at the risk of sounding crude, bovine fecal matter - my bias when I started
was that cables did not make much if any difference. I was in fact
astounded that there was an audible difference. No, I'm not going to do a
double blind test, I am not interested in proving the point, I honestly
don't care if you feel that I deceived myself or not. I can certainly use
equations to show you that some cable will degrade sound under some
circumstances. I keep a 6 inch interconnect that sounds particularly bad, I
even told you what the wire was - have you who say this is purely
psychological made any attempt to duplicate my results personally? right, I
knew you hadn't. You guys read somewhere that if there wasn't a full double
blind test in a lab setting the results were to be considered invalid. I am
sure that I could sit down with a signal generator and a scope and measure
differences between the worst and best interconnects. I am not going to
waste my time doing it though unless someone chooses to put up a few
thousand dollars to fund the testing.

There is a lot of snake oil in the interconnect business, that is for sure -
I am not going to defend any particular brand, but I will tell you that it
is also untrue that there are no differences. It's like saying that there
is no difference between fuels of different octane ratings - there are
differences, and sometimes octane rating matters. the same is true of low
level interconnects.

"bob" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Feb 14, 12:03=A0am, "Bill Noble" <nob...@nowhere.czm> wrote:
>>=A0I had no preconceived notions about which of the homebrew would
>> sound better so you can't blame a bias.
>
> Sure you can. Bias is subconscious. You don't know whether you have
> any bias, or what it is. And you clearly believed that different
> cables would sound different, or you wouldn't have tried so many. From
> there on, the imagination rules.
>
> bob
>

you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as
religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove
otherwise. There is nothing anyone could do, there is no possible test
involving human subjects that will ever be found suitable to the
non-believers. So, let them use the cheapest cables from the trash can
with rusty connectors if it pleases their sound pallette

"Ed Seedhouse" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Feb 14, 6:19 pm, Frank <frankluca...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is this kind of blind testing?
>
> As described, not it isn't. Far too many uncontrolled variables. Now
> if you had run the CD through proper ABX software, which is available
> for free and easy to use, and got the same results that might be
> different.

On 2/21/2010 7:34 AM, Bill Noble wrote:
> at the risk of sounding crude, bovine fecal matter - my bias when I started
> was that cables did not make much if any difference. I was in fact
> astounded that there was an audible difference. No, I'm not going to do a
> double blind test, I am not interested in proving the point, I honestly
> don't care if you feel that I deceived myself or not. I can certainly use
> equations to show you that some cable will degrade sound under some
> circumstances. I keep a 6 inch interconnect that sounds particularly bad, I
> even told you what the wire was - have you who say this is purely
> psychological made any attempt to duplicate my results personally? right, I
> knew you hadn't. You guys read somewhere that if there wasn't a full double
> blind test in a lab setting the results were to be considered invalid. I am
> sure that I could sit down with a signal generator and a scope and measure
> differences between the worst and best interconnects. I am not going to
> waste my time doing it though unless someone chooses to put up a few
> thousand dollars to fund the testing.
>

First, let's limit the discussion to cables used in home audio
applications, say frequencies up to 30KHz and lengths up to 100 ft. In
this environment, you will not be able to either use equations or a
scope to demonstrate any differences in the signal being transmitted.
That has already been discussed and the math explained. Next, I cannot
see how it would cost thousands of dollars to do the testing. Signal
generators and scopes are widely available, even many hobbyists have
them. What would you measure to demonstrate the differences?

I have no problem if you want to spend the money on fancy cables. They
look nice and make you proud of your system. That's fine. Just don't
claim the cables make any audible difference, they don't.

On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:34:44 -0800, Bill Noble wrote
(in article <(E-Mail Removed)>):

> you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as
> religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove
> otherwise.

What experiments would these be? I have never heard of any experiment that
has been able to show the slightest difference between interconnects. I have
never been party to, or heard of, any double-blind test where the results
were that differences between interconnects could be detected.

