nature, in the ways I’ve detailed here many times before. They make much about technical measurable phenomena being a problem, but rarely provide objective measurements showing they have "fixed" the problem and, more important, do not provide evidence from the beginning that the phenomena in question was audible (in regular competently built AC cables/equipment), and that their component produces audibly detectable results (no controlled blind testing). Instead, it goes "here’s this technical problem with AC cabling that we address" and then it just punts straight to marketing hype and audiophile anecdote as vetting the claims.


These are reasons why I think my general skepticism regarding high end AC cable claims are warranted. That is entirely different from claiming "AC cables make no audible difference" - a claim I have never made.
Unfortunately, it seems some are so dogmatically wedded to confidence in their subjective results that they see any challenge, any skepticism raised about those results, as somehow being a dogmatic rejection of their claims. "Look, YOU may be fallible in your perception, but THERE’S NO WAY I’M WRONG!" It’s projecting their own dogmatism the other side, while, amazingly, holding themselves to be the "open minded" ones.

n80

That struck me as funny. Sounds like something from a Monty Python skit. "If she floats she is a witch and we will burn her. If she sinks and drowns she's not a witch."

So if I hear a difference then you cable guys are right. If I don't hear a difference then I'm just one of those guys without discriminating perception (a very real possibility I'll admit). The scenario doesn't seem to allow for the possibility that I AM a discriminating hearer and don't hear a difference because the cables simply don't make a difference OR the scenario where I hear a difference but that difference is a product of my perception bias, which unlike some folks I KNOW that I experience from time to time.

Yes, you've put your finger on the problem here. "negative" results are never counted - the relevance is only ever dismissed.  If you ever fail hearing a difference it can only be your fault, or the fault of whatever test you conduct.  If you acknowledge your own fallibility, and the general fallibility of humans in this regard, you are dogmatic.   It's NEVER that the subjective results of the audiophile could be wrong.

And remember...they are the "open minded" ones  ;-)

nonoise

The only scientific evidence I can steer you to is empirically derived:

People who go to psychics also have "empirically derived" conclusions.They experienced the fact the psychic simply knew things about them that the purported psychic  "could not have known or guessed."


But of course, these people have typically made incorrect evaluations of their empirical experience. They just don’t know enough about the facts of cold reading to understand how they could have been fooled. So long as they never take on the facts of how people are fooled by cold reading, they will never relinquish their belief, and go to their grave sure their inference to real psychic powers was correct.

So...empirical experience is a dime a dozen. The question is: how well we reason from our empirical experience to explain it, and figure out if our inferences are sound.

And, no, it’s not the placebo effect, or hysteria, or delusions, or expectation bias.

How did you determine this?
Because....human perceptual biases are actually a thing....right? I presume you aren’t going to claim they don’t exist. Therefore, how do you determine that your experience was NOT caused by some expectation or other bias effect?


If your answer is along the lines "because I had the strong experience of hearing a difference" that is obviously begging the question, and would simply display ignorance about the nature of bias.

@mrdecibel
I realize you've deemed me not worth your time.

But just in case you are feeling generous...

my time and experience in the field has allowed me to train myself to hear very minute differences amongst all related items in audio.

Could you tell us please what experience you are referring to?  Are you simply an audiophile who has listened to a lot of audio equipment?  Or do you work in audio in some capacity?

I'm not the one who introduced the term "placebo" and would not - as I had clearly stated - simply attributed either real audible results or imagined audio results to the "placebo effect."  As I keep mentioning, we suffer a range of perceptual biases.  "Placebo effect" is often raised in threads like these as a short hand for bias effects.


The placebo effect is absolutely fascinating in that it's not restricted to mere bias and perceptual error, but it can actually produce a variety of physical results.  Lots is known about the effects of placebo, but very little understood about the mechanisms.  In the drug trial I mentioned the subjects comprised people with a history of peanut allergy reactions, so they were familiar with what it was like to react to peanuts.   And yet some who were given the placebo pill actually vomited...even had hives and other physical reactions...of the type they get when they are exposed to actual peanut protein!

