How to disguise science with snake oil !

[rom661]

Chris I don't envy your role in this debate. I would like to say that having a different opinion on this, or any other aspect of this hobby does not necessarily imply a lack of integrity on the part of the individual recommending, selling, or supporting the product, although that can be the case. I got into this field because it enhances my life; I love music and the equipment that helps me to enjoy it. I hate seeing a discussion veer into the areas this one has. God knows, there is enough trauma in the world we are living in today without having one's feelings about cables or anything else become a rancorous topic.

 

Music makes my life more enjoyable. Honest exchanges of opinions are fine but I hate seeing them become confrontational. As I write this I am enjoying listening to music whose source provides a wonderful combination of sound quality and ease of use. This site has been enormously helpful in terms of making my learning curve faster and pleasant. The cables in my system have no relevance to what this site has provided me.

 

Thanks to everyone who has offered their assistance to me in setting up a server that I can enjoy and recommend to my customers. I can't speak for anyone else but the cable argument is an old one and is not what I come to the site for.

 

Pleasant listening, everyone. To quote a friend of mine in the industry, if this stuff isn't fun, you're doing something wrong.

 

 

 

[haiku1]

Hey gurf!

 

You know, that`s what`s happened to me. My dealer ripped me off, completely. He always claimed that his products are on the top of scientific knowledge and to proof this he showed me all the great reviews in the oh so scientific Audio Magazines. Why shouldn`t I trust him?

Nowadays I`ve got a Hifi which costs 2600,- € and easily trounces my old kit which cost 14000,- €! And what`s more, the new kit has 3 pieces, the old one has 8 pieces. The new consumes a lot less energy, you don`t have to fiddle with everything, and it`s very versatile.

With my understanding, that`s what I`d call progress ( and really good value for money)!!

 

[haiku1]

Hi Gordon

 

Please let me (us) know about your impressions at the London Show!

 

[Ashley James]

I think this debate has been good because it's touched on sensitive subjects without ill feeling and it's raised some issues worth considering.

 

Chris has made the point that if we're marginalised we shouldn't be so hard on each other. He's right but, and I think BBC R3 is a good parallel here. Some years ago their audience dropped to almost nothing and there was question as to whether it should continue. They'd reached a state where provided they broadcast the same type of material with the same DJs, they got letters of congratulation, but if they played different material or used another DJ, they got fanatical objection. Market Research showed that they had a small and diminishing audience of narrow minded intransigents who wanted to preserve the Status Quo. The conclusion was that to increase it to a level that would justify the money spent, they'd have to piss off some of the present audience by changing direction to suit wider tastes.

 

Hi Fi is in much the same situation and and at the extreme, it's followers are showing similar tendencies, therefore we need to behave in a more mainstream way by not accepting bogus science or ridiculous pricing.

 

I don't believe Haiku's dealer knowingly ripped him off, in fact, I'm sure he believed what he told him when he sold him his old system. His mistake was to confuse hocus pokus with science and not keep abreast of developments. This is a widespread problem and you only have to compare the prices of Pro Audio or normal consumer electronics to see that there is too big a gap between us and the others. For credibility we must narrow it.

 

In talking about the negatives, it's easy not to consider the good side and there's a lot of good to talk about. Since I put my neck in a noose by appearing on a Forum a year or so ago, I've made friends all over the world as many others must do as well, I've had loads of extra visitors, all of whom have been really nice and normal and nothing like the real aggro merchants that appear on these things. There's loads of good things happening but that doesn't mean we can relax, I think it's good to root out the negatives, talk about them and ways of dealing with them.

 

One Forum owner I spoke to has 1000 uniques a day, which probably boils down to a maximum of 250 different people of which a far smaller number are posting and only a handful of them are perpetually combative.

 

A recent guesstimate of the value of specialist hi fi sold in the UK per Annum would be between £10-15 million or enough business for 15 good shops. There are 50-60!

 

Computers are taking over hi fi for the mainstream, but the shops and mags are kicking against it. In the case of one Publishing house, ours is a hi fi product so has to go into their magazine with a valves and vinyl etc bias. It has a sister publication dedicated to Apple Computers and this covers hi fi too, but only up about £500, which is bloody stupid and probably a ploy to keep as many separate titles running as possible. Their Forum is moderated by a successful "high End" dealer.

