How much does it cost to be an audiophile?

[gmgraves]

7 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I thought it was resonance that they did not consider

What got the bridge moving was ignoring the high winds and the affect of those winds on the span itself which was acting like an airfoil. Of course, once it started swaying because the span was being lifted by the wind, the problem became highly exacerbated by the resonance frequency of the structure. It's a classic study of a "perfect storm". 

[gmgraves]

28 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

You conveniently ignore the fact that most C.A. members didn't come down in the last shower, and many use NON SIGHTED listening methods for evaluation !

So you are saying that most CA members never see the cable that they are listening to? Does that mean that they don't KNOW what they're listening to; I.E. nobody even told them: "Hey Joe, I've got a new cable I want you to hear!" and they didn't insert the cable in question into their own systems with their own hands? Both of those scenarios would give rise to expectational and confirmational bias. The term "sighted bias" does not literally have to mean eyes-on, it merely means prior knowledge of. In Pharmaceutical tests for instance, the subjects see the pill they are given (for instance) but it's still double blind because neither the subjects nor the medical personnel know what's in the pill they are given, or the syringe inserted in their bodies. So eyes-on is not really a criteria for "sighted bias", it's more of a verbal short cut for the test subjects KNOWING what they are testing.  

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

I have seen the same stuff from you on many occasions.  So you would prefer to believe that your hearing was suspect, over the fact that DBTs are RARELY performed as well as they should be, and that differences may be masked by the methods used for the comparisons, including software, or perhaps the use of hardware switching devices using perhaps additional plugs and sockets, as well as involving the use of additional cabling ?

It disappoints me that so many rely on using methods such as the Foobar comparator to prove these things, when so many C.A. members can attest that the degradation caused by Foobar software player is extremely obvious in comparison with other players such as JRiver's later version, when not only using ASIO, but more importantly using the play from System Memory option now included.

C'mon Alex. Your attempts to obfuscate the simple facts of this debate notwithstanding, the question is very simple. Flying in the face of electronics theory, and ignoring the fact that it is HIGHLY unlikely that short lengths of coax can alter any low-frequency AC signal passing through it and even more highly unlikely that something can affect a low-frequency signal such as audio and yet have absolutely no observable effect on higher frequency signals or more complex waveforms, what is the probability that cable sound is real? Casual, empirical evidence to the contrary, I'd say that the odds against it are astronomical. How, for instance is the wire to "know" that it must alter the audio signal it's carrying but not alter that video signal or that radar scope images at the airport, or that target acquisition data on that missile system? 

[gmgraves]

2 hours ago, sandyk said:

 It would appear that you haven't been listening to me either. Nowhere have I personally claimed that I can hear differences between Analogue  interconnects of a similar length and type of construction.

However, many members have, and unlike you, I am not willing to dismiss these numerous reports outright.

Well, I must admit that this bit of personal information about you has escaped me, and I certainly apologize for not picking up on it, but you have to admit that you do argue the "other side" of this debate as if you were a true believer! 

I feel that I can dismiss these numerous reports outright because there is enough information about both coaxial cable characteristics and the human capacity for unconscious self delusion, coupled with the irrational nature of the phenomenon that I'm 100% certain that the traditional wisdom on this subject is accurate.  

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, accwai said:

It's interesting something that's widely known to be able to blow both Ferraris and modded Hondas off the line (as a Tesla Model S) would be doing 10 minute lap time at Nürburgring's north loop, if it finishes a lap at all. That's the kind of lap time for delivery vans. What would sleight of hand like that be called around here at CA? Two word term starts with 'S' and 'O', can't quite remember the whole thing... 

I've driven a model S and while it's acceleration is incredible (and due to the fact that all of an electric motor's torque is available at ZERO RPMs) the car is quite heavy and the electric motors play no part in the lateral acceleration characteristics of the car's chassis. Truth to tell, the car is a bit of a pig on the road. While automotive engineers, with the help of sophisticated computer programs have done much in the last several decades to "bend" the laws of physics when it comes to automobiles suspensions, they have yet to break those laws. Before computers, many things were designed by formula. Camera lenses, for instance were all either triplets or so called "Tessar" 4- element designs as well as several others. Designers used the same formulas for everything merely replacing parameters for focal length and aperture. The first zoom lens, designed for TV sports events and called a Zoomar, took lens designers months to get right. Today, lens makers can build high performance zoom lenses in computer simulations in minutes. Likewise, for decades, car manufacturers used a very few variations on suspensions to design all cars and some suspension designs go back hundreds of years (like elliptic and semi-ecliptic leaf springs). Today, cars have levels of suspension sophistication that would flabbergast a designer of Buick suspensions in 1955. Today, very heavy cars (like the Bentley Continental, or the Porsche Cayman, for instance) are very stable at extremely high speeds (the Bentley will do over 200 MPH). and while this seems miraculous, it really is just the result of being able to quickly and accurately model chassis dynamics on a computer. While a 5000 pound Bentley might be safe and stable on a German Autobahn cruising at 160 MPH+, it probably wouldn't do so well on the Nordschleife (I'm guessing. I don't know what the Continental's lap times are). And it wouldn't surprise me if it's lap times were, like the Tesla, very white-van like. As I said, one can bend the rules of physics, but you can't break them.   

