A fresh approach to cable analysis

@goodlistening64 

Thanks for the kind words — and the cable offer, genuinely appreciated! But I’m happy with what I have. I looked at that AQ earlier and like it. But not enough 😉😉 
On the Lewis point: I wasn’t bringing religion into the argument at all. The quote — “if you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed” — is a psychological observation about human nature, not a theological one. It could just as easily have come from Bertrand Russell or Daniel Kahneman. I cited Lewis because he said it well, not because of what else he believed. A quote from a smart person doesn’t import their entire worldview into the argument.
That’s actually the same principle at stake in the cable debate — judging the idea on its own merits, not the source. 😄

I want to offer something that may surprise some people in this thread: a genuine concession.

The cable/crossover interaction is a legitimate variable that I think deserves more credit than the objectivist side typically gives it. The vast majority of us run passive speakers with crossovers, and a crossover is a reactive load. (Hence my choice of speakers never includes any such interference... ;-) ). Different cables present slightly different impedance characteristics to that load, which affects how the crossover filter behaves and how the amplifier sees it. In a genuinely poor pairing, you could theoretically drift into the ~1dB range — and that's audible. That's not magic, that's measurable electrical interaction, and it's real physics.

So my honest position is this: cables can matter at the margins in specific reactive load conditions. That's a much narrower claim than the high-end cable industry makes — but it's defensible, and I'll own it.

Even so, a zip cord of adequate gauge will handle the vast majority of those interactions just fine. The crossover doesn't care about the brand name on the jacket.

I came here to have an honest discussion, not to "deny" anything. Anyone who read this thread carefully knows that. I'll leave the characterizations others made about my motives without further comment.

@seymour-krelborn  "People come here to learn, and @total111 misleads them.  That is despicable, and should never be allowed to fester."

I bet you'd like to censur him. I feel your frustration.

People do come here to learn but for some reason you don't like science as proof. Using instruments that can measure far beyond the capabilities of audible ranges of human hearing.

Instead you prefer to rely on your flawed imagination and your ears. Yes, everyone including you has bias. You're not exempt from bias. You particularly have a superiority bias clearly obvious in your posts. Since YOU hear it, therefore it is true!!  Probably the most dangerous bias there is.

@total111  +1.  

If a case comes up where something is found to be reliably detectable in a double blind listening test, but measurements show no difference, or not enough difference to be audible based on the current established theories, then we have found something new, and that’s exciting! So we should be doing these kinds of tests in the hopes of making discoveries and advancing our theories, not just to put audiophiles and cable manufacturers on the spot. Take the stress to perform or prove a point off of ourselves and instead see it as a search for new knowledge. 

 I’d really not be interested in taking a cable apart until something interesting was discovered about the cable’s perceptual performance. A consensus among certain users that they detect a difference under sighted listening is not meaningless, but not interesting enough to warrant a deep investigation into a cable's construction.

@seymour-krelborn 

Take this hearing test. Do you hear two words being spoken? ba ba ba / fa fa fa

or do you hear only one word?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XFtWOak4ZKI