The power of the placebo effect (among other biases) is why - whether we know the mechanism or not - if you are testing for the efficacy of the drug in question, you have to control for the placebo effect to sift the efficacy of the drug from that caused by placebo. 


The necessity of these controls was further apparent when, after the results were unblinded I talked to the researchers.  They had, in essence for "fun," been trying to ascertain which of their subjects was on placebo and which were on the actual peanut protein.  It turned out in many cases they were simply wrong, due to the confounding reactions to the placebo.  Some people they felt SURE were reacting to peanut protein were on the placebo.  Some people they were sure were on the placebo (due to lack of symptoms) were on the peanut protein.  This shows how utterly skewed their empirical inferences could have been if they had not conducted a controlled, blinded test.



In fact there was a fascinating article in the NYT a while back I read on people trying to get to the bottom of the mechanisms involved in the placebo effect.  Here it is:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/magazine/placebo-effect-medicine.html

But, all that said, as I've written many times "placebo effect," although often used as a short-hand in these discussions, does not at all denote, or cover, all the specific forms of bias and phenemonena going on in human perception, including what we would have to untangle in understanding the relationship between our gear and what we are hearing.

I also have mentioned many times I would never expect or advocate the idea everyone needs to go blind testing everything...or anything!...they buy.  I don't.  We all just have to satisfy ourselves.

It's only when we get in to discussions trying to understand what is going on, and when claims start being made - e.g. "AC cables DEFINITELY alter the sound of a system" and "I know this because I've heard it, and it can't be on the basis of any perceptual bias"....when people make these declarations, it's fair to raise the reasons one can have for caution in just accepting such claims.

nonoise

Why do reasonable questions upset you?

Why do you think it’s perfectly fine that you declare to the crowd that you KNOW your position is correct and that you know you exhibit no bias effect when evaluating cables.

Yet if your claim is at all challenged with reasonable questions you get so incensed as to insult the questioner as “having problems.”

Are we supposed to simply sit down, shut up and accept anything nonoise claims as The Truth without possibly questioning it?


If not...why does questioning your claims cause you to insult the questioner?

nonoise,

You are yet again whacking a strawman - repeating the same misrepresentations and fallacies as you have before in these conversations.  Your last paragraph especially displays this. (Nothing I have written entails the wholesale abandonment of the reliability of our perception or senses...and you should know that as I've corrected you before when you kept pretending my arguments lead to that).

If you simply are unwilling to maturely consider other points of view - which entails actually reading what someone writes and not completely mischaracterizing it every time - then I agree conversation between us is going to be useless.

I can only suggest you try not to take other points of view so personally, as some personal affront. 


And maybe

Just maybe

Consider that admitting to being human and having some fallibility, isn't such a bad thing to admit.

@mkgus,

I think nonoise is getting upset with you because you are denying his very reality without having any experience with it via sitting in a arm chair 500 miles away removed from his situation and then going on to cite how fallable the mind is: it’s borderline insulting.

No mature, reasonable person should find facts insulting. Including facts about being human.

Ever seen optical illusions? They show us ways in which our perception can be fooled. Are you, or nonoise, "insulted" by being shown how such perception is fallible? Would it make sense to be "insulted" when being shown a fact about human perception?

Scientists often use double-blind studies. I’ve mentioned before: my son is involved in a double blind study for an allergy treatment. Both my son and the doctor were "blinded" to whether my son was receiving a placebo or the actual drug. Why? Because it’s so well known how human bias works in confounding the results. If the experimenters know which people are on the real drug, they can subtly influence the outcome of the results in ways they aren’t even themselves aware of. We know simply giving someone a fake pill can produce perceptions of results if people think it may be something that affects their system. In fact, as is often the case, in this study some people had what they took to be allergic reactions to the placebo....which is why double-blinding is used to reduce the "noise" of bias effects in the results.

