Ethan Winer Null Test For WIre

[esldude]

6 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

Could one not accomplish the same by sending a mono signal over left and right wires to an ADC converter, feeding the results to a sound program, and flip one of the channels?  This would eliminate all the extra boxes.

You can, but what you'll find is there are more differences in the two channels of the DAC than in the wire. 

 

I've done some null testing.  You can do a wire and record the result in a loopback DAC/ADC setup.  That way the clock is the same.  Compare it to itself a few minutes later.  Get pretty much just the thermal noise.  You can swap wires and get about the same result between two different wires (if they are the same length and have about the same propagation percent).  If you try one wire versus itself between channels the residual after nulling is greater. 

[esldude]

Here is some tribo-electric noise I recorded.  This was with 75 db of gain.  All balanced cables. 

 

The AQ Diamond X3 was the worst.  I bent the wire slightly for this.  Monoprice Premium balanced was next worst as I bent the wire more.  The cheapo GLS balanced I had to wind in a coil and bend several layers at once. 

 

The AQ was worst because it is silver and teflon.  The worst combination for tribo effects. 

The Monoprice has multiple braided shield layers and a foil layer which is hwy I think it is fairly poor.  

The GLS is a twisted pair with a bit of shield and does very little.  

 

None of these would be heard at line level.  None would make this noise from soundwaves hitting the cable.  A non-issue unless you have the AQ or Monoprice on a microphone which a singer is carrying around while singing. 

 

 

 

Triboelectric sounds (1).zip

[esldude]

1 minute ago, fas42 said:

IME, the impact of triboelectric behaviours is not heard as a "thing" - rather, it degrades the perceived quality; one goes from a lively, "sparkling", energising experience, to a somewhat dull, listless, boring presentation - the "life" is sucked out of the music; you have "why am I listening to this crap?!" thoughts - and decide to do something more interesting ...

Poppycock Frank!

 

The level of such noise was around -86 dbV in my test with some of the worst cables I could find for tribo-effects.  This is when I physically grabbed and bent the cable back and forth.  Soundwaves, even vibration from a subwoofer at low frequencies will never get close to this level at all.  Unless yours jump up and bend at 90 degrees you aren't hearing these effects.  They are far too low in level.  Plain simple and that is about that.  

 

If you were talking microphone cables used during recording or maybe, maybe as tone arm cable for MC cartridge use it might become something that maybe could be heard.  

[esldude]

5 minutes ago, shtf said:

 

Sure.  Ethan Winer wrote a book entitled "The Audio Expert" and claims that all components and all cables sound identical as all retain the fidelity of the input signal.  Ethan also claims that if your playback system does not sound like the live performance, it's due solely to the placement of the recording mic's at the live performance.

 

Kinda' silly if you ask me but 'nough said.

Well we just heard from one of those not in the know. 

 

Show me where Ethan has said: "if your playback system does not sound like the live performance, it's due solely to the placement of the recording mic's at the live performance."

[esldude]

8 minutes ago, shtf said:

Ask him yourself.  But if he also claims all cables sound the same and all components sound the same cuz they all retain the fidelity of the input signal doesn't seem to phase you, do you really think his response (whatever it may be) to your question, should you ask, would phase you?

You are misrepresenting him badly.  If you don't agree with him that is fine.  But you shouldn't put false statements or opinions that aren't his to his name.  

[esldude]

7 hours ago, shtf said:

I've engaged in more "meaningful monologue" than I care to admit with "The Audio Expert".  Do your homework before you choose to follow somebody.  There are other audio forums you know.

 

 

I'm not following anyone. I do agree with many of his ideas. So far in this thread you've not represented any of his ideas. You have misrepresented some of them. 

[esldude]

So if people in the airline safety business took your approach how would that work?  Only planes Frank approved of could fly and any he didn't don't fly even if they do? And Frank can't tell us how it works, but he knows when he lands it was safe.  Your approach to all of this is untenable.  For airlines and for audio. 

[esldude]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

Nope!  What your point of view does not take into account is the many years of training associated with my use of listening tests.  The fact is, that biases, and "belief systems" can both be overcome by training.

I have been evaluating audio systems/components both through measures and by listening (and often correlating the two) for long enough to have learned of, and learned how to deal with these pitfalls.  Anyone can suggest that what I hear is in error, I know it is not (in this case).

Often I do listening tests and can discern no audible difference, often I do listening tests and can discern a difference, but cannot determine which (A or B) is actually better, and often there is a clear discernible improvement between A and B.

I do not report on differences which are too close to call.

In this case, the difference was of a level where one wire was audibly better without question, the difference was of a magnitude that only required a few seconds of playback to determine.  It did not require multiple repeats to discern (although I did repeat a few times, and switch up the order a bit to confuse things), or trying different sample tracks.

