More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t
Discussion
Lucid_AV said:
ATG said:
It's not "resorting" to anything. It's just a normal procedure for discerning if a subtle difference in perception exists in the external world or just in your head.
If a power lead clearly "sounded" distinctly different to another, then we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. It would be common knowledge that power leads mattered and it would be demonstrable with measurement kit and there'd be a perfectly sensible explanation as to why they made a difference.
Surely you are prepared to admit that the difference is subtle? If so, in any other field people would naturally use an A/B test to establish if a difference actually exists. These tests exist to eliminate our natural biases.
Can you tell me why detecting subtle differences in audio equipment performance is not at risk of being distorted by people's normal biases?
Can you tell me why blind A/B testing wouldn't be an appropriate way of objectively determining if you can really hear the difference between two power leads?
BIB: There's a big problem with that argument. It's that how much a listener is bothered if there's a difference very much affects their perception. This goes for Hi-Fi in general, not just tweaky ancillaries. If a power lead clearly "sounded" distinctly different to another, then we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. It would be common knowledge that power leads mattered and it would be demonstrable with measurement kit and there'd be a perfectly sensible explanation as to why they made a difference.
Surely you are prepared to admit that the difference is subtle? If so, in any other field people would naturally use an A/B test to establish if a difference actually exists. These tests exist to eliminate our natural biases.
Can you tell me why detecting subtle differences in audio equipment performance is not at risk of being distorted by people's normal biases?
Can you tell me why blind A/B testing wouldn't be an appropriate way of objectively determining if you can really hear the difference between two power leads?
ATG said:
I don't see how that has any relevant to what I said. Either there is a clear difference or there isn't. If there isn't a clear difference you can still determine if there is a genuine difference by testing carefully.
Are you saying that you don't understand how one person can hear a difference with a piece of equipment, but another can't? Incidentally, have you ever listened in a demo situation to various power leads?
Edited by Lucid_AV on Friday 13th August 02:38
Lucid_AV said:
Are you saying that you don't understand how one person can hear a difference with a piece of equipment, but another can't?
Incidentally, have you ever listened in a demo situation to various power leads?
From my posts we can deduce that most here wouldn’t go to a demo because any differences in power leads are imagined. Of course, what we have here is the naysayers shouting loudest and only a couple of people saying that they’re at least worth a listen. Incidentally, have you ever listened in a demo situation to various power leads?
Edited by Lucid_AV on Friday 13th August 02:38
Tony1963 said:
Lucid_AV said:
Are you saying that you don't understand how one person can hear a difference with a piece of equipment, but another can't?
Incidentally, have you ever listened in a demo situation to various power leads?
From my posts we can deduce that most here wouldn’t go to a demo because any differences in power leads are imagined. Of course, what we have here is the naysayers shouting loudest and only a couple of people saying that they’re at least worth a listen. Incidentally, have you ever listened in a demo situation to various power leads?
Edited by Lucid_AV on Friday 13th August 02:38
Tony1963 said:
Lucid_AV said:
Are you saying that you don't understand how one person can hear a difference with a piece of equipment, but another can't?
Incidentally, have you ever listened in a demo situation to various power leads?
From my posts we can deduce that most here wouldn’t go to a demo because any differences in power leads are imagined. Of course, what we have here is the naysayers shouting loudest and only a couple of people saying that they’re at least worth a listen. Incidentally, have you ever listened in a demo situation to various power leads?
Edited by Lucid_AV on Friday 13th August 02:38
The daft thing is, if the power leads were sold because they look good, fit well and last then fine.
Gary C said:
There is a difference between equipment that at least has some basis in fact (even if tiny), but some of the things shown in this thread like 20K kettle leads and uni-directional fuses are praying on the weak minded. The gross price of some of them is borderline criminal.
The daft thing is, if the power leads were sold because they look good, fit well and last then fine.
Agreed!The daft thing is, if the power leads were sold because they look good, fit well and last then fine.
Camelot1971 said:
Why would someone waste their time "listening" to a product that has zero scientific evidence to back up any claims made a manufacturer? Making small adjustments to the room you listen in would be an infinitely better use of your time and actually make a difference. Of course, if your hobby is imagining things sound better just because a company said so then knock yourself out!
Has science even tried? And I don’t mean testing just plain IEC leads with standard bits n bobs, I mean leads like the Naim Powerline. I doubt many scientists are even aware of them. Side note: Brian Cox has a wee Naim system.
