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

paulcreed,

In my experience, people who feel that way about their systems usually have fundamental issues, and usually means bad room acoustics. Every time you move your speakers, you are changing the room frequency response as it relates to your listening position, quite possibly by a large amount, especially if you have limited or no room treatment.

Your brain becomes "accustomed" to your system, essentially trying to, at some level, correct the frequency response to what feels right. Technical term is neural adaptation. It is real, and you ignore it at your peril.  You will frequently hear real acoustics experts discuss this.  It is a learning process so it does not happen instantly.   (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).


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

Since you keep moving your speakers, let's get back to that fundamental problem. Your brain attempts to adapt, but can only do so much. Do you have a properly treated listening environment? If not, then that is something you need to address.  There are great tools out there and cheap microphones, and a ton of information on how to setup a room. Once you get the hang of it, it is a heck of a lot more interesting and fun than swapping cables, and for the most part you won't be "guessing" ... was that better ... the results are often dramatic.

Audiozen I just moved to a new house main system went in a big room and set up was easy and have been very pleased. This system has gone in 12x12x9 room, I've never had a room this small so it has been a challenge. I did add GIK panels.

Getting a small room right can be very difficult, and depending on the speakers, can be near impossible, and to top things off, you have a square room. This is not a cable issue, it is an acoustics issue. Panel placement and usage will need to be careful, you may need base traps, and your sweet spot is going to be smaller. That bass suck-out you experienced sounds like a listening position/speaker issue.


You will have to navigate your acoustics path a bit on your own. There are those out there who promote "live" rooms, equating music playback to music generation (it is not), but they are also right that the other camp can go overboard on dampening, though it is a much safer path. "Live" rooms tend to be inconsistent and create a sound of their own. Problem with that is it may sound great with some recordings, and awful with others. It won't be what is on the recording. A more balanced implementation with controlled reflections allows you to get all the timing information required for accurate placement (soundstage) as intended on the recording, while recreating the illusion of being in a space where the music is being played.

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.

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.