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Cable Myths Continued


thebes

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I know the answer to Don's question. It's in Mark's imagination!

A little blurb from one who Mark has mentioned as a pioneer of the 'subjectivist' school of thought, as appeared in the Nov. 2007 edition of Stereophile:

Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me, because I am associated by so many people with the mess my disciples made of spreading my gospel.

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PWK's paper here is the perfect objectivist response.
:pwk_bs:

PWK made it clear that measurements were only useful in trying to determine why what a person heard didn't sound right.

If you want me to hunt up the quote, fine.

PWK was totally a subjectivist. He made it clear that if it measured good and sounded bad, it was crap.

Dave

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Then how did you know Joni Mitchell was playing a guitar when you listened to her album, or that it was really Joni that you were listening to? Or that the cable you swapped actually sounded different from the first one? In either case you would have to have done an A to B comparison.

Edited by Don Richard
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There's no subjectivism in the paper you presented. None at all. In the text he says that the "essential quality of a speaker wire is ohmic resistance" and then goes on to measure it and describe his results objectively. Sorry, that's what's in the paper.

I didn't suggest there was. PWK was a scientist, and a fine one. However, he was also a realist. His tests were done to see if they were missing anything because neither they, nor anyone they'd demo'd for from Moscow to Kokomo was hearing any problems that might be traced to the sudden furor created by the wire purveyors about the impact of fine copper rubbed on the breasts of blonde virgins vs. lamp cord.

The objective tests simply conformed to what they were hearing...nothing.

As to any changes in practice in the 80s, you are correct about "hedging your bets." PWK would have eventually said "Hell, if a few bucks worth of fancy cable sells more K'horns, knock yourselves out."

But I remain assured he never changed his mind.

Dave

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He had too much integrity for that kind of thinking. Heck, the wire he had been using was better than that crap and be knew it. Isn't that about the time he sold the company to Fred, and he wasn't really all that involved (if at all) in the day to day operations of the company?

What is really being argued at this point? The Bateman articles I attached deal with these issues, and many of the comments contradict the findings, which were reached using the scientific method. Since when is sticking the head in the sand considered objective and scientific? It sometimes seems as if the objective approach really just ends up being a list of tools and tests that validate the subjective experience: things sound different, there are normally measurable reasons for this, some prefer one thing over another, some of these differences are smaller in magnitude than others, and some notice them while others don't - and of those that notice, these assign various levels of importance to these nuances in the sound.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that it has been scientifically proven that wire changes the sound, and that this is supported by both the mathematics and the measurements.

Edited by DeanG
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Let's not lose sight of the fact that it has been scientifically proven that wire changes the sound, and that this is supported by both the mathematics and the measurements.

But if a practiced and discriminating listener doesn't hear it, it's irrelevant. And by that, I mean music listener, not one simply detecting differences. I think most of us have learned that, in spite of the denotative sense of the word, there are "shades" of accuracy. A myriad of things can create these shades, but cannot fix inaccuracy in the source material.

Hence my love of 80 year old or more recordings that have lots of various kinds of noise and other limitations...but are masterfully recorded.

I, and apparently PWK, simply don't think that wire or similar variables have impact on accuracy. Accuracy comes through in spite of any limitations of the playback chain. I learned that in my first audio engineering job. I was asked to clean up the sound of audio cassettes, cheap ones, duplicated at 16:1 in the shells, filtered at 18db/decade below 100hz and no noise reduction. I was able to do it. Top of the line microphones for narration, Crown recorders, a Urei LA3A tube level devil, a Pultec passive high pass filter, and maximum attention to detail. Management was VERY skeptical of spending the money on increasing source quality...but sold on the result.

Even on the Wollensak classroom cassette decks the difference was clear and obvious.

I've never doubted since that it is all about the source material. I've no doubt that wire, and many other things, can have an audible impact on some people who've trained themselves to hear it. However, I remain equally convinced that it cannot improve anything, only make it different.

And, I agree, we aren't likely to get any further with this, nor is there any reason to. I've no intention of going to a fellow audiophiles house and making light of their spending 50 dollars a foot for magic wires or a couple of grand on some matched tubes found in a Colorado cave. I'll simply enjoy and share their bliss.

OTOH, I'll be perfectly happy to go home and listen to my system with 12 gauge zip from Home Depot and NOS military EL34 tubes and never be a bit envious.

Dave

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That's not the conclusion of the paper you posted by PWK. He definitively showed that wire choice affects accuracy of playback.

So, he speaks with forked tongue?

Where in that paper did he say anything like "...we definitely found one wire more accurate than another..." or anything similar?

All I saw was .04db. So I'll turn it up a bit and save some money.

Dave

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What is really being argued at this point? The Bateman articles I attached deal with these issues, and many of the comments contradict the findings, which were reached using the scientific method. Since when is sticking the head in the sand considered objective and scientific? It sometimes seems as if the objective approach really just ends up being a list of tools and tests that validate the subjective experience: things sound different, there are normally measurable reasons for this, some prefer one thing over another, some of these differences are smaller in magnitude than others, and some notice them while others don't - and of those that notice, these assign various levels of importance to these nuances in the sound.

What the articles tell me is that the amplifier and the load at the ends of the wire have more effect on the measurements than the wire does. Put a resistive load on the wire and you see a much different test result. Also, the reactance caused by a passive crossover in combination with the different drivers' reactances has the greatest effect of all. Lose the passive and go active and the damage is minimized.

Particularly telling regarding the Bateman articles is the revelation that he secured a patent as a result of his research, and the company making cables per the patent has an advertisement below one of the articles. BTW, those cables are a rather high capacitance design and could cause oscillation with some amplifiers if the cable is long enough. I wonder why Bateman didn't follow his own advice and use coaxial cable, which he demonstrated was the best option for speaker cable.

Speaking of that, no pun intended, the best speaker cables a person could get if they wanted "the best" would be made of Belden 8514 coax with the appropriate connectors on the ends. That would cost $2/foot or less for the coax plus whatever the connectors cost. A person would have a tough time spending more than $150 for two 20 foot runs

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