 

Considering differences, have you ever listened to the differences between digital filters?  I find those tests maddening as while there are differences, they are very subtle to me.  i find different filters do have meaningful differences, but they are very hard to evaluate, and rarely would I mention them on forums as they are so subtle to me, and I suspect, quite system dependent.

 

The differences between these two wires are not at all like the difference between digital filters, they are significant, easily repeatable, and anyone with ears would hear them right away given a decent system context. 

I've been listening to sound with my ears since I was born.  No one has more experience than me.  Well except for people older than me.  You can trust me with my unverified, unverifiable pronouncements of sound differences.  Enough said.

 

Now I'm not denying you can be trained to spot differences or that particular experience can allow one person to hear what another doesn't.  I also know you can convince yourself of hearing a difference when one simply doesn't exist.  Biases cannot be fully overcome with training.  They can be mitigated.  When one does one's own training most often you'll be cementing biases in place if there is no outside verification.  Such pronouncements aren't worth the time it took to type them into the forum.  

[esldude]

23 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

 

Would that difference also appear in typical measurements that many could identify with a cheap multimeter?   If the cable is designed to be a straight wire for audio implementations, it should not have a "sound" that is identifiable.   

While true there need be no sound of an audio wire, Ralf's point is one can be designed.  There is no good reason to do so in general, but it is possible.  Imagine boxes with some L and C components in them that really do sound different.  

[esldude]

39 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

URL to the Nordost study?

 

also, are we talking about speaker cables or about interconnects?  if the latter, RCA or balanced?

I don't have it handy, I believe there were one or more threads discussing it here at the time.  You'll find posts by me questioning what they did. 

[esldude]

https://nordost.com/downloads/NewApproachesToAudioMeasurement.pdf

 

Most of the links in this thread from the testing have been removed.  The testing promised much more results in the future, and wouldn't you know it they never materialized. 

 

 

There was other more in depth discussion somewhere here on CA.  

 

 

[esldude]

27 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

The Methods section is inadequate to support anything in the Results section.

 

Here is a tip I passed on to my own graduate students (after getting it from my own PhD adviser when I was young tike...):

 

Always read the Methods section first.  If it is not adequate, then there is no need to read the rest of the verbiage.

 

 

Absolutely good advice.  I had the same criticisms of this and similar testing by another cable company.  

 

To be fair they gave some more detail in the links that now are dead.  Yet they always left out key obvious questions about their methodology.  

 

They also promised they were developing software that could measure in a minute a system and tell the owner if something had gotten out of spec or degraded over time.  That it would be made available in the near future.  That was 9 years ago. 

 

You can read a thread I started on cable that had some comments at the time.  Comments about Nordost started on page 7 if you want to waste some time. 

 

Also since then Nordost has been caught rigging public demos.  Mark Waldrep reported on it, but their lawyers sent a cease and desist letter so he chose to remove the posting.  Essentially reporting was during demos of power cords it was found they were switching to different tracks of the same music and there was a loudness difference.  Guess which was louder.  

[esldude]

6 minutes ago, mansr said:

Wasn't that Audioquest?

He didn't get a C&D from AQ.  AQ did that on a video.  See a pattern?

 

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=5659

 

Some threads that tell you in the first couple posts what Mark reported.

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/91-audio-theory-setup-chat/2433706-funny-blog-mark-waldrep-about-nordost-axpona-power-cord-demo.html

 

Here is some info on the AQ thing.

http://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=5561

 

 

https://www.audioholics.com/editorials/mark-waldrep-audioquest-open-letter-editorial

 

 

[esldude]

Removed upon reflection. 

[esldude]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

Mark has been involved in at least three of these controversies:

• A video posted by an Audioquest dealer leading to a nasty exchange where dealer was made into a scapegoat.
• A demo at LAOCAS by an AQ rep featuring cables by them and Nordost. Mark was expelled.
• A Nordost demo at AXPONA featuring similar shenanigans that resulted in a C&D letter.

Seems I got the details mixed up. What does that say about the industry?

Ask Burrows.  He can explain it apparently.  We can all learn something. 

 

I'll say by now, I think I have learned something about the industry.  

[esldude]

1 minute ago, barrows said:

See, if that is your attitude then you will learn nothing.  The tests were conducted by independent third parties who did not know what they were testing.  They were conducted by a defense contractor whose expertise in sonics comes from SONAR  research and development, so certainly scientists.

When one presents such a dismissive attitude when presented with science/measrements which do contradict their "beliefs", one has closed their mind and cannot learn.  The earth might as well be flat, etc. 

Yeah, all we need is enough information about what they were doing to decide.  They kept some of it to themselves and were cagey about what they let out.  Now all of the prior info has been made unavailable.  