 

I'm sorry to drag my problems into this, but it illustrates the mindset that I reckon is damaging. They wish to preserve a status quo that is not in the customer's best interest or that of progress.

 

As this is an American site and I have little understanding of how things are in the States, I'll give an example of a Brit problem; A customer visited recently with a power supply upgrade for a bit of his hi fi, it had cost £4350 and was humming irritating, so he'd removed the lid to see why. It was a sheet steel box with a large Toroid, 4 Electrolytic capacitors and some regulators and rectifiers in it. All could have been bought for £100 from CPC, Farnell, RS, Maplin etc. but the retail price wasn't much less than a Krell KSA300! I'll bet it got five stars for value somewhere.

 

This is a Forum to support because it's looking to the future.

 

Ashley

 

[tfarney]

Well, this one sure generated some interest quickly. And let me add that it has managed to stay much more civil than similar discussions have on most forums. I agree that:

 

Science doesn't know everything

 

We should trust ears over instruments.

 

I'm just not so sure about trusting our own ears. This hobby has much more than its share of voodoo, and an even larger share of participants driven by an overwhelming desire to upgrade, followed immediately by powerful need to hear every dollar, if not more, that they have invested.

 

IE: We are ripe for psychological bias. Snake oil sharks can taste blood in the audiophile waters.

 

Therefore, while I should trust my own ears to tell me what I like, I might not be able to trust them to tell me what is superior or more accurate (or even audible). And while science doesn't know everything, double blind listening tests, taken to a statistically significant sample, are pretty hard to argue with, because they don't test anything that can't be heard, and they don't listen for anything that can't be heard either.

 

ABX testing eliminates psychological bias, something none of us wants to admit to and all of us have. If a statistically significant sample of people can't hear the difference between the same system under the same conditions with and without black box Z, and you can, the odds are really, really good that you've talked yourself into hearing it. It really is that simple. If you have to "train yourself" to hear it, or if you "hear it over time," the odds are really, really good that you've just given yourself more time to talk yourself into hearing it.

 

If audiophile tweaks created the clearly audible improvements that are claimed for them, their manufacturers would not only submit to ABX testing, they would run the tests themselves and scream the results from the mountaintops. There are no cheap tricks to ABX testing. The methodology is not complex or subject to high error rates. People simply listen. Lots of people, until there have been enough of them to reduce the margin for error to something insignificant. If, at the end of the process, you insist that you hear something that all of them don't, you will be parted from your money and hear what you hear. Enjoy. But really...I'm about to over-simplify a bit, but I think the theory is important:

 

a) Get a quality source you LIKE THE SOUND OF.

 

b) Get good transducers that you LIKE THE SOUND OF.

 

c) Feed those transducers more clean power (ss, digital, tube - whatever makes you happy) than they will ever reasonably need so clipping becomes a non-issue.

 

There. That's the secret of life. Everything else is in the last few percentage points. Well, except for those among you who like the sound of clipping...

 

Tim

 

 

 

[Ashley James]

I think if we consider what science does know and has achieved and then look at where we're doubting it, it makes us look a bit silly.

 

Much of the problem lies with reviewers who've made and published measurements and then interpreted them incorrectly. This makes it easy for those who dismiss measurement and "believe their ears". However, if you've worked as I have for many years, with extremely clever engineers who are part of community of like minded engineers, you see that measurements mean everything and that hi fi measures as it sounds. You also see measurements for every part you consider using and know that you can rely on this as a guide.

 

Some years ago, hi fi companies appeared who managed to discredit all this and establish themselves as being "musically involving", the disease spread like wildfire and only now are we beginning to recover from it's effect. We need some guide as to the performance of equipment other than our ears and the price. Our ears are unreliable because they learn to live with sound that may be poor (it's called running in!) and our perception of price as an indicator is unreliable to. If we could establish these principals better than they are, I think we'd find an increasing number interesting and knowledgeable Engineers appearing on this Forum. I often receive emails from one prompting me to say something but refusing to do it himself. On some Forums they say it's like a Medical Doctor arguing with a faith Healer!

