Directionality Explained

I guess you could say imagination playing tricks, or our biases confirming what we believe. I have a bias that cables that measure similar sound the same. In a sighted test even if the cables have been altered to obviously sound different I would think they sound the same in an unsighted test I might be able to hear differences. It's just the way humans are wired,  all of us.

As much as I like some of you and really and truly appreciate your insights on most things audio, I must say you've got to stop implying that those who hear a difference are, to put it simply, insane.

No matter how your sugar coat or frame it, it sounds like a last ditch attempt when you've run out of excuses that don't hold up.

How in the hell can two differently made cables sound the same? How can two different recipes for you favorite dish taste the same? 

You seem to be stuck on the concept that we're at the apex of our ability to measure everything, which is pure hubris. Any well made cable will measure differently from another. Just look at the specs for L, C and R, which many are so fond of referring to. Compare them for yourselves and you'll see they vary. Sometimes, a lot.

Yet, they all run within the range of what is considered acceptable but they sure as hell don't sound the same. It's right about here and now when it'll be said that the differences are too small to make a difference and that's where you part company with the reality you've woven, completing a circle.

All the best,
Nonoise

I could understand the doubters and take them seriously- in 1980. There was no internet, Stereo Review was pretty much it, and Julian Hirsch was the Oracle of all things audio. Stereo Review and Julian Hirsch said if it measures the same it sounds the same. Wire is wire, and that was that.

Even then though J. Gordon Holt had already started the movement that was to become Stereophile. JGH took the opposing view that our listening experience is what counts. Its nice if you can measure it but if you can’t that’s your problem not ours.

Stereo Review and the measurers owned the market back then. The market gave us amplifier wars, as manufacturers competed for ever more power with ever lower distortion. Until one day "measures great sounds bad" became a thing.

Could be a few here besides me lived through and remember this. If you are reading and if you were reading JGH back then I tip my hat to you, sir! I fell prey to Hirsch and his siren song that you can have it all for cheap and don’t really have to learn to listen.

But anyway like I was saying it was easy to believe the lie back then because it was so prevalent and also because what wire there was that sounded better didn’t really sound a whole lot better.

Now though even budget wire sounds so much better than what comes off a reel you’d have to be deaf not to notice. Really good wires sound so good you’d notice even if you ARE deaf! No kidding. My aunt Bessie was deaf as a stone but she could FEEL the sound at a high enough volume and recognize it as music. So literally deaf from birth aunt Bessie can hear better than some audiophiles.

Oh and not done beating the horse quite yet, according to my calendar its 2020, a solid 40 years past 1980. Stereo Review is dead and buried. Stereophile lives on. A whole industry built on wire not being wire thrives. Maybe the measurement people can chalk up from that just how many years, billions, they are in denial.

djones51
I guess you could say imagination playing tricks, or our biases confirming what we believe. I have a bias that cables that measure similar sound the same. In a sighted test even if the cables have been altered to obviously sound different I would think they sound the same in an unsighted test I might be able to hear differences. It’s just the way humans are wired, all of us.

>>>>Huh? Humans aren’t wired like that at all. Perhaps best to leave the psychological issues to the professionals. Woulda, shoulda, coulda! 🤗

@ glupson and djones51,

You can’t have it both ways..... You guys can’t require measurements to prove what some people say they hear from cables, and then turn around and use your opinions and theories why all cables don’t sound the same.

Not everything can be measured with testing equipment that exists today. So why don’t Cable companies invest money to invent the test equipment to prove to the minority of those that demand only testing can prove ICs and speaker cables don’t all sound the same? Or why Solid core wire ICs and speaker cables are directional? Because they don’t need to. The vast majority of buyers of their products know what they hear and really could care less the why. That’s also why the vast majority of people that can hear the differences don’t post on threads like this one. These type of threads always end up the same way.

John Curl said in an interview, (I’m paraphrasing), the ears are the best instrument for testing how something sounds. He said test equipment is used to try and figure out why something doesn’t sound right to the ears. Trust your ears, not test equipment. You know what the final piece of test equipment Audio Research Corp. uses to test their equipment before it goes out the door? The Warren test equipment. If it doesn’t pass the Warren test it goes back on the bench for testing to find out why it doesn’t sound right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5HNiAgWMuU


.