Yawn: we started with a Swiffer and end up in senseless discussion about fuses and powercables?
Peace on earth and Merry Christmas to all
I have found out why new cables and tweaks actually work!
The issue is now solved via irrefutable scientific data and rigorous validation after unprecedented levels of physical effort. I now know why swapping cables works, and why a great deal of other tweaks work too.
I spent a great deal of time over the weekend cleaning my entertainment center. I used a Swiffer with the extending wand attachment. Immediately afterwards I went to watch a movie and the sound was clearer, cleaner than I’d ever heard it before. The video didn’t change, but the audio, it was so good I stopped playing the Fellowship of the Ring for the 10th time and went to listen to music.
Oh my goodness, what deep and extended soundstage! Not only could I hear deeper into all of my music but instruments had bodies and height! Diana Krall was so palpably present I wanted to buy her dinner. But what had changed?? Every single cable was left as it was, but I had cleaned!!
That’s when it hit me. All my tweaks and all my cable replacements did nothing. It was the cleaning I did every time I replaced a set of cables that actually caused the revolutionary transformations I was experiencing. Same for every other audiophile!! You've ignored the cleaning and ascribed changes to gear. We've been fooled!
On a completely unrelated note, I will soon be releasing my own line of advanced, jitter free, cleaning solutions, in peach, evergreen, unscented and Axe Body Spray fragrances.
120 responses Add your response
@clearthinker After decades of listening, and hearing how audiophiles and non-audiophiles perceive sound I have my own theory which I do not need others to ascribe to:
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@erik_squires On cables I think I mainly agree with you. I am not so pig headed as to think cables carrying signal cannot make a difference. But a far smaller difference than changing an amp, or cartridge, digital player or speakers. And even smaller when evaluated on a per dollar basis. But passive stuff like power cables and fuses and raising your wires on little pyramids cannot make a difference, whatever some people convince themselves they are hearing. |
I used to work for the DoD making cleaning fluids for submarines to make them extra stealthy. The secret is dolphin spit. Turns out their spit causes a hydrophobic electrical charge to build on their noses which repels water and makes it easier for them to glide through the water. Trouble is, we can only gather it while they sleep. |
@lanx003 Afraid you're wayyyy too far gone for me. But I think you mean 'conductive'. Now, you say 'the dust layer on the cables becomes conductive" But the cables are heavily insulated. So the thin film cannot transmit any signal into the dielectrics. Dust can land on the terminations, so true believers might clean them often. It occurs to me that taping the terminations with insulating tape or some other benign tape will prevent dust from landng on them and save you having to clean all the terminations before sitting down to listen. If you have amplifiers with ventilation holes on the top surface, have you ever looked to see the amount of dust accumulated on the circuit boards and components inside. Crikey, it's thick and sitting on the actual boards that carry....oh no!!...signal. Your music. Anyhow don't worry! It's really hot in there, so any humidity that might tend to make the dust conductive soon evaporates. Phew! A narrow escape. Still it doesn't do any harm to go in there from time to time and vacuum out the dust...very carefully. The fastidious will want to polish the surface of the circuits on the board. |
But did you perform double blind test and what time of day was it? IMO you should never perform such an undertaking unless you are a qualified tech in the filed of cleaning fluids, and have a degree in this. Otherwise people on this site will give you no credibility to your findings. Please provide a You Tube video of exactly what you did so others here can follow and attempt to reproduce your outcomes. |
The comment about perception is a good one. Some years ago there was an industrial engineering experiment to see what color on the walls of the cafeteria raised morale. They found that it wasn't the color as much as just making a change. Similarly when we want to hear a difference, we often do perceptually. |
@clearthinker honestly i thought my system sounded better without the dust bunnies. 🤣
when it comes to cables, I know they can make a difference, but I doubt very much most are worth the retail. It was also enlightening to me how people who arent drinking the kool aid can hear a difference and still make radically different choices. |
Audiogoners won’t joke around here. They took music listening a serious business. Dust usually does not conduct electricity. However, when the moisture in the air "adsorbs" and forms a thin film on the surface of dust particles, the dust layer on the cables becomes condusive and intensifies emi/rfi that compromises the sound quality... |
@mwinkc , if your left arm is shaky enough that‘d be ‘de trop’ |
@erik_squires Nice one for Christmas! But does you joshing like this mean you might be realising the shortcomings of the dark side and be coming over to the light side and leaving the golden-eared fools to their own devices (sic). |
@thyname you seem to have a dog in this fight or at least expensive speaker cables both of which I do not. Nor do I plan too have. I absolutely love music so for me, my equipment is just a means to an end. Cheap or expensive is relative to the buyer. So long as the music I’m playing sounds pleasing to me I don’t really care what was paid for it. |
My friend and I didn’t feel that our cars RODE more comfortably, we felt the engines and drive trains RAN better. Two different things.
