Why do intelligent people deny audio differences?


In my years of audiophilia I have crossed swords with my brother many times regarding that which is real, and not real, in terms of differeces heard and imagined.
He holds a Masters Degree in Education, self taught himself regarding computers, enough to become the MIS Director for a school system, and early in life actually self taught himself to arrange music, from existing compositions, yet he denys that any differece exists in the 'sound' of cables--to clarify, he denies that anyone can hear a difference in an ABX comparison.
Recently I mentioned that I was considering buying a new Lexicon, when a friend told me about the Exemplar, a tube modified Dennon CD player of the highest repute, video wise, which is arguably one of the finest sounding players around.
When I told him of this, here was his response:
"Happily I have never heard a CD player with "grainy sound" and, you know me, I would never buy anything that I felt might be potentially degraded by or at least made unnecessarily complex and unreliable by adding tubes."

Here is the rub, when cd players frist came out, I owned a store, and was a vinyl devotee, as that's all there was, and he saw digital as the panacea for great change; "It is perfect, it's simply a perfect transfer, ones and zero's there is no margin for error," or words to that effect.
When I heard the first digital, I was appalled by its sterility and what "I" call 'grainy' sound. Think of the difference in cd now versus circa 1984. He, as you can read above resists the notion that this is a possibility.
We are at constant loggerheads as to what is real and imagined, regarding audio, with him on the 'if it hasn't been measured, there's no difference', side of the equation.
Of course I exaggerate, but just the other day he said, and this is virtually a quote, "Amplifiers above about a thousand dollars don't have ANY qualitative sound differences." Of course at the time I had Halcro sitting in my living room and was properly offended and indignant.
Sibling rivalry? That is the obvious here, but this really 'rubs my rhubarb', as Jack Nicholson said in Batman.
Unless I am delusional, there are gargantual differences, good and bad, in audio gear. Yet he steadfastly sticks to his 'touch it, taste it, feel it' dogma.
Am I losing it or is he just hard headed, (more than me)?
What, other than, "I only buy it for myself," is the answer to people like this? (OR maybe US, me and you other audio sickies out there who spend thousands on minute differences?
Let's hear both sides, and let the mud slinging begin!
lrsky
If someone wants to prove he/she can hear the difference between two power cords, the answer isn't to administer a test to the non-believer under the flawed premise that if the non-believer is honest, he/she will admit to hearing differences. The answer is for the BELIEVER to take a properly administered ABX test to prove that he/she can hear the differences he/she claims to hear. Otherwise, you've got the makings of a Monty Python sketch whereby if the non-believer fails to hear the difference, you claim victory by claiming the non-believer was not honest.
.

CROWD:

Burn her! Burn! Burn her!...

BEDEVERE:

Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! Quiet! There are ways of telling whether she is a witch.

VILLAGER #1:

What are they?

CROWD:

Tell us! Tell us!...

BEDEVERE:

Tell me. What do you do with witches?

CROWD:

Burn them!

BEDEVERE:

And what do you burn apart from witches?

VILLAGER #2:

Wood!

BEDEVERE:

So, why do witches burn?

[pause]

VILLAGER #3:

B--... 'cause they're made of... wood?

BEDEVERE:

Good!

CROWD:

Oh, yeah. Oh.

BEDEVERE:

So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?

VILLAGER #1:

Build a bridge out of her.

BEDEVERE:

Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone?

VILLAGER #1:

Oh, yeah.

BEDEVERE:

Does wood sink in water?

VILLAGER #1:

No. No.

VILLAGER #2:

No, it floats! It floats!

CROWD:

The pond! Throw her into the pond!

BEDEVERE:

What also floats in water?

VILLAGER #1:

Bread!

VILLAGER #2:

Apples!

VILLAGER #3:

Uh, very small rocks!

VILLAGER #2:

Uh, gra-- gravy!

ARTHUR:

A duck!

CROWD:

Oooh.

BEDEVERE:

Exactly. So, logically...

VILLAGER #1:

If... she... weighs... the same as a duck... she's made of wood.

BEDEVERE:

And therefore?

VILLAGER #2:

A witch!

CROWD:

A witch!!!

.
The fact remains that high-end audio is not for the masses. This fact is substantiated by the incredible growth and interest in MP3. The average person is happy with this level of performance. I believe that most people do hear the difference when subjected to good equipment. For whatever reason, most have little interest or it is of low priority. Unfortunately, the acceptance of mediocrity drives the retail market which in turn, gives us our source material. There is a growing concern that the MP3 format will eventually replace conventional CD's. SCARY! Even as audiophiles, we accept mediocrity in this area. As an audiophile community, are we really doing anything to advance the production of SACD's or better sounding CDs? The masses have at least one thing right....they don't have a separate collection of CD's that only sound good in the car.:-)
Rsbeck: We went through all of this garbage concerning loudspeaker cable non-linearities in another recent thread. In case you can't remember, you weren't able to refute any of the scientifically derived claims that i made in that thread. The fact that i used the information that you yourself presented as evidence should refresh your memory a bit. As such, trying to use that same incorrect info as a point of reference in another thread will not fly, nor is it ethical to try and do so. That point was already proven wrong and you're standing on fallow ground.