[gmgraves]

19 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Under non sighted listening conditions.

 But did you KNOW you were listening to an inexpensive vs a very expensive mains cable? Like I said, non-sighted just means totally without the testing group KNOWING what they are listening to. You have to be very careful on this slippery slope. any prior knowledge can have expectational or confirmational bias raising it's ugly head.

 

[gmgraves]

14 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

54 minutes ago, GUTB said:

 I can’t help but wonder if our measure of IQ is full of crap.

 

measurements can be like that.

No, it's not full of crap, but it does have two problems. 1) it's relative and conditional. and can change, yet it is used to category people for military service, college entrance even high-school and primary school grouping. 2) It is only one measure of a very complex dynamic. I.Q. measures someone's ability to solve problems AT THE INSTANT THE TEST IS TAKEN. It does no take into account personal variables such as performance under stress, how one feels on the day of the test, and this one I tend to discount as a factor in first world nations, and that is cultural bias. It does not take into account so-called common sense, limiting factors such as Asperger's Syndrome or other types of autism. It's not full of crap, but it does result in a very limited view of someone's intelligence and It's relied on by society much too much. Don't believe me? Go to a Mensa party! You will run into people who should be kept in cages, but are out and a bout because they have high I.Q.s

[gmgraves]

1 minute ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Blinding removes the bias of knowing which is the expensive vs cheap item. There still remains an expectation for difference, as you say, but that's where statistical analysis comes in to compare results to guessing. As there is no known valid methodology established for audio DBT's they are inherently unreliable. I still do them for fun, I just don't claim they're scientifically valid or reliable.

I agree with you for the most part. But I feel that interconnects are so simple, that those tests are pretty hard to misinterpret. You AB two specimens to a group who has no idea what they're comparing (except for the knowledge that they're comparing interconnects) and when they're switched, the sound either changes or it doesn't. That, I feel, is pretty straight forward. If no change is detected by those taking part in the test, then one can pretty much figure that the point is moot because whether the cables have a sound or not the fact that instantaneous switching between the two test sample showed no immediate, identifiable difference demonstrates that even if there is a difference, it's too small and or subtle to mean anything in the real world!

[gmgraves]

4 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

hey, I've been to  Mensa party at Uni ! They referred me down the corridor, to the Densa party - the girls were way more better looking anyway !

LOL! Yes, I never saw many great looking gals at Mensa parties, but I saw a lot of weirdos of both sexes and the higher the I.Q. the weirder they seemed to become!

[gmgraves]

3 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Come on George, everybody present was an experienced audiophile, and most of us did NOT believe that it would be possible to hear any differences, given that the 2 big Nelson Pass  Class A monoblocks were plugged into a cheap power board from a Bunnings Hardware store !!

It doesn't matter a damn provided that we did not know what we were listening to at the time, as long as the results are repeatable. 2 of us present were also widely experienced DIY people from a technical background.

 Who cares if we knew in  advance , that say one of the pieces of gear was a cheap Class D amplifier, or a cheap I.C. type  "Gainclone" LM3886 amplifier like Peter favours, and the other was a humongous Class A room heater ? 

 Don't you think that experienced people like yourself and others are capable of overcoming those petty limitations ?

 

The evidence says no! The fact that I sometimes hear differences in cables tells me that I can't overcome those petty limitations, and I suspect it's a rare audio enthusiast, indeed, who can.

[gmgraves]

12 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

 Are you saying that you have a fairly low IQ and that you are not a little weird ?

Sure, why not!

[gmgraves]

12 hours ago, davide256 said:

hmm, better than Rega RB-300? I've modded my RB300 heavily but that internal coil spring for antiskate is a resonance magnet.

I've never owned a Rega RB-300 although I certainly know what one is. The Jelco is just an excellent arm, well made with superb bearings.

