A fresh approach to cable analysis

And somebody answered and Dave was right at it...

The burden is actually on the person who wants to prove something, not anyone else.

Sorry, that distinction doesn't work. It's a logical fallacy and has a name:  shifting the burden of proof. Doing so reframes the issue incorrectly. In logic and argumentation, the burden attaches to the person making the claim, especially a positive claim. It does not attach merely to whoever asks for evidence.

 

If I say “this cable produces an audible improvement,” that is a positive claim about the world. The burden sits with me, or with the people selling or promoting that claim. If someone else says “I am not convinced that has been demonstrated,” they have not assumed an equal burden to disprove it. They are simply declining to accept the claim until adequate evidence is provided.

 

Otherwise any unsubstantiated claim becomes insulated by apathy. A person could claim that a fuse, cable riser, demagnetizer, stone, sticker, or magic dot improves sound, and then say: “Well, the burden is on skeptics because they are the ones who want proof.” That can't be right. The claim does not become evidentially neutral just because the claimant does not care to prove it.

 

I agree that nobody is required to prove anything in order to enjoy a hobby. If someone says, “I like this cable,” or “I enjoy what it does in my system,” that is enough. No burden. No laboratory required. But if the statement is presented as a factual audibility claim — “this cable sounds better because of its design” — then the evidence burden sits with the claimant, especially when the claim is used commercially. That's the important distinction. The person wanting proof may be motivated to run a test. But the person making the claim is still the one whose claim remains unsupported if no good evidence is produced.

-Dave

One thing about the Great Cable Debate, there is never anything new. Another thing is that we've reached a point at which its just a game of shirts and skins, two dogmatic, entrenched positions.

I've invested a fair amount-likely more than wise, in cables. I bought what I have now because I perceived an incremental improvement over what I had before. Not "night and day" but incremental and it was worth it to me. Could part of my perception be based on expectation bias? Of course it could. Expectation bias is a real thing, firmly established, and part of the human condition. Could it be that cables matter in ways that can't be measured? I think that's a possibility, but an unproven one.

So, my system will tell you I'm certainly not a cable denier, but I'm open minded enough to understand some of the points on the other side. I don't think we sound very smart to dismiss the likes of Dr. Floyd Toole who, I believe, stated that the idea that expensive cables enhance performance is nonsense. I suspect that Dr. Toole has had access to plenty revealing systems in his work. That doesn't mean we must agree with him, but to make the unverifiable assertion that anyone who doesn't hear these big differences in cables must have a substandard system or substandard hearing doesn't do much credit to our side. 

There have been blind tests, we can argue about whether they are "properly conducted." What has always bothered me is that if the high end cable vendors are dead sure their cables make a big improvement, they have more incentive than anyone to conduct rigorous, juried blind testing, put it on video and publish the results. If Nordhost or Transparent or my manufacturer, Schnerzinger, did that and the results showed that folks in a blind test under conditions the manufacturers and independent experts deemed appropriate could hear big improvements in their cables over less expensive wire, well, the first one to do that would reap a commercial bonanza. And they have the means to conduct such testing. Yet, they don't conduct those tests and as someone who has invested in their products I'm bothered by that because I can only think of one compelling reason why they wouldn't.

So, I don't see this as clearly as almost everyone else on either side. Because I do perceive a difference. Maybe its "real." Maybe imagined or the product of expectation bias. For me, it was worth the money and if you want to think the money was wasted, I'm in no way offended by that because first, its my money and my choice, second, I'm not seeking anyone's affirmation of my decisions-its a hobby for goodness sake, not life or death, and third, I've been wrong before. My ego is not all that invested about being right concerning a piece of wire.

The good news is, we can all spend our money in whatever manner makes us happy.  The anger generated by this debate is fascinating, predictable and pointless. Do what makes you happy and be happy. Let everyone else row their own boat. 

Shallow thoughts.

@gdaddy1 

@seymour-krelborn  Did you take the test?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSZwGQS0vLw

@bruce19 

So Seymour I asked Claude AI to provide the links to the tests you have been asking for. It was easy, you could have done this too if you were really interested.

I do not go on treasure hunts for other people's claims.  The person that makes the claim needs to provide the links.

For test #1:

Flawed.  Having some box do automatic switching is introducing that box's cables, distortions, and coloration.

Also, using Monster Cable as the quality cable is flawed.

#2:

Monster cable.

I will read up on each of the links that you provided.  For now, I only read your comment.  I want to verify if each test was done properly.  That will take some time for me to go though each one that you listed.  But I will go through them.

Thank you for the listing.

By the way, using an AI service for such information entails risk.  AI engines hallucinate.  There are several cases where AI services fabricated case law that was presented in court.  The lawyers involved had their backsides handed to them by the judge.

I hope that the items you listed are real.  In any event, I will go through them.

Thanks, again, for the list.

@total111 

If expensive cables produce identifiable, reliable, repeatable audible improvements, why hasn’t the cable industry funded and publicized proper independent testing?

That is the second time that you deceptively used "expensive".

I own a 2003 Nissan Sentra.  Buy it from me for $80,000.  That price makes it reliable and quality.  Why?  Because it is expensive.

A clean, well-run, preregistered blind test showing that trained listeners could reliably distinguish a high-end cable from a competent ordinary cable would be marketing gold.

Again with the deception.  This time, claiming that trained listeners need to take the test.  That sends the message that dog ears are needed.  That is dishonest.  Someone who is deaf in one ear, and never owned a stereo, could easily hear the difference between mass produced cables and quality, high-end cables, on a revealing stereo.

It would be cited endlessly. It would appear in ads, white papers, dealer literature, show demos, interviews, and manufacturer websites.

The world is not obsessed with cables.  My sister-in-law owns a modest stereo (she would own nothing, if not for my brother).  If I told her I could wire up her stereo with Shunyata Research's Omega-X cables, for a total cost of $50, she would laugh at me.

That absence strikes me as meaningful.

As does your absence of listening for yourself.

I have never driven a Ford Taurus, but I insist that it is just as good as any other car on the road.  People that spend $1,000,000 on a car are nuts, when the Ford Taurus is just as good.  I know that without having ever driven a Ford Taurus.

@total111 That is what you are doing with your cable pronouncements, on cables you never experienced.

Cables are easy to ship, easy to demonstrate, easy to describe in poetic language, easy to swap, easy to photograph.

You have never seen the shipping involved with high-end cables.

You have never seen the difficulty in swapping cables, especially with high-end cables that are not too flexible.

Are you going to pay hundreds of dollars for postal insurance on such cables?

Are you prepared to fight with the postal service when they refuse to honor your lost shipment, because they have someone clueless, like you reviewing the claim, thinking "$5,000 for a cable?  That's ridiculous".  And multiply that by the cost of outfitting any entire stereo.

I think that makes the absence of decisive testing even more interesting.

You are taking an opposing position to @bruce19's list of decisive testing.

And you go one and on with excuses to not do your own listening test.  Once you do so, then you can come back and answer your own questions and your own logic and your own assertions as to why it was all wrong.  You can tell us why the industry is what it is, after your own ears hear the difference that quality cables make in a revealing system.

But you will refuse to do a listening test, because then you have no excuse to keep spreading propaganda.  You would lose your source of crack (in a manner of speaking).

And the most important test of all, listening for yourself, is your Kryptonite.  You insist on every test under the sun, except testing your own ears.

Remind us of you being open-minded and offering a concession:

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

You tried to hide your cable denying stance, and tried to play yourself as being reasonable and measured.  It was all an act.  It was all deception.

Do a listening test.  Stop refusing.