7500 for USED cables? Are they joking?

Can we trust Northwestern U? Link to recent auditory testing:

http://www.stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?1183

One of my favorite folks in audio is Lynn Olson, I quote

"The deepest challenge of designing high fidelity equipment is... reconciling the interior experience of listening with the technical world of measurements. If you can't reconcile the two, or insist that only one exists, you are flying blind. Since I've been designing system speakers for the last twenty years, I've spent much of that time finding associations between the perceptual experience and measurements. With so many possible analytic techniques (frequency response, group delay variation, inter-drive phase angle, polar response vs. frequency, cumulative waterfall display, IM distortion vs. frequency, etc), the hard part is deciding which set of measurements are the most significant." from "Finding Common Ground" at www.aloha-audio.com/library/findingsCG.html

The Article "Finding Common Ground" goes on to describe his findings using a spectrum analyzer that, he argues, undercut many of the common assumptions about distortion that have directed the development of audio for several decades. It's very nice and worth the read.

In any event, we have to reconcile the listening experience with measurements and I certainly do not think we have learned how to measure everything or that we measure the right thing all of the time. If we think we understand it all than we'll stop looking, eh? That being said, I fall on the side on the argument that measurments will tell us most of why wire does what it does and that a huge body of folklore and hype can be avoided with a little respect for EEs and very basic measurements. I use very inexpensive but well designed wire.

As the good Bishop notes, It's nice to have civil discussion on the topic without anyone calling the other deaf or naive.

Sincerely, I remain

Well, this is just like S-pile! A straightforward report on a nice piece of research involving training listeners to hear differences, and then a paragraph of pure tripe:

"Although small in scope, both studies lend credence to audiophiles' assertions that they can hear minor differences—such as those between amplifiers or CD players, devices with extremely small frequency-response discrepancies—and that the ability to do so improves with practice. The studies also call into question the validity of blind tests that do not account for the skills of the participants or provide a meaningful way for them to learn the sonic characteristics of the equipment or recordings being compared."

This research provides NO evidence that audiophiles or anyone else can hear the kinds of frequency response differences between typical solid-state amplifiers (which is not to say that all amps are indistinguishable). And anyone doing auditory research knows you have to train listeners (including audiophiles, who would need to be trained in detecting the particular differences under test).

Granted, not every DBT ever done has been accompanied by adequate training. But the only way to really discredit such efforts is to do a test where listeners ARE properly trained, and show that they can hear differences. And that, as people like me love to point out, ain't ever been done yet.

Well said Bomarc, but Spile has to accomodate it's advertisers, of course.

Bishopwill, it is certainly the knee-jerk reaction of 99% of "audiophiles" to completely reject the notion that they may fall prey to marketing hype, aesthetics, and popularity. Seems to be lots of hyperbole, i.e. "amp A has a MUCH LARGER soundstage than amp B" etc...,but never the willingness to have a friend over, relax with a drink [or not], and do some blind testing.

IMHO, pride can "get in your back pocket."

Charlie

Thanks Bishopwill for a little support. I have been an AudioGon member for some time. I too have been frustrated by the apparent attitude that some threads have. I finally stopped coming to these formus for probably more than a year because discussions are interesting and informative until they become personal.

I did qualify the link by saying more testing. Is it not a standard practice in scientific research to form a hypothesis during the testing phase to try and validate the question? Since there are two independent groups testing, this should help eliminate bias. Differences in solid-state electronics do occur from improper shielding and design which manifests itself as noise or non-linear operation within a specified range. CD players differ in sound at a minimum due to poor design (jitter). Is it being stated that a ladder DAC and a single-bit DAC produce the same output for the same input?

I would like to pose a few questions.

Do the folks making a living in recording, mastering, or reinforcement areas, claim we have all the measurements necessary to full characterize all aspects of wire performance?

Does anyone from group above understand the basic concepts of electromagnetic field theory. Why does Kimber braid his cable? What is the difference between CAT 3 and CAT 5 wire for networking (digital communication)?

Does the mathematics for line transmission theory applied to audio cable (i.e. a transmission line can be characterized as a LRC type of circuit) which implies a “Z” impendence or phase shift?

What is skin effect? What is a boundary condition is (signal reflection)? Why pieces of cable act as antennas? What is noise and do we care?

Why some manufacturers, use shielding, twisting, and passive filters on their wire? Would this not imply that different cables sound different simply by design? Pushing it a little, I know.

What are the measurable differences between silver, copper, and hybrids? Why wouldn’t these differences possibly be audible?

Thanks.