Too good a post to waste

Your mind is the Best Toy you have, and will ever have.

Take it out to play....;)

On a serious note, there is a nugget of truth here. Some people simply do not really know what they hear. Its not that they haven’t heard it, but they lack the vocabulary to express what they have heard. Almost always the people talking this evanescent memory line are incapable of saying exactly what they are talking about. I’ve never once heard one of them say they heard two things so close it came down to the micro-dynamics or timbral harmonics or image focus or anything like that. No. Instead its always apparent they have no words whatsoever for what they are talking about. They are plain and simple too lazy to try and learn the vocabulary.

Now it turns out there’s a whole line of psychology devoted to trying to discern which comes first, the thought or the word. How do you even know the thing you’re talking about without knowing the word for it? Not only can you not talk about it, it turns out you cannot even think about it.

This comes up in x-ray school. An x-ray is nothing more than a 2 dimensional gray scale representation of a 3 dimensional object. When you first look at one its hard to make any sense of it at all. Then you learn a whole lot of anatomy, pathology, mega medical terminology, physics, electronics, chemistry (no kidding) and then with all of this knowledge together with a lot of years studying these things, one day you look at the flat image and are surprised to be able to see what’s going on in 3D.

And guess what? No radiologist or MD ever once asked for a double-blind. That would be nuts. That would show only that they really don’t know what they’re doing. Same here.

25+ years in high end professional acoustics, and no one uses terms like micro-dynamics or timbral harmonics w.r.t. a sound reproduction system, probably because "micro-dynamics", isn't a function of sound reproduction, it is a function of recording and mastering, and timbral harmonics is essentially a tautology, since the timbre already means the combination of harmonics that compose tone. Having made up words that sound erudite but essentially carry no meaning does not give one superiority the person who hears the same thing but describes in just as distinct, but non "technical sounding" jargon.

I blame the audio "press" most of whom possess no technical background, from either an educational standpoint or practical standpoint in audio or audio sciences. They make stuff up, and other people just pick up on it cause it sounds good. Mainly, it just causes confusion and people calling each other names on audio forums.

40 + years, and not one, yup not one that I can find, demonstration by a cable vendor that definitively shows an audible difference, let alone an improvement between good wire (low resistance, reasonably low capacitance/inductance), and their uber-expensive wire.

40+ years, and not one vendor willing to put their money where their mouth is and show, in perfect for them conditions, that they can reliably pick out their uber expensive wire from run of the mill wire.

40+ years, and still no proper blind demonstrations at a trade-show that illustrates the clear, claimed "night and day" difference between their uber expensive cables and good cables (good resistance/capacitance/inductance, and shielding for interconnects).

Thing is, I do know that some of those uber-expensive low capacitance wires are more likely to lead to amplifier instability (audible), than less expensive wires (as Pass and Polk found out). I can find it on a scope in seconds, and fix it in not many more (for pennies), and most good amplifier vendors have already addressed this issue. I know I can vary resistance enough between cables to create a statistically audible difference. I know I can build in enough capacitance to create a statistically audible difference (for some people, most younger than this group). I know that to reduce those differences to statistically 0, it does not require a lot of money.


The ops statement is really nothing but an ad populum argument. Everyone is doing it (well really they aren't), so it must be right. The vitamin and supplement industry is > $75 billion worldwide, and much of that is near useless (and many of us, me included over the years), fall for it.  There are a plethora of things people buy or believe in, vast numbers of people, for which there is little or no evidence, if not evidence of harm.


Having been around acoustics and psychoacoustics, academically, professionally, and in assistance of research, I know how to tweak for a desired outcome, and to be exceedingly skeptical of claims, knowing that in properly controlled comparisons, all those night and day claims, magically disappear. You would be amazed that blind, a lot of audiophiles can't even pick their own speakers out of a lineup of similar sounding speakers reliably ... and yes, you may be curious how I know that.

Now if only there was a way to put this argument away once and for all .. but for the life of me, I can't think what that way would be .....

no one uses terms like micro-dynamics or timbral harmonics w.r.t. a sound reproduction system, probably because "micro-dynamics", isn’t a function of sound reproduction, it is a function of recording and mastering,

I see. So they record it, but we don’t have to reproduce it. Interesting. And for this you consider yourself a professional. No wonder I have so little respect for credentialism.

40 + years, and not one, yup not one that I can find, demonstration by a cable vendor that definitively shows an audible difference, let alone an improvement between good wire (low resistance, reasonably low capacitance/inductance), and their uber-expensive wire.

You do realize you just admitted that in 40 years you have never been able to hear any difference between any cables. Brilliant. I’d never dream of putting anyone down with such a devastating insult as you just did to yourself.