Forum Rules Suggestion

[Paul R]

Oh goody - a cable war. 

 

You guys know there are definitely mysterious happenings and facts to be disputed on both sides, right?  Like, how the devil can a USB cable make a difference? I certainly don't know, and worse, even after spending time with it and dissecting a couple expensive USB cables, I still don't know. There seems to be no logic to it - a cheap $10 Beldon cable outperforms a $200 audiophile specialist cable. And a $120 cable sounds better than a $12,000 cable. 

 

Not to mention it comes back to the question of how the heck it can even sound different at all. 

 

I'm not at all certain where the line between someone making something cool they think sounds better and the scam artists trying to sell $30,000/meter cable really lies, but there is one there somewhere. 

 

I for one would very much appreciate other people's take on where that line actually is. No way in *hell* I am paying $15,000/meter for a hunk of disguised romex, the Home Depot variety probably sounds better anyway.  😇

 

Yet, I am willing to lay out a couple hundred bucks or so on Nordost speaker cable, because I( do think it sounds much better than zip cord. (Much better being relative here, speakers connected with 12g zip cord always sound very good to me. Good enough I use it for almost everything except my baby Harbeths. 

[Paul R]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

Last time I checked, you didn't get to have final say on who is or isn't an audiophile. That's for GUTB to do.

 

What is a GUTB? Is it infectious? 

[Paul R]

33 minutes ago, mansr said:

You make a fair point. That said, do you think either frustration is cause to ban the expression of entire classes of opinion?

 

Not the expression of, no. The type and form of the expression? Absolutely. 

 

Every society has unwritten but very well know standards for behavior. The nasty cracks made from frustration, without humor or consideration, definitely are Not what this culture is all about. The political calculations designed to Trump someone do not belong here either. 

 

There are are better ways to express those frustrations, more effective ways even. They allow room for different people to get along. 

 

The better ways do have one drawback - they are slower, and require more dedication and thought. Not as much fun as ripping into “that asshole” over there because he said something stupid, or did not recognize how absolutely right a poster was. 

[Paul R]

2 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

Sorry but the top cable guys aren't in high end audio. If I need information about wire the first place I go is AT&T. For USB and Ethernet, I look up some old golfing buddies at Intel.

 

AT&T for cabling?  You do know they subcontract out almost all the cable work these days, as does every other major telecom provider. And Bell Labs was a sad victim of Judge Green. No help there.

 

For practical purposes in audio, the cable guys are experts. They may not always have the chops to explain what they have empirically discovered, but then, neither did Edison. 

 

Nordost, Kimber, and some other cable companies all know cables dead cold. They have marketeers who can make your stomach turn flips, but the engineering and science guys they have on staff or as consultants really do know their stuff. 

 

If you really want to know about cables, talk to the Cable Company in Paoli, PA. They really know their stuff, both in theory and practice. They don't talk down to people either. Plus, they have good contacts with pretty much all the people who make and design all sorts of cables. 

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, Rt66indierock said:

 

My golfing buddies at Intel were some of the guys who created the USB and Ethernet standards and love music. The people at AT&T move music around and love music. The glib answer is show me someone in high end audio other than Paul Klipsch who put two commas worth of income on a tax return.

 

Umm- Ethernet came out of Xerox/Parc, one of the few actual competitors to Bell Labs. I don't remember much, actually *any* credit to Intel for that development.

 

USB came much later, in the 1990s. Ajay Bhatt - at Intel - had everything to do with that. 

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

20 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

Try Munich High End instead 😉

 

 

My understanding is that the correlation between IQ and earnings is ~ 0.3; conscientiousness and earnings is ~0.2. So what, 75% accounted for by other factors?

 

Mani.

 

Well, a very good friend of mine who was very well connected with the academia types who argued IQ and such incessentaly, said success all came down to one thing.

 

Stubborness.

 

(Or "persistence" if you want to be politically correct, which he never saw a reason to be.) 

 

[Paul R]

2 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

You're absolutely right. The character of a nation shouldn't be defined by the actions of one rude individual.

 

[Edited out - I was not thinking of a certain politician when I wrote that, but it sure came out sounding like I was.  -PR ]

 

[Paul R]

4 hours ago, mansr said:

Are you on some kind of mission to defend all those who cannot or should not be defended?

 

LOL!  No, or at least not more than you are on a mission to automatically react negatively to everything that does not quite fit your understanding of things. (Even if your understanding is correct.) 

