A challenge to the "measurement" camp

speedbump6, with odd exception, I don't think anyone is doubting that personal preference is what matters or even suggesting otherwise, unless the discussion is about accuracy, then personal preference goes out the window.

But if nothing of audible significance happens in, say between two wires, then you will not prefer one or the other. Of course, it a cable is acting only as a tone control there are cheaper paths.

"I hate each Julie Andrews' film they've made
I'm just a nasty, narrow-minded jade
You think I might smile at it
I'm not a weak-willed hypocrite
I'll say
I'm bored..."

Thanks Viv....*S*

Hasn't this been beaten into sublimation already?  This all seems disturbingly familiar.....

Obviously something does happen in the cable that is of significance. Way too many people can clearly hear differences, it’s not mass hallucinations. Research theory actually does take things like that into account, and basically means that we have not found the proper way to measure something yet, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist because we have not. Of course it’s tone control, no doubt about that,  it so is each and every piece of equipment in the chain,  no matter how transparent. Which is why I don’t get why so many are against tone controls built into the preamps, as we obviously do prefer different sounds. But in the case of cables, some not only affect tones, but also background noise levels, stage, depth, etc. so tone alone isn’t the only difference, and of course all that varies greatly between the particular cables, and the particular equipment that they are attached to. Personally I wish I did not hear differences. My audio budget is pretty healthy,  it when you then have to think about adding the cost of cables, vibration control devices, ie stands, etc, that match the level of my audio equipment, I can easily double the costs. My budget is healthy, not unlimited. So it would certainly be great for me if I did not hear a difference, and the difference is such that I’ve spent great amounts to upgrade other equipment to achieve that level of difference, so I shouldn’t be willing to do that same for another step up equal to that step? I wish it weren’t true,  but I also cannot deny the facts of what I hear. I also believe some people don’t what to hear because of bias, and also I’m willing to ,bet there are those who claim they do, and really don’t. For those that really don’t, it’s a complete waste to spend. As long as the reason you can’t hear is not based on bias, I do not know the reasons why one can’t hear and another hears a great difference, but I’ve also seen someone sitting next to me that loves the way a competent sounds that I really think it’s very blah, and does nothing for me. He is obviously hearing something that I cannot to feel it’s special.ive had this happen with product that I went with the intention of purchasing after reading reviews. Just goes to show, reviews do help, but in the end only you can judge for you. It’s just not possible to hear most equipment first hand, so have to start somewhere

The problem speedbump, is that the controlled tests that have been done, and unfortunately there have not been a lot, are not very supportive of the theory there are easily noticeable differences between cables. My own work under contract in acoustics (speakers), showed we could swap cables and assuming level matching, differences were not noted. Customers (companies) would even bring in their latest toys and were disappointed to not reliably detect differences.

It may not be obvious across my posts, but I have said that I am not advocating the cheapest speaker cables, and that design does matter to a point and it takes a level of cost to get there, but that cost is really quite low, and does not require exotic wire, exotic materials, exotic connectors, etc.  I truly believe that if silver was the color of copper and copper was the color of silver, people would claim copper sounded "brighter". The power of self suggestion is strong, people extend that claim to digital cables even though there is no correlation in properties. Ditto when people say a cable is "fast" or totally expanded my sound-stage. No, you probably just had dirty contacts or a loose connection but that is a harsh reality to accept. I could make a speaker cable that acted as a tone control, but it would be cheaper to use a few $ of passives. This is just speaker cables.  When you get into interconnects, even though the signal levels are low, the relatively high output and input impedance compared to the cable properties means the cable, exception for noise rejection, has even less room for vendor / vendor differences though that does not stop them from making up reasons, all which sound good, and if true, would actually be pretty easy to measure, but they never do, just like they never do public controlled listening tests.