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@galvarado69 : did you actually read the article you posted? Everyone has a Google Machine these days.
It was not a controlled test. It was an Internet poll. Which are typically only attended by cable deniers like yourself. Copy / paste: ———- In order to determine if people could hear the difference between a coathanger and a cable, we posted a poll in an earlier version of this article. We asked readers to listen to ten audio samples—two head-to-head at a time—and rate which ones sounded better than others, or if they were the same. In every single one of the five comparisons, one sample was recorded over a coathanger cable, and the other was recorded with a high-end cable. On SoundGuys, the “both sound the same” option won every single poll question handily. While we didn’t have a large sample size, it’s more than the 2008 study’s sample set, so I’m happy with this.
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@thyname here is one of them. Hopefully the link works. |
Hey galvarado, I actually did my own single-blind test with music lovers who were audiophiles. One pair of speaker cable was Mogami soundrunner, and the other I believe was one of the Wireworld Eclipse models. The interesting thing was. without prompting, we heard the same changes, but the prefernce was markedly different. Wireworld was darker and had better imaging. Since I paid the most money for it I preferred it! :) My neighbors prefered the brighter, faster sound of the Mogamis. Tonally we all heard exactly the same thing. My neighbors did not hear the changes in imaging until I asked them to listen for it. They agreed with which imaged better, but really wouldn't give up on the better mid-treble output. Maybe because of that all my speaker cables now are made from Mogami. :D |
@galvarado69 : source of this controlled test? |
I believe there was actually a “myth busters” type test done by a few different sites. Both used coat hangers vs. “audiophile” speaker cables. They used both testing equipment and human subjects for the testing. Although the testing equipment picked up a slightly better (though unintelligible to human ear) response curve with the audiophile cables, when it came to the human subjects 50% said the couldn’t tell a difference, 25% said they liked the coat hangers better and the other 25% liked the speaker cables better. One of the commenters claimed they actually challenged Kimber to switch speaker placement in a listening room where he had just a/b’d his speaker cable with cheap speaker wire. When the speaker placement was flip flopped the cheaper speaker wire then sounded better. Food for thought. |
So all this time you were happily listening with one or more cables having a connection problem? Hmmmmmm…..
Don’t laugh. I have been to a guy’s home showcasing his amp he had put up for sale. The entire left channel was off, and he seemed to have no clue. 🤦♂️.
I have also experienced several times people having stuff connected out of phase, with no knowledge something was terribly wrong. Go figure |
@erik_squires - As I was reading your original post, I was thinking that this concept, however tongue and check, aligned with your room first perspective, then I saw you were the OP and was entertained.
@tomcy6 - Depending on how your friend washed his car, if any of the suspension components got wet it's possible that it could have a positive effect, at least temporarily, on the ride quality. Also, wet tires should be slightly softer (they certainly cut easier) and that could also temporarily soften the ride which would feel good. |
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So what exactly is your problem if I do?
How is what I do or don’t do any of your business? And what makes you feel like you know anything about real life better than anyone else, because if you think you do I have many many questions of how you got that idea in your head.
Really? Because most of what I see you do is post shade. |
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It’s called starting a conversation, @Fuzztone I do that but hopefully in meanignful and humorous ways that add to the otherwise droll litany of shopping choices and technology. I like those too, but I do think that this site benefits from not having just such a mindset. Also, i do try to be honest, even if sarcastic. :) I want to remind you and others, make Audiogon yours by starting the conversations you'd like to see. |