That's not to say, that in my own system, I haven't THOUGHT that I had heard
differences in cables because I certainly have. One time, a company sent me
a pre-production prototype of a new receiver that sported an on-board DAC. A
friend and I wrestled it out of its box one Sunday morning (it was BIG and
HEAVY) and hooked it to my system. I then ran a 1-meter length of Monster
interconnect cable from the digital output of my CD player to the digital
input on the receiver and we listened to the result. Then, for some reason,
we decided to try an OFC "linear-crystal" video cable in place of the Monster
audio interconnect for the digital link and we DID hear a difference! We
looked at each other and said "here we go again" (this was in the early days
of CD)! Well, quickly enough, logic brought my natural skepticism to the
surface and I decided to test the two cables using my 10 MHz function
generator, my dual-trace Tektronix 50 MHz oscilloscope, and my AVM. even at
10 MHz, there was no difference in frequency response, or at passing
square-waves. In fact, driving both cables simultaneously and feeding each
into the oscilloscope's two vertical inputs, I was able to superimpose one
trace directly over the other and they matched perfectly; even when the
time-base on the 'scope was expanded as far out as it would go. There was NO
difference between the two.

Several weeks later, I arranged a blind test with a number of my audiophile
buddies. When the listeners didn't know which of several cables they were
listening to, they didn't hear any difference. It was sighted bias at work,
after all. My theory is that we both knew that the video cable was made of
this new oxygen-free, linear-crystal copper and was designed to pass a 6 MHz
video signal, so it MUST be better than a plain old AUDIO cable for passing
digital data.

So you aren't the only one who has fallen prey to this psychoacoustic
phenomenon. 8^)

>There is nothing anyone could do, there is no possible test
> involving human subjects that will ever be found suitable to the
> non-believers.

Belief has nothing to do with it. I don't just BELIEVE that there is no
difference between cables, I KNOW it. I have electronic AC transmission
theory on my side, I have measurements on my side, and I have the results of
countless double and single-blind listening tests on my side to back up this
knowledge. What do you have, Bill?

What we have here has degenerated into a quasi-religious debate (the notion
of two camps, believers and non-believers) If you made the effort, it could
easily be proven to you that all properly made interconnects sound the same
(or rather, have no sound), but as long as you want to believe in cable
sound.... well, it's your money, isn't it?

>So, let them use the cheapest cables from the trash can
> with rusty connectors if it pleases their sound pallette

Lets not go overboard. There are good reasons for buying decently made cables
and go beyond the "sound" of said cables.

On Feb 14, 6:19=A0pm, Frank <frankluca...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Il 14/02/2010 21.37, Ed Seedhouse ha scritto:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 13, 9:03 pm, "Bill Noble"<nob...@nowhere.czm> =A0wrote:
>
> >> So, clearly there is some difference in the cables - but I don't' know=
what,
> >> or why it has the effect. Now that the system is set up, cables are in
> >> place, and I'm happy enough with the sound, I actually don't know that=
I
> >> care what the cause of the effect was, but the effect was and is certa=
inly
> >> real.
>
> > Nothing in the events =A0described above justifies making such a claim
> > in any way.
>
> > As to your claim not to have been biased, biases are pretty well by
> > definition things that we are not aware of. =A0If you are aware of a
> > "bias" it is not a "bias" any more, it is an "attitude" or a
> > "belief". =A0Not being aware of biases is not evidence that you have
> > none, and claiming not to have them amounts to a claim of having
> > supernatural powers.
>
> > Without any evidence given by you about the test being properly
> > blinded, your claim that it was significant is completely unfounded.
>
> > All in all, what you have related above appears to me to amount to an
> > anecdote with no evidentiary value, and your apparent belief that this
> > is somehow evidence shows what appears to me to be a lack of a basic
> > understanding of science.
>
> Is this kind of blind testing?
>
> Made 5 cables of the same lenght (3 m) with the same type of rca connecto=
rs.
>
> I used 5 different type of cable:
>
> Tasker low capacity ofc etc. etc.
> High quality low attenuation real low capacity solid video cable
> Mogami smallest and cheapest cable
> Cat5 shielded using one twisted pair
> Telecom cable pair loosely twisted with no shield
>
> Tried to hide differences by putting the cables in black calza (don't
> know how to call it in english).
>
> Handed them over to a friend who is a professional drummer.
>
> He recorded the same part of a song (only drums) from the original
> digital recording in his digital mixing console to a pro cd burner 5
> times using the different cables.
>
> He gave that cd to me and i listened to that cd, alone.
>
> The difference was there. I wrote my evaluations on a piece of paper and
> then met my friend who had already listened to those recordings while
> making them.
> It turned out I was able to hear difference between 3 groups of cables.
>
> Cat5 was muddy and level was strangely lower.
> Tasker was muddy but correct level (was my friend playing with levels?).
>
> Mogami and high quality video were the same and very good.
>
> Telecom cable was incredibly detailed as if there was something wrong.
> In effect I was able to tell if someone was turning a light in the house
> near mine. Ah, the lack of shielding.
> But the sound was there and was so beautiful that I decided to make a
> new one and use it for a while.
>
> Another friend a few days later came to my house and brought a couple of
> cables made from pure silver wire from the 18th century and covered in
> teflon but not twisted.
>
> Oh yes they were identical to the copper pairs and now I could even hear
> a thunderstorm approaching from 2 miles away.
> That's good for weather forecasting ... not so good to listen to Jordi
> Savall.
>
> The only thing I was able to do was measure those cables with a
> capacimeter and the result was that the muddiest was the high capacity
> one and silver cables were almost non-capacitive.
>
> A few days ago I asked Audio Empire about the formulas used to calculate
> attenuations in cables knowing their phisical characteristics.
> I printed them but i need a little help to use them.
> There should be a reason for those differences and we are to find them
> in the most scientific way.
>
> Frank- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