 

Ash

 

[haiku1]

I would recommend everyone to read the article on the AVI site " Difficulties in assessing the quality of yours or other Hifi sytems". It`s worth a read...

 

[tfarney]

I don't see it under "Hi fi articles of interest." Where should I look?

 

Ashley -- Do you have dealers in America?

 

Tim

 

[haiku1]

Tim

 

No, the link is right on the first page!

:-)

 

[rom661]

OK, I must be really bored. I ran across this old thread in my tracking section and read the first post where I noticed it said that the inductance and capacitance of cables only come into play at frequencies above several hundred KHz. First of all, I absolutely do not want to get into a discussion of cables in general, science, snake oil or any of that rat's nest. However the statement made is untrue.

 

In a number of cables, the straight forward, pretty much agreed upon issues of capacitance and inductance do have an effect on frequency response within the audible range. I have proven it objectively both with measurements of the inductance and capacitance and then inserting the measured values into an equation that provides a reasonable speaker impedance, and by actually measuring the effects.

 

I did this a number of years ago when I was struggling with the issue for the first time. I took two pairs of speaker cables, both 8 footers, from the same manufacturer. One was their best copper cable, the other their best silver. Gauge, construction, and geometry were the same. I used a B&K 4133 measurement microphone, recently calibrated which I used for speaker design measurement, and did ten sweeps on each cable running the mike feed into an FFT analyzer (MLSSA) and averaging the response. When I compared the ten averaged measurements of the copper wire to the silver I found that the silver, which I had already determined sounded slightly brighter subjectively, was approximately .4 db hotter from 10 to 20K than the copper. For the record, in my system I preferred the copper at half the price. I have since come to the conclusion that there are other elements at play as well, but my point here is mainly that the RLC issue is an issue in the audible frequency range. .4db over an entire octave is certainly audible. I guess my secondary point is that although I do mainly describe my subjective response to things, I have a background that helps me recognize snake oil for what it is (hopefully) while still being open to the idea that some things I can hear I can't explain.

 

 

 

[Ashley James]

I doubt very much that 0.4 dB from 10kHz up would be audible anyway because most of the music is concentrated below 6kHz and because tweeters are highly directional at these frequencies. They aren't putting enough energy into a room for you to hear it if your ears were good enough and there was anything to hear. You need to be close and on axis for very high frequencies.

 

What an increasing number of engineers are just beginning to discover is that there is a great deal of extra energy in the area around the crossover than was previously assumed to be the case. This has happened because drive units are improving and allowing higher crossover frequencies and because analogue arrays or DSP chips allow easy alteration of filter slopes during development. I mention this because most of the treble assumed to be coming from higher frequencies is actually concentrated in the 1-3 kHz region and just the sound of the tweeter audible through the bass driver. Because this bit of the spectrum is so exaggerated in passive speakers in particular, it makes it even less likely that anything from higher up would be audible. Crossovers can add brightness and most do.

 

The clearest example that I can think of to illustrate this point is the difference between B&Ws Nautilus and Diamond range. The complaint of the former was that it had an obtrusive metallic sounding tweeter. The Diamond one that replaced it cured the problem. Or did it? B&W had re-designed the new mid driver to extend beyond 5 kHz, moved the crossover point up from 3 kHz and put a simple filter on the new tweeter and had produced a much nicer speaker.

 

Three way speakers are more of a problem because they have two crossovers, one in an area where your ears are very sensitive to distortion and the usual one to the tweeter and it's practically impossible to stop them interacting. At their best IMO three ways speakers sound clearer than two way ones, but harsher because of this problem. B&W have side stepped it by doing away with the upper crossover and just using the natural roll off of the mid drive unit. I understand the new model is very good indeed.

 

Sorry for digressing but cables are......................................

 

Ash

 

[BEEMB]

 

I'm not trying to change the subject and everybody has their opinion as to whether cables make an audible difference or not.

I'm sure sometimes your mind plays tricks on you too; an upgrade may sound better because you expect to .. I dunno. Anyway:

 

During a test a few nights ago my brother and I found the source material to make the largest difference to what we were hearing.