As far as Nordost goes, it will not suffer as much increased high frequency loss due to skin effect as the zip cord does. This is due to the differences in the size and shape of the conductors used. This is true even though the Nordost is a cable that exhibits a less than desirable amount of inductance and a higher impedance, much like zip cord.

The reason that the zip cord performs poorer than the Nordost at high frequencies is due to a "double whammy". That is, the zip cord is both high in inductance and high in skin effect. Combine the two and you have increased high frequency losses. As described in that other thread, these losses could come into play as low as appr 2.2 KHz. Exactly where it did occur in a specific system would be directly related to the nominal impedance of the speaker being used.

Taking the measured responses as derived from that same article and applying it to various impedance speaker loads, the -3 dB point of zip cord would appear at 67 KHz with it being down - .2 dB at 22 KHz. The - 3dB point would be appr 33 KHz and -.2 dB at 11 KHz with a 4 ohm load. The -3 dB point would be at 16.5 KHz and -.2 dB at 5.5 KHz with a 2 ohm load. The -3 dB would be at appr 8.2 KHz and -.2 of a dB at 2.75 KHz with a 1 ohm load. Obviously, a -3 dB response at 8 KHz with significant deviations below that frequency would be highly audible to say the least, but this is under worst case scenario of a 1 ohm load. As we can see, lower impedance speakers introduce TWICE the amount of high frequency roll-off into the equation when using a poorly designed speaker cable, so keep that in mind.

One should remember that these reductions in linearity WILL occur IF the impedance of the speaker varies within the audible bandwidth. This means that the power transfer characteristics of such a cable will compound the problem of power transfer as the impedance of the speaker itself varies. This is why certain cables with certain electrical characteristics may sound slightly different when connected to slightly different loudspeaker loads i.e. the power delivery potential of each amplifier will respond differently to the individual combo presented to it.

It is for this reason that we should be using a speaker cable with a very low and consistent nominal impedance over a wide bandwidth. Taking such an approach reduces the potential for deviations with ANY type of loudspeaker load and offers the potential for the most consistent performance possible.

It is this treble roll-off that causes most heavy gauge zip cord tends to sound "warmer" and "fuller" than some esoteric audiophile speaker cabling that was designed with a higher level of engineering and signal transfer theory behind it. Whether or not this is audible will depend on the listening skills of the end user and individual components that the system is comprised of. One should bare in mind that this example was based on a worst case scenario i.e. a 1 ohm loudspeaker load. A speaker with a nominal impedance of 2 ohms would show an appr loss of -4.8 dB's at 22 KHz, a 4 ohm load would show a loss of appr -2.4 dB's at 22 KHz and an 8 ohm load would show a loss of appr 1.2

The reason why the Nordost lacks bass / warmth has to do with the higher nominal impedance, which is about 120 ohms or so. This very high impedance is what reduces the effective power transfer of the cable. In plain English, less current flow equals less low frequency output. On most poorly designed speakers that utilize some type of vented alignment, this lack of low frequency output can actually help to balance out an otherwise "slow" & "bloated" presentation by shifting the tonal balance upwards in frequency. Then again, this is strictly a "band-aid" approach i.e. fixing one problem with another known problem. Nobody with a degree in electronics would ever think about using a 100+ ohm cable between a device with a 1 ohm output impedance and a load that is nominally 8 ohms or so. That is, if they were trying to maintain a high level of system linearity.

None of this type of info is "new" or part of a "technological breakthrough". It's simply based on the laws of physics and the common understanding of signal propagation that most electronic professional's should know and understand. If it was "new" and on the "cutting edge of technology", i surely wouldn't know about it. The fact that i do know about it and can explain it should tell you something about how out of touch most "wire & cable guru's" and "wire & cable naysayers" really are.

Other than that, my comments were directed at identifying speaker cabling, not power cords. Please bring your ABX knife and power cord comments with you to the proper thread, as a knife is out of place at a gun-fight. As previously mentioned, your original arguments were already shot down in that other thread. Sean
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>>In case you can't remember, you weren't able to refute any of the scientifically derived claims that i made in that thread.<<

ROFL. Yeah, that's the ticket. I recall you claiming that when people disagree with you it actually confirms that you're right -- and you posted a bunch of other incomplete misleading garbage in that thread.

If you have spectral analysis to back up your comments, let's see them.

Otherwise, this is a lot of hot air and urban mythology.