Suggestion: ban all cable debates

[wgscott]

The tone of this forum is really dragged down by all these stupid debates. It seems as if some posters have nothing better to do than to start threads to sneer at their fellow audiophiles. I don't think they even think of other audiophiles as "fellow" audiophiles, sharing a common hobby. Rather, a target of derision to be harassed and bullied. This is a good example. What purpose do threads like these serve? How does it benefit the community? Does it do anything but boost the narcissistic tendencies of those who endlessly create such threads? And why is it that they are not satisfied with only creating one - they have to do it over and over again.

 

This forum is called computer audiophile. There are plenty of other forums where these people can go and scorn those whom they perceive are inferior to them. I think it is time to get this forum back on track - discussion of computer based audio.

 

 

Let's take it one step further: Ban everyone you disagree with or don't approve of. Why not start by making a public list of people who do not hold acceptable opinions. It of course would be a great service to everyone, and could really help the audio-ideology police force to enforce your brilliant ban suggestion.

[wgscott]

There seems to be some contingents of posters that feel their path is the correct one, and it is their duty to protect and inform others they are lost without the guidance and inputs from their particular contingent.

 

Isn't that exactly what the OP's demand is all about, (but taking it one step further by banning discussion of an opinion he knows to be correct)?

[wgscott]

Older audiophiles are culturally less dogmatic (huh???) about the world and desire better things. Younger audiophiles culturally reject things out of their reach, and so have to create and support a dogma in order to reject the upper end of the audiophile hobby. That's why some of us are continually frustrated by others who refuse to even listen to the difference between high-end gear and entry level stuff.

 

So why don't we see similar debates regarding expensive vs. cheap speakers?

[wgscott]

We don't?

 

We don't seem to have any debates where one "side" says the laws of physics would have to be violated for one speaker to sound better than another. No one suggests that it is not possible for two well-made speakers to sound very different (unlike with various wires, files with identical checksums, and so forth). It is a fundamentally different sort of discussion, which really comes down to whether people think one speaker simply sounds better than another, or whether the price warrants the improvement, etc.

 

(I would much rather spend $5K upgrading my speakers than $5K on wire. With some careful shopping, I am pretty certain I could get a major and readily audible improvement in sound with better speakers, whereas I think the chances of improving my sound with more expensive (allegedly better) cables is extremely remote.)

[wgscott]

He came here with an explicit desire to squash opinions he see as contrary to his own. His concerns about "tone" are just window dressing for his intolerance.

 

Audiotaliban.

 

edit: Oh, I just noticed he singled out my thread! I'm popular.

[wgscott]

Well, maybe the snowflakes need a safe space.

[wgscott]

I thought this was a safe space...or was.

 

It is possible to debate or express a contrary opinion without being rude.

 

Most people who debate stuff aren't being rude (or at least are not intending to be rude).

 

It is funny that the OP cited a thread I started as an example of such thought-crimes he would like to see banned. In this particular instance, I found a funny photo of some grotesque-looking cables. From what I could see, people on both "sides" of the debate (the "sides" are really more like a continuum, but that kind of nuance just doesn't play as well on right-wing talk radio in Peoria) thought it was funny, because it was so extreme (both in diameter and appearance). There wasn't anything being debated in that thread, as far as I could tell.

 

Some people just like to get all butt-hurt over next to nothing, and then cry for more administrative or governing intervention. (Strangely, these often tend to be the same folks ridiculing the delicate liberal snowflakes and their alleged need for trigger warnings and safe spaces. This is what passes for discourse in 2017 in the US I guess -- although the OP originates from elsewhere.)

[wgscott]

How about banning any cable claim that does not use Maxwell's field equations??

 

As a Moderate, I am fine with either differential or integral mode (as long as they have separate bathrooms)

 

Can the magnetic vector potential have an effect upon sound quality in regions where the magnetic field itself is zero? I think we need a new sub-forum on the Ahronov-Bohm effect in audio.

[wgscott]

What you should also see from Jud's thread Poll: Where are you on the cable divide? is that the vast majority of members on CA believe that well constructed cables do make a difference to the sound

 

(a) Teresa is not Jud.

 

(b) If the cable believers are the "vast majority" and it is the sensible opinion, why are you so frightened of the small amount of dissent?

 

© Since you linked my thread in the OP, I can only assume your intent was to troll me and any others who happen to approach the topic with a bit of humor and skepticism. You need to get over yourself, and stop whining for intervention if you don't get your way.

 

(d) Please send Alex my best. We miss him.

[wgscott]

That's news to me. Can you give some citations to the scientific literature in cognitive psychology?

 

Oh, come on, that is so pre-2017. If you need an alternative fact, you just make it up, and scream at anyone who doesn't march in lockstep.

[wgscott]

OK, insulted again. Bye.

 

Well if one is on that extreme "side" of the debate, one don't have facts on one's own side (unless KellyAnne makes them up), so one has to engage in ad hominem attacks.

 

The way I look at it, his ranting and raving is a tacit admission that he is simply incapable of holding his own and has lost the debate. I, and many many others here, really appreciate your contributions and generosity with very helpful advice and music recommendations.

[wgscott]

Good, now let's all hold hands and sing kumbaya

 

[wgscott]

How about we ban troll threads devoid of humo(u)r?

[wgscott]

20 minutes ago, Danaudio said:

So guys who buy really expensive cables are imagining things and are dummies because scientifically it can't be proven, but it is ok to use software such as Audio Optimizer or debate USB vs hdmi etc. even though none of this can also be proven to help or be better than the other.