 

If you can get in touch with them, or provide us with what they did and clearly what were the results we are as they say....all ears.   

 

If all anyone has is some graphs made fuzzy with unlabeled axis and some fast talking mis-direction, it does tend to kind of bounce off of my ears.  

 

Man we are waiting, just spill the beans for us. 

[esldude]

And the independent parties all partnered up in some ventures shortly after this period.  So much for disinterested 3rd party. 

[esldude]

1 hour ago, pkane2001 said:

 

It's almost definitely objective scientific evidence. I can reproduce this myself with the tools I have on-hand, even with no PHD in mathematics: the Photoshop blur filter. It is one of the best tools known to science to obscure measurement results and to render a chart unreadable in proof of an unsupportable theory.

 

Here you go. Result confirmed:

 

These are not the digital filter effects you are looking for..................old Jedi Mind Trick. 

[esldude]

16 hours ago, vortecjr said:

In the video he tries to keep the cables way from noisy sources. I would like him to use his device to compare different cables next those noise sources to determine if some cables shield the noise any better.     

I've done that test.  Using RCA interconnects wrapped around the actual power supply of a desktop PC you get some noise at audible levels though just barely audible.  Move cable 6 inches away and it drops into the thermal noise floor. 

 

Same test with balanced XLR cables wrapped 5 times around PC power supply and you get nothing above the noise floor.

 

In this particular case if there were any spikes above -130dbFS they would have shown up.  

 

If you are worried about noise pickup use balanced cabling.  Or keep your RCA cables a foot away and you'll have nothing to worry about. 

[esldude]

1 hour ago, shtf said:

 

Regrettably, in 21st century high-end audio we have witnessed our "untrustworthy" ears become unnecessary apendages and have been replaced with our "trustworthy" eyes.  Mind you, in an audio-only industry.

 

So rather than strive to improve ones ability to discern what they hear and improve their playback system, they instead try to bring everybody else down to their base levels.

 

The old holy grail of striving toward the live performance or the absolute sound has been replaced with measurements and paper tigers on audio websites.  Even though there has yet to be invented a measuring instrument to measure sound quality or levels of musicality.  Go figure.

 

Perhaps this explains why guys like Ethan (and many reviewers) have so many followers.  Sad fer sure.

Striving toward live performance is a worthy goal.  Stereo has inherent limitations making that impossible.  The path to maybe get closer to the illusive goal isn't gilding the lily of stereo, but doing something else instead.  No golden ear gilding will do the trick.  I've come to this conclusion recording music.  Not any base level other than I've heard the live sound, and the live feed and the recording.  Stereo can't get us there.  MCH is a significant though not fully sufficient step forward.  

 

Even then, the main impediment is over-processed recordings which is true of 99.9% of those you can buy.  

[esldude]

1 hour ago, shtf said:

 

To follow your logic, since recording music brought you to this conclusion, then you must also think the MQA format is crazy outta' this world the most musical "hi-rez" format that ever existed.  That's what Robert Harley of The Absolute Sound and John Atkinson of Stereophile think and they are both sound engineers.  So you must think like them. 

 

Nobody said anything about golden ears but rather the simple ability to discern or interpret what we hear.  Without even basic audible discernment we probably would all derive at the same conclusions as you.  In other words, developing our ability to interpret what we hear helps us to realize just how far short of the mark a given playback system is. 

 

As for your plug for multi-channel, well, again you lack understanding of the severe distortions already plaguing virtually every last playback system and are compounded with every additional speaker, cable, and amplifier.  If the distortions are so severe with just 2-channels then, according to you, even more distortive channels will draw us closer to the live performance? 

 

Interesting.  Not surprising but interesting.

You aren't capable of following my logic based upon this post.  Your thinking on channel number is backwards.  Well heck most of it is backwards. 

[esldude]

On 12/17/2018 at 11:40 PM, esldude said:

I've done that test.  Using RCA interconnects wrapped around the actual power supply of a desktop PC you get some noise at audible levels though just barely audible.  Move cable 6 inches away and it drops into the thermal noise floor. 

 

Same test with balanced XLR cables wrapped 5 times around PC power supply and you get nothing above the noise floor.

 

In this particular case if there were any spikes above -130dbFS they would have shown up.  

 

If you are worried about noise pickup use balanced cabling.  Or keep your RCA cables a foot away and you'll have nothing to worry about. 

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2018/12/measurements-intel-i7-pc-and-raspberry.html

 

Good article on how choosy asynch USB and balanced vs RCA interconnects are to radiated noise or PC activity. 

[esldude]

40 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I've done both, so keep figuring.

But were you good at either? ?

 

In my experience you have all kinds.  Sometimes it seems in my limited experience to work best when a theoretical scientist works with an experimental scientist.  But hey take it with a grain of salt.  I'm not a scientist and didn't sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.