No it doesn't make it as a blind test. You knew that the five samples
were one of each cable. Big problem there. Do the same exact test with
just two cables that you are confident will sound different then have
your friend do twenty random copies with cable x and cable y. If you
can identify which is x and which is y 15 times you have a good
argument.

On Feb 13, 9:03=A0pm, "Bill Noble" <nob...@nowhere.czm> wrote:
> everything you say matches all the theory we all learned. =A0However, I c=
an
> report personally testing a range of cables to interconnect a preamp and =
a
> power amp and finding SIGNIFICANT differences in the resulting sound. =A0=
the
> cable length was about 3 meters in all cases. =A0Cables tested ranged fro=
m
> commercial ones (up to $$$) as well as a range of ones I made myself from
> different types of wires including twinax, teflon insulated TSP, CAT 5, a=
nd
> some others. =A0Connectors in all cases were XLR, other components were n=
ot
> changed. =A0I had no preconceived notions about which of the homebrew wou=
ld
> sound better so you can't blame a bias. =A0Twinax was horrible, the best =
was
> the cat 5 type cable with a very specific connection arrangement - I coul=
d
> actually (to my surprise) hear a difference depending on whether I connec=
ted
> the pairs with one half to the + the other to the -, or if I shorted pair=
s
> and used two to + and two to -. =A0I have no idea why this should be so, =
but
> the fact of the matter is that it was (is) so, and that effect was heard
> clearly by others in my family that had no interest in the outcome.




> So, clearly there is some difference in the cables - but I don't' know wh=
at,
> or why it has the effect. Now that the system is set up, cables are in
> place, and I'm happy enough with the sound, I actually don't know that I
> care what the cause of the effect was, but the effect was and is certainl=
y
> real.

I would guess, not knowing your equipment, that you have a mismatch
between source and load
resulting in an unusual sensitivity to cable impedance.

IMO, properly designed equipment and systems should not exhibit
audible differences due to the slight variance of typical length
interconnect cable impedance.

Even in such a case, it makes no sense to spend big $$ on boutique
cables (which is usually an expensive trial and error process as well)
when you are obviously capable of addressing your unusual cable needs
on your own. For those that cannot, blue jean cables provide all the
information they need to know exactly what their different cable
options offer in terms of electrical characteristics and at reasonable
prices.

ScottW

On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:34:06 -0800, Bill Noble wrote
(in article <(E-Mail Removed)>):

> at the risk of sounding crude, bovine fecal matter - my bias when I started
> was that cables did not make much if any difference. I was in fact
> astounded that there was an audible difference. No, I'm not going to do a
> double blind test, I am not interested in proving the point, I honestly
> don't care if you feel that I deceived myself or not. I can certainly use
> equations to show you that some cable will degrade sound under some
> circumstances.

