USB cable comparisons

[pkane2001]

47 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

IMO, there is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning. It assumes that the experiences reported are in isolation, i.e. not shared by others. When many people otherwise unrelated repeatedly report the same characteristics, there is a body of empirical evidence upon which one may rely. 

 

Yes, the phenomenon is very well known and studied. Most of the millions that purchased the original snake oil elixir thought it cured their ills, although it contained nothing more than some mineral oil with flavoring. There's no safety in numbers, I'm afraid.

[Allan F]

22 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Yes, the phenomenon is very well known and studied. Most of the millions that purchased the original snake oil elixir thought it cured their ills, although it contained nothing more than some mineral oil with flavoring. There's no safety in numbers, I'm afraid.

 

Hackneyed rhetoric adds nothing to the discussion.

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, Allan F said:

 

Nothing but rhetoric that adds nothing to the discussion.

 

It was a response to your own rhetorical statement. Take it for what it's worth.

[Sal1950]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

This is a completely non-relevant analogy.  In fact, it is not analogous at all.  A magician starts out with the intent to deceive, to trick, there is no intent to deceive anyone when evaluating audio components.

There certainly is in the cable manufacturing business as has been proven a couple of times now.  (AQ's faked HDMI video,  Nordos power cable show demo, etc.) And in the High End media who's income is so dependent on the advertising revenue from the snake-oil cable industry. Got to claim they hear ever better sonics from the more and more hideously expensive cables. Ridiculous!

[barrows]

5 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

There certainly is in the cable manufacturing business as has been proven a couple of times now.  (AQ's faked HDMI video,  Nordos power cable show demo, etc.) And in the High End media who's income is so dependent on the advertising revenue from the snake-oil cable industry. Got to claim they hear ever better sonics from the more and more hideously expensive cables. Ridiculous!

Sorry, you are wrong.  I have worked in the home audio industry for quite a few years now, and have no experience of anyone attempting to trick anyone.  Audio companies engage in making the best products they can, which are made in an attempt to improve audio performance, you are just making up a conspiracy theory here.

[rickca]

1 minute ago, barrows said:

you are just making up a conspiracy theory here

It's a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy theory.

[Jon47]

Stop feeding the trolls!  You stop feeding and this thread can get back to speaking about cables!

[Allan F]

31 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

It was a response to your own rhetorical statement. Take it for what it's worth.

 

I did.... "nothing"!

 

[Sal1950]

12 minutes ago, barrows said:

Sorry, you are wrong.  I have worked in the home audio industry for quite a few years now, and have no experience of anyone attempting to trick anyone.  Audio companies engage in making the best products they can, which are made in an attempt to improve audio performance, you are just making up a conspiracy theory here.

No conspiracy theories here,  just real events.

 

https://secure.campaigner.com/csb/Public/show/566i-qm2m6--hayzc-qy5nph8

 

[tmtomh]

8 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

A distinction without a difference!

 

 

Again, you seem to get it but then you don't. It is the most important "measuring device" because , in the final analysis, it is the only one that really counts. And that is because the whole purpose of the exercise is to produce the best sound for us to listen to and enjoy the music.

 

With respect, I don't know that you want to be telling others that they don't get it. The importance of our ears (aka our ear/brain listening perception) is beyond dispute - I agree 100% that it's the most important. But you are missing the important distinction that our ears are not the most important measuring device. I suppose one could say our ears are the most important measuring device if one is talking about measuring aural enjoyment - but even then the point is not to measure our enjoyment, but rather to experience enjoyment.

 

Truly, I am not trying to be pedantic. Rather, words mean things, and they mean things for a reason. And if we confuse or equate measurement, perception, and experience, then we can't communicate meaningfully (or at least precisely) about this stuff. And that was sort of the point i was trying to make.

 

And so - once again - if you feel your system sounds better with one USB cable vs another, by all means enjoy that, and by all means share your experience here. But if, based on that perceptual experience (not to mention based on an extremely small sample size with no proper control) you claim that USB cables make a difference and that certain models are better than other models, then you're going to get push-back.

 

I'm not sure how else to say it - your experience and perceptions of a USB cable do not have to be false in order for me to express doubt and skepticism that I would have the same experience as you if I tried it.

[mansr]

36 minutes ago, barrows said:

Sorry, you are wrong.  I have worked in the home audio industry for quite a few years now, and have no experience of anyone attempting to trick anyone.  Audio companies engage in making the best products they can, which are made in an attempt to improve audio performance, you are just making up a conspiracy theory here.

That's rich coming from the man peddling magical, sound-enhancing "dark matter" blocks.

[Juanjo]

One thing for sure: from the last posts I can see nobody understand what "USB CABLE COMPARISONS" meant.

[jabbr]

2 hours ago, Allan F said:

 

IMO, there is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning. It assumes that the experiences reported are in isolation, i.e. not shared by others. When many people otherwise unrelated repeatedly report the same characteristics, there is a body of empirical evidence upon which one may rely. Those experiences may be communicated and may have as much reliability as any objective measurements. While there is no guarantee that you will hear the same thing, making decisions based on numerous reports by people who have earned your trust is far better than taking a stab in the dark. It is trite to repeat the simple truth that measurements do not necessarily correlate with what we hear.