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

I do however support claims about audible differences between Power cables, which really surprised me , as a result of a listening session at the house of a friend of Audiophile Neuroscience (David) under non sighted listening conditions. All those present heard the same differences, which were in favour of the very expensive power cables.

 As I have previously reported, I have heard differences between Coax SPDIF cables of a similar length, but different amount of shielding in their construction. 

 I have also heard differences after changing the plug and socket at the DAC end to genuine 75 ohm BNC connectors. It's not always practical to replace the plugs and sockets at the source device though.

 

 I don't want to open the power cable can of worms.

[gmgraves]

14 hours ago, sandyk said:

George

 Of equal importance to improving the USB area is the choice of software player, even when using Coax SPDIF from an internal soundcard to a high performance DAC. Unlike you, I am using Windows 10/64, and only a few days ago I was forced into the realisation that the simplistic cPlay that I have been using, and found to sound markedly better than Foobar 2000 etc. was clearly outperformed by JRiver despite both using ASIO. Initially, I found that JRiver sounded slightly compressed in comparison, until Audiophile Neuroscience asked if I had ticked the Advanced option of enabling play from System Memory.

I was already doing that with cPlay, but enabling Memory Play in JRiver lifted it up to a level where it then clearly outperformed cPlay.

 I expect that the same would apply when using some of the well respected paid player software for Macs too, in comparison with say iTunes.

I use JRiver Media Player 24. But I stream using Logitech Media Server. It "serves" my ripped music and High-Res music directly out of my "Music" folder. Although these files show up in both iTunes and JRiver, neither application is used to play them through my stereo system. I use the Logitech Squeezebox Touch for that. It also works directly from the internet to select and play most Internet radio "stations" too. The exception, like I said is when I need to access a web-site directly to play something like the BBC FLAC feeds. 

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, semente said:

 

Existing measurements still haven't explained @manisandher 's ABX results.

 

Perhaps we need new measurements, even if they challenge our current understanding of the laws of physics.

 

My wife is doing research in Neuroscience even though she's mainly a clinician.

A lot of our friends here in Oxford are either neurologists, neuroscientists or biochemists.

It is my understanding that the envelope is being pushed further because of new measurements, if I may call them that, new methods of diagnostic and the ability to work with ever smaller particles and use more powerful computation.

 

As accuracy in audio reproduction increases, the lowering of noise floor and reduced distortion could be and probably are exposing causes of noise and distortion that were previously unimportant or unknown.

 

I often talk about my reference system. Listening to it for the first time was a mind blowing experience and has convinced me that everything does matter even if the degree of influence varies massively depending on the element involved. Unlike most commercial electronics the amplifier has been a work-in-progress, suffering constant development for almost two decades. The level dedication, research and experimentation invested in the system would have made it commercially inviable.

 

Like @sandyk I feel that we cannot rely on the established standards for audibility.

@Jud 'often mentions his experience at the AP talk which I think is a good example of this.

 

 

Well, I generally agree with all of that. But what gives me confidence that the traditional wisdom about interconnects is correct is the simple fact that although interconnects, defined as a short pieces of coaxial cable (generally less than 2 meters) connecting a relatively low impedance source to a relatively high impedance destination while conducting a low frequency (20 - 50 KHz) signal are said to seemingly not be able to perform that function without altering the signal it's supposed to be conducting. Yet this phenomenon has never been observed with any other type of signal, irrespective of signal content, cable length or ultimately, frequency range. Physics tells us that there are three characteristics of coaxial cable: DC resistance, capacitive reactance, and inductive reactance. The DC resistance is straight-forward; so many Ohms/meter. The other two are affected by both length and frequency and these are known and their results can be easily calculated. The negative aspects of both capacitive and inductive reactance is that they exacerbate the signal carrying limitations of coaxial cable as both variables increase. But that's not what those who assert that cables change the sound are reporting. Also direct A/B comparison of two wildly disparate cables shows that these differences that people are reporting disappear in such a comparison - especially when the assembled listeners are unaware of what they are listening to at any given moment. 

The bottom line here is that while it's not impossible that this phenomenon is real, it is highly unlikely. 

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, 4est said:

I find it interesting that on one hand you suggest that audio signals are readily 100% transferred unaltered while expressing the necessity to over engineer bridges and airplanes because of unknowns and in exact quantification.

While you might find it interesting, that's not what I said at all. I didn't even infer that. But now that you bring it up, yes, civil engineering projects are always over-engineered because the possibility of the loss of human life is too great to err on the side of "well, this OUGHT to be good enough". But audio, the last time I checked, is not life threatening, and engineers don't use slide rules any more. 