 

Okay, so our speakers were very very different but I never cease to be amazed by how bad some CD's can sound. I recently sold my record deck but could never understand why a modern vinyl album would always seem less compressed and more open than the CD equivalent. Unless the source used for the vinyl was different to that used for the CD.

 

I guess some producers compress the hell out of some music - they need to get their track heard on the radio, but it sure does have a negative affect when you're listening properly.

 

It's been discussed elsewhere on here but I've got many 320kps MP3's that sound better than some music I have at CD quality.

 

 

 

Just my thoughts.

 

 

[tfarney]

You're a reasonable man, as always, Ashley, and looking at this thing from the practical standpoint of what we can actually hear; not what we measure; not what we imagine.. Another thing I think we might "test" while we're testing is our hearing. I'm 57. I wasted my youth (and much of my middle age) playing live music. I seriously doubt that I hear much above 10K.

 

I haven't mentioned it, but for the last couple of weeks I've been working in a high-end audio-video shop. We don't have a wide variety of product, but some good stuff, including Vienna Acoustics, Martin Logans and Definitive Technology. I've done a lot of listening to gear that my ears are not tuned to, and I think I have re-affirmed what matters to MY listening anyway: Fat mids filled with all of the rich overtones that exist in nature (and no more), solid bass down to the one-two punch of a low note on a standup bass and the thunk of the kick drum, trebles up to the natural, hiss-free/hash-free shimmer of a ride cymbal. That's about it. Anything above or below that is wasted on me. And I'm constantly struck with the urge to turn down subwoofers. I don't really dislike them. They can add a nice kick, but they're almost always too dominant. Definitive Technology's towers are a great example. At first blush they sound bloated and bloomy. Bloody awful. Turn the built-in subs down until they come into balance and they're really quite nice. Not as balanced as the Vienna's, but a good listen.

 

Tim

 

[Ashley James]

Tim

I like the practical stuff that anyone can follow because I think it helps people.

 

Research into loudspeakers is ongoing and IMO engineers still have lots to learn about Bass. Because our ears aren't good at analysing it, we're happy if the sound we hear from speakers is balanced. By that I mean they sound as though they have a flat amplitude response, but they don't because certain bands of frequencies are accentuated by distortions and appear louder.

 

Two speakers can measure the same but one can sound much brighter, which indicates distortion that could be a lack of control of low frequencies (time related) or excessive energy in the crossover region, or even a harsh amp.

 

We think that the only accurate bass you hear is from the cone in a properly controlled speaker, that a port is an offensive one note resonance and that amplifiers for subwoofers often need more power and current than they produce.

 

Carefully used a port makes a small two way sound nicely balanced and without it, modern relatively high sensitivity 6" drive units sound thin and forward, therefore it's necessary, but there is a lot of time related distortion rather than amplitude in the result. This is good in small speakers but can be a disaster in a big one - hence your feelings about subs.

 

The problem is further compounded buy having lots of overhang and overshoot on the main speakers and much less on a good big Sub. Although the main speakers produce less bass, it lasts longer, so you must turn up the Sub too far to hear it's affect. And then it spoils everything.

 

Sorry for even further digression, but I hope it's interesting.

 

Beemb is right, far too many modern recordings are unrealistic sounding and have virtually none of the dynamic range of real life, it's so bad even non audiophiles are complaining to record companies about it. They often sound the same on any system, which may be the objective

 

Ash

 

[rom661]

Thanks for an interesting response. I have had very prolonged exposure to the B&W 800 Nautilus and Diamond series and have spent some time with the person in charge of their design. The new tweeter is substantially different but you are absolutely right, in my opinion, that a lot of the improvement in the new series is in the area of crossover and driver integration. The lower end of the 800 Diamond series, 803S and below, still use an aluminum tweeter and yet they show the same general type of improvements as their diamond brethren.

 

I do respectfully disagree about the audibility of a half db across the upper octave. I can hear it, even at 55. Admittedly I am referring to a high quality system listening in a position where I am not substantially off axis to the tweeter. Even if you are off axis the energy above 10K does not go away, it is attenuated unless you are way off. I can still hear the relative differences. Most tweeters start dropping off at about 10K when you are around 15 degrees off axis. I never listen critically at more than a few degrees off. At 52, a few years ago, I could still hear up to 15K when I was tested. I am not claiming this was a turn your life around kind of difference, merely that I could hear it. Was I hearing other things in the cable as well? I prefer not to go there.