Sure, interconnects, if they're at least 20 ft long, they will most assuredly
degrade sound. Speaker cables which are too long or of insufficient wire
size for the length of the run or the power that they are carrying will
likewise degrade the sound. But there is nothing you can do to a properly
constructed, normal length of plain coax (0.5 to 2.0 meters) terminated with
RCAs on each end that will affect the sound. A designer would have to WANT to
degrade the sound (with added components, external to the coax itself) in
order for that to be true. Now it IS just possible, for cables to be made in
which one (or more) of the solder connections between cable and connector is
inadvertently a cold-solder joint. This would definitely degrade the sound.


> I keep a 6 inch interconnect that sounds particularly bad, I
> even told you what the wire was - have you who say this is purely
> psychological made any attempt to duplicate my results personally?

Not to sound sarcastic, but, I haven't tried jumping off of the roof of a
barn and flapping my wings to try to fly either, but I know it wouldn't work.
Simple Newtonian physics tells me so. Relatively simple electronic theory
also tells me that there is no way for a properly constructed 6-inch
interconnect can degrade any sound, and it could be made with coax that has
100 pf/foot of capacitance and not make any audible difference. Now, even if
your cable were improperly made (for instance with the aforementioned
cold-solder joint), no one would be able to replicate that either because we
don't know that there is a cold solder joint in the cable which you mainyain
sounds so bad.

> right, I
> knew you hadn't. You guys read somewhere that if there wasn't a full double
> blind test in a lab setting the results were to be considered invalid.

No. I haven't JUST read it someplace, I have the experience of working with
designing cabling for the aerospace industry, so I know the science behind
conductors, and I have been privy to several such double-blind tests.

I am
> sure that I could sit down with a signal generator and a scope and measure
> differences between the worst and best interconnects.

Then you would make history and be the first person on earth to do so. I've
tried it using laboratory grade HP test equipment (oscillator, AVM,
oscilloscope) and so have many, many other people.

> I am not going to
> waste my time doing it though unless someone chooses to put up a few
> thousand dollars to fund the testing.

There is no need. The test is easy, requires a minimum of equipment, (all
readily and cheaply available on E-bay)has been done many times, and the
results are known.
>
> There is a lot of snake oil in the interconnect business, that is for sure -
> I am not going to defend any particular brand, but I will tell you that it
> is also untrue that there are no differences.

Well, if that's your belief, you are entitled to it. I'm certainly not going
to mess with somebody's belief systems. Like religion, a true believer is a
true believer, there is little room in those attitudes for dissent.


> It's like saying that there
> is no difference between fuels of different octane ratings - there are
> differences, and sometimes octane rating matters.

That's not a very good analogy. Fuel octane can be measured and simple
engines will not run correctly on the wrong octane fuel and may even be
damaged by them (I say simple engines, because today's electronic engine
management systems with their computer variable parameters such as ignition
and even valve timing can basically accommodate the wrong octane fuel without
deleterious effects on either the engine of it's performance). Interconnects
cannot be measured in the same way. At audio frequencies, for instance, they
will all measure exactly alike . Now you can try pumping a half a MegaHertz
or more through different brands and styles of, say, 1 meter-long
interconnects and PROBABLY note varying degrees of attenuation between them,
but that has nothing to do with audio signals.


> the same is true of low
> level interconnects.

Not so that anyone can measure or so that anyone in a bias-neutral test
procedure can hear.

"Audio Empire" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:34:44 -0800, Bill Noble wrote
> (in article <(E-Mail Removed)>):
>
>> you see, those who wish to believe there are no differences are just as
>> religious in damming those who have made reasonable experiments to prove
>> otherwise.
>

two points, then I will stand down on this discussion - it comes around from
time to time and it will never end.

1. when doing the testing of these cables in my living room, I had swapped
from one cable to another (these were all 3 meter cables, XLR connectors,
from preamp to power amp), and was listening again - I had been using one
set for most of the day. my daughter (about 15 at the time) had been
outside, walked into the room, stopped, and said "you changed the cables
again, I liked the other ones" - now she did NOT see me change the cables.
Yes, this is not a fully controlled test, but it might just hint at the
reality of this.

