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.
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Congratulations taras22. Your post exemplified the kind of cluelessness about the nature of science that can lead one to pseudo-scientific beliefs.

You’ve completely misunderstood the lessons of science in general, Newton in particular.

Apparently you wish to use Newton’s incorrect calculation about the age of the earth to draw the lesson "See? Even great scientists can be wrong...so we can’t just go trusting science!"

But anyone who knows a thing about the scientific method already knows you don’t use "Faith In Something Some Genius Revealed To Us." The whole point of science derives from the very fallibility of ANYONE. It’s the Method, not The Man. Just because a man was wrong...as every person who ever lived has been wrong about one thing or another....doesn’t give warrant for undermining the scientific method.

Newton is actually the perfect example. Many acknowledge him as perhaps the greatest mind to have ever lived. And the lesson of Newton is this: When he applied his great intellect to phenomena that could be seen and tested by all, and created testable theories which could be reliably replicated by anyone, despite their religion or lack of religion, he revolutionized useful knowledge for humankind with his theories of gravity (and others).
His theories were, and continue to be, used to successfully predict endless phenomena which work under those theories.

Kepler’s laws were useful within their domain of accuracy as well.

But what happened when each of those men turned their formidable intellects to the untestable realms of "Faith" "revelation" "religious belief?"


Both men were fervent Christians who took ancient scripture as utterly authoritative.

You got Newton working for 30 years on a religious treatise that languishes in obscurity and has helped no one, and produced no reliable knowledge. And in combination with ignorance of modern dating methods that they didn’t have back then, with taking the scriptures as historically accurate....you get total miscalculations of the type you reference, from both men.

This shows how much it is The Method that is more important than The Man, and when you appeal to "people...magic or otherwise" for your authority you will fall in to all sorts of pot holes. Recognizing the fallibility of human beings within your method, writing skepticism and doubt in to the method, acknowledging that anything you think you’ve demonstrated could be in error and that others should seek to replicate or show where you are wrong, is the EXACT OPPOSITE of "fundamentalim" and "dogmatism."

Understanding that human’s are error prone and taking that seriously in your method - e.g. controlling for sighted bias - is the EXACT OPPOSITE of faith or fundamentalism.

That you mix these up is why you believe some of the things you apparently believe.

And you also imply an incorrect lesson about Newtonian theories of gravity and Eisenstein. Newtonian theory was not removed by developments from Einstein and others...it was *improved upon.* It was accurate within it’s domain for the most part, but was incomplete as a description and a new theory was required to explain things Newtonian physics could not. It’s still a usefully accurate account at a certain scale which is why it’s still used for that scale. If Newton’s theory were simply ’wrong’ you wouldn’t be able to explain why it works so reliably as it does . In many if not most day to day level applications, employing the more elaborate general relativity theory won’t yield you usefully more accurate results, so Newtonian physics is a perfectly useful model for most day to day calculations.

Whenever anyone appeals to science, you like to bring up bogus examples and ideas to sow a sort of mistrust in the appeal to science.  It just shows a dedication to psuedo-science.   And it’s particularly ironic because you are left to answer this question: In every case were ’the science’ has been shown to be ’wrong,’ incomplete or inaccurate....what method was it that uncovered those problems?

You guessed it: science. It’s got a self-correcting mechanism built in that tends to weed out error over time.


No one should get to have his own pet theory made safe - one that is not vetted scientifically - by trying the old "but they called Galileo Crazy" or"But Science Has Been Wrong Before!" trope, as if errors in previous science make unvetted pseudo-scientific claims less dubious

Claims about cables, especially extraordinary claims, ought to be able to pass the same vetting method as any other science.


That’s not a fact favorable to purveyors of expensive high end cables based on dubious theories, or to those who believe their subjective impressions can not be in error, which is no doubt why it receives some pushback




Whoa! I did not see that coming. Prof is back, tan and rested and firing on all cylinders. 😛 I hate to judge before all the facts are in but it appears he wants to turn this place into a peer review council with himself as head peer reviewer.
prof
Claims about cables, especially extraordinary claims, ought to be able to pass the same vetting method as any other science.
Agreed. But why is it that those who call for this vetting seem to always require that others do the work? Erik even has a thread called, "How I would measure audio cables" and he says it would be "super easy" to do. But: He can't be bothered.


cleeds,

You keep raising that question, even though it's been answered a number of times.  Here we go again....

You assume people skeptical about boutique cable claims haven't 'done the work.'   But note that most of the skepticism comes from the engineering world in which people work with the electrical theories in question.  It is from an understanding - theoretical and practical - of how electrical components work that many EEs and other technically qualified skeptics conclude many audiophile claims are bogus.  The "work" on electrical theory and cables has essentially "been done."At least, this is a common position of most EE skeptics I've read.

Further, there have been plenty of technically knowledgeable skeptics who HAVE done technical and blind testing of cable claims.   Someone has posted quite a few here:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/

Science oriented web sites like Hydrogen Audio contain plenty of technical tests on audio components, including cables, and blind test results of all sorts of audio components.   You can find more technical tests on Audio Science Review, and on Archimego's blog.

More recently, skeptic Ethan Winer has proposed a null test for cable claims...and you can see videos of him showing the results.

I myself have, as I've explained before, blind-tested cables and other devices.

So this objection you continually raise...as if it had any force...just seems ignorant of all the reasons skeptics give for rejecting many of the claims from high end cable companies, and the knowledge, and work, those objections are based upon.



So we all (kinda) agree that cables have an impact on sound quality...we all want to hear the ‘pure, unaltered sound’ coming out of our speakers... how about the cables that were used during the recording session? I doubt all those record studios use ‘high end’ cables...