Now, this is simply based on what we know about human bias and perception. Should the doctors have felt insulted to be blinded during the research? Of course not; they are mature adults and simply understand they are fallible in ways that they ought to control for.Should we have been scandalized to have been blinded to whether we were on the placebo or real drug as in "How DARE you think I can’t KNOW whether this drug is working or not. Don’t you TRUST ME?"

Of course not. We’d be bad subjects to be so irrational.

And yet, if you simply remind some audiophiles that we are all human, and we know that humans have biases that can confound our inferences, then they feel scandalized, insulted. It’s not even saying their perception and results ARE in error. It’s only to suggest that, given the facts of bias effects, that it COULD POSSIBLY be in error. And even the suggestion their perception COULD POSSIBLY be in error is seen as an occasion for being insulted, and hurling back insults.  Against all scientific evidence to the contrary, apparently these audiophiles can be confident they are never in error and no perceptual biases are operating.

Do you see the problem here at all?


I have been very careful to say, explicitly, that I’m not claiming from my own results "AC cables make no sonic difference" and I have NEVER claimed that nonoise or you or anyone else DID NOT hear a REAL sonic difference. I have only raised the issue of how difficult it can be to get the bottom of many of the more audiophile/tweaky claims due to the bias effects we all suffer from. And given this, it’s reasonable to ask "how do we deal with trying to untangle real audible differences from imagined audible differences?"

Why can’t a mature, calm conversation be had about this? There is no reason whatsoever to take such questions as insults.


BTW, as to how I listen to my system: I listen from my sweet spot, often lights out, truly involved in the music and sound quality. I’m as obsessive as any audiophile in that regard.
Cheers.

nonoise,

Happy to answer your question.

My coworkers have a variety of viewpoints on audio. Some are what I might characterize as "hard nosed engineer" types and others are audiophiles - and somewhat subjectivist - in their spare time. (E.g. they wouldn’t use a tube amp for their working environment, but enjoy that sound in their home system).

In the pro side, generally speaking, there is little given to the whole audiophile boutique cabling idea. For the most part, "pro grade" cabling is conscripted, along the likes of Canare, Belden etc. (In fact, some studios incorporate their own cable construction...using Canare, Belden as raw material).

When it comes to our off-time, I’ve known sound mixers and fellow sound editors who owned Quads, Apogees, and a variety of other audiophile favorites. Sometimes tube amps, that kind of thing. Usually the cabling may be what they could get from work. But there are also some who have bought some "audiophile grade cables" - though I don’t remember anything "crazy" in terms of really high priced cables in someone’s system who works in the business. (Again, only speaking from those I know).

I’ve worked in and been to various music mixing houses where differing views are to be found - often there is a bit of an attitude that the audiophile market is a bit nuts (in fact, at a work dinner last night, a fellow sound professional was expressing just that sentiment to me). But sometimes there’s a studio where the owner or engineers are more "tweaky." Though, I admit, I can not give you the name of the cables they may have used, if indeed they were beyond the normal pro cables.

So I would say the *general* picture (surely there are exceptions) from those who work in pro sound seems to entail much less worrying about, and desire for, "high end" cabling beyond choosing the right pro cable with the appropriate properties for the job.


My own cables have been all over the map. From those I had made at work. To earlier boutique cables I purchased as a newbie audiophile. To a whole bunch of loaned and borrowed cables from contacts and audiophile friends (e.g. right now I have a pair of Nordost interconnects I’ve borrowed, simply because I need another pair of interconnects for a while).

I hope I’ve answered your question.

Elizabeth wrote:
I know it is annoying to listen to the drivel they spout.

Again...the emotion. This tendency to insult. Why is this such a feature of those who are so wedded to the most subjective side of the hobby? They just can’t seem to stand the idea they could be wrong.