2. years ago I had a summer job as a lab tech testing cables for a cable TV
company - it didn't take much to change SWR with a freq sweep - the setup
was a terminated cable, and a freq sweep generator, and the usual
transformer to look at reflected energy versus input energy - a small void
in the insulator would cause real problems. I am pretty sure that the issue
with the worst cable is reflected energy but I am not set up to test it. I
can tell you for sure that a 6 inch length of it (the bad cable) made a
decent CD player sound horrible, and changing it to pretty much anything
else made it better. Everyone who has listened to this cable (and I've
made reasonably blind tests, not perfect by any means) hears it as
defficient.

> Not so that anyone can measure or so that anyone in a bias-neutral test
> procedure can hear.
>

one more point, for consideration - this is a very old experiment, well
documented. I tried to duplicate it in the 60s but didn't make a good enough
bandpass since I had no budget for parts and used what I could find. It is
in many of the text books I read, certainly it can be found in peer reviewed
literature..

put on a pair of headphones. feed both channels with white noise from a
single white noise source. you hear "hissssss". now, add a bandpass filter
and a phase inverter so that you invert the phase of the signal in the
passband only, and the rest remains as it was before. If done right, you
can listen to the output and hear "hissssss" - because it's still pure white
noise, indistinguishable from the original one. Now, put the original white
noise into one channel of the headphones, put the modified white noise into
the other channel and listen. What do you hear?

no, you do not hear hisssssss. you hear the hisss with a strong tone at the
passband frequency.

now, explain that using only measuring instruments applied to the signal
sources only.

My point is that if you believe that audio = 2-20Khz sine wave response
only, you are just plain wrong. The human ear processes frequency (arguably
via a neural equivalent of an Forier Transform) and it processes phase
information. The measurements described do not account in any way for phase
distortion - at least none of the ones I've heard described.

"Bill Noble" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)
> at the risk of sounding crude, bovine fecal matter - my
> bias when I started was that cables did not make much if
> any difference.

OK, so now we have some evidence for studying how this all comes to be.

> I was in fact astounded that there was
> an audible difference.

That would be the first error. Audible differences abound. In fact just
about any change you make to an audio system will result in the perception
that there is an audible difference, and furthermore many of them are
reliable and valid. The problem is to figure out which are, and which are
not.

> No, I'm not going to do a double
> blind test, I am not interested in proving the point,

This post tells a different story. Proving a point may not be the goal, but
convincing others of the reasonableness of your beliefs is. Otherwise, there
would be no reason to share your viewpoint. A truely self-satisified person
quietly enjoys their satisfaction.

> I honestly don't care if you feel that I deceived myself or not.

In my view, not so much self-deception as being mislead by an incomplete
understanding of the true relevant facts.

> I can certainly use equations to show you that some
> cable will degrade sound under some circumstances.

The problem is showing how those equations are relevant to actuality.

> I keep a 6 inch interconnect that sounds particularly bad,

A totem?

An exemplar of an oddball situation?

> I even told you what the wire was - have you who say this
> is purely psychological made any attempt to duplicate my
> results personally?

Somehow I missed that opportunity. I didn't know that there was a test. So
don't fault me for not aceing it!

> right, I knew you hadn't.

Is this like the guy who wins stoplight drag races that nobody else knows
about?

> You guys
> read somewhere that if there wasn't a full double blind
> test in a lab setting the results were to be considered
> invalid.

Maybe you don't know who you are dealing with. I didn't read it, I wrote it.
I didn't base what I wrote on some imaginary sequence of events. I lived
them.

> I am sure that I could sit down with a signal
> generator and a scope and measure differences between the
> worst and best interconnects.

Two problems:

(1) Most comparisons between interconnects don't involve the best and the
worst. They are comparisions of two adequate and blameless items.

(2) Just because there is a measured difference is not proof of an audible
difference. It is all about quantificaiton and relevance.

> I am not going to waste my
> time doing it though unless someone chooses to put up a
> few thousand dollars to fund the testing.

IMO, that is a silly statement.

On the scale of convincing arguments, this one is way down the list.