 

Err ... no ... there is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning. Shared experiences do not form "empirical evidence" in the sense that scientists use this term of art. Your are a lawyer right? Suppose I were to assert that the millions of people who are exposed to the news about a crime form an opinion and share it. This does not mean that the accused is "guilty" in the way that the legal system uses the term "guilty". Perhaps use a different term than: "empirical evidence", lets just use "shared experience"

 

The flaw however: "group think", caused the Salem Witches to be hung or crushed to death and on and on with many examples over the years, which is why scientific reasoning evolved, and we can now safely fly in a plane, or drive over a bridge or in a tunnel. (i'm just giving a legal analogy to try and help you understand, there might be other more appropriate ones)

 

So no, group think about shared experiences does not have the reliability of objective measurement. Not in audio, or anywhere in where engineering matters. Of course your preference in art or music itself has nothing to do with objective measurement, that's purely subjective.

[look&listen]

19 minutes ago, jabbr said:

group think about shared experiences

Sorry, but you confuse 'thought', 'opinion', 'preferences', & 'perceptions' - different concepts. 

 

Think your argument not hold up for shared 'perceptions'.

[Allan F]

1 hour ago, tmtomh said:

 

With respect, I don't know that you want to be telling others that they don't get it. The importance of our ears (aka our ear/brain listening perception) is beyond dispute - I agree 100% that it's the most important. But you are missing the important distinction that our ears are not the most important measuring device. I suppose one could say our ears are the most important measuring device if one is talking about measuring aural enjoyment - but even then the point is not to measure our enjoyment, but rather to experience enjoyment.

 

Truly, I am not trying to be pedantic. Rather, words mean things, and they mean things for a reason. And if we confuse or equate measurement, perception, and experience, then we can't communicate meaningfully (or at least precisely) about this stuff. And that was sort of the point i was trying to make.

 

And so - once again - if you feel your system sounds better with one USB cable vs another, by all means enjoy that, and by all means share your experience here. But if, based on that perceptual experience (not to mention based on an extremely small sample size with no proper control) you claim that USB cables make a difference and that certain models are better than other models, then you're going to get push-back.

 

I'm not sure how else to say it - your experience and perceptions of a USB cable do not have to be false in order for me to express doubt and skepticism that I would have the same experience as you if I tried it.

 

With respect, you are being pedantic. The word "measure" has different meanings, depending on the context. And I am talking about "measuring aural enjoyment". You are entitled to your interpretation of words, but your definition of "communicating meaningfully" is, IMO, unjustifiably and/or unnecessarily limited. I am perfectly comfortable with push-back as it is not going to change many years of repeated experiences, supported by like experiences of many others. You are, of course, free to express any doubts or skepticism that you choose.  But, apparently, your skepticism - please forgive me for saying closed mind - precludes forming a conclusion based on actual listening to see if you have the same experience.

 

Anyhow, I see no point in pursuing this discussion any further as I believe the opposing views have been thoroughly canvassed and exhausted, never to be joined. I am going to retire to my living room to listen to music. Bye.

[jabbr]

10 minutes ago, look&listen said:

Sorry, but you confuse 'thought', 'opinion', 'preferences', & 'perceptions' - different concepts. 

 

Think your argument not hold up for shared 'perceptions'.

 

Sorry "shared experiences" or "shared perceptions" or whatever does not form "empirical evidence" in the scientific sense. Its not the same no matter how much you want it to be, or how many people say it is. The danger of allowing scientific conclusions (which are based on scientific evidence) to be drawn by a vote is that we deny "climate change".

 

If you are trying to optimize your own listening enjoyment, or perhaps viewing enjoyment, you can talk with your friends, and decide that you like a certain album or perhaps the artist Van Gogh. Perhaps a certain album or painting might be the greatest of all time. That's fine. Just don't think that you can casually call that "empirical evidence" in the scientific sense of the meaning.

[jabbr]

12 minutes ago, Allan F said:

With respect, you are being pedantic. "Measure" has many different meanings, depending on the context. And I am talking about "measuring aural enjoyment".

 

"measurement" is a simple term that has a simple definition: just look to a dictionary or let's say Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement

 

You aren't "measuring aural enjoyment" unless you assign a number or unit to the degree of enjoyment. You are describing your experience of aural enjoyment. Words have meaning. In any case I responded because you claimed:

 

Quote

IMO, you have a fundamental flaw in your reasoning

 

You should know that two people could use perfectly good reasoning, yet assume widely different meanings to the terms, and come to widely different conclusions. We have developed languages with accepted terms so that we can have shared meanings. Perhaps by "flaw" you mean "greatness"? Perhaps by "true" you mean "false"? Nonsensical discussion.

 

This isn't pedantic, its basic.

