John Dunlavy On "Cable Nonsense"

Good point, Jhunter.

Dr. Floyd Toole and Sean Olive published a report in the AES journal some years ago where they had a group of 40 listeners evaluate various speakers in various listening positions, both "blind" and "sighted" tests. Some listeners were inexperienced, while about 9 or 10 claimed to be audiophiles. Interestingly, the inexperienced listeners were more consistant in their scoring of the speakers between the "blind" and the "sighted" tests, which suggests that they were to some extent more reliant on the speakers' audible characteristics, while the "audiophile" listeners' score jumped more wildly going from "blind" to "sighted" tests, which seems to indicate that they were more heavily influenced by what they saw and less by what they heard.

Sqjudge -

My EE class showed the same thing - and it's correct. JD knows this also; he designed the Z6 primarily as a technical exercise and to give people the theoretically best possible solution. Reflections are not significant at audio frequencies (unless you've a much bigger living room than I!!), but the impedance matching buys a trivially small - and audibly undetectable by anyone - margin.

WHY do you think he acknowledges that there's no difference between his cable and zipcord? Hint: because the job of a cable is to have the same signal at the output as at the input - nothing more, nothing else. Barring some grossly overpriced tone controls masquarading as cables (or grossly undersized wires), the overwhelming majority of cables do an equally good job to the human ear.

Anyone disagreeing with this is welcome to demonstrate it in a double blind test.

Cheers,
JHunter

This is utter nonsense 702. Dr Floyd Toole, credentials and all, does'nt even beleive that differences in Amps exist that measure the same. He has always been a hardliner Julian Hirsh type and I would hate to think of our sonic past and presant, had Floyd's philosophy been the only one.
Finnish Scientist Dr Matti Otala, probably the world's most accomplished amplifier expert and author of many great AES journal papers years ago, built and marketed the worlds most textbook perfect amplifier long ago called the Citation XX. There was not a single reason on earth for this amp Not to be perfect in all areas. The whole thing sounded only so-so. There is more to it than textbook perfect design. I'll say it again, rapid ABX switching means nothing. You must live with the product and listen extensively to music you are familiar with. Then a correct "Lock" can be identified.

I love this thread! Let's keep it going forever, and don't say wires is wires in response to any thread asking for comparisons or descriptions of any specific wires, because you can vent all you want right here. This is just what I suggested in "Farewell" or somewhere, don't go away, just take the subject to a segregrated area where people who are interested can discuss, or just lurk.

I agree with almost everyone above. Mr. Dunlavy is absolutely correct that many many cable claims are pure snake oil. Leafs is right about the MIT cables. But, Frank (Frap) is right that abx is inadequate, and everyone who says different cables sound different is right.

The opening entry in this thread contains a link to only one of Mr. Dunlavy's cable nonsense posts. If interested, people can search for the rest. In one of them, he says that the RS Gold interconnects are just fine. I sent him an email once and told him that the RS cables seem to attempt to merely pass the signal through, while some other cables attempt to alter the signal, and so the RS cables are actually "better" than a lot of audiophile approved interconnects. He thanked me for my "interesting" message, but didn't respond when I later asked him which RS cables he was talking about. (The RS audio cables are ok for connecting a sub, the a/v cables are better but still a little dull -ok for inexpensive and bright electronics.)

Now Frank (Frap), I agree with you with respect to really good cables. You have to live with them for a while. But so-called budget interconnects like AQ Ruby and Kimber PBJ can be distinguished within a few seconds. As to which is better, it depends on what you're listening through, because neither is really accurate.

I just don't understand why "believers" are not willing to give some credit to the placebo effect. Here's a little story. I went to the CES show in Anahiem some years ago. The rep for a new line of speakers that had just come out lived there. He was excited about these new speakers and invited me to his house to listen. It didn't take long to figure out that something wasn't right. So, I took off the grills and found that a wooden shipping support was still fastened to the woofers! He wasn't a idiot, but he was embarrassed. I just laughed to myself thinking of all dumb things I had thought I had heard and all the things I should have heard right away and didn't.