TonyRPH said:
RE The Naim cable - I'm struggling to see how apply "mechanical decoupling" to a mains cable is going to make a shred of difference.
To me, the implication here is not the suppression of electrical interference, but mechanical interference.
However, if the device being powered by said cable is that sensitive to mechanical interference, then it needs redesigning as no equipment should be that sensitive to vibration.
As for screening... There is an abundance of unscreened cable from the mains consumer unit to the socket(s), all of which is quite capable of picking up EMI etc.
Therefore, a 1M length of screened cable is not going to help at all - as it will simply pass the EMI unhindered.
On the other hand - if there was some serious mains filtering between the cable and the device being powered, then I can see that EMI will be supressed to a (small) degree.
However, once the mains cable enters the device being powered, the mains is usually split into two individual cores of cable leading to a mains switch and then on to the power transformer. Both of these pieces of cable are liable to EMI pickup.
Additionally - any EMI will be heavily supressed by the capacitance and inductance of the transformer windings, and the remaining (if any) EMI will be cleaned up by competent (secondary) power supply design which is quite trivial.
There is in fact, a greater risk of EMI injection into an amplifier from the speaker cables, via the feedback loop - however most competent designs will control this to a high degree with filtering (which is usually incidental in the form of the Zobel network and output inductor where present).
Of course, in their early designs, Naim chose to eschew the output inductor...
If EMI was such a huge problem, your amplifier, CD player, DAC etc. would be playing radio stations to you instead of your music, and when last did that happen to you?
Radio pickup via phono stages is excluded here, as that is not power supply borne interference, but directly injected into the phono stage / cartridge.
I was going to say the same. Any form of shielding is just protecting dirty mains for the last few feet. It's still dirty when it hits the equipment.To me, the implication here is not the suppression of electrical interference, but mechanical interference.
However, if the device being powered by said cable is that sensitive to mechanical interference, then it needs redesigning as no equipment should be that sensitive to vibration.
As for screening... There is an abundance of unscreened cable from the mains consumer unit to the socket(s), all of which is quite capable of picking up EMI etc.
Therefore, a 1M length of screened cable is not going to help at all - as it will simply pass the EMI unhindered.
On the other hand - if there was some serious mains filtering between the cable and the device being powered, then I can see that EMI will be supressed to a (small) degree.
However, once the mains cable enters the device being powered, the mains is usually split into two individual cores of cable leading to a mains switch and then on to the power transformer. Both of these pieces of cable are liable to EMI pickup.
Additionally - any EMI will be heavily supressed by the capacitance and inductance of the transformer windings, and the remaining (if any) EMI will be cleaned up by competent (secondary) power supply design which is quite trivial.
There is in fact, a greater risk of EMI injection into an amplifier from the speaker cables, via the feedback loop - however most competent designs will control this to a high degree with filtering (which is usually incidental in the form of the Zobel network and output inductor where present).
Of course, in their early designs, Naim chose to eschew the output inductor...
If EMI was such a huge problem, your amplifier, CD player, DAC etc. would be playing radio stations to you instead of your music, and when last did that happen to you?
Radio pickup via phono stages is excluded here, as that is not power supply borne interference, but directly injected into the phono stage / cartridge.
Mains can be filtered and regulated reasonably simply to produce a clean supply.
Camelot1971 said:
Why would someone waste their time "listening" to a product that has zero scientific evidence to back up any claims made a manufacturer? Making small adjustments to the room you listen in would be an infinitely better use of your time and actually make a difference. Of course, if your hobby is imagining things sound better just because a company said so then knock yourself out!
But have you actually sat down and listened in a system with enough resolution for yourself? The answer is a simple Yes or No.
Gary C said:
There is a difference between equipment that at least has some basis in fact (even if tiny), but some of the things shown in this thread like 20K kettle leads and uni-directional fuses are praying on the weak minded. The gross price of some of them is borderline criminal.
The daft thing is, if the power leads were sold because they look good, fit well and last then fine.
Same question to you as in the previous post above; have you sat and listened to cables for yourself? Yes or No? The daft thing is, if the power leads were sold because they look good, fit well and last then fine.
Lucid_AV said:
But have you actually sat down and listened in a system with enough resolution for yourself?
The answer is a simple Yes or No.
@Lucid_AV - are you referring to hearing differences in mains cables, noise rejection in screened cables, or differences in sound between screened cables.The answer is a simple Yes or No.
