A fresh approach to cable analysis

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

@seymour-krelborn OK Seymour you’ve had your say now, but these ad hominem attacks are not acceptable. I see you haven’t been around Audiogon more than several months so I’m not going to report you. You seem to have anger issues and forget that we are talking about pieces of wire in a hobby that we are supposed to be having fun with. calm down and you can continue the discussion but if you can’t, I suggest you move on because repeating the same argument over and over again does not win you any converts.