The Shunyata Research OMEGA-X-Ethernet Cable

@analog 

There will never be a time when one can measure "everything". However, we do know enough about certain topics to make reasonable predictions.

A good example of this is the weather. We obviously don't know all the contributors that make up the weather. But fairly accurate estimates of the what the weather will be in the next 5-10 days are now readily available for any location on Earth.

The engineering perspective on cable "sound" is similar. There is enough known (not conjectured or speculated) about how information is transmitted through wires to lead to the conclusion that cables cannot have sound of their own.

@brianlucey 

I've done my own research and found numerous gaps in the study you cited. I won't list all of them, but I will say this....

The study does not show that people who swear are more honest; it merely found a correlation between self-reported profanity and self-reported honesty. That raises a major methodological problem: people who are more willing to admit socially undesirable behavior (such as swearing) may also be more willing to describe themselves as honest, meaning the study could be measuring openness or low social filtering rather than actual truthfulness.

Nobody in my family ever swore around family members. I'm serious. My great grandfather wouldn't allow it, so it was never allowed across our families. It was a forbidden practice, yet we all turned out to be well off, successful, and living our best lives with no criminal record or conflicts with others at the workplace. We got along just fine without cursing; thank you very much.

Now...

The research did not test whether participants would lie when given a real incentive to do so, so it provides little evidence about honesty in the situations where honesty actually matters. Furthermore, state-level correlations are vulnerable to ecological fallacies, the effect sizes were modest, and the proposed explanation that profanity reflects authenticity is speculative rather than proven. In short, the study is frequently overstated in popular discussions and does not justify the claim that people who swear are inherently more honest.

as a lifelong musician and Mastering engineer for the last 25 years, I can assure you that I understand music and music theory much better than you do

I would be interested in listening to some of your tracks and the professional mastering you've done for -- big name artists or someone that was mentioned once in 2004? 

Please send that may way as I'd like to have a listen.

And by the way ... your definitions of profanity sound like someone who's 70 years old? 80 years old? You need to catch up to the present moment  

I am in my 50s. And I thank you for the compliment. Such definitions of a term in context come from many years of real-world corporate experience, business ownership, and general successes in life that few here can replicate.

If you want to debate about something in terms of a study that was done in the past, site a more robust one. This one holds no water and is very weak at best.

+1 

@kevemaher 

Thanks for yet another brilliant and thought-provoking post. 

There will never be a time when one can measure "everything". However, we do know enough about certain topics to make reasonable predictions.

A good example of this is the weather. We obviously don’t know all the contributors that make up the weather. But fairly accurate estimates of the what the weather will be in the next 5-10 days are now readily available for any location on Earth.

The engineering perspective on cable "sound" is similar. There is enough known (not conjectured or speculated) about how information is transmitted through wires to lead to the conclusion that cables cannot have sound of their own.

It becomes hard to measure everything once you start looking at the guts of an audio component. To measure THD from the output is one thing, but swap out a capacitor with a better one (lower ESR, higher value) and suddenly the sound will change. 

Why? Because the energy storage is being regulated better. Do this in an analog output stage on a DAC or CD player and hear the magic for yourself.

This won’t always be the case however, as some designs are already robust. 

Swapping out the primary filter capacitors and adjusting DC offset voltage to manufacturers specification can help with improving sound quality for power amplifiers, preamplifiers, and integrated amplifiers, along with even headphone amps.

You should want to alleviate all the bottlenecks possible. Get as close as you can to the energy of the recording - 

Voltage  / Current / air in the room / sound pressure / sound waves.

If the electronic environment  in your system can support the motion of the speaker drivers in a very precise way, the sound you hear will be practically identical to the actual recording.

"Self reporting"?  That’s useful. That’s exactly what a dishonest person would do -- report themselves as honest...  

Seems this thread has taken an interesting turn.  This is a great place to do people-watching.