Because whilst I agree that hum rejection in screened cables can definitely be an issue with sub woofers, any cable that offers sufficient noise rejection by virtue of good quality screening will sound the same as any other good quality cable.
When we get into the murky world of interconnects between source and amplifier or preamp and amplifier - the situation remains the same.
There are some circumstances where differences in sound might be heard between cables, and those can be with the oxymoronically named passive preamp, and some valve gear. This is because the high output impedances encountered with the aforementioned gear (but not all valve gear) generally has quite a high output impedance which when combined with a cable of very higg capacitance, can cause attenuation of (very) high frequencies.
There are some passive preamps that don't suffer from this issue, but there are not many.
To all you saying there's no difference with mains cables, or there's no scientific evidence, I would agree that on the first point it does sound implausible, and on the second point I would ask you if there's any solid scientific measurement-based evidence for the difference between capacitors of the same value?
This takes me back to my first experience buying a turntable. It was the mid-80s and I was in my mid-teens. A mate had convinced me that I really shouldn't buy an Amstrad stack system, even though it was big and silver and shiny and had so very many knobs, buttons and lights. To be fair, I had heard his dad's system (Ariston RD80S, Pioneer receiver, KEF Concord III) and it did make music sound so much better than my poxy BSR all-in-one, but that sort of gear was in a price league well beyond my reach.
Anyway, we visited a dealer to demo a couple of turntables. All the mags loved the Dual CS-505, so that was first on the list. Then there was this up-and-coming brand called Revolver. Before we got to the A/B demo though, the dealer spent ten minutes demonstrating Meccano nuts. He wasn't selling them. He was showing us the difference that decoupling the speakers made to the sound. I didn't get it at first, and I thought the dealer was mad, but my mate understood straight away. He was an amateur musician; an electric bass player. He got what the decoupling was achieving. He said the bass stopped and started more cleanly. Even after that I still really didn't hear any difference that I could reliably identify. I was still listening to the top end, but I agreed just so we could move on to the TT demo.
I've sat in on and given a fair few demos myself where someone didn't get what to me and my colleagues was a clear difference in sound. That's okay though. It can take time to learn what to listen for. I've also sat in dems where my limits have been exceeded. The £10K clock for the £20K CD player made zero impression on my. I already though the CD player was the most sublime thing I'd ever heard from redbook CD.
Twenty grand for a CD player. How the hell can that be justified? I couldn't spend that kind of cash, even for something as good as it. A couple if grand maybe, but not ten times that. But then the pursuit of the ultimate is always an expensive past time. Friends think I'm mad to have spend on a CD player costing £800, or stereo speakers at £2K. We're all at different points in the journey.
To any of you who have your doubts about mains cables, equipment stands, types of cartridge, room acoustics or anything else where it seems to be pushing the limits of absurdity, maybe remember that in a lot of cases these were mad ideas and the science to explain some of it came along much much later. Tannoy had been making speakers since the mid 1920s. Some of its most revered designs such as the Monitor Golds came from the 60s when pipe-smoking blokes with names such as Bert, Fred and Albert had some crazy ideas about trying different materials and techniques when the science of the day couldn't explain why there might be a difference. Now we have CADCAM and laser interferometry to make speakers where we understand and can model whats going on as the driver plays and the cabinet flexes. All it took was a few decades for the science to catch up with the mad ideas men.
Should any of you feel brave enough to try it, and Stockport is within your travel range, I could arrange a day with a friendly dealer so you can see for yourself where your limits of hearing sit.
This takes me back to my first experience buying a turntable. It was the mid-80s and I was in my mid-teens. A mate had convinced me that I really shouldn't buy an Amstrad stack system, even though it was big and silver and shiny and had so very many knobs, buttons and lights. To be fair, I had heard his dad's system (Ariston RD80S, Pioneer receiver, KEF Concord III) and it did make music sound so much better than my poxy BSR all-in-one, but that sort of gear was in a price league well beyond my reach.
Anyway, we visited a dealer to demo a couple of turntables. All the mags loved the Dual CS-505, so that was first on the list. Then there was this up-and-coming brand called Revolver. Before we got to the A/B demo though, the dealer spent ten minutes demonstrating Meccano nuts. He wasn't selling them. He was showing us the difference that decoupling the speakers made to the sound. I didn't get it at first, and I thought the dealer was mad, but my mate understood straight away. He was an amateur musician; an electric bass player. He got what the decoupling was achieving. He said the bass stopped and started more cleanly. Even after that I still really didn't hear any difference that I could reliably identify. I was still listening to the top end, but I agreed just so we could move on to the TT demo.