 

Thanks again for the interesting comments.

 

Rick

 

[Ashley James]

Rick

there may be a misunderstanding.

 

Any energy in music at above say, 5 kHz is about 5% of what is occurring in the mid range, so masked or barely audible at 5kHz, never mind at 10kHz.

 

It's not enough to listen on axis, you'd need to be with 1/2 metre of the speaker as well! Think in terms of total energy. If something is beaming like a torch, it's putting far less energy out than at lower frequencies where dispersion is far wider. So now you have very little energy in the signal and even less from the speaker and the lower stuff is a lot louder too.

 

You may well be able to hear up to very high frequencies indeed, but not when they aren't really there and everything at lower frequencies is much much louder.

 

I'm sorry if I didn't explain very well.

 

Ashley

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Ashley - Do I sense you're telling Rick what he can and can't hear? That's either a lot of confidence or a lot of ignorance. Only kidding if course. I know Rick and trust his opinion / experience on many things.

 

[Ashley James]

Chris

 

Far from it! I'm obviously having trouble explaining.

 

What I'm trying to say is that no one will hear anything in the 10-20kHz region while listening to music for reasons explained above. Like most of us I used to assume you could until some acousticians showed me what I was actually hearing was at a much lower frequency.

 

A Spectrum analyser will show exactly what I'm trying to say.

 

I'm sure that if Rick says he can hear those frequencies that he can, but that's not the point, music doesn't have much energy in it above 6kHz, so you aren't going to hear much above 10Khz.

 

sincere apologies for any offence I've caused.

 

Ashley

 

[BEEMB]

 

I'm only reading bits and pieces here - I should be working !

 

Interesting ..

 

Whilst we probably can't hear certain low frequencies, do low frequencies have the ability to make a differences to frequencies above them ?

 

For example, deep bass appears to make treble appear a little brighter - try switching a sub on/off ...

 

I'm probably gabbling but I've always thought that ...

 

Do lower frequencies help higher frequencies travel ??

 

 

[Daphne]

Fellow audiophiles, I hope you will enjoy my rant and not take anything included too seriously.

 

Often, when the subject of speaker cables arises, I tend to picture the ending of "The Bridge On The River Kwai," when James Donald is standing and shaking his head in disbelief suddenly utters "Madness..., Madness."

 

To illustrate my point I finally located a most bizarre article I recall reading a number of years ago. "Audio McCarthyism," written by Robert Harley from Stereophile back in January of 1992 regarding a meeting of the AES in October of 1991 dedicated to the nonsense of speaker cables. He was really offended by a speech made by a representative of the New York Consumer Protection Agency. The rep explained the consequences of manufacturers and retailers making fraudulent claims about products. It seems Harley's male ego was bruised, and in an emotional state, wrote an article without any logic, just far reaching conclusions. He would actually have us believe he is the audiophile who speaks for all audiophiles. That any threat to the claims of expensive speaker cables is in fact extreme persecution of all audiophiles to the extent of McCarthyism where we are ostracized from society and prevented from obtaining employment. Read the article, and foot notes. You be the judge.

http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/107/

 

So, the AES has assumed a neutral position after that event and rejected publishing anything worth reading on the subject since.

 

The extreme points of view have settled down, but since 1992 the number of cable manufacturers has increased and the prices have risen dramatically.

 

The Madness continues to present day. Here is a recent article about Pear speaker cables. The editor of Positive Feedback Online, Dave Clark, described the cables as being "Danceable and foot-tapping." I can only picture that he must have watching Blue Man Group using the cables to beat on PVC pipes. Check out the links at the bottom of the article, the situation turns bizarre. http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/speaker-cables/7250-speaker-cables-turn-you-into-a-dancin-fool-302478.php

 

One would think there would be some consumer protection laws. At least some regulations or even guidelines to curtail the claims and misinformation to protect the average consumer. Well, there are basic guidelines which can enter into the realm of the law. I can start with the basics.

