The Great Cable and Interconnect Swindle: An Etiology

[esldude]

O.K. Just been onto the Nordost site. You dont have to go far to know you have just run into more of the same old crap. Read the first download link for example. Its laughable stuff.

 

Well, the download New Approaches to Audio measurement is the main one I was referring to.

 

The most laughable of all is "Foundation Theory". You thought you might read about the foundations of their theory on new audio measurment, with an explanation perhaps? Silly Rabbit, tricks are for kids. You get a picture of a shaky equipment stand that needs a good foundation. The text and remaining pictures go downhill from there.

 

And you may or may not have noticed Prufrock, but their finest products have Quantum field generator boxes. No wonder they cost more than $10k per meter.

 

Then one paper is rather insulting as it decries the rapidly inflating cost of high end audio offering their own products to truly make such investments in resources worthwhile. Only someone wanting to be conned could buy that one.

[50000]

Julf, get his article and read it, for it's obvious from your comment you haven't. In his first four articles, Bateman demonstrates distortion spectra of various film dielectrics. In the fifth, he speaks to electrolytics. The simple fact that Bateman's measured results confirmed years of listening tests shows the power of subjective listening. And fwiw, neither I nor Bateman claim that Bateman's measured results fully account for audible differences between capacitors. They don't.

[50000]

Sorry, he talks about capacitors. What does it have to do with cables?

 

Cables suffer the same dielectric effects as capacitors. Do some research on high voltage transmission cable dielectrics and you'll have your answer.

[esldude]

to Barrows,

 

I can see how Nordost would have a low budget with overworked, underpaid employees since they only charge $10k per meter or more for their good cables (sometimes lots more). Also if I had a minimum wage employee that put up a PDF with fuzzed images like that I would fire him if he didn't fix it. Further, lets get real here. If Nordost would send me the PDF with the clear images, I could fix it in 5 minutes and send it back to them. I would do it for one of their cheaper cables in payment. Low budgets and busy employees are not why that PDF has unreadable graphs.

[Julf]

To me, the beauty of testing and measuring is that they provide a means to determine the way forward, in the direction of better sound. I realize some trial-and-error is absolutely necessary, but I figure the more guiding principles I have to go by, the sooner I can make the right decisions and get back to the music. Are esldude's tests perfect? Is Julf's idea for the listening survey completely foolproof? I'm sure either would acknowledge that they're not. But they're a start at examining the issue in a rational way, of "nibbling away at it." To me, discouraging this kind of exploration, and thereby rejecting the possibility that it could lead to some useful, practical information, is problematic in a "dark" way.

 

Maybe there is a sub-cult of audiophiles who believe in some sort of Tinkerbell effect - that if not enough people believe in cables, tweaks and other audiophilia, the magic might die. The magic needs to be protected from the evil EE's with their oscilloscopes, frequency analyzers and other satanic mills....

[esldude]

I can assure this was not apparent at the presentaions, which were precise, and clear.

Okay, Barrows, so what were the difference signal levels? How were they referencing the timing issues they talk about?

[Julf]

It does seem tiresome that the effect of the dialetric on cable sound is not accepted by many skeptics...

 

Cable Distortion and Dielectric Biasing Debunked

[Julf]

Do some research on high voltage transmission cable dielectrics and you'll have your answer.

 

One of the reasons I prefer solid state to tubes is that I try to stay away from high voltage transmission cables.

[barrows]

"Sorry, he talks about capacitors. What does it have to do with cables?"

 

Julf: a cable is a capacitor: two conductors, separated by a dialectric.

 

On the Nordost Quantum boxes, there is a whole thread on this site about those, and how they might work. Some pretty heady audio EEs weigh in with some quite interesting speculative theories. If one is open minded and willing to learn something I would suggest checking it out. I have never tried them, so have no opinion on whether they work or not. Clearly the tech is proprietary, and as such Nordost/Quantum are not going to explain exactly what they do, hence the "marketing speak" descriptions.

[esldude]

Maybe there is a sub-cult of audiophiles who believe in some sort of Tinkerbell effect - that if not enough people believe in cables, tweaks and other audiophilia, the magic might die. The magic needs to be protected from the evil EE's with their oscilloscopes, frequency analyzers and other satanic mills....

 

Julf,

 

You say this as if mass power of belief has no real effect.

 

Perhaps you have watched the movie Avatar. Remember the scene around the sacred tree where all the people connected via natural fiber optic cabling lend their belief to contact the great mother spirit of Eywa? What more proof do you need?

[barrows]

Cable Distortion and Dielectric Biasing Debunked

 

Too bad this was published at a site with "A/V" in its title, that is always a non-starter for me. Good that Bruno admits to hearing the differences in cables though, even though he cannot seem to measure them. Do note that his company is now offering high end cables for sale ;-)

[esldude]

Yeah no reason to trust any idea coming from an A/V site. Besides what would high frequency or dielectric absorption have to do with video signals anyway?

