Jump to content

Speaker wire Myths killed by Science


ClaudeJ1

Recommended Posts

On 10/24/2022 at 11:12 AM, Dave A said:

So picture yourself in the listening room in Hope where you will see zip cord on the floor. Good enough for Roy means good enough for me. Buy 12g by the spool and be happy don't worry.

@Chief bonehead Roy slobbers like a puppy dog when he sees a roll of 14g wire on sale at Radio Shack.

 

Yeah, I know.....Radio Shack.....gone  but, don't tell Roy.  Don't want to shatter his hopeful dream.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, babadono said:

  From the wiki article cited:

Moreover, many audiophiles are willfully ignorant of the fallibility of human hearing. They will claim to "just use your ears" as a rationalization for their pursuit. Ears detect, but the brain hears, and the brain can easily be fooled into confirming any level of bias. Many of these so called audiophiles are equally ignorant of how to properly control for this fallibility, and will even dismiss it outright; many will claim that properly controlling with a blind test will "stress out" the listener thus harm any data gathered, without any evidence to support such a notion. Perhaps deep down the audiophile knows that they are full of it, and the idea that they could be made a fool of is indeed quite stressful. In fact real audio scientists will have to follow several critical modeling steps to design experiments which ensure a scientific level of accuracy and reliability. However, to the audiophile this is all flippantly dismissed, many times in spite of the evidence. Even the audiophile press will perform uncontrolled listening tests which involve simply turning it on, and having a pleasant experience, leading the reader to assume they can do the same thing, and they can, but their results will be just as flawed.

Are you impugning Earcrometers? Are you saying they are not efficacious and golden?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/24/2022 at 10:12 AM, Dave A said:

"Had my interconnect cables custom made to be 10’3.47” long…mathematically this is the perfect length as all the distortion has plenty of room to disperse."

 

@Dave A, research by Medwin indicates that the perfect length is actually 57 1/8th inches. Whom to believe?

 

Taking the myth slightly off-topic, as an engineer who specializes in DSP, I'm just waiting for somebody to claim that they can hear differences in the CPUs used to perform the arithmetic.*

 

*There are some architectural differences that could potentially affect the audio; fixed-point vs. floating-point, 32-bit vs 64-bit, etc. But any two processors that implement the same arithmetic in the same format will produce the same results. If they don't, then at least one of them is broken.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Math is a terribly cruel science.

 

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

 

But I am intrigued by the concept of an optimum wire length.  I believe Medwin's number 57.125" is a Fulton length espoused by Robert Fulton.

 

Description lifted from someone's post on Audioasylum:

 

The real magic number is 57.125 (57 1/8) inches, according to Robert Fulton of Fulton Musical Industries. He is the one who somehow discovered that this length of wire, and all multiples thereof, sounds best. His interconnects were all 57.125" and his speaker cables were either 3 times this (14 feet, 3 3/8 inches) or 6 times (28 feet, 6 3/4 inches). This was back in the early 1980s.

I attempted to verify this a couple times but not in a rigorous way. At any rate I didn't hear any difference when the length of my interconnect or speaker cable was a couple inches less than the magic number.

In case anyone is interested in experimenting with this, the magic length is the actual wire tip to tip. The soldered connectors such as RCA plugs or spade lugs are not part of the magic dimension.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Racer X said:

In case anyone is interested in experimenting with this, the magic length is the actual wire tip to tip. The soldered connectors such as RCA plugs or spade lugs are not part of the magic dimension.

"Magic" is the only accurate description of that dimension, as in "magical thinking".

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/24/2022 at 3:46 PM, MicroMara said:

Listening is divided into 3 categories

 

1. Physics is the objective acoustics, it is physically based on measurement .

 

2. Human ears are the psychoacoustics. They filter the metrics , such as volume , sound structures , etc .

 

3. The human brain is the subjective acoustics, it awakens the emotional component as well as evaluation of the music.

 

Those who don´t understand this should deal themselves with other hobbies.

After over a half century of DIY speaker building, and owning almost every Klipsch speaker made, I'm a member of all 3 categories. Like PWK, I have a low tolerance for bullshit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/24/2022 at 4:09 PM, babadono said:

And also(preaching to the choir here at Klipsch Forum):

Spend the bucks on decent speakers.[note 25] Everything else in the chain has pretty much reached the point of diminishing returns, so speakers are the lowest-fidelity component left, and spending more money can still result in noticeable gains. Note that, however, many expensive speakers are also rubbish, just to keep the decision interesting.

From the note 25 link: "Owning an RE-20 doesn't make you Stevie Wonder"................maybe not, but we did go to the same Elementary School in Detroit! And I photographed Models in the Motown Museum. There are also better microphones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Audible Nectar said:

......but the REAL argument in my mind is that this stuff is WAYYYYY overpriced and shrouded in mystery as to be believable.

Therein lies my motivation for the OP. At Axpona 2015, there was a guy demonstrating his "filters" that plug into a power strip, blah blah blah about all the difference it makes. I sat thought his live demo and listenened to his BS. Before I walked out of the room I said: "I can't hear the frikkin' difference." To which he came up excuses why I might not have heard it..................more BS for a product that does NOTHING but prove that P.T. Barnum was right!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, Edgar said:

Taking the myth slightly off-topic, as an engineer who specializes in DSP, I'm just waiting for somebody to claim that they can hear differences in the CPUs used to perform the arithmetic.*

 

Now THAT wouldn't surprise me at all!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, deang said:


Why I’ve been recommending it for years. Another reason would be it’s what Klipsch used for internal wiring for decades. 

 

Tinning is a nice feature, but probably not necessary in quality wire.  I just made several jumpers from some 40 year old Kimber Cable and when I stripped the jackets, each strand looked nice a new.  I have some old Monster cable from the 80s, same thing, held up really well. 

 

The Home Depot sold some monster looking wire in the 90s that was horrible, it would turn green and it was not cheap. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fancy wire is not without merit  ,I fully realize that it’s difficult or impossible  to impress my friends , neighbors or new girlfriends  with zip cord , lamp cord , or cheap cord . A real high class set up ,needs the fancy jewelry to properly play the part . That’s one reason why all my wires ,splices ,connectors, cheap subwoofer and shaker amps ,are all safely hidden from view ,behind the wall .🤓

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Tom05 said:

I fully realize that it’s difficult or impossible  to impress my friends , neighbors or new girlfriends , with zip cord , lamp cord , or ,cheap cord .

Snake your zip cord through a section of garden hose. Nobody will ever be the wiser.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, Tom05 said:

Fancy wire is not without merit  ,I fully realize that it’s difficult or impossible  to impress my friends , neighbors or new girlfriends  with zip cord , lamp cord , or cheap cord . A real high class set up ,needs the fancy jewelry to properly play the part . That’s one reason why all my wires ,splices ,connectors, cheap subwoofer and shaker amps ,are all safely hidden from view ,behind the wall .🤓

Leave your "$12,500" price tag on there where they have to peek a little bit to find it so they can realize not only do you have good taste but you are modest too.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...