Has Anyone Found Shunyata Cables Sounding Thin?

Psag,

I forgot to comment on your other statements.

You stated that "People in audio often say 'trust your ears', as if that's the end of any and all arguments. I don't believe that to be the case."

The word audio comes from the Latin. It literally means "I hear." It seems to be putting things backwards to state that your cannot trust your ears when it comes to matters that ultimately concern nothing more than our hearing -- unless, of course, one's hearing is impaired.

And you stated that "My priority has been to use components in such a way as to convey the signal as it was recorded." In such a way? What way is that, exactly? Are you presuming that your way of using components, whatever that may be, is the only valid way of using components to "convey the signal as it was recorded"?

The signal is transduced into sound. How do you know what combination of elements will faithfully transduce the sound in all possible audio systems? Cables are just another element in the chain of electronic components that contribute to making the signal audible. Would you say an audiophile should not use a pre-amp -- and all the cables attached to it -- because it makes the signal path longer and therefore must introduce distortion into the signal and must therefore distort the sound?

And how about the addition of a power conditioner with filters? All power conditioners do not produce identical sound. One may fairly assume that distortion is one of the elements being produced by some of the power conditioners on the market. Are we to eschew the notion of using a power conditioner -- and all of the cables attached to it -- because some power conditions produce unacceptable distortion? Is the length of the signal path the ultimate deciding factor or is the sound the deciding factor -- or none of the above?

You started your discussion on this topic with a conclusion based on some sort of theory (that is not completely clear to me) that displaces the importance of the ears in an area where hearing is actually the most important thing. Your comments here reminded me of a post I read recently on a PS Audio forum:

"I do love the "I don't care what it sounds like, if it doesn't measure great it's crap. If it measures great then I have to buy it even if it sounds like crap because if it measures great it must be great." "Audiophiles"."

In your case it does not seem to be a matter of not measuring great. It seems to be a matter of not measuring up to some sort of theory -- some sort of mental measurement. In both cases the mind short-circuits the ears. I do not allow any mental intervention between the music and my ears. I let my ears make the audio decisions. After all, audio comes from the Latin. It literally means "I hear".

Psag,

You have stated "People in audio often say 'trust your ears', as if that's the end of any and all arguments. I don't believe that to be the case."

Audio comes from the Latin. It literally means "I hear". Rene Descartes said "cogito ergo sum" -- "I think therefore I am". In audio this would be the equivalent of "I think therefore I hear". I do not feel that anything should or can replace a good set of ears.

Psag, With all due respect your comment doesn't make sense(unless I misunderstand you).The entire point of having an audio system is to listen to music. We listen by using our ears(and brain processing). If we don't or won't rely on our ears what is the alternative? When you play music in your home how are you judging it's sound quality or determine if you enjoy it without listening? How are ears removed from the act of "listening" to music ? I just don't see your rationale.
Thanks,
Charles,

Sabai, I have abandoned the idea many years ago of what I call chaseing the cables by the tail syndrome, I have found running a full loom of a brand results to better sound for me, you may have different impressions, we all do in this hobby, if you believe that what you do, running cables in series is rare, well then, I got you beat, It has took me many years to come to my way of building, I use my cables as the reference, if a componet sounds forward on my cables, that componet is gone, if a componet does any thing I do not like with sound, that componet is gone, there are many ways to skin a cat here, my idea of building is against the masses entirely!, I have excellent results doing what I do here, cheers.

I agree that trust your ears can be misleading. We don't actually listen to music. Our ears (and to a far lesser extent, our bodies) pick up changes in air pressure which our brain then interprets as sound. The brain then processes certain sounds as music. Further processing in the brain categorizes the music into familiar archtypes and patterns. The key is that past experiences allows the brain to create internal models of "music" and the process of listening to music is comparing incoming sounds to these existing mental images of music. Effectively your brain is creating the music based upon external stimuli. As with nearly any human ability there's a variability within a population group and some people are better able to form mental models of music. Some people can instantly say whether it's Ben Webster or Coleman Hawkins, and others cannot. Some people can "hear" it's English horn and not an oboe.

What does this have to do with being an audiophile? Your system is a reflection of your mental model of what music should sound like. If you have a "good" mental model and further have the ability to assemble and setup an electronic system in your home that is close to your mental model, then other people of similar ability will say your system sounds good.

Trust your ears. Well, some people can trust their ears, but others should be working harder at developing better mental models of what they are hearing. On an internet forum such as this, it's near impossible to tell in which group a poster resides. This is particularly so when they don't list their system components.