 

Most of us are familiar with the term Caveat Emptor (Latin for - let the buyer beware). However, does this term really apply to the outrageous claims of some audio cable manufacturers?

 

In general, caveat emptor is a warning that notifies a buyer that the goods he or she is buying are "as is," or subject to all defects.

 

When a sale is subject to this warning the purchaser assumes the risk that the product might be either defective or unsuitable to his or her needs.

 

There is a basic premise that the consumer buys at his/her own risk and therefore should examine and test a product himself/herself for obvious defects and imperfections. Caveat emptor still applies even if the purchase is "as is" or when a defect is obvious upon reasonable inspection before purchase. Now, since implied warranties (assumed quality of goods) and consumer protections have come upon the legal landscape, the seller is held to a higher standard of disclosure than "buyer beware" and has responsibility for defects which could not be noted by casual inspection (particularly since modern devices cannot be tested except by use, and so many products are pre-packaged).

 

One thing should be made clear, this rule is not designed to shield sellers who engage in "Fraud or bad faith" dealing by making false or misleading representations about the quality or condition of a particular product. It merely summarizes the concept that a purchaser must examine, judge, and test a product considered for purchase himself or herself.

 

The modern trend in laws protecting consumers, however, has minimized the importance of this rule. Although the buyer is still required to make a reasonable inspection of goods upon purchase, increased responsibilities have been placed upon the seller, and the doctrine of caveat venditor (Latin for "let the seller beware") has become more prevalent. Generally, there is a legal presumption that a seller makes certain warranties unless the buyer and the seller agree otherwise. One such Warranty is the Implied Warranty of merchantability. If a person buys soap, for example, there is an implied warranty that it will clean; if a person buys skis, there is an implied warranty that they will be safe to use on the slopes.

 

A seller who is in the business of regularly selling a particular type of goods has still greater responsibilities in dealing with an average customer. (Average customer in legal language refers to the lowest common denominator, or a consumer with little or no knowledge of the item in question.) A person purchasing antiques from an antique dealer, or jewelry from a jeweler, is justified in his or her reliance on the expertise of the seller.

 

If both the buyer and the seller are negotiating from equal bargaining positions, however, the doctrine of caveat emptor would apply.

 

So, exactly how do ultra expensive audio cable manufacturers work their way around consumer laws. Well, their claims are vague and never directly connected to superior sound. Some quote their research findings and basic principles of electrons, others just tout the academic and professional background of their founder/s, still others rely on a description of the manufacturing process and materials used. But explaining why their cables sound better is of course a trade secret. How and why their speaker cables sound so far superior originates from an independent source - reviews written by audio critics. Legally, manufacturers can actually quote these (positive only) reviews in their advertising and not be held liable for the content.

 

The bottom line - Unless the consumer protection agencies receive complaints from the legions, no action will ever take place. Some may say: come on Daphne are you not reaching a little too far with that statement? Well... please forgive me for striking direct to the male psyche, but if a follicly challenged man claimed that listening to his stereo a minimum of 20 hours per week using a certain company's speaker cables actually caused his hair to grow, that cable maker could use that statement to bolster their sales. If a thousand people complained to the agencies that the statement was untrue, the consequences would be inexpensive compared to the profits made.

 

What about a well planned test to prove that a difference (for better or worse) actually exists? Well, that has taken place within a private group on a number of occasions (without the participation of the manufacturer of course), but no attorney in his right mind would ever advise his client (cable manufacturer) to participate in any publicly held experiment, regardless of the conditions.

 

There have been a number of challenges proposed over the years. However, the high end cable makers have always found reasons not to attend. For example: double blind listening tests are bogus because the people tested are under stress, or they are not trained listeners, or the ABX does not include the placebo effect, or the math of probability & statistics can predict the outcome before the test is run.

 

(Now just think for a moment, double blind testing used with the placebo effect is a scientific process good enough to approve life saving pharmaceuticals, but suddenly not the acceptable method to test the ability of human hearing. It is an acceptable scientific method for testing the hearing abilities of the blind, but not sighted people? You be the judge. )

 

Then there is the disagreement of other critical issues like the position of the seating, the shape and size of the room, the components used, the source material, the type of speakers, even the ABX switch is claimed to induce distortion and defeat the advantages of the cables. Strange issues from companies who infer their products will render any system better sounding. My point being, there will never be an acceptable method of testing agreed upon between the parties.