[look&listen]

23 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Sorry "shared experiences" or "shared perceptions" or whatever does not form "empirical evidence" in the scientific sense. Its not the same no matter how much you want it to be, or how many people say it is

Remind me of Sheldon ('Big Bang Theory' TV) arguing with Amy about which science dominant. He only know and see everything thru, Physics & Math. Part idiot/savant (extreme geek!), part testosterone. Caricature for TV sit-com, but contain core truth of more then few CA characters.

 

Please do not forget many (more?) useful tools from so-called 'soft' sciences!

[tmtomh]

39 minutes ago, Allan F said:

 

With respect, you are being pedantic. The word "measure" has different meanings, depending on the context. And I am talking about "measuring aural enjoyment". You are entitled to your interpretation of words, but your definition of "communicating meaningfully" is, IMO, unjustifiably and/or unnecessarily limited. I am perfectly comfortable with push-back as it is not going to change many years of repeated experiences, supported by like experiences of many others. You are, of course, free to express any doubts or skepticism that you choose.  But, apparently, your skepticism - please forgive me for saying closed mind - precludes forming a conclusion based on actual listening to see if you have the same experience.

 

Anyhow, I see no point in pursuing this discussion any further as I believe the opposing views have been thoroughly canvassed and exhausted, never to be joined. I am going to retire to my living room to listen to music. Bye.

 

I agree that the opposing views have been pretty clearly articulated and well-rehearsed here.

 

I do, however, feel it's important to note that "measuring aural enjoyment" absolutely is possible to do. But even putting aside for a moment @jabbr's excellent point that listening and enjoying is not the same thing as measuring enjoyment - if you were to measure enjoyment, that does not tell us what the cause of that enjoyment is. For that we'd need to measure something else And that, once again, is my point.

 

If there are measurements that corroborate your experience that one particular USB cable is better than another, then great. If there potentially measurements that could corroborate that experience, but we don't yet know what those measurements are, I certainly am open to that.

But what I am not open to, is simply deciding or agreeing these yet-to-be-discovered measurable characteristics must exist solely on the basis of your reported experience. The reason I am not prepared to simply take you at your word is because, given the evidence available to me (and I would say available to us all as a group), there are other factors that are as likely or more likely to play a role, like confirmation bias, variations in human listening perception, variations in sonic taste, poor human aural memory of find details, cross-sensory perception and so on.

 

 

Reasonable people can disagree about the relative likelihood of these competing potential explanations (human perceptual issues vs as-yet-unknown USB cable characteristics). But it's nothing more than self-serving and close-minded of you to call someone close-minded simply because they are not ready to dismiss one of those two possible explanations in favor of the other one.

 

[mansr]

25 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Perhaps by "flaw" you mean "greatness"? Perhaps by "true" you mean "false"? Nonsensical discussion.

In another thread I was informed that "liberal" now means "fascist." There seems to be a pattern here.

[tmtomh]

53 minutes ago, look&listen said:

Sorry, but you confuse 'thought', 'opinion', 'preferences', & 'perceptions' - different concepts. 

 

Think your argument not hold up for shared 'perceptions'.

 

Actually, that's not true. We humans are highly suggestible, and that suggestibility is not limited to what we say or think - it also impacts our perception.

 

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

I do, however, feel it's important to note that "measuring aural enjoyment" absolutely is possible to do.

Using a plethysmograph?

[Ralf11]

14 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 In short, YES! t

 Added electrical noise can often add "grittiness" to the  sound, and in some cases be perceived as added HF detail. (FALSE HF detail)

 

Sandy, did you see the sibilance posts & glare posts on a different thread 1-2 days ago?  Maybe grittiness fits in there as well...

[scottyfree111]

Thank you reverendo, and I hope those who support the all cables sound the same group find another place to comment. That being said, I had the opportunity recently to compare 6 different USB cables on my Schiit Yiggy DAC. They all sound different from each other and it is difficult to pick a clear winner.

 I am fortunate to have an excellent vinyl playback system featuring the Lyra Etna cartridge and I am quite sensitive to digital anomalies and greatly prefer analog. So in my system the Wireworld Platinum and Wywires Diamond beat out the top cable from Sablon. I just found them to be more natural or organic sounding with excellent timbre. The Cardas and Audioquest offerings didn't work for me and lacked the dynamics of the other favourites. Just before I decided to keep the Wywires a friend lent me his reference USB, the Photon from Pranawire. I have long respected Pranawire powercords and have a pair in my system, as well as their excellent Linebacker GP which is a game changer! So from the first seconds of inserting the Photon into my system, everything changed for the better. I was prepared to spend up to 2 grand for my USB cable, but to find one less than half of that makes me happy. Music emerges from the blackest of black backgrounds and dynamics and bass weight are outstanding. Soundstaging is bettered only by my vinyl rig. I have the T-Ref speakers and they are very revealing. I trust my ears and am ordering the Photon USB. Anyone else have experience with this cable?

[Jking]

https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data Sheets/Phoenix Contact PDFs/1654853.pdf

 

I like these German USB cables.  They use Firewire cable and are as listed CAT7 for USB 2.    Be nice to be able to compare data sheets between this and  a cable that has be designed for audio.  These are around $65.