Why!? Please Tell Me Why!

[beancounter]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

Try getting sound without a power cord.

 

Grab the anode with one hand, the cathode with the other, and FEEL the music

[mansr]

50 minutes ago, beancounter said:

Grab the anode with one hand, the cathode with the other, and FEEL the music

So that's what power cords like this one are for.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, mozes said:

I leave that to scientists. I know that it does. Just because it can’t be explained, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Well, in a lot of things, it kinda does. The physics behind conductors is a pretty mature science*. Technologists know what wire does in every mode that it is used. Science knows how it behaves at every frequency, at any length, at any temperature under the sun. So when wire is observed doing something unexpected or undocumented, that probably means there is something else at play. Unfortunately, in this particular case, there are no legitimate scientists studying this particular phenomenon because the scientific community does not believe the phenomenon exists. I'm just the messenger here. Don't get mad at me just because you don't like the message. 

 

*Mature technology or science - I'm sure that everyone has marveled at the fact that the Boeing B-52 Bomber is still in service with SAC in spite of the fact that the prototype first flew around 1952! There are instances where young pilots are sitting in the same cockpit that their grandfathers flew 50 years ago and the last B-52 rolled off the assembly line in 1958. Why is that? Why hasn't the B-52 been replaced? It's because the aerodynamics of a large, subsonic heavy carrier like that is a mature technology and if the Air Force decided to replace it, the replacement plane would be so much like the B-52 that there's simply no point in doing so as long as the structure of the existing planes remains air worthy. All that is needed is to keep upgrading the ancillary equipment such as the engines, the control interface, the avionics, and the weapons systems and the plane can be repurposed again and again. 

[sandyk]

41 minutes ago, mansr said:

So that's what power cords like this one are for.

 

Stupid is, as Stupid does !

 

 

[gmgraves]

50 minutes ago, mansr said:

So that's what power cords like this one are for.

is that a British Mains plug? Please answer me this. Why is there a male plug on both ends of that cable. I thought that was a no-no! I'll guarantee you that here in the US, that cable would not get an Underwriter's Laboratory certification! Somebody could get killed with that thing - especially at 220 Volts!

[beancounter]

45 minutes ago, mansr said:

So that's what power cords like this one are for.

 

Scary.  I once saw where a "handyman" rigged a generator backup for a (natural gas) hot water furnace using a double male cord.  "It just needs a little 120, just throw the breaker on the box in case the power comes back on, plug one end into the generator and the other into the same outlet the furnace is plugged into".

[sandyk]

8 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I'm just the messenger here. Don't get mad at me just because you don't like the message. 

 George

 Must you keep posting this " If I can't measure it, then you can't hear it" type  stuff" ?

The fact remains that many people worldwide are able to see and hear things, even things like ESP, that Science has yet to fully explain. Surely, in your early days, even you had weird instances of ESP with other family members, that you now dismiss ?

Identical twins are a good example of this type of phenomenon.

Alex

[mansr]

14 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

is that a British Mains plug? Please answer me this. Why is there a male plug on both ends of that cable. I thought that was a no-no!

Those are British mains plugs. I had some spare parts, so I made it to confuse visitors. The wires aren't actually connected in either end.

[Ralf11]

Yes, I am SURE that ESP is causing the differences in power cables that people "hear" when they have a lot of expectation bias.

 

The Princess can certainly hear these differences!

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, Ralf11 said:

Yes, I am SURE that ESP is causing the differences in power cables that people "hear" when they have a lot of expectation bias.

 

The Princess can certainly hear these differences!

 

 Like most members ,I was highly sceptical of this too, until at a GTG a couple of years ago, where Audiophile Neuroscience was also present,  the host demonstrated the use of  VERY expensive power cables plugged into a cheap Bunnings Hardware powerboard under NON sighted conditions, that powered a pair of big Nelson Pass Class A monoblocks.

All present reported hearing a small improvement when using these cables.

[GUTB]

Sub-atomic particles are observed to act as a particle and a wave. This doesn’t mean they are magic, it just means we haven’t observed them sufficiently to properly determine thier nature.

 

[mansr]

13 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Yes, I am SURE that ESP is causing the differences in power cables that people "hear" when they have a lot of expectation bias.

How else do you explain the teleportation tweak?

[Nordkapp]

Leprechauns also swear by audiophile power cords. 

[mansr]

1 minute ago, GUTB said:

Sub-atomic particles are observed to act as a particle and a wave. This doesn’t mean they are magic, it just means we haven’t observed them sufficiently to properly determine thier nature.

Sure we have. They are both. It's a simple experiment, at least for photons.

[gmgraves]

Just now, sandyk said:

 George

 Must you keep posting this " If I can't measure it, then you can't hear it" type  stuff" ?

 

I didn't say anything about whether or not I could hear it. I said that wire is a mature technology and that there is no one seriously and unbiasingly researching the phenomenon because they don't believe it exists.  I know a guy who works for Belden and he says that no one in their development lab believes that short runs of coaxial cable can be heard. In fact, he says that nobody (as far as he knows) in the entire professional cabling industry takes that assertion seriously. This guy is a pretty sharp dude. He is the one who figured out that you could significantly lower the capacitive and inductive reactance of coax by replacing the braided shield with foil. 