I've sat in on and given a fair few demos myself where someone didn't get what to me and my colleagues was a clear difference in sound. That's okay though. It can take time to learn what to listen for. I've also sat in dems where my limits have been exceeded. The £10K clock for the £20K CD player made zero impression on my. I already though the CD player was the most sublime thing I'd ever heard from redbook CD.
Twenty grand for a CD player. How the hell can that be justified? I couldn't spend that kind of cash, even for something as good as it. A couple if grand maybe, but not ten times that. But then the pursuit of the ultimate is always an expensive past time. Friends think I'm mad to have spend on a CD player costing £800, or stereo speakers at £2K. We're all at different points in the journey.
To any of you who have your doubts about mains cables, equipment stands, types of cartridge, room acoustics or anything else where it seems to be pushing the limits of absurdity, maybe remember that in a lot of cases these were mad ideas and the science to explain some of it came along much much later. Tannoy had been making speakers since the mid 1920s. Some of its most revered designs such as the Monitor Golds came from the 60s when pipe-smoking blokes with names such as Bert, Fred and Albert had some crazy ideas about trying different materials and techniques when the science of the day couldn't explain why there might be a difference. Now we have CADCAM and laser interferometry to make speakers where we understand and can model whats going on as the driver plays and the cabinet flexes. All it took was a few decades for the science to catch up with the mad ideas men.
Should any of you feel brave enough to try it, and Stockport is within your travel range, I could arrange a day with a friendly dealer so you can see for yourself where your limits of hearing sit.
Edited by Lucid_AV on Friday 13th August 10:26
TonyRPH said:
@Lucid_AV - are you referring to hearing differences in mains cables, noise rejection in screened cables, or differences in sound between screened cables.
Because whilst I agree that hum rejection in screened cables can definitely be an issue with sub woofers, any cable that offers sufficient noise rejection by virtue of good quality screening will sound the same as any other good quality cable.
When we get into the murky world of interconnects between source and amplifier or preamp and amplifier - the situation remains the same.
There are some circumstances where differences in sound might be heard between cables, and those can be with the oxymoronically named passive preamp, and some valve gear. This is because the high output impedances encountered with the aforementioned gear (but not all valve gear) generally has quite a high output impedance which when combined with a cable of very higg capacitance, can cause attenuation of (very) high frequencies.
There are some passive preamps that don't suffer from this issue, but there are not many.
I'm simply asking if you've sat down and listened to see if you can hear the difference between some basic cable and some better cable. Have you done that in a system capable of showing if there is any difference? Have you had that experience, or is your position (or anyone else's here who is convinced there can't be a difference) based on nothing more than the idea that there can't be a difference? Because whilst I agree that hum rejection in screened cables can definitely be an issue with sub woofers, any cable that offers sufficient noise rejection by virtue of good quality screening will sound the same as any other good quality cable.
When we get into the murky world of interconnects between source and amplifier or preamp and amplifier - the situation remains the same.
There are some circumstances where differences in sound might be heard between cables, and those can be with the oxymoronically named passive preamp, and some valve gear. This is because the high output impedances encountered with the aforementioned gear (but not all valve gear) generally has quite a high output impedance which when combined with a cable of very higg capacitance, can cause attenuation of (very) high frequencies.
There are some passive preamps that don't suffer from this issue, but there are not many.
Lucid_AV said:
But have you actually sat down and listened in a system with enough resolution for yourself?
The answer is a simple Yes or No.
Can you define "with enough resolution"?The answer is a simple Yes or No.
The problem with turning this around and wanting people to have listened to this themselves is that it's a non-trivial request, especially with the caveat about the system. If we have, you can argue that the system wasn't good enough for the differences from the mains cable to be audible.
It is unreasonable to expect people to test every claim made by others.
FWIW I have (in the commercial audio domain) done a lot of testing including speaker cables and some mains stuff (more on the conditioner side than the mains cabling side), both running tests for others and as a participant. I've done open tests, blind tests, and skewed tests (ie where the people listening weren't listening to what they thought they were). I also have a background in acoustics and psychoacoustics as part of an audio-biased electronic engineering master's degree - that's not meant as qualification top-trumps, just to establish that I have some idea about the design of music electronics as well as perception of sound.