Now, on a totally different subject that has nothing to do with the above, I do assert that audio signals should be 100% transferrable over short runs of cable (most domestic audio setups use cables that are mostly less than 2-meters in length). I'm sure of that because there is no reason for a conductor not to conduct a line-level low frequency signal like audio losslessly over short distances. 

[gmgraves]

58 minutes ago, firedog said:

The reason you can do good engineering with a slide rule (including going to the moon - see pictures of the Apollo program people with slide rules in the shirt pocket) is the concept of "significant digits". Simply put, all those additional decimal places are often irrelevant to the answer needed. What's important is knowing when they are relevant and when they aren't. 

Absolutely true. One of the things that modern lay people seem most fascinated by is the realization that the on-board computer in the Apollo spacecraft and the lunar lander have less computing power than a modern hand-held scientific calculator.

[gmgraves]

7 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Reductive physics, yes.  But as anyone who's ever experienced a ground loop knows, there are other characteristics of that bit of cable's behavior as part of a system that can on occasion be plainly audible.  Can a different type of cable in the same orientation change something like a ground loop?  They were RCA rather than coax, but yes, I've had the experience of significantly diminishing a ground hum just by switching out RCA cables to my turntable.

 

Now rather than diminishing an audible ground hum to a less plainly audible ground hum, could different cables change something like, for example, a ground loop current from subconsciously irritating to undetectable?  Conceivably.

Yes Jud, but a ground loop isn't, strictly speaking, a cable characteristic. It's a configuration problem.

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, davide256 said:

 

That a very 1800's or DC power view of electrical conduction, kind of ignores quantum dynamics. When dealing with AC current, skin effect applies for conductors and junction effects for the joining of two different metals ( cable and terminating cable plug)

There is no skin effect at audio frequencies. Quantum dynamics? In audio cables? Gimme a break! Remember, video signals go through connection junctions too as do radar signals, Internet signals, fly-by-wire aircraft control signals etc. Those signals don't get changed in any measurable or noticeable way by and they all connect to one another by connectors. 

 

You are grasping at straws and most of you keep ignoring the elephant in the room. These phenomenon that you keep associating with audio cables never detectably affect other types of signals. The reason why there is no explanation for why cables change the signal that passes through them, is because no serious study of cable behavior has ever turned-up any hard evidence that they do so and no one has ever seen such a phenomenon in any other field electronics. In short, cables change signals in predictable ways, governed by the well known rules of electronics. And none of this rules apply to short runs of coax at audio frequencies

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, Richard Dale said:

If the thread is in the middle of a 'cables don't matter' argument, it makes it very difficult to recommend specific cables.

If cable's don't matter, why recommend specific cables? If cables do matter, one person can't recommend a cable to another anyway, because people's taste in sound are different, and from what I read, cable aficionados say that the same cable sounds different in different applications. But another characteristic of cable believers seems to be that there is no such thing as a bad boutique cable, and the more you spend, the better the cable sounds - as if that's not fishy!

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 The SBT is capable of a marked improvement in SQ when using a better PSU such as the attached design from John Swenson which many DIY Audio members constructed.

That's a fact. If you use the analog portion of the SBT. I have an HP/Harrison Labs Model 6201A low-noise laboratory power supply that I often swap out for wall-warts to see (hear?) what difference it makes. If I use the DAC/audio output driver on the SBT, the HP supply makes a night and day difference in SQ. If I come out of the SBT's coax or Toslink SPDIF outputs to an outboard processor, (which is my normal mode of operation), I don't hear any difference. 

[gmgraves]

21 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

But its the interaction of the cable in the system that manifests the change, No ?

Sure, but that's irrelevant to the point because if you take that cable out of the ground loop position and put it somewhere else, it probably won't cause a ground loop. It's not a characteristic of the cable, because it's not the cable per se that's the problem

[gmgraves]

27 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

But a configuration problem that can be relieved by changing cables.   (In my particular case, nothing else I tried first worked.)

Yes, and????

[gmgraves]

16 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

And yet in the instance described you still hear a difference by changing the cable

What are you trying to prove? You know as well as I do, that when we discuss interconnect sound, ground loops are not what we're discussing!

[gmgraves]

14 hours ago, crenca said:

I suspect that any system where the owner says cables don't matter, I would find to be (a) a cringe worthy sound or (b) a system where someone else did the leg

work in selecting the cables.

Lemme fix this for you: "I suspect that any system where the owner says interconnects don't matter, I would find to be owned by someone who has done his due diligence and knows that short runs of coax designed to be conductors and not filters in all probability cannot alter the sound of his system, so he buys well made competent cables rather than useless expensive ones."

There that's better!