Just now, sandyk said:

The fact remains that many people worldwide are able to see and hear things, even things like ESP, that Science has yet to fully explain. Surely, in your early days, even you had weird instances of ESP with other family members, that you now dismiss ?

I don't really dismiss anything. I'm skeptical about a lot of things: ESP, Ghosts, Flying Saucers, Interconnect sound, mains cable sound, But I keep an open mind on all of them. When some lab at MIT(or some such place) is able to repeatedly show that Interconnects and/or power cords change an audio signal in a repeatable, explainable way, I'll buy into it. Or when an alien spaceship lands on the White House lawn and meets with the president (well, maybe not this president), I'll believe in Alien visitation. As for ESP, apparently the scientific community does take that seriously because it can be demonstrated in an unambiguous and repeatable way. So, i guess I do believe that to be real. Ghosts are probably the lowest on my totem pole of believability - even below that of Interconnect audibility, Atlantis under the Atlantic Ocean, Ancient Aliens having built the pyramids, and the existence of the Seven Cities of Cibola!

Just now, sandyk said:

Identical twins are a good example of this type of phenomenon.

Alex

I know a pair of identical twins and they do seem to share some unspoken channel of communication. When one of them walked into his father's house and found the old man dead in his easy chair, the other twin said he sensed at that moment that something was terribly wrong and called his brother. That's pretty spooky.

[GUTB]

Just now, mansr said:

Sure we have. They are both. It's a simple experiment, at least for photons.

 

They can’t be both.

[gmgraves]

26 minutes ago, mansr said:

Those are British mains plugs. I had some spare parts, so I made it to confuse visitors. The wires aren't actually connected in either end.

Ah, thank the gods! It sure confused me!

[fas42]

7 hours ago, daverich4 said:

 

What on earth does that have to do with your statement that "if playback sounds lousy, it's always the rig, not the recording"? I have numerous recordings that are basically unlistenable no matter what magical process you use to fine tune your stereo. What is that process by the way? You keep mentioning that you use it but the only concrete item that you've mentioned is soldering the interconnects to the equipment instead of plugging them in. And, "paying attention to the details". What details are most important? Are you never going to let the rest of us in on your techniques?

 

You're not paying attention to what I've said in threads. And if you want an example of the process in action, I've already pointed to an exercise in sorting out my current rig, on the blog noted on my signature.

 

What disturbs and confuses people is that I do things back to front, compared to most: I don't add goodness, I subtract badness - just like the garage mechanic, when you complain about your car not being quite right. He doesn't pull out the engine, and replace it with a bigger, more sparkly one - he runs tests, diagnostics, and pinpoints where there's an issue - and then changes a $10 part ... problem solved!!

 

The details that are most important are the ones that are the greatest bottlenecks in your system - which bits of the code in an operating system are the most important areas? ... well, that which has the worst bugs, and is getting most in your face when you try and do something ...

 

How do you do that out? Experience, unfortunately, is a big part of that - but trial and error gets you a long way down the track. Those "unlistenable" recordings are your best helpmates, because they will guide you on the way - the most listenable to they become, the more genuine progress you're making.

 

Step 1, as I've mentioned many times, is to know how to listen - if you can't hear the rig getting better, then there's no point in doing anything anyway . What I do, is to put on an "unlistenable" recording, and listen carefully to what the playback is getting wrong: is it harsh, a confused mess, seemingly has no acoustic, is terribly bland and grey, lost detail that you know fom listening to it elsewhere should be there, does the sound start to collapse at moderate volume levels, etc? Key is saying to yourself, this recording is fine, but the playback is letting it down ...

 

 

[Ralf11]

it is possible there is a difference in the sound caused by an AC power cable (even if not an improvement)

 

also possible people got x/y correct just by chance {hence we do a statistically valid test}

 

also possible that confirmation bias is an issue {hence we do single, or double blind tests}

 

before we invoke new laws of physics, and even before we invoke some unusual application of known physical law, we must rule out the 2 known and well documented factors

 

[assuming we even care, as effort directed at better and less expensive DSP for speakers will have a much higher reward]

 

[Ralf11]

2 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 

They can’t be both.

 

you are wrong

[Ralf11]

some types of 'ESP' are explicable based on well-known principles

 

e.g. the sense that someone is behind you - even if not due to [1] "predictive" effects based on previously known positions of the person, and [2] not due to changes in the acoustics of a room from having someone nearby, we now know that [3] human skin can sense another person in proximity due to infra-red radiation

 

3 is interesting as it has been known for several decades (pit vipers use it toimage mice - pic on request) but was only extended to humans more recently

 

not ESP at all

[JoeWhip]

Yes, they can be both. There is a fascinating study published in this topic. 

 

 

[fas42]

Why cables are important is that: they are not perfect as a means of connecting electrical nodes, at some level; and they can act as a filter to some degree. I aim to make any piece of connecting wire as benign as possible, mimic the nominally required attributes as well as I can, for as low a cost as I can.

[Ralf11]

the more interesting question is not wave/particle duality - which has been understood for nearly 100 years now - it is whether Maxwells' Demon can catch Schrodinger's Cat ??

[phosphorein]

12 minutes ago, mansr said:

Sure we have. They are both. It's a simple experiment, at least for photons.

 

And even for buckyballs!