The same principle should apply. If one buys more expensive cables and hears a difference than on his system there is a difference. Just like if one of you add on AO and hear a difference then there is most likely a difference. Amazing how some of you think you know what others can and cannot hear.

 

I think those who suggest there is no audible difference with expensive cables also suggest there is no audible difference for many of the other things you list.

 

It is very easy for anyone to fool one's self with expectation bias, especially if one has made an investment in expensive cables.  But if one really can reliably hear differences under conditions that control for expectation bias (eg: double-blind tests), then, yes, those differences must really exist, ipso facto. Strangely, no one seems to be able to produce that kind of result.  If they did, most of us skeptics would shut up and go away.

 

This has nothing to do with arrogance.  Quite the opposite; it is about intellectual humility. In other words, one should be able to clearly and simply state under what conditions they would accept that they have been proven wrong.  The cable believers never do that.

[wgscott]

21 minutes ago, Jud said:

there could be a problem of false negatives.

 

There could be a problem with interpretation of negative results.  A negative result in that kind of double-blind test proves absolutely nothing, whereas a single positive statistically-valid and repeatable positive result would convince pretty much everyone that the cable skeptics are wrong.

 

A negative result just brings you back to the null hypothesis.

 

Publius

[wgscott]

2 minutes ago, elcorso said:

The "non believers" are based mostly in what they call science.  I wonder if they tried some of this cables, because all of them could be impossible (or very expensive).  I also wonder if they have all the best testing gear for this purpose (I mean testing equipment, not testing with their listening equipment).

 

No one argues about whether expensive speakers can sound better.  

 

What's the difference?

 

Basic physics doesn't contradict the assertion that two sets of speakers can sound audibly different.

 

Basic physics does contradict the assertion that two sets of cables with the same resistance, capacitance, conducting properties and that measure the same can sound different.

 

So only by special pleading (undiscovered or unmeasurable properties that nonetheless are audible to 60 year old men) can the assertion that the cables sound different be considered.  When the advocates of special pleading arguments then add to it by saying that these differences cannot be detected by a double-blind test, I tend to file these claims into the same bin that holds chemtrails and Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.

 

[wgscott]

4 minutes ago, GUTB said:

"Objectvists"....let's just be brutally, ultra real; that's just a polite term to describe a poor person (typically a have-nothing student living in a tiny prison cell apartment) who wants to participate in the hobby but wants to reject the upper end while satisfying their own egos. They don't WANT to listen to cables, because they aren't concerned about the fact of the matter, just satisfying a mindset. 

 

I can't afford Magicos, Luxman monoblocks and an MSB Diamond wired up with a Nordost loom. But I don't scoff at them, calling them overpriced jewelry for rich audiophools. One day, one day...

 

So really it is just a question of snobbery.  

 

That explains the pre-occupation with displaying cables on little elevator stands.

 

For only $580, I can get this for my bicycle's rear derailleur:

Only a bitter impoverished student wouldn't run right out and buy a pair.

[wgscott]

Just now, GUTB said:

Why won't you just listen to some cables? 

 

I prefer to listen to music (and ride my bike with the $15 Ultegra derailleur pulleys).

[wgscott]

1 minute ago, GUTB said:

 

Cable elevation isn't about presentation, but about vibration control.

 

So when you shake or vibrate a USB cable, can you hear it change the music?  Can you measure the change in frequency?

[wgscott]

15 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

Are you saying you don't WANT these?

 

 

No, I am reasonably content with the $15 stock ones that came with my low-brow, impoverished lumpenproletariat Di2 ultegra group.

[wgscott]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

 

What if the test always tells you you're not pregnant?  (OK, not you personally....)  Is the problem then with interpretation of the negative results, or with the validity of the test?

 

The thing about pregnancy is that it is objectively real, and can be measured using a simple ELISA pregnancy test.  We don't have to rely on a double-blind test, because everyone is in agreement that (a) pregnancy as a condition exists, and (b) it can be measured.

 

A double-blind test has nothing to measure except a contradiction of the null hypothesis (that cables with no measurable differences will sound identical).

 

Your jedi lawyer tricks no good here.

[wgscott]

Just now, Jud said:

 

A "Lumpenproletariat" bike sounds like a great brand to me, but where's there a tube long enough for the name?

 

This comes close:  http://surlybikes.com

[wgscott]

16 minutes ago, elcorso said:

 

"A 64-year-old woman has given birth to twins at a hospital in Spain becoming one of the world’s oldest new mothers."

 

She didn't get the ELISA pregnancy test because doctors said it was impossible she was pregnant...!

 

A science faillure?  

 

This is a really good example of the hazards of expectation bias, to which everyone is susceptible.  That is why they should have done the objective test.

[wgscott]

4 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Kind of pertinent, as I'm at a legal meeting/seminar in DC listening to members of the current administration.

 

I hope they provide you with a proper decontamination suite.

[wgscott]

36 minutes ago, Danaudio said:

WG still hasn't answered the question.

 

I could not hear a difference between my expensive speaker cables (purchased from Blue Jeans Cable*) and the cheap lamp cord wire I was using previously.

 

If there are audible differences, why is it no one can produce the measurements to back up the claim.  (Admittedly, differences can be measurable but not audible, but it is much harder to find examples of differences that are audible but not measurable.)

 

If, as you implore me to, I "listen to cables" and do hear a difference, but only if I know what cable I am listening to, what should I conclude?

 

 

* I bought this because I wanted something robust enough to put in the wall and under the floor.