 

Here is an amusing article illustrating my point. I'm sure there are hundreds more. http://www.vxm.com/21R.64.html

 

This brings us right back to the beginning - Caveat Emptor. Two words we as consumers should always consider, whether we are purchasing a car, vacuum cleaner, or audio cables.

 

The solution I chose for cables was to purchase used. My service guys offered top and middle of the line Audience speaker cables and interconnects for a fraction of the price on new cables. They cost no more than average quality Monster cables. I am pleased with my purchase. Back in April, the audio store I mostly do business with was conducting a promotion on Nordost Odin cables. I received a pair of 4 meter speaker cables (which look like heavy ribbons), and three sets of interconnects to try out. I wasted hours upon hours going from one set to the other. Trying to my best listening ability, I could not hear any difference. Since I am considered a good customer I qualified for a 25% discount on new cables, but even with the discount the cables came to the outrageous amount of $49,500.

That is enough to purchase a new BMW 335i convertible, or a really nice diamond necklace. BMW, diamond necklace, or wire. Hmmmm... I already have several nice cars, and after all "diamonds are forever!" The choice was easy. When I returned the cables, the new young salesman attempted to charge me a rental fee. Poor boy, he temporarily lost control of his brain. Then again, I was also guilty of acting like a bag of empty bottles when I agreed to test the cables, knowing all along the likelihood of hearing a difference was slim to none.

 

For all the forum members who have not learned the hard way, like I have over the past 20 years, I happened upon the following web site. There is quite a bit of interesting information, lots of facts (as the author sees them), mixed with a little opinion and good advice.

http://sound.westhost.com/cables-p2.htm#spkr-leads

 

There seems to be no end to the debate. If I take a practical point of view, it is in the nature of retailers to seek new ways of expanding profits which is how they prosper and continue to exist. It is also the nature of engineers to design a better mouse trap and for entrepreneurs to market that mouse trap. We as consumers will need to determine if we are purchasing a better gadget, or falling into a trap. Answering questions and exchanging information and experiences like we do on this forum is an excellent beginning.

 

Daphne

 

 

 

[tfarney]

Well, it could be all of that, or it could simply be that a government that, for at least a couple of decades, has endeavored to gut and/or fail to enforce consumer protections designed to protect our health and welfare is not in any hurry to protect audiophiles from their own foolishness. Especially when the companies preying on that foolishness are about as big as one of Enron's bathrooms.

 

Tim

 

[rom661]

Ashley, I understand the point you are making. There is no need to explain it again. There is no question that there is very little energy in the top octave. Your assertion that it cannot be heard is simply incorrect. It would be presumptuous for me to tell you what you hear. However it is audible in general. What I didn't mention is that I also checked to see if I could explain the differences I heard with simple eq. Well, not so simple eq. I didn't mention this because I didn't want this thing to go in exactly the direction in which it has gone. I used a $5,000 digital EQ that sat between my transport and 24 bit DAC. I programmed a shelf filter to shelve everything above 10K by a half db. The setting I compared it to still had the EQ in the circuit, just set to flat. The difference was audible on well recorded jazz and classical fare. I have designed speakers for over 30 years. On occasion I have used passive EQ in the crossover to affect the response in the top octave, well above the crossover point and midrange frequencies. These changes are audible as well.

 

According to your logic, there is no point in having any response above 10K. I don't know anyone designing equipment, and I have had the privilege of hanging out with a lot of gifted designers as a result of being in the industry and an official geek wannabe, who agrees with that. It is subtle. It is where the harmonics and overtones reside. It is the "air" that reviewers discuss. The fact that it is much lower in amplitude than the fundamentals and midrange does not mean it is inaudible. Our ears are amazing things. I really don't know what else to say. People with normal hearing have the ability to hear an incredible dynamic range. Admittedly if you are listening to compressed music at a constant, almost steady state level it would be difficult to hear. Much rock, lots of jazz, classical, pop, etc. do not meet this description. I supposed if you are talking about steady state tones your statement would be correct. That is not a description of music.

