The Science of Cables

Science is great, but it is built up on observation, measurement, hypothesis, conclusions.


I look forward to seeing this occur more regularly in amp and cable design.


Snake oil sales men on the other hand write long, meandering pieces with claims that either cannot be tested, or have unproven applicability to the subject at hand. For instance, discussing the micro-crystaline architecture of insulators at near absolute zero, and using that to somehow conclude that electrons flow with less friction at room temperature cables.


My favorite take on this, of course, is the long long quacking, followed by not hearing a damn thing different, and then having the quacks claim it’s my ears.


So you spent half a billion dollars developing this new winding technique and only the top 0.0001% of ears can hear it? Wow. That’s a good investment.  Or, just as bad, claims for major engineering or scientific breakthrough, which cannot be described in engineering terms, either by their results ( frequency, amplitude, phase, noise ) or by the characteristics ( resistance, capacitance, inductance, insulation value, common mode rejection ratio).



Best,

E

We need it all, Eric, to be alive and be mutable. To have a future that is not a dead thing where it is all the same.

Too much of any (thing) is deadly. Standardization saves, standardization kills.

the core problem for audio is that the ear is a similar in all..but essentially a blank self built thing in the individual.
that is is possible to agree on sounds heard. But impossible to have each ear be the same as they are not the same. That hearing is a self assembled self built thing. No two are the same and no two brains analyzing the signals are wired the same. 

Importantly, that engineering cannot fully apply as engineering is incomplete. It is specifically VERY incomplete in the analysis of the stuff that is important to the hearing done by the ear.

The trick is to get audiophiles and the engineering analysis of such... to understand this all important simple set of data points.

I wish to avoid charlatans as well, as they pollute the pond.

In my experience there are almost no charlatans in audio.

But there is a huge level of misunderstanding of the complexities of audio and then the misapplication of dogma to this proffered complexity--as a method of sorting it out. It's the simpleton's way out.

Thinking and sussing out out is considerably more complex. But is the only truly functional way forward. Most won't commit to it... and offer up emotional responses instead, that are cloaked as being logic and reason, when in fact they are not.

The vast number of audio threads play out in this exact way.

Not science:

I mixed up a bunch of rare and expensive herbs in my kitchen, and they cure the common cold in 2 weeks, guaranteed! 

The idea that science or engineering block discovery is nonsense. So, make up a batch, cure a bunch of people and then find the method of effect. How and why does it work? When does it not work? How much better is it than chickens soup?


That is science.
Best,

E

teo :

No one is arguing against art.


Just don't come to me with reams of science sounding stuff and then claim your stuff can't be tested or measured, or that you are a maverick.


Best,
E

I know exactly what the hell is going on, Eric. I simply won’t discuss it.

It’s business, and in business one keeps their knowledge and lore to themselves. The downside is one is accused of being a charlatan but the alternative is giving all of it away and having no food to put on the table, all while the accolades keep coming in. Then other people eat all your meals for you. all for the sake of making Eric (and some others) happy.

Not happening today or tomorrow.

In science, it can be given freely, sometimes. But even then it is held tightly, in most cases. As good science can be big business. Sometimes ...world changing business. Hundreds of billions.

EG, this just emerged:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2018/03/09/carbon-nanotube-membrane-breakthrough-is-real-world...

If you read it with the right clear eyes, you see that it says transmutation. And in such a scenario, all metals markets and all resource markets ......die. And that’s global politics and 10’s of trillions. It does not say this explicitly, but that’s the next phase of it - that lies beyond the scope of the article..

Be aware, that in a resource poor area of the world, in this case, Japan, Toyota and other major corporations have applied for and received ..in this area of technology...flat out plain spoken, ~proven~ real world patents, for TRANSMUTATION of elements.

As in...alchemical transmutation of one periodic element to another, in mass quantities that are useful to engineering and building things.

But there are stranger things yet, if one knows how and where to look....and you ain't gonna be doing much of that exploration with a negative proofing mindset.