Roy Gregory has lost the plot this time...

Just reading the editorial of HF+ issue 29. Seems like there was quite a large response to his review of the new Nordost power cables. The gist seemed to be Where's the proof? The measurements? The science? . You didn't write in did you dat19 and stebbo?

His defence started out OK:
- most people accept mains leads make a difference
- no one knows why
- no science to support the observations
- the effects are all too obvious

...all of which I don't have a problem with but then he went and messed it all up by comparing it to the situation where a decent glass of red wine tastes different if it's been swirled clockwise instead of anti-clockwise...and what's more, that wines from the Northern Hemisphere should be swirled clockwise and ones from the Southern Hemisphere anti-clockwise . Oh Roy! And you were doing so well....

The thing is, I believe he's right about mains leads but the question is why is no one looking into it? Surely there's some interesting and worthwhile science to be done there? More likely than not though any scientist is in fear of being shot down in flames for giving credibility to something by investigating it that all his peers would choke on their genetically modified brussel sprouts over.

Peer review and all that is all well and good but IMO it leads to a culture where new ideas that are in the slightest bit contrary to "current thinking" aren't explored becuase they "must be wrong" and are simply ridiculed <rant over>

Michael.

 

Just remember, when this all goes up in flames, you brought me into this

Yes, but a lot of people "accept" fairly preposterous ideas: for instance that Alien's regularly land on Earth (after flying at least a few light years ), grab someone, take them aboard a spacecraft and anally probe them - in some sort of Alien Frat Party ritual.

"most people" beleive what they read in the hi-fi press. When this is boiled down, there are probably 20 hifi journalists who have caused a huge amount of confusion, most of whom have little or no background in acoustics, psycho-acoustics or electrical engineering.

I might add that the "mains lead" phenomena has not been shown in a proper (here we go) double blind test.

Yep.

The sonic effects are not, but the psychological effects are obvious - people feel that they have "experimented" and "contributed" to the sound of their system. People have a desire to fiddle and improve, and in an age where fiddling is becoimg more difficult, the desire is satisified elsewhere.

Maybe the hifi press is having a big wager about who can get the public to believe the most preposterous idea.

I seem to recall Jimmy Highes rattling on about humidifers in the 80's and he once talked about how drinking some fancy water improved the sound too..

Because it isn't logical. How can three feet of "Uber Cable" improve the sound, when there is 300 or 3000 (or maybe 30,000) feet of cable to the transformer, and onto the power station?

Also, power supplies are either regulated or have excellent ripple rejection..

Absolutely. But the science isn't about cables or sound, it's about why people really want to beleive these ideas.

This isn't about proof, because that is the antithesis of belief.

The science exists, and it says a lot of what people beleive they can hear, they actually cannot hear at all.

The desire to believe generally leds to the refutation of science as lacking.

Well, look at your position here. You want the science, but it appears you want the science conditionally - you want it to support your beliefs. Perhaps you want us to keep repeating the experiments until some statistical quirk throws up a result you like?

Peer review does not "maintain the status quo" - and it certainly doesn't ridicule contrary ideas - if someone proposes an hypothesis and a procedure to validate that hypothesis and provides evidence in support of the hypothesis, then the experiment can be repeated and independently validated. Once that happens the hypothesis can be accepted.

The reason why so many hifi tweaks are not science is because the hypothesis is proposed, but no careful, independently verifiable, experimentation has been done and the therfore the claims cannot be validated. Science progresses on proof not faith.

 

Re: Re: Roy Gregory has lost the plot this time...

Eek - as a scientist (or at least as a science-minded individual), one needs to be careful when using the P word... (And I don't mean progress...)

Dunc

 

I have not read the HiFi+ article but from Michealab's quote it seems Dat12 is correct. How could this article by Roy Gregory is anything else but some kind of April's fool joke.

 

I presume this is the April edition?

 

Every issue is the April issue: this is what makes HiFi+ such fun.

 

:ffrc: :ffrc: :ffrc: :ffrc:

 

The wine swirl thing is a known event to the Wine drinking fraternity.

In fact what is happening is that the first time of tasting the taste buds etc. are overloaded by the wine and it almost overpowers them. Next sip whether swirled either way will taste less intense because the sense are still recovering. Wine tasters take one sip and then rinse with plain water to try and bring the palatte back to the same starting place.

Matbe he drinks too much wine before he reviews anything

 

LoL. classic.

 

why not ask Re-joyce, he may be able to shed some light on this

 

Roy is as nuts as a bag of spanners, everyone knows that Northern hemisphere wine should be swirled anti-clockwise.

Cheers

Jason

 

Ah so what about equatorial wine then?

 

Nothing to do with me. I dont buy hifi mags, They are out of the same stable as "The Sun" and "Max Power"

My beef with the after market power cord market is price.!!!

£1750 for a cable is criminal, it is profiteering.

If people start buying products like this, you will start to see the drug barons moving in!!!:MILD:

 

Re: Re: Roy Gregory has lost the plot this time...

Well, if the differences (with the Nordost Shiva cable) were really as dramatic as Roy described them in his review they are the kind of "night and day" differences that would easily show up in a DBT. On this occasion I'm fully in favour of a DBT to sort this issue out once and for all - and I'll be happy whichever way the result goes.