What I can tell you from all that is that it is trivially easy to make people hear what you want them to hear, and that "obvious" differences evaporate when people don't know which option they're hearing. If you tell different people in the group different things about what they're hearing they'll come to different conclusions, and if you want people to prefer one option that is hilariously easy to engineer into a "shootout". You can change results by feeding people different things at lunch!
Lucid_AV said:
To all you saying there's no difference with mains cables, or there's no scientific evidence, I would agree that on the first point it does sound implausible, and on the second point I would ask you if there's any solid scientific measurement-based evidence for the difference between capacitors of the same value?
<snip>
Cyril Bateman performed some comprehensive tests on different capacitors.<snip>
Here's a link to the various technical articles.
Lucid_AV said:
I'm simply asking if you've sat down and listened to see if you can hear the difference between some basic cable and some better cable. Have you done that in a system capable of showing if there is any difference? Have you had that experience, or is your position (or anyone else's here who is convinced there can't be a difference) based on nothing more than the idea that there can't be a difference?
I've tried tests using a high end DAC as the source along with a high end headphone amplifier and headphones and I wasn't able to hear any difference.Headphones are best for this test scenario, as using headphones rules out any room effects.
I've lost count of the amount of listening tests I've read about where the contributors claim to hear differences between cables etc. and they are failing to take into account that they are changing the listening environment simply by moving position in the room to change out the cables (not to mention moving the gear they are listening to).
Finally - regarding the old "system capable of showing if there is any difference" comment - a $25k Audio Precision analyser will quickly reveal any differences.
And before you argue that "we're measuring the wrong things" blah blah - well frankly that's just nonsense.
NULL tests have also proven that all cables are equal.
“ wasn't able to hear any difference”
And there you have it. You couldn’t hear the difference; you. Nobody else, and nobody else matters. If someone else can, then that’s all that matters to them.
All I’m saying is keep your mind and ears and eyes open. Keep it fun, enjoy the ride. If that results in you never hearing any differences caused by cables of any sort, enjoy being able to say that. If you end up spending an obscene amount on cables for what you perceive to be a tiny difference, great! Laugh at yourself, enjoy the music.
And there you have it. You couldn’t hear the difference; you. Nobody else, and nobody else matters. If someone else can, then that’s all that matters to them.
All I’m saying is keep your mind and ears and eyes open. Keep it fun, enjoy the ride. If that results in you never hearing any differences caused by cables of any sort, enjoy being able to say that. If you end up spending an obscene amount on cables for what you perceive to be a tiny difference, great! Laugh at yourself, enjoy the music.
Lucid_AV said:
I would ask you if there's any solid scientific measurement-based evidence for the difference between capacitors of the same value?
That's a terribly imprecise question.There is good science and engineering behind choosing the right type of capacitor for any given value and application.
If you mean "do different capacitor types of the same value result in an audible difference", that's different, and still too imprecise a question for there to be a simple answer. Are we restricting the types to ones appropriate for the application? Sticking a 10v rated tantalum cap in a situation where it's getting 100v and is being reverse biased regularly is definitely going to be audible when it blows up. Sticking an electrolytic next to a power FET or a valve is going to result in a short life and more noise - for both of these it can be calculated, simulated, and measured. Will it be audible? No blanket answer without knowing enormously more about the system as a whole - including the room. Noisy aircon might mask an effect that'd be audible in an anechoic chamber.
PCB layout measurably affects the signals, even at audio frequencies. Is it audible? Again, no blanket answer - what are we changing? Different spacing of tracks vs ground plane? Curved, right angle, or bevelled corners? Different curve radius? How was the PCB made? How heavy is the copper layer? What's the substrate? What's on the other side of the PCB? How many layers, and what's on the other layers?
Tony1963 said:
And there you have it. You couldn’t hear the difference; you. Nobody else, and nobody else matters. If someone else can, then that’s all that matters to them.
What if they heard a difference that wasn't there?What if the test was rigged?
What if the difference they heard was down to the increased blood flow from getting up, rooting around behind the hifi changing the cable, and sitting back down (I've tested that one too, and it's real).
My view is that I can understand when a £20k CD player sounds better than a £200 one. My objection is reading reviews where a more expensive HDMI cable results in deeper blacks and better contrast - given that I know the details of HDMI transmission, and what actually happens if there is a single-bit error in that signal.
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