Who says cables don't make a difference?

I am sorry I just ran over the speedbump, but the topic of this thread is, "Who says cables don’t make a difference?"

After 9 pages, that still seems to be lost on you. Who says? I say (and others), but most don’t have the experience and hence the confidence to back that statement up, and qualify it as required.

Cleeds was just attempting to invent a psychological theory (where the opposite is usually true), as opposed to considering that perhaps, just perhaps, expectation bias is a bigger issue than most want to believe.


Who says cables don't make a difference? ..... is this not a call out to challenge the notion that cables do make a difference.  Otherwise just make a post called, "Love fest for cable differences", and be honest.

roberttdid

You just raised pedantic to a whole new level.

If you think the presentation of facts is pedantry, then you’re confused. Here’s an example of pedantry:
roberttdid

Let me type this slowly so that it is totally clear. I have run many blind tests ...

Do you see the difference?

It’s hard to put bias into a test process that involves nothing more than swapping cables ...

Actually, it’s very easy to introduce bias into a test itself. There are mountains of information on this and I’m surprised that you don’t understand that. (I suspect that you do understand the nature of biased testing, and that you just prefer to not have to address it.)

Remember what is being tested. What is being tested is that the person making the claim of (usually) a readily apparent audible difference is able to actually perceive in a blind situation the difference.

Again, you are confused. A proper double-blind listening test does not test the listener, it tests the device under test (DUT). You cannot scientifically test for two things at the same time.

If you want to test a listener, engage an audiologist. That’s what they do.

If you want to make your blind cable test even more meaningful, you’ll want subjects that think cables make a difference as well as those who don’t think cables make a difference. And if you’re really ambitious, you’ll also include some listeners who don’t care - or have no opinion - one way or the other. The last blind test that I participated in years ago did just that, and it made the results even more interesting.

@roberttdid if you are really serious about conducting some blind tests, please provide us with some details about your plan.

The best tweak I have done recently is my periodic ear cleaning the other day. No audiophile should let that slide. At least as good as the right set of wires and ear cleaning kit is very inexpensive at your local drug store.

Cleeds,

You are being needlessly pedantic yet illustrating you have not actually done double blind testing and don't understand design of experiments.


If you want to test something, ideally you don't tell the people at all what they are even testing, and in some cases that can be controlled. Rarely it can. We are having a drug trial for a cancer drug but we are not going to tell the cancer patient its a cancer drug as they may be biased toward it working .... see how silly it sounds. We should also include people who don't have cancer :-)


And again, you are wrong. WE ARE testing whether an individual can reliably detect which of two cables is which. That is all. No more, no less. We are not testing two things at the same time. Wow, it's like you really don't understand design of experiments at all. The individual is making the claim They can detect it. They are not making the claim someone somewhere can detect it, they are making the claim They can detect it. Testing a large group of people would be meaningless, as it would only provide a statistical answer, not an exact answer for that person.


If I wanted to test in general whether a cable could possibly introduce an audible change, then yes, I would have to have a large number of test subject and it would only take one person within that group to reliably detect a change for the conclusion to be that it can be done, but if only one person did, I could claim on average most can't.   BUT .... I am not testing the cable, I am testing the audiophiles claim w.r.t. cables.

roberttdid

You are being needlessly pedantic yet illustrating you have not actually done double blind testing and don’t understand design of experiments ... And again, you are wrong ... Wow, it’s like you really don’t understand design of experiments at all ... Testing a large group of people would be meaningless, as it would only provide a statistical answer ...

@Roberttdid, I’d respond to your remarks, but it would be hopeless, because you could trot out another gem such as this:
roberttdid

Let me type this slowly so that it is totally clear. I have run many blind tests ...

Yes, clearly, "testing a large group of people would be meaningless." Worthless. Inconsequential. Of no value. Waste of time. Useless. Proves nothing. Bogus. Yields no data.

Please let us know if you actually plan to conduct such testing, rather than just insisting that others here do your work for them.