I agree that it isn't logical but that doesn't mean that it can't be happening for some as yet unknown reason. Unlike you I'm not willing to simply reject the idea out of hand just because it doesn't fit with current scientific knowledge.

If a DBT with the cable showed that differences were audible would you accept that they were real differences?

Not at all. I'd like there to be a DBT with this mains cable and I'd be happy whatever the result. I still believe there are subtle differences that a DBT won't show up but Roy's review of the Shiva was unequivocal that it was a difference so large as to be unmistakable and therefore (IMO) would easily be demonstrable in a DBT. I've always maintained that huge differences will always be succesfully DBT'able but usually they're so big you don't need a DBT to tell.

I disagree. The peer review system or, at least, the way it's implemented puts the balance of power heavily in favour of maintaining the status quo. Bona fide scientists who have eventually come through with challenging ideas contrary to current, well established, thinking have often had to struggle for far longer than necessary to get peers to accept their ideas. Science on the whole gravitates to maintaining and reinforcing the status quo when instead it should be looking to challenge it as much as possible.

As one example, take the work of the Portuguese physicist João Magueijo (working at Imperial College London) who is challening Einstein's relativity, in particular that the speed of light is constant (he maintains it's variable). He is now well respected but it took him for ever to get there whilst enduring a not insignificant amount of ridicule from peers along the way. See here if you're interested in reading about his work.

Michael.

 

dat19,
I love your post ...... you're braver than me to say it though.

There are many respected, educated engineers who debunk the whole power cable, interconnect, speaker cable rip-off for what it is. Charlatanism.

Still, if I could get a plain generic cable and have it wrapped in pretty coloured insulation with a hi tech name printed on it and sell it for a 2000% mark-up, would I be tempted??? Hmmm, get behind me Satan.

Your comment re electricity travelling through hundreds of miles of high voltage then low voltage reticulation systems/transformers etc being affected/improved by a meter of of hugely expensive power cord at the wall socket is so true ...... I wonder how the Naim "separate mains spur" enthusiasts rationalise that.

 

Re: Re: Roy Gregory has lost the plot this time...

Agreed. However, the most spectacular change was reported from going from a "stock" power cable to the bottom of the range Shiva which costs a far more modest £220

Michael.

 

Based on my experience in the Nordost's room at Bristol - I wasnt sufficiently convinced - and one would hope they provided a setup that would best show the benefits.

Lars (Nordost dude) expressed extensive views...
How lowering the noise floor (one objective of many mains treatments) is the opposite of the benefits their cables deliver - eg. they dont use shielding as it squashes dynamics (in their view). Also how a system needs to be able to see right back to the power plant and how power conditioners stop this.

He also said two amusing things - 1. they dont know why it works 2. the have been lying that I/C and S/cables were the most important influence on sound (in cabling terms), now they are telling the *truth*

Now when I say the demo wasnt sufficiently convincing bear in mind the whole system was Valhalla cabled (power/ic/speakers) so he only ever changed the CDp power cord.

I would be very interested to attend a DBT similar to the one RG performed.

"I want to believe so tell me again"

 

Is that where a magazine can't tell which manufacturer is paying for advertising?

Tony.

 

Re: Re: Roy Gregory has lost the plot this time...

Stebbo,

Why is the price of GBP 1750 for a power cable profiteering? I think the term 'enterprising' is more appropriate. After market power cables such as the Nordost Valhalla etc are accessories not absolute necessities to audio replay. Many manufacturers, apart from Gamut, include power cords with their components. Using the stock power cords, one should be able to get a good perfomance from the component as that is what the designer intended or implied by supplying the stock power leads with the component. If the basic performance of the component is not good with the stock power leads, then I would expect that component to be put back in it's box and returned to sender. Well, that's what I would do anyway.

Now, if you believe that the stock powered cords could be improved upon, then you look to one of the cable companies for a solution. How much you are prepared to pay would depend on how much you believe after market power cords to influence the sound of your components for the better and how deep your pockets are. In one of the Hifi+ reviews, RG commented that one of the cheaper power cords in the Nordost range, made a significant improvement to the sound of the Cyrus CDP moreso than adding the PSX-R power supply into the mix. To date, no one that I've heard of has tried to disprove RG's experiences. It would be great if some Cyrus owners borrowed the Shiva (GBP 200) or Vishnu (GBP 450) power cords to see whether they made a significant improvement over and above Cyrus' own PSX-R. Then we can look at Naim's XPS power supply to see if the Nordost cords make more of an improvement than by adding the XPS. This then would certainly put the cat among the pigeons.

So looked at in that context, perhaps you can see where Nordost are coming from and why one can argue that profiteering does not exist here as designer power cords are not necessities, they are simply accessories. Just like the 6 metre Siltech speaker cables which retail for GBP 30k and the Transparent Opus interconnects retailing for GBP 25k, I prefer to regard such pricing structures as 'enterprising'. These companies charge what they feel the audiophile market can sustain and as Siltech have their main operations here in Lawrieville, I can tell you that there isn't a shortage of customers for the GBP30k speaker cables. Profiteering? I beg to differ.


P.S. Glad to see the term DBT being referred to on ZeroGain without ridicule. I always knew that you boys would one day see the light even with velvet balaclavas on.





Enjoy the music,

Lawrie.

 

Lawrie
Valid point. I chose my word poorly.
Enterprising with a capital E is a better alternative