Jeeze. I have no problem whatsoever with accepting I may be wrong.As I stated early on, I’m open to the possibility AC cables can change the sound of an audio system.


And, btw, if I ever enter a cable thread it is almost exclusively those threads in which the thread invites differing opinions, or which is explicitly concerned with the cable controversies (e.g. threads asking things like "DO CABLES REALLY MATTER?" etc.)

Just scroll through the forum and you will see I have not "barged in" to the endless threads discussing opinions on various power, speaker cables, and all the rest. I’m not looking to do so.

But in the *occasional thread* where the conversation naturally draws different perspectives, I will bring my own perspective, thank you very much.

Now, maybe some would rather circle the wagons around their own narrow point of view: "All cables make a sonic difference, and no other viewpoints will be welcome or tolerated."

Unfortunately, I don’t see how it benefits this hobby to turn forums for hi end in to the equivalent of churches, with their own single and exclusive dogma, which if you don’t tow the line you are excommunicated. How has that ever been a good idea (for anything!).

The audio hobby isn’t just comprised of people with one single viewpoint - there is a spectrum - and it’s not right to try to exclude other audiophile’s opinions as not being worthy of discussion or inclusion...just because you don’t like alternative views, and don’t wish to have your own claims challenged.

Sorry...we are all going to have a voice here. Unless and until Audiogon decides to resort to church-like fiat and dogma and shut down those opinions.

(As to the civility of those opinions...that’s another thing. I welcome moderation in terms of keeping things civil).

@tom1000

Good power cords can make a difference. However, there is another question that needs to be considered. Are you capable of hearing the difference?

Exactly!

This is the issue that so often goes unheeded in audiophile circles.
We can measure X-rays...but you can't perceive X-rays.  We can measure  portions of the electromagnetic spectrum far beyond human perception, we can measure sound frequencies far beyond what human's can perceive, and on and on.   The fact that something is measurable by instruments DOES NOT automatically entail it will affect sound in a way audible to the human ear.  


If you measure various wires, even different spools of the same wire, you can get slight deviations in the measurements.  In of itself that DOES NOT entail we can hear those deviations. 


That's a different question which is answered by controlled listening tests, to understand the capabilities of human perception.   And given the problem that if you see something change you can think you hear a sonic change,  it's best to control for that variable.    This is why, for instance, in a standard hearing test you are blinded to any visual cue as whether a tone is being played - you have to go strictly on whether you can actually hear it.   It's how they find dips in your hearing, or in tests for how high frequency you hear, you won't be given a visual cue that a tone is being played.  Say the average middle aged audiophile came out of a controlled hearing test whose hearing leveled off at 14 khz.  If that audiophile protested: "I don't care if your test says I can't hear over 14 khz - perception is subjective and I can tell you I CAN hear over 14 khz!"...there would be no reason whatsoever to take him seriously.

And yet, we get essentially this complaint over and over in the audiophile domain.  Controlled listening tests are dismissed as if the idea doesn't even matter, and whatever you think you hear settles the matter.

That's FINE for anyone to take that route in buying whatever they want.But it's not good if you actually want to get to the truth of what is going on, nor is it a firm basis on which to make claims about the audibility of X or Y cable or wire. 


It becomes like a form of faith in the audiophile world.  Note that a common comment made against those who support or use blind testing is "it's too bad you feel you can't TRUST your hearing, as we do."  So it's turned in to a sort of character fault, similar to the religious idea "if you require more rigorous evidence, that's a character fault showing you don't have FAITH."

There is a paradigm that can be unbridgeable between those who won't shake their faith in their inviolable perceptual abilities and those who recognize the reasons for controlling variables.  Fortunately there is a spectrum of attitudes and not everyone is so intransigent and can consider the reasons for better test procedures.

The only way you can answer this question is with a hearing test and most people will not bother with finding out the truth about there hearing.

