A fresh approach to cable analysis

@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.

 

@total111 

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

And then proceeds to make a concession / non 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... ;-) ).

Mumbo-jumbo that has nothing to do with @total111 never listening to the cables he bashes.  But to a novice, it looks like he is a crossover expert, and hence his cable analysis surely must be correct -- but it is not.

Different cables present slightly different impedance characteristics to that load, which affects how the crossover filter behaves and how the amplifier sees it.

So now @total111's concession is down to "slightly".

In a genuinely poor pairing, you could theoretically drift into the ~1dB range — and that's audible."

Now @total111's concession is down to "theoretical".

That's not magic, that's measurable electrical interaction, and it's real physics.

The implication is that our ear's have no relation to physics.

So my honest position is this: cables can matter at the margins in specific reactive load conditions.

Now @total111 is being honest.

Now @total111 concession is down to the "margins", and only qualifies under "specific reactive load conditions".

So @total111 starts off with claiming to be making a "genuine concession", and then proceeds to water it down to "slightly", "theoretical", "margins", and "specific reactive load conditions" of his choosing.

That's a much narrower claim than the high-end cable industry makes — but it's defensible, and I'll own it.

Now we have to add "narrow" to @total111's concession.

And it gets worse.

@total111 claims that reality is defensible, as if the millions of people that hear the improvement of using quality cables can defend their position (as if they are the ones imagining things).  People that hear the improvement with quality cables have nothing to defend.  Rather, it is @total111 who makes claims about cables he never used that is obligated to defend his absurd claims.

...and I'll own it.

Own what?  A non concession, concession?

That is the crafty "genuine concession" of deceitful language.

And it gets worse, because @total111 then attempts to put zip cord in the mix as an actual quality cable that will do a job similar to quality, high-end cables.

I came here to have an honest discussion, not to "deny" anything.

Great sign-off.  Claim to be honest, in the same comment full of deceitful remarks.  Claim to not deny anything, when the entire comment was written to do just that.

@total111 Reminder to provide the link to the double-blind listening tests that you claim exist.