Does raising speaker cables off the floor really make a big difference?

@nonoise

I think there is an awful lot of projection from naysayers as of late. They cling to certain bias diagnosis (from afar) and neglect the ones they fall victim to.

Do you think I am a "naysayer" who fits your description?


If so, could you explain which bias you think I have fallen victim to?

Fear of change can be a large predictor of one’s perception to any manner of topic. The lengths one will go to to remain in their bubbles is astounding.

Human psychology is fascinating, isn’t it?


So lets compare bubbles. :-)


I’ve enjoyed subjective evaluations of audio equipment, and sharing subjective notes between my fellow audiophiles, for over 30 years.I’ve "heard" differences between amps, cables of different types, tweaks (footers under equipment and various others), between CDPs, DACs (and in video, between video cables).


I love the sound of my CJ tube amplification and always go back to it after trying solid state. Never done a "blind test." Even when some "objectivists" think tube amps are silly. I swoon over the sound of my "crazy expensive" (to the average joe), cartridge etc. No talk of blind testing, all subjective.


If you look through my own thread on auditioning speakers:


https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/contemplating-devore-speakers-and-others-long-audition-report...


IIRC, you won’t find any talk of measurements (let alone blind testing). It’s all happily "subjectivist" which is how I engage with my system for 99.9 percent of the time.


On some of the "more objectivist" forums I sometime draw the ire of some in those community for defending many aspects of a subjective approach.


So....I know what the audio subjectivist experience is. I’ve lived it, and still live it.


BUT...


I ALSO am aware of the general features of, and rational for, the scientific empirical method. And I can’t just pretend that audio is magically excepted from the complexities that bedevil any other careful empirical inquiry - especially the unreliability built in to human subjectivity.(And this is something the "blind test naysayers" seem to routinely misunderstand: accepting that human subjectivity is unreliable doesn’t mean "a subjective impression is wrong and due to bias" or "what you think you heard wasn’t real." It only means that in many cases it *could* be error, so it can be hard to unravel the objective facts from the subjective impressions).



When I was hearing differences between various gear and some engineers and science-types were suggesting how I could be imagining the differences, I couldn’t be intellectually dishonest and pretend I’m excepted from any such biases.


So I took myself out of my comfort zone, and REALLY put my powers of perception, and subjective beliefs, to more controlled tests. I followed the prescriptions of the engineers/objectivists to the letter, and tested my own assumptions. And I did this numerous times with various types of gear.


It was sometimes validating, sometimes quite humbling, always eye-opening and a learning exercise.


So now I don’t stay only within my "subjectivist bubble" believing that my own perception is the Ultimate Arbiter Of Truth. I have been face-to-face with challenging my perceptions, and I have owned up to my fallibility. I can see the very good arguments for an objective approach, while I also maintain arguments for the worth of intersubjectivity in audio matters.


And I do not move from my own experience, even blind testing, to claims that therefore YOUR subjective experience is telling you something false.That would be just as unjustified an inference as clinging to the belief that my subjective impressions are never wrong.


So, nonoise,


Have YOU ventured outside your bubble? To what degree have you challenged your beliefs? Have you put your own subjective impressions under any more scrutiny than the usual "If I think I hear it, it’s true?" paradigm? Are you willing to seriously consider the "other side" of the debate when it comes to your own deeply held convictions about audio, for instance that some of your firm subjectively-derived impressions about cables or whatever may be wrong?

I’d throw that question out to anyone else who feels the "naysayers" or those who ever ask for measurements or blind testing are the ones stuck in a bubble.

Cheers.

Nothing beats prof post :-)

^^^^
Much obliged.  :)

I can't match prof word for word, since he already retires but I still have to earn money, so anyway, to save time, I plagiarize ... errrrr ... I mean paraphrase from a book.

In this book, there was a "real" story about a get together, or a convention, of a large group of well known scientists, or to be specific, a group of physicists specialized in the field of quantum physics.  Being a bit bored, they came up with a game that we all have one time or another played.  Basically, it's a game in which you can only get to ask "yes or no" question, and at the end you have to guess what it is.

Usually, for this game, everybody would agree first on an "object" so that people know to answer "yes or no" to the question being asked.  But being smart $$$ as they are, they want to make a slight change to the game to make it a bit interesting.  The change was at first, nobody would agree on any specific object, but whatever answer to the question asked thereafter has to be consistent with the previous answer.  So the second answer has to be consistent with the first answer, and the third answer has to be consistent with the second answer and so on.  So it goes that the first unlucky contestant after asking question after question, he noticed that it would take unusually longer and longer for the "yes or no" answer to come (as it would obviously since it gets harder and harder to be consistent after awhile), and also he could see some small laughter as if he was the object of a joke.  At the end, he was able to guess what the "object" was to the loud laughter of the entire room and of course he was let in on the joke finally.

Anyway, what does it have to do with cable risers?

I think prof already got me beat.  Maybe he can tell what that is.   

I keep telling you guys, any riser made of any material (ceramic, acrylic, wood, plastic, paper, etc.) that touches the floor, whether it's carpet, wood, tile, concrete, whatever, is not going to be as effective as suspending the cables from the ceiling.  It's the only way to go.  And a thin enough monofilament is virtually invisible.