Yes, and if one is really pursuing the "truth" of the matter, it makes sense to be rigorous in that search, and not just ignore obvious variables of human bias that can be controlled for.  Would you agree?


Also:  The type of objective evidence that is most pertinent to cable manufacturer claims are those that are most conspicuously absent:The measurements showing that the AC cable affected the OUTPUT OF THE AUDIO SIGNAL, and in an audible way.    


One can measure variations in the behavior of cables, but if the claim is this alters the signal at the audio output of a device THAT is where we'd want to see supporting measurements.    But instead, all you get at that point is marketing, and anecdote.

@analogluvr

And I think some manufacturers say to use the best cabling because they don’t want to alienate potential buyers.

Exactly. Some manufacturers surely believe in the use of high end AC cables.  But some are obviously making concessions to the audiophile market.  I've seen speaker designers say if they had their way, they'd be selling fully active speakers, but the audiophile market just doesn't want them because audiophiles like to play with amps, cables etc.  So...they sell what the market wants.   I remember a number of manufacturers of gear say the reason they don't use hard wired AC cables isn't because they think AC cables make a difference, but rather that they would simply be cutting away part of their market - the sizable portion of audiophiles who insist they need to be able to swap in expensive AC cables.

mrdecibel

and the requirements CJ needs to " get the job done "

Which would be: that their products sound great.

And somehow they've managed that over the years without adding boutique AC cables.


Note that CJ products have garnered great reviews through the many years where reviewers were simply using them with the supplied AC cables.

Most Conrad J. products have had hard-wired AC cables.  They aren't going to seriously hobble their own expensive equipment by choosing the wrong AC cable.  (I seem to remember an interview with one of the CJ guys saying they felt all told hard wiring the cord in was the better route to go, even though audiophiles like to play with cables, but it appears they conceded to the cable crowd in *some* of their later designs).
It's your money if you want to give it to the expensive AC cable market.But, sorry, the "I'm sure I heard  a difference" anecdotes fall well short of that SHOULD be able to be provided as evidence for these products, if they were really altering the signal.

So, while I am enjoying these improvements in sq in my listening, they are still battling it. 

Or, an alternative possibility is that you have wasted money on a product whose performance was oversold to you. 

And we are getting just as great results without wasting money.(Remember: I've tried well regarded power cables).

It is the loss of the naysayers.

The people who chase better AC cables never consider that, if they are wrong, they are throwing away time and money fretting about and buying expensive AC cables.


I know: that's a possibility you refuse to consider.   ;-)

(Reminds me of the audiophile version of that old fallacy, Pascal's Wager...)

boxer12,

So you fall in to the "If I just repeat the same criticism without any more evidence, and without addressing the other person’s points, that will do."

That doesn’t exactly elevate the conversation here.


In fact it seems rather...antagonistic.


Look at my first post - it’s not antagonistic, it’s civil and simply presents another alternative, including that I am not claiming to be "right" and others are "wrong." I’ve kept that stance through the whole thread, even in fhe face of actual antagonism.


I’ve simply expressed my reasons for not jumping on the aftermarket AC cable bandwagon - including how my own experience with AC cables helped form my stance. Where the AC cable supporters declare from their own experience "AC CABLES MAKE A DIFFERENCE!" I have been more cautious, saying I WASN’T going to claim from my own negative experience that AC cables don’t make a difference.

If you refuse to notice this imbalance in how views have been presented, and can only interpret the presentation of the alternative viewpoint as "antagonism" that’s frankly where the problem lies.

I understood his last two sentences to mean that if one is skeptical, not to be antagonistic. Which I abided by.
Now, if the OP meant that ANY suggestion of skepticism was by nature "antagonistic" then that I think is unwarranted. There’s no reason differing views between mature adults should be rejected as "antagonistic" simply because "it’s different from what I believe, and I don’t want to have to deal with alternative viewpoints."

