John Dunlavy On "Cable Nonsense"

JHunter wrote...

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Bear is up to his usual "debating" tactics. If decades+ of established acoustics
methodology and all the evidence (from scientifically valid testing) goes against
you, then just claim that the testers don't have a system with sufficient
resolution. Could you give us an example of a system that you feel does have
sufficient resolution? <--

I'm not sure what you mean, since I am relatively new here on Audiogon...

But, the published tests quote the systems that are used for the "testing." so it is fairly simple and easy to determine what level of resolution they are capable of.

As I have stated earlier, the limiting factors are: A) your hearing, B) the system and C) the source.

I have also said that it is far easier to hear very subtle
changes on an instantaneous basis when listening to PINK NOISE, as compared to *any* musical source. None of these tests involved any Pink noise.

HOWEVER, what counts in terms of long term listening is how much 'internal brain processing' is required for your concious to figure out what it is hearing! That is the difference between systems - nothing more.

It does NOT require a high-end system for you to recognize speech - a telephone is good enough. You can listen to a tiny 2" TV speaker and understand what is going on. Right?

So, the point that I make is that thus far the systems used for these tests are at minimum *questionable* in terms of ultimate quality and resolution, AND the source material is also questionable. SO, the conclusions drawn are valid ONLY for the specific TESTING that was done, nothing more.

JUST to exagerrate for clarity, IF the cable 'tests' were done with 2" TV speakers, it is very unlikely that anyone could possibly hear any differences, right?

This is clear.

As far as a "system" that I think has sufficient resolution, there are all sorts of candidates that I think would likely do the job. But, there is little point in quoting a list of components, as that is NOT the point at all. Needless to say, IMHO, none of these candidates were utilized in said published tests.

The point is to truly understand the limitations of published tests, and what they mean in reality.

Bear, by "internal brain processing", do you mean familiairity leads to recognition?

Ah, gotcha Bear. It's even more confusing in that we both use CAPS for EMPHASIS.

Doc Warnock, good point about practicality. I was geting carried away because I just finished a statistics course. I was all ready to wip out the null hypothesis, sample size, and a confidence interval...bunch a' greek letters too.
The point being that anecdotal evidence isn't really that strong, and enjoyable as they may be, these arguments can't be satisfactoraly settled without something more rigorus. Even then people would keep setting up straw men, flawed analogies, etc. so they won't have to change their comfy little outlooks.
Anyway, until I can at least try this stuff out properly for myself, I'm going to side with the skeptics and spend my resources elsewhere.

Grungle, do a simple test. Simply compare some standard 12 gauge "monster" type speaker wire to some Kimber 4PR in YOUR system. There should be no major difference as they are both reasonable gauge, low resistance conductors. You can do this regardless of the resolution of the system. If you can hear a difference, you've learned something. If you can't, get a better system. Just kidding... : )

Really though, most of us were skeptics to start off with. After all, to most people wire looks like wire and should sound like wire. Right ??? It is only after an "ear opening experience" that most of us became "hardcore believers". Believe me, as an electronics tech, i had a REAL hard time believing some of this stuff. If you can go back into the Audio Review website and dig through their archives, you would be able to find some VERY intense arguments that i was involved in regarding power cords. The funny thing is that i was prepared to go to my grave believing that they could NOT change the sonics of a system in any way. I absolutely KNEW for CERTAIN that changing a few feet of wire from the wall outlet to the component couldn't "fix" all of the other "bad wiring" running from pole to pole and within the house. After all, theory and common sense tells us this, right ???

Well, i have to say that i was WRONG ( even if Fonzy couldn't admit it, i can ). I did do some testing and DID find a difference. Does this mean that we need to throw the textbooks out ? Absolutely not. It simply means that maybe we don't know as much as we think we do. Or maybe it means that we aren't looking in the right direction or asking the right questions... Who knows. All i know is that ANY wire change has the capacity to alter the sonics of a system.

Don't get me wrong here. We are not saying that ALL wires sound DRASTICALLY different, but that differences ARE possible. Not all changes will make the system sound "better" or "worse". Sometimes they just sound "different" or sometimes they sound the same. As such, most of us have tried various cables in different locations of our systems, judged how we liked them, if we could notice benefits, decided if we wanted to keep them there or try them someplace else, remove them, etc... and then moved onto something else.

Don't rule things out unless you've tried them yourself and done so under several different circumstances. As a case in point, here's a simple analogy to think about. Just because your car doesn't "act up" at the time that you take it in for service doesn't mean that there isn't a "problem". Sometimes you just have to create the "right circumstances" for the situation to occur. Once that happens, the "change in performance" could be QUITE drastic and VERY noticeable. The same can be said for wire / cable changes within a sound system. Sean
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Bear -

2 points:

First, while you're new to Audiogon I've followed some of the many discussions on rec.audio.high-end between you and folks such as Dick Pierce and JJ. If I recall correctly, there was quite a thread involving the topic of system resolution.

Your argument would be stronger were there a number (say, anything more than 1) of double-blind test showing differences between cables of similar electrical characteristics; surely not ALL of the test systems are so inadequate??? Incidently, I believe that these systems have in fact revealed differences if the cables have grossly different properties, so the systems used can't be hopeless.

Second, from your post can I assume that you don't object to the basic double-blind test methodology? If so, it might be interesting to try it out on your system using a pink noise source. Have you given this a try?

Cheers,
JHunter