 

I really wish I hadn't kicked this thing off again. I was trying to make room for a little common ground on a contentious subject. I was naive. If you guys want to continue with this one, feel free but I'm going to retire from it.

 

Thanks Chris for your comment. I do find it offensive to be told what I can and can't hear.

 

No hard feelings Ash and I apologize for bringing up something you take issue with.

 

[rom661]

Sorry, I double clicked and duplicated the posting. Whoops.

 

[Ashley James]

Rik please believe me when I say that I'd be extremely upset if I'd offended you or questioned your judgement. I'm certain if we sat down together and could see each other as we exchanged views, the situation would be different and we'd both be more comfortable with what was said. I'm sure we'd probably become friends too!- but Forums are difficult because we don't have that luxury, we have to trust the intentions of an apparent protagonist!

 

I've seen similar experiments to the one you're describing and heard the differences too, however I've heard them on big studio monitors that used the 34 mm BBC Audax tweeter. It was called that because Audax designed it for the BBC LS5/8As, which was the standard big monitor of it's day. My experiences were with the ATC's that comprised of 2 x 12" or 15", 1 x 3" Dome mid and 1 x 34 mm Audax. With this system it was possible to here changes in EQ made at 15 kHz despite the fact that the Audax fell away steeply at a little over 10 kHz. I should have explained that they used an ATC Active Crossover and a pile of amps of the customer's choice.

 

One customer of these big ATCs was Dave Gilmour of the Pink Floyd and his team spent a great deal of time auditioning different amplifier combinations etc to get the very best results and inevitably they asked me how I though they might improve them. I suggested they try a couple of Scanspeak Revelator Tweeters because they extended to a much higher frequency with a smoother amplitude response and less distortion. These were fitted and the immediately it was suggested that they didn't go as high as the Audax! IMO Scanspeaks are some of the best tweeters made, so I defended them and Nick Whitaker was summoned to measure. Nick is a properly trained and qualified Acoustician and one of the best there is. He confirmed what I'd said and eventually it was agreed that the smoother and apparently duller sound was due to the much lower distortion. The Audax was an old and crude part by then anyway.

 

I'm describing all this by way of mitigation and to show how difficult it can be to draw conclusions from what one does and hears. Invariably a great deal of experiments have to be done and many measurements made before one can sure of anything. I certainly don't think we should revert to tweeter with a 10 kHz max, but I think you'll agree that this does imply that the artefacts that you could hear may actually be at a lower frequency.

 

Please don't pull out of this one because I think it's interesting, we have common ground and no reason to fall out.

 

Daphne

 

Interesting stuff. You may not be aware that Russ Andrews is the UK's premier snake oil salesman, I recommend his website to anyone who wants to ruin his weekend! He was recently reported to our Advertising Standards Association and reprimanded for some of the cable claims he was making. Although there were those that supported him, I think the majority felt it was a good thing and a start of a better future - hopefully.

 

Ashley

 

[BobH]

Actually, for once, I tend to agree with Ashley - at least the part about this being a useful thread!!

 

From a purely personal point of view, I tend not to get overly excited by manufacturers' claims and counter-claims - they are all trying to make a living in an overcrowded and, possibly, shrinking market. Wild. inaccurate, vague, misleading and, sometimes, even dishonest, claims can be found on nearly ALL manufacturers' websites! And one thing is for sure, one man's ideal sound is another's hideous racket!

 

My point would be that scientific measurement and assessment is, whilst certainly useful, by no means the end of the story. I run highly sensitive, single driver, speakers powered by a 2w SET amp which should, by all modern measurements, sound bloody awful. It doesn't, it sounds totally marvelous - at least to my ears. I would go so far as to say that if measuring any part of the audio chain gave an accurate and irrefutable indication of how it would sound then we would all be using the same boxes and this discussion would be pointless! I think 'science' has a long way to go before it understands fully how human beings hear what they hear, in terms of being able to measure and predict it. I also believe that there are measurements that need to be taken to achieve this goal, which have yet to be discovered or perhaps even thought about. There is too much disagreement, amongst too many passionate people, for the answer to be as easy as hooking up a few gizmos and printing off a ream of fancy-looking graphs!

 

Mind you, it makes for a rousing debate!