However, IF the OP had written something clear such as "This thread is based on the assumption after market AC cables can alter the sound of a system: if you are skeptical about this, please do not bring that to this thread, as I wish to discuss purely the ideas of how AC cables could alter the sound of a system. Thank you."

If it had been clear like that, I would completely understand and wouldn’t have entered this thread with another skeptical view of "why power cables affect sound."
Anyway....having made my case I'll refrain from posting more in this thread.  (Unless possibly baited to, or unless someone is actually interested in my responding).

mrdecibel

I have no reason to respond to your ignorance or foolishness.

Why the insults?  Why can't you simply discuss matters about audio like a mature adult?  (What is it about AC cables...of all things!...that makes people's emotion run so high?)

My listening, my system, my music, my experiences, my money. Why do you care ?

I don't care what you buy.

This is thread where people are giving their own views on the merits, as they see it, of high end AC cables.

Guess what?  Public forums will bring people with varying opinions together.  If you post something, someone may challenge it.  I suggest you get used to the idea rather than complain. 



You posted about CJ and AC cables; I happen to have owned CJ products for many years, so I have something to say there.  Then you declared to everyone how "prof" doesn't "get it."

That's perfectly fine if you want to write that.  But don't get all upset if I actually respond to claims that I "don't get it." 


If your feathers are so ruffled by encountering alternative views to your own, why post in this thread, let alone monitor it?  It seems to only upset you.


(And btw, I don't need you telling me to "stay in my camp."  I feel quite free to end up in any camp I please.  I could be utterly in error in most of what I've written.   I'm open to the idea cables, including AC cables, can make audible differences.  I am not in a "camp" dogmatically, as you seem to be given your posts indicate you can not imagine yourself to possibly be wrong).

mrdecibel,

What you or others believe, particularly in high end audio, makes little difference to me.

But the problem is you will still come here and comment on what you think my position is. And because you "don't care" you will continually misunderstand and hence make posts imply a position I explicitly don't hold.
For instance you wrote:

The fact that you claim to not hear differences, does not mean that differences do not exist,

Now, if you had "cared" for a moment what I ACTUALLY have argued, you would have noticed post after post I was explicit in not making that claim.  A selection from my posts in this very thread:

Now...that ISN’T to say other explanations aren’t correct, and that the power cord did in fact alter the signal audibly in the way you perceived

.

and:

As I already stated: I am not claiming everyone here is just experiencing a bias or placebo effect.

and:

Nor do I claim from my own tests, of course, "therefore NO audible differences exist between AC cables, and every positive anecdote is due to subjective bias." That would be far too rash and unwarranted.

again:

I have been very careful to say, explicitly, that I’m not claiming from my own results "AC cables make no sonic difference" and I have NEVER claimed that nonoise or you or anyone else DID NOT hear a REAL sonic difference.

Again:

I have no problem whatsoever with accepting I may be wrong.As I stated early on, I’m open to the possibility AC cables can change the sound of an audio system.

Again:

I could be utterly in error in most of what I've written.   I'm open to the idea cables, including AC cables, can make audible differences.

So, mrdecibel, if you "don't care" enough about my position to actually bother reading it, you could at least refrain from commenting on it since you are bound to misunderstand and misrepresent it.

Answer honestly:  Which of us has been intellectually honest and actually done more in this thread to concede "I May Be Wrong?" 

When you honestly contemplate this, reflect upon your desire to continually castigate others for being obstinate in their viewpoint.

"Has anyone done an ABX test of power cords and seen a positive result?"

Not that I’ve ever read.

But FWIW.....


https://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_11_4/feature-article-blind-test-power-cords-12-2004.html

There are some forms of doing a blind test, even without an ABX box, that seem to me viable. E.g. if you could get two units of the same CD player or DAC, use a stock cable on one, after market cable on the other, run them through a pre-amp that can switch between them, and set up a blind test.   There's a post, or blog out there somewhere that I read, where a guy in pro audio did just that, as he ended up being sent two of the same DAC, which made it easy to do the after market AC cable test.  Results were negative for detecting sonic differences.