 

I wrote a cable simulator a few years ago, and it led me down a rabbit hole of gargantuan dimensions. Cable signal transmission is the simplest thing there is, in gross. When you get down into the fine characteristics of it, it is anything but simple. The question is simple whether any of those interactions can affect the sound quality in, say a set of speaker cables. (Speaker cables are the simplest and easiest to understand.) There is nothing mystical about it, just an enormous number of micro complexities, most of which are dynamic and change or change their effects depending upon amplitude, frequency, impedance, and about a dozen other things, including cable composition and geometry. There is a reason Nordost sells to the military market, and it ain't hoo doo. 

 

When looking at USB cables, it gets even worse.  Digital transmissions are, of course, a layer of meaning over simple analog transmissions. There isn't any true physical digital transmission known to exist in the universe, as of this time. Everything is analog, and digital is just one way we choose to interpret a specific analog signal. So yeah, things lie cable composition and geometry can indeed make a difference in a USB cable, it is just that difference expresses itself as an analog error, not a digital one. 

 

 

[Paul R]

8 hours ago, mansr said:

I doubt there is one, but it would be a correct grammatical construct nonetheless.

 

(amusement). 

 

Maybe grammatically correct, though I am positive my third grade teacher would disagree with you. It is, however meaningless. 

 

A great rationalization however, from one who is unwilling to admit a mistake. Next thing, someone will say the earth orbits the moon and we will have a great rationalization for that. I can hardly wait... 

 

Rationalization, instead of rational behavior, is probably the root cause of more disagreement that anything else, save for money and sex. And maybe audiophile cables...

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

8 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

Digital transmissions are, of course, a layer of meaning over simple analog transmissions. They just need to get the bits thru.

 

Arguably, DNA/RNA are digital in a way; not to mention quantum effects...

We think of protein encoding and expression regulation as digital data and call it the universal code. I think there are some organisms that have non-universal genetic codes, but without looking it up, I cannot produce a reference.  Still, underneath all that shorthand digital thinking, it is as analog as it is possible to be - after all it evolved!  

 

[Paul R]

7 hours ago, STC said:

 

I have seen military specification for cables and they are pretty standard stuff. 

 

Military will always prioritize local manufacturers for security reason. 

 

If going by the same logic, all audiophiles should use https://www.cicoil.com/flat-cable USB cables. Their cables are good enough for NASA, fighter jets, military and etc etc....  

 

Being standard is really most of the point. Amazing how much a few milliseconds of delay can make when you are not expecting it.

 

Wait, that applies to audiophiles too...  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Paul R]

Just as an aside, I really love these kinds of conversations, even if they veer into the most off topic subjects you can imagine. How the hell did RNA.DNA get into a discussion of forum rules? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

In any case, these discussion are something I do value, especially where there is nobody shouting and making an unbearable nuisance of themselves.   Like- oh - now? 

 

-Paul 

[Paul R]

7 hours ago, STC said:

 

I have seen military specification for cables and they are pretty standard stuff. 

 

Military will always prioritize local manufacturers for security reason. 

 

If going by the same logic, all audiophiles should use https://www.cicoil.com/flat-cable USB cables. Their cables are good enough for NASA, fighter jets, military and etc etc....  

 Funniest damn thing - the internet must be getting really smart because I didn't google CICOIL (I already know who they were.) 

 

But I just hit the MacWorld home page and... 

 

[Paul R]

2 hours ago, lmitche said:

Really??

 

This started as a well-intentioned thread that has now been twisted into a discussion leading to the rationalization and justification of the disgusting and uncivilized behavior of the "objectivist" tribe. There is no value here.

 

Well, it is important that the rules not be so tight that there is no latitude for playfulness, joking around, divergent discussions, and other meaningless fun that makes the online experience rich and meaningful. Sure, there should be sections as tightly regulated as a Reed-Elsevier journal, but not all, nor even most. And there are people and topics that can be best described as a cancer. 

 

I find threads like the MQA is Vapor thread to be a bit of a problem. Not because of the length, or the divergence, or even the passion. I find it a problem because the OP apparently is using it to benefit his own reputation by attacking a corporate entity, no matter how richly deserved. The OP is not one of the people who did the research or presented the facts that are so valuable in the thread.  This is apparently because the OP is not allowed to pull such shenanigans on the more traditional and controlled systems that compete with here.

 

Moreover, the thread developed a nasty tempered group of cronies / bully boys whose sole intent is simply to bully people into toeing their line. Not convince people, just plain bullying like a bunch of young teenagers. One must be part of the “in crowd”  to avoid their stupidly applied persuasions. It is both funny to watch, and yet disgusting too. Like a political campaign rally these days. I suppose it is inevitable that people think if Trump can do it and get away with it, then they can too. Rude surprise coming when it backfires on them. 

