Paul's view on Cables, Audio Precision Analyzer, etc.

[Archimago]

Interesting interview...

 

Lots of questionable stuff in there that might be worth commenting on.

[Archimago]

What a "great" interview :-).

 

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2020/02/diy-archimagos-colorful-set-of-speaker.html

 

A debate b/w Winer and McGowan would be fun... I think those guys could keep emotions in check without breaking down into a hysterical brawl. 

[Archimago]

19 minutes ago, fas42 said:

I read your piece... and see you falling down all the same rabbit holes as everyone else who wishes to debunk the impact of variation in non-obvious stuff.

 

Are you sure those rabbit holes you speak of are real, Frank?

 

Quote

As an example, you say,

 

 

People like yourself refuse to accept that typical rigs are imperfect enough to always add a signature to the sound of the recording - after all, if that weren't the case then every system "would sound the same"  - so, what one hears is the actual sound of the recording PLUS the sound of the system; the distortion resulting from its imperfections. And a lot of the anomalies heard are the result of the lack of integrity of the connections between its parts.

 

Yes, if all systems were perfectly transparent, then they'd sound the same given the same recording.

Final sound = Recording + System Coloration

 

Don't think I can agree that "a lot" of the anomalies are due to "integrity of the connection". I would say much of the coloration these days come from one's transducer (speakers, headphone) and room as may be the case.

 

Quote

This is not "as-yet-not-understood phenomena". Nor is worthwhile trying to measure it - because what is 'wrong' with the system will vary, per each system; a solution, as in changing the type of cable used, is simply that - a solution; measuring what actually happened is only useful in the sense of understanding why the system had a weakness the first place... if I find a rattle in a brand new car, and I work out which piece of loose plastic is giving me grief ... should I write a paper about it ... ? 😉

 

So you're arguing that each system has idiosyncrasies. That's true. But what Darko and McGowan are claiming is that cables in general are able to change sound substantially. The strange claims about the Ted Smith DAC is more akin to your "rattle in a brand new car" and suggests that it's a bad DAC design because of its idiosyncrasies.

[Archimago]

59 minutes ago, fas42 said:

In general they will .. because parasitic properties derived from how they are made, and connected, will alter to some degree the "System Coloration" component - just enough to be audible, if one is sensitive to the type of sound changes that occur.

 

Is there an objective way to prove that these parasitic properties from how they were connected?

 

59 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The Ted Smith DAC is fairly typical of what many designers say, in candid interviews - get the technical performance right, then the real work begins ... nut out what has to be fine-tuned in the construction of the product to deliver actual acceptable SQ. There was an interesting piece by Stan Curtis, the designer of the first "audiophile" CDP, some time ago - he stated that the production examples of what he designed, no matter what it was, never sounded as good as his prototypes ... I would say, that the fine-tuning in the building of his original circuit could not be passed through to the manufacturing side; key decisions of "how to do it", affecting quality, were lost in this process.

 

Maybe. Don't know if prototypes sounded better than the final product. Guess one would need to ask him...

[Archimago]

3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

There would be - as I quoted from PM above,

 

 

Do that, then use DeltaWave to try and drill down and locate where there are meaningful differences between the two configurations - if one does this in a rigorous manner then I, for one, would be confident that there would be something there, that could be pointed to ...

 

You think this would demonstrate connection differences and the parasitic properties you speak of?

 

Give it a try with some USB cables and let us know what you find ;-).