2. cables
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The Science of Cables

It seems to me that there is too little scientific, objective evidence for why cables sound the way they do. When I see discussions on cables, physical attributes are discussed; things like shielding, gauge, material, geometry, etc. and rarely are things like resistance, impedance, inductance, capacitance, etc. Why is this? Why aren’t cables discussed in terms of physical measurements very often?

Seems to me like that would increase the customer base. I know several “objectivist” that won’t accept any of your claims unless you have measurements and blind tests. If there were measurements that correlated to what you hear, I think more people would be interested in cables. 

I know cables are often system dependent but there are still many generalizations that can be made.
128x128mkgus
taras22
412 posts
 
@ stevecham

More flat earth.


Just way too funny. Actually more like curved space.

You may want to go take a peak at this thing called proof theory, which talks about what numbers can and can’t do. One of the things it says is that numbers are an abstract concept that relate most perfectly to themselves and only tangentially to the reality around us. And btw was a key development in the movement that led to the "quantum" revolution that has defined physics over the last century or so, which introduced us to the concept of curved space. So relativity you are much closer to flat earth than you may want to admit.


taras22
412 posts
 
@mkgus

They truly are better than the microphones used to take measurements. That’s crazy!


Actually it isn’t. OK lets look at it this way. As a machine a microphone is a speaker driver in reverse. And we all know that no matter how wonderful the driver design it will never ever replicate a real sound in any absolutely accurate manner, and we can easily hear that ( both the original sound and the replication ) and if the equivalence btwn drivers and microphones holds true and I think it does it should lead one to see the ear as the superior instrument ( sorry if that is a bit convoluted and circuitous and I hope youse guys get the point ) The other thing about microphones is their range is limited, and often brick-walled, by noise floors and ceilings, whereas the ear/brain has much greater range in that regard ( in fact in certain circumstances "looking" into noise floors the ear brain has something in the range of 50db advantage over microphone based measurement systems...and especially in the bottom 4 octaves ).
bsmg
296 posts
 
I agree with michaelgreenaudio with regard to "experience." I have several times over the years encountered people in work environments and in other situations in which someone professes "twenty five years experience in (fill in the blank") and then it later becomes apparent that more correctly they have one year of experience twenty five times.
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taras22
412 posts
 
@ chrissain

Great post....yeah cables are in some weird way the audiophile's version of Keat's idea of negative capability ( or at least my most probably wrong understanding of same ).
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