 

My take is that the above behavior is useless, and quickly destroying the reputation of and attraction of the entire forum system, and that is where the rules need to be formulated and applied. 

 

Note, I do not mean to imply rambunctious younger people or crusty older people or any particular group needs to be censored. Just that the forums as a whole are vulnerable to ill meaning people who will wreck everything built here, without a moment’s hesitation, if they perceive some benefit to themselves. 

 

[Paul R]

7 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I'm guessing that you clicked on the link in STC's post which allowed CICOIL to pixel you for remarketing through the Google Display Network.

 

Seems to be exactly what happened. (*sigh*)

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Wow, I had no idea horses that high existed.

 

Better high on the horse than acting like the rather smelly other end however. 

[Paul R]

I would say a comment like this definitely came from the south end of a north bound mule, but that would probably be insulting to people who like to throw insults, but cannot take them. 

 

[Paul R]

8 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

 

 

 

Sigh - if you think I am rude then just say so. I am not projecting anything here, and you don't have to walk on eggs around me. You have been here more than long enough to know I will listen to you, at least when I think you are making sense. 

 

I am not being rude, but have been dealing with unbelievable rudeness handed to me hand over fist by a bunch of rather nasty people acting like they are in middle school. 

That is NOT an insult, or a rudeness - it is an observation. If you don't realize they way these kiddos operate, it is to pick on someone, right up to the edge of getting kicked off the system. Usually they "win" because the person being picked on will simply tell them to 'eff off a die, or something similar. That clearly puts the victim over the line. 

 

Or they go around marking "Disagree!" with every post, in the inane belief that is accumulating "evidence" to get the person kicked off the system. Or a half dozen other fairly evil but really unimaginative tactics, all designed to play the system and get people banned .Just like middle school politics. Eight graders. (*sigh*) 

 

This rude group of monkeys are doing their best to drive away anyone who is respected in the industry but doesn't happen to agree with their agenda. Or even, presents a threat to their imaginary "authority" on a subject.  That's pretty obvious isn't it? How people like JA and others tolerate their insane rudeness is one of the great mysteries of the universe. 

 

I won't tolerate it, and thus they try  the ridicule tactic, and the snarky comment tactics, and the "he's not one of us" tactic, and all the other brainless and unimaginative behaviors they seem to believe will get them their way. 

 

And I will again re-iterate, they are acting up this way because they are anonymous IDs on the internet. The worst offenders will not put their names to their commentary. You know why they won't as well as I do - if they had the unmitigated gall to walk up to someone and say some of the things they do face to face, there would be a physical altercation. And they cowardly avoid that. Or claim they have special connections in the industry but of course, none of that is provable. Or this and that. 

 

Bah, humbug. 

 

And lest you think that I am pulling a holier than thou, all of us have done things like that at one time or another. Me included.  Cut downs, counting coup, winning points, whining points, etc. Thankfully, most people seem to grow out of it.  

 

It isn't something to back someone up to the wall about, unless the behavior is consistent, persistent, and so on. Like for example, theirs. Not mine. I backed some of the rudest ones up and demanded an apology. The result, the content of the thread was removed. Probably the best thing that could have happened, because I really don't like to back down to bullies. It doesn't do anything but encourage the monkeys to more bad behavior. 

 

So yeah, lay down clear and unbendable rules on what is and what is not acceptable. Personally, I would setup a topic called "blazes" and send any combative thread there. Worked on Bix when we had this kind of problem. People threatening to choke each other in the Mac forums for heavens sake. At the rates Telenet charged for access... 

 

 

 

[Paul R]

6 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

try working on your "pat high horse" moves

 

Why? One has to be able to understand what is written, not make silly cracks like this. Are you not supposed to be a scientist? Did they forget to teach you how to express your ideas with attacking the people behind the ideas? 

 

[Paul R]

6 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

I have an idea...

 

AS meetup at my house.  Galen can being his Iconoclast cables, I'll provide zipcord from Home Depot, Monoprice Cables, and Blue Jeans Cables.

 

Whatever the outcome, no more arguing about it on the forum, that will be the final cable word.

 

Whoo hoo - I'm in. l): 

[Paul R]

26 minutes ago, wdw said:

this thread is a total shitshow of disfunction....but let's just keep it going for another twenty pages.  Bicker, bicker, bicker.

 

Naw, I'm out, except for joshing posts.  I have a website to build and tons of albums to do vinyl rips on. 

 

-Paul

 

[Paul R]

23 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

you don't seem to understand what I said - try looking it up

 

it may help you calm down a bit

 

No, I understood perfectly, and I am quite calm.   Does misdirection and pretending to not understand something help you in your professional life?

 

It is not usually very helpful in the audio hobby world.