[barrows]

delete

[4est]

delete

 

My sentiments exactly! I've done this repeatedly lately...

[Julf]

Too bad this was published at a site with "A/V" in its title, that is always a non-starter for me.

 

Appreciate and admire your open-minded intellectual curiosity.

[barrows]

Actually I trust Bruno Putzeys quite a bit, he is a very bright guy. Here is a quote from his article linked by julf:

 

"It shows that people who claim that cables do not make a difference are plainly deluding themselves."

 

Additionally, in this article he measures difference in phase between cables, and admits that the dialetric effect is a real issue for cables. What the article "debunks" is that active dialetric biasing is a cure for dialectric effects-in fact, in his opinion, actvie biasing actually causes more problems than it solves.

[Julf]

Perhaps you have watched the movie Avatar. Remember the scene around the sacred tree where all the people connected via natural fiber optic cabling lend their belief to contact the great mother spirit of Eywa? What more proof do you need?

 

Perhaps the people in Avatar had blue faces because they had been debating cables too long?

[barrows]

Appreciate and admire your open-minded intellectual curiosity.

 

Hey, I still read the complete article. Do you know how much Bruno charges for his cables?

[esldude]

Perhaps the people in Avatar had blue faces because they had been debating cables too long?

 

You may be onto something there. Remember they had a poisonous atmosphere. Perhaps the cable debate burned up all the oxygen, and divine intervention along with a less developed non-technical lifestyle saved those that remained. The naturally occurring carbon fiber was probably from genetic experiments before that. And the fiber optic cable just left over stuff Eywa made use of.

[50000]

Btw, if anyone wants some good Nordost digital or analogue cable, try making your own from excellent cable stock, like this cable on sale at Upscale Audio:

 

Nordost Silver Screen S-Video cable CLOSEOUT SPECIAL! - Upscale Audio

 

Nordost's video cables look to me to compete with their best on specifications, materials and design (lowest k).

[Jud]

But with interconnects there simply appears to be no reason that anything audible is happening and that should reinforce the idea you also doubt your ears. It bears investigating and it might be someone will come up with something. My best idea now is there is nothing there beyond my ears getting fooled.

* * *

So the murky, messy, in-between area is fascinating and requires some different practical or philosophical way to deal with it. If you assume all hearing abilities are completely understood it makes it simple, but in fact we know that isn't the case. On the other hand much is understood and shouldn't be dismissed either. We can say the same for technical considerations. Much is understood, but not everything.

 

As usual you nail it pretty well.

 

What were the db-down levels that have provisionally convinced you there's no objective reality to cable differences? Are they greater, less than, or in the same general range as the levels mentioned in the following quotes?

 

-Exporting to 24-bit PCM WAV format may be dithered with a peak dither level of around -130 dB

 

-Exporting to 16-bit PCM WAV format may be dithered with a peak dither level of around -80 dB

 

Random numbers...translate to random noise (hiss) when converted to analog. The amplitude of this noise is around 1 LSB, which for 16 bit lies at about 96 dB below full scale. By using dither, ambience and decay in a musical recording can be heard down to about -115 dB, even with a 16-bit wordlength. Thus, although the quantization steps of a 16-bit word can only theoretically encode 96 dB of range, with dither, there is an audible dynamic range of up to 115 dB! The maximum signal-to-noise ratio of a dithered 16-bit recording is about 96 dB. But the dynamic range is far greater, as much as 115 dB, because we can hear music below the noise.

 

The first quote is from the Audacity wiki on dither, the second from the Digital Domain site's page on dither.

[Julf]

Here is a quote from his article linked by julf:

 

"It shows that people who claim that cables do not make a difference are plainly deluding themselves."

 

Could we maybe quote the whole passage?

 

"To recap: to make cables disappear from the sonic equation, all that is needed is balanced transmission combined with sub-1ohm output impedance line drivers. I would like to propose this as a standard for audiophile equipment makers.

It shows that people who claim that cables do not make a difference are plainly deluding themselves. On the other hand, those that say that cables should not make a difference, are dead right."

 

Let's also quote the first part of the page:

 

"Recently I've done a collection of measurements and tests on interconnect cables to see what I could find that would explain the sonic differences that many people, including myself, have grown accustomed to hearing. The test equipment was an Audio Precision System 2 Cascade. Test objects were a handful of cables of varying construction and claims to audiophile performance.

• Distortion: Not only sine wave, but also extremely complex full-spectrum multitone testing (including signal sequences derived from actual music). There were NO differences between the cables tested.
  
