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Question for cable/wire naysayers.....

For those who state that cables don't make a difference...... are you saying that all cables sound the same?  If not, what are you saying?   I've experimented with many different brands and materials and I can't possibly believe that those naysayers hear no differences.   And if the science says that the cables should sound the same, a simple experiment (listening!!!) should prove otherwise.  Or, are these naysayers not listening for changes in resolution, soundstaging/imaging, coherence.....and so on between cables?  Please elaborate on what you are NOT hearing and feel free to drop names.  What cables have you compared that didn't sound different?   I've just gotta know.  I'm floored every time I see a post or response in which cables are called snake oil or something comparable.  Please enlighten me......Thanks.
lcherepkai
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,540 posts
 
@tls49 
That's the science part that never enters into the naysayers argument.
An article I read stated that human hearing is 10X more sensitive than previously thought and that was discovered about 8 years ago. It had something to do with fourier transform and how we mere humans can tell if something is off to a degree that is basically unmeasurable.

Thank you evolution,
Nonoise
tls49's avatar
tls49
1,351 posts
 

Totally agree nonoise   👍👍

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,400 posts
 
Then there is the issue of not all ears being equal. Just as in all other human endeavors, training and experience matter. As Michael Fremer has reported, when the results of blind tests come in, the very top and bottom performers in a group are "thrown out", the former being cited as an aberration. In a group of 10 listeners, 8 of them may score in the middle----half correct answers (or guesses ;-), half incorrect---one below that, and one above. If one listener identifies 10 out of 10 correctly, it’s a pretty good bet he really does hear a difference, yet his result is dismissed. Even if it weren’t, in the field of scientific study, 10 out of 10 is not considered statistically significant. Who cares?!
wrasche
2 posts
 
+1 on not all ears being equal.

Consider something from a different domain: smell.

There have been scientific studies of people coming into a test room and either smelling something unpleasant or not smelling anything at all. It runs at about a 50/50 split.

The human nose is capable of detecting a certain bacteria in "corked" wine at a level of about 3 parts per billion. I don't think this is instrument measurable yet. That's a pretty sensitive instrument.

A good sense of smell can detect up to about 10,000 unique smells. Most people are in the 4000 to 6000 range.

In my view, these differences in one sense raise lots of questions about other senses, including hearing. I've gone back and forth on this topic with cables, sometimes convinced there's clear difference in cables, sometimes not. Recently I compared some DH Labs Q10 to some Monoprice Nimbus 14 AWG cable, and after a number of close listening tests, decided that they sounded the same to me. But there's no way that I can conclude what any other cable does or doesn't sound like based on these results, nor what anyone else would think after doing the same comparison.

Most definitely, YMMV.
arh
366 posts
 
Actually the science shows that cables should sound different. At its simplest a cable has resistance, capacitance and inductance. These values are different for various cables. Introduce these different characteristics between two pieces of equipment and you will get differences in sound. I have consistently passed double blind tests with cables. By the way DB tests in audio have many problems which the literature shows
Alan
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