How can we hear the difference in cables in a bad room?


Hi after spending the last months measuring my room with REW and reading about room acoustic in small rooms.
I began to wonder how we can hear differences in equipment when the frequency respons in most rooms are bad.

Just think about it! a power cable - why can you hear a difference? is it a timing issue, noise? are the human hearing much more sensitiv to delay / phase issues than frequencies.

If you have knowledge in this area then I would love to be educated (:

Happy new year to all of you. 


martin-andersen
@martin-andersen - the answer to your original question...
Hi after spending the last months measuring my room with REW and reading about room acoustic in small rooms.
I began to wonder how we can hear differences in equipment when the frequency respons in most rooms are bad.

IT IS VERY DIFFICULT !!!

So - treat your room to some sound absorbing or deflection panels before you even start with cables of any type. You may also need bass traps

Once room anomalies have been dealt with then you can start with cables. Otherwise the subtleties of cable experimentation will be significantly more difficult to discern and prone to poor choices

BUT WAIT ! - are ALL your components capable of resolving to the same level ???

If not, replace components that you suspect are of a lower resolution
- errrrr - isn’t that a bit rash???...
- YEP !!!, but that is the approach of many audiophiles

However - many of todays lower priced components are very good BUT severely limited by their own power supplies.

This is where the power cables come into play...

After experimenting with several of my "budget" source components
- I ( AND OTHERS) have observed that significantly better performance is attainable simply by upgrading the power cable on budget components.

As an example - I replaced the power cable on my $300 mini system and my Bluesound Pulse Mini remote speaker and achieved a significant improvement in dynamics, image and bass performance.

The Pulse Mini endeavour was a particular "triumph" because it was conducted in the audio store where I purchased it and the resulting improvements were observed by the owner of the store an his staff, who all could not believe such improvements could be attributed to a simple power cable upgrade.

Once you have the treatments and power cables taken care of then you may stand a chance at hearing the more subtle improvements other cables may make in your system.

I liken power cables to the "plumbing" in your home - without great plumbing, what comes out of the tap is only a fraction of what is actually possible.

I will add that components that contain very good power supplies (like amps) will need extremely good power cables in order to hear a similar level of improvement, whereas, a component with a lessor quality power supply and only a reasonably good power cable may be attributed with a more discernable improvement.

Implementing a single model/make of power cable for all components may not be the best way to invest your hard earned money. 

So choose your power cables wisely.
 
Hope that helps - Steve

+1 Steve @williewonka 

I will add that components that contain very good power supplies (like amps) will need extremely good power cables in order to hear a similar level of improvement, whereas, a component with a lessor quality power supply and only a reasonably good power cable may be attributed with a more discernable improvement.

For making the point that even top level equipment benefits from good power and good power cables.

"...placing extra burden on image processing, and on the extraocular muscles..."
Assuming that flickering light is the only "abnormal" condition during this reading, is it extraocular or intraocular in this case?
Extraocular which controls eye positioning. The flickering causes issues with eye positioning.
This was good as it made me look it up. Quick PubMed search produces mostly articles about accomodation response to flickering (and comparisons of different frequencies at that). I could not find anything about extraocular muscle involvment, though. The articles I skimmed are a bit old and had only abstracts without the section method.

Is there some explanation of the mechanism for this extraocular muscle involvement with flickering? Maybe repositioning after being fooled that the object moved slightly?

Not much to do with audio reproduction, but interesting to think about, anyway.