• Phase noise: While this would have shown up anyway in the above tests, it was separately checked at frequencies well above the audio band. Nothing showed up .
  
• "Micro phase shifts": The AP2's resolution is so good you can read the length of a cable to within a few inches by measuring the phase difference between input and output. Apart from this, nothing turned up.
  
• In-Out difference. Actually, two different cables of equal length were fed the above distortion test signals in opposite phase. The two outputs were summed through a trimmable network to null the output. Well, the output nulled completely (better than 120dB across the audio band).
  

In short, apart from a constant time delay of a few nanoseconds (depending on length), an interconnect will have the same voltage at its output as at its input."

 

The funny thing is that I agree with you on many points. Yes, I do think the inductance and capacitance of analog cables *can* make an audible contribution. I do think that they are a very bad instrument for "tuning" a system, and that a well-designed system should be impervious to the effects of the cable (and definitely not need a cable to control oscillation etc.). What I resent is the way "high-end" cable manufacturers don't talk about those things, but instead dress up their cables with pseudo-scientific terminology and voodoo.

 

Even more relevant to this thread is that the fervent, fanatical advocating of a few "true believers" here has really made me question even the effects I had until now acknowledged. If the effects are for real, why do they need such desperate, fanatical defending? And why are people so strongly against trying to measure and understand those effects?

[sjoc2000]

"Even more relevant to this thread is that the fervent, fanatical advocating of a few "true believers" here has really made me question even the effects I had until now acknowledged. If the effects are for real, why do they need such desperate, fanatical defending? And why are people so strongly against trying to measure and understand those effects?" Julf

 

Because, they don't want to be wrong, orrrrrrrr, they want to be right. Simplistic, yep, and covers the whole subject, although I am enjoying the discussion on impedance in audio cables. :0)

 

enjoy the music, have fun...

 

Jim

[50000]

Julf, if your swipe was intended for me, I'm personally not against measuring. In the realm of audio, measurement and listening is an iterative process that cannot be separated---measure-listen-measure-listen ... Yet the ultimate end of measuring and reducing audible distortions boils down to a single question: at the end of such process, how does the device under test sound? Bruno has for his part performed a wonderful service by reducing distortions in his amplifier line---with help along the way from all those diy types who have contributed, measuring- and other-wise, to the development of his products. What really gets people excited about his new product, quite rightly, is its sonic performance, which can only be experienced. That is as it should be.

 

Some years ago I spoke with an engineer at Emm Labs about the dielectric k of circuit boards they use. The engineer thought my concerns were unfounded, yet I now see that the better of new Emm products now use a circuit board material that reduces dielectric losses (read: distortions). The Acko ESS DAC, for its part, uses a teflon circuit board that probably helps push its performance beyond that attained by the Buffalo line. And for my part, I once ordered a Hynes supply, his premium version, which uses a teflon board. Jonathan Carr's now defunct Lyra line used point to point wiring without insulation to avoid dielectric nonlinearities. Etc.

 

I don't see why these matters are controversial. Every conductor interacts with any dielectric it contacts through space-charge transfer, which generates distortion through the many nonlinear interactions that occur. Typical circuit-board k is in the range of 7, which creates a capacitor between circuit traces and ground planes considerably worse than Mylar (k of 3), which is a horrible dielectric.

 

The magnitude of a given dielectric-induced distortion may be small, but there is in my mind no theoretical objection to the reality of any such distortion. Is there really anyone here who disputes that dielectrics interact nonlinearly with electrical charge?

[prufrock]

 

Even more relevant to this thread is that the fervent, fanatical advocating of a few "true believers" here has really made me question even the effects I had until now acknowledged. If the effects are for real, why do they need such desperate, fanatical defending? And why are people so strongly against trying to measure and understand those effects?

 

Its a hard one isn't it. I do actually empathise with them. They genuinely do hear these things. They are not trying to con anybody. Yet they continually have to deal with people like us telling them that they shouldn't be hearing what they do. I would guess that there is almost certainly a physiological counterpart to what they are hearing - created by expectation and a myriad other factors in this whole debacle.

Its a very challenging thing to tell someone that they are "imagining things." It has medical connotations, i.e delusions, hallucinations, etc, that most people would find very unwelcome. I have nursed in mental health for around 25yrs (mostly treating schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and personality disorders) and have to do this on a daily basis. We call it reality testing. It is difficult and rarely effective, even for those with some insight. Their hallucinations and delusions are completely real to them and there is little you can do to convince them otherwise.

The cable "phenomenon" has nothing whatever to do with the medical conditions mentioned above btw. IMO, it is more in a stable alongside all the other cults, movements, sects that have gone off on a tangent from normal scientific/rational thought yet survive and prosper due to the weight of numbers effect and other individual facilitating factors.