(I did something similar with CD players and DACs, though one DAC had a volume control which made it particularly good for matching levels. I easily identified differences between them in those blind tests btw...which goes to show it’s not the case that all blind tests reult in negative findings or "blind testing by nature erases audible differences" or whatever).

I’d do it myself if I had two identical DACs. I actually have the Benchmark 1 and the Benchmark 2 DAC. But as they are not strictly identical units, the claim could always be made that this presents another variable.

I haven’t actually set up the Benchmark 2 DAC yet, so maybe if I can pull off a blind test between it and the DAC 1 that might be interesting. (And if I can’t detect a sonic difference between them, in principle that would be a baseline for an AC cable test...hmm.....)

@boxer12

mrdecibel wrote: "Again, after the last post from prof and analogluvr, they are simply missing out on the fact that " after market power cables " make a difference, and generally, improvements. So, while I am enjoying these improvements in sq in my listening, they are still battling it. "

In other words, he confidently declares he gets to enjoy the audible benefits of AC cables while poor sods like us "battle" the idea. As if there are no POSSIBLE downsides to his claim.

Therefore I presented an alternative POSSIBILITY - note how I used that word? It’s not a declaration of fact, only another POSSIBILITY that others may consider - that of paying much more money for products that don’t in fact do what they claim to do - even if mrdecibel refuses to ever question his position.

I’ve been presenting a reasoned defense for skepticism about AC cable claims, with civility, and constantly keeping those claims modest and saying "I could be wrong, I’m not claiming anyone here is wrong, I’m not claiming to know people aren’t hearing sonic differences, I’m open to the idea AC cables alter sound."
Again...that is FAR more open minded and conciliatory to the other side than the attitude the pro-cable folks have shown me here.

Whereas folks like nonoise reply with insults like "you have issues" and mrdecibel "I have no reason to respond to your ignorance or foolishness."

Why don’t you take their tone to task, I wonder?


Why do the Cable supporters get the free pass with snark and insult, but presenting an alternative view is "derailing" a thread with "antagonism?"

I keep trying to shine at least some light on the weird bias that goes on here, where cable-lovers seem like they process any skepticism as either dogmatism or antagonistic, and THEY are the ones who typically respond with blatantly insulting tones.

@bigkidz

Every audiophile who has experimented with better power cables has heard the performance advantage they offer.

Not true at all.  Outside of certain audiophile site bubbles, plenty of audiophiles, audio enthusiasts etc don't hear any difference between power cables.

Then there are those of us who have "heard" obvious differences, but through more careful testing, realized it was our imagination.Of course, we are the fallible ones; the infallible don't even have to test themselves ;-)

  Shunyata Research has become a dominant force in the power delivery field. Owner and designer, Caelin Gabriel is clearly one of the luminaries in the industry.....

The problem is that the technical claims tend to be marketed to audiophiles who typically don't have the technical know-how to vet the claims.  They get that cool sounding technical story and think "wow, that sounds convincing, sure looks like they know what they are talking about!"   Then of course they "hear" the effects.

I certainly include myself among those not technically competent to vet the claims of these high end cable sellers. But that's why I try to look at the opinions of those who know more than I.   Instead of just being impressed by the marketing spiel of a cable company,  I've done my best to look at other opinions.  In a nutshell, I've seen the technical claims made by Shunyata shredded to pieces numerous times by people with actual knowledge in the field of electronics.  (And who aren't trying to sell cables - who can look at the claims and say "they are pulling the wool over the eyes of anyone who doesn't know better). 


It seems many audiophiles mostly look to have their biases and subjective experience confirmed, so if the spiel sounds compelling, and they believe they heard a difference....case closed.

And the Cable Sellers sell cables for  thousands of dollars and live happily ever after ;-)