expensive cables

[E-Stat]

...We can send a man to the moon but we can't figure out why some cables sound apparently better than zip cord.

...Where are the repeatable test results?

I would love to see the full details behind any one DBT test that you would consider "academic" and relevant concerning something like zip vs. Valhalla or any other universally accepted high resolution cable. Over at AA, Zapped by Jitter and others usually parade the ex-MacIntosh guy Russell's site as the evidence. Have you read how sad and utterly incomplete those references are? All are pathetically devoid of any test details (in terms of documenting virtually anything used in the test, be it equipment, music, listener, superfluous switch boxes, etc) There was another reference he posted that was equally amusing and useless. Here's my favorite line from the "researcher's" comments:

The amplifiers used by the headphones and loudspeakers were assumed to be phase linear.

P.S. Can you thing of any other product, other than art, that has such a large range of price for virtually the same functionality?

Let's talk cars. You can easily get any pickup truck to measure the same lateral G force as a Ferrari Modena on the 200 foot test circle by stiffening up the simplistic suspension. What does that tell you about either vehicle's dynamic ability in the real world?

rw

[E-Stat]

PS, the house I live in is worth about twice what I paid for it 4 years ago--about $1.4 million. I can afford to buy any audio cable in the world if I want to.

More importantly, tell me about your music system. I don't recall seeing that in the "what equipment do you use" thread on general.

rw

[Monstrous Mike]

I would love to see the full details behind any one DBT test that you would consider "academic" and relevant concerning something like zip vs. Valhalla or any other universally accepted high resolution cable. Over at AA, Zapped by Jitter and others usually parade the ex-MacIntosh guy Russell's site as the evidence. Have you read how sad and utterly incomplete those references are?

rw

I'm not sure what you find sad about those references, other than the word of self-proclaimed technically competent people and I believe you know who I am talking about, but as you have also noted, there is zero reliable scientific explanation for what is claimed to be going on with audio cables. I have said, and will continue to repeat as long as necessary, that a lack of evidence is proof of anything but a continued lack of evidencde points to the fact that there is no evidence.

Let's talk cars. You can easily get any pickup truck to measure the same lateral G force as a Ferrari Modena on the 200 foot test circle by stiffening up the simplistic suspension. What does that tell you about either vehicle's dynamic ability in the real world?

rw

I'm not sure what analogy you are trying to draw here but I am going to assume that it has something to do with driving a car like a Ferrari, getting a feel for the handling, and not being able to attribute that feel to any one particular spec or measurement. Well that may be true, but you have to remember a car is a very complex machine with many performance parameters which have a sum total "feel" wrt to handling, etc.

An audio cable is a simple piece of wire transporting a signal from A to B. It seems you (and others) want to give this simple passive device a set of characteristics similar to a complex machine and thus assess its performance in a similar manner.

I do not believe this is a good comparison. Every tweak and odd claim audiophiles make always seem to have to be complicated to a point which is beyond scientific explanation. While this may be convenient to the audiophile I personally feel it is a stretch beyond which I, or any other person of science, would take.

And once again, people do not need scientific approval to spend their money and enjoy their hobbies, but if something is expensive has no scientific basis for its claims, I generally need to investigate in an objective manner.

[skeptic]

More importantly, tell me about your music system. I don't recall seeing that in the "what equipment do you use" thread on general.
rw

In a house this large, I am fortunate enough to have the space for several. OK, many. Here is my main system.

The main speakers are Teledyne AR9s each enhanced with three indirect firing 3/4 inch Audax polycarbonate tweeters in parallel crossed over at 6 Khz. Amplifier is the Klaus/Peterson Mosfet 120 built from a kit. There are two preamps in series, a Marantz 3800 and an HK Citation 11 which is the main preamp. There's a BSR 110X equalizer. The cd player is Denon CDC 1520 and the turntable is Empire 698 with a Shure V15 Type V MR cartridge. There's a Teac R435X cassette deck, a Panasonic PV 8660 VCR and a Sony KV-36-XBR-250 tv set. The current enhancement surround system consits of 2 Dynaco SCA80Q amps, 2 more BSR 110X equalizers, and 16 RS Minimus 7 speakers. The processor is Yamaha DSP1.

The room is 13'-8" x 29'-6" x 9'-6" and is the standard Toll Brothers music conservatory. the walls are approximately 40% glass, the carpet is a low pile burber, and acoustics are on the live side.

[E-Stat]

Here is my main system...

Thanks for sharing. I, too once had a Citation 11 preamp back in seventies. It was certainly among the best SS designs of it's day. I used mine with a Crown D-150. Why the two preamps in series?

The room is 13'-8" x 29'-6" x 9'-6" ...

MIne is 30 x 15 x 7'6". I wish the first two dimensions weren't such even multiples as it required some bass traps and extensive speaker placement experimentation to tame the inevitable nodes.

rw

[E-Stat]

I'm not sure what you find sad about those references, other than the word of self-proclaimed technically competent people and I believe you know who I am talking about...

You mean that amusing exchange between jj and ZbJ as to the value of using trained listeners with familiar musical material for their DBTs? Yeah, you can dumb down the tests so as to prove whatever you would like to. As for the Russell references, well there are NO DETAILS. Tests prove what they prove. Ok. Some unspecified group of people listening to something on some kind of system in some kind of environment were unable to hear the difference between 50' of generic zip vs. Monster zip. That conclusively proves...well what? It is when the results of such tests are then extrapolated to somehow cover every future combination of completely different systems that they become ludicrous.

I gather the answer to my question concerning any fully documented tests is no.

...Well that may be true, but you have to remember a car is a very complex machine with many performance parameters which have a sum total "feel" wrt to handling, etc.

An audio system is also a very complex system with many parameters which have a sum total "feel" with respect to musical reproduction.

An audio cable is a simple piece of wire transporting a signal from A to B.

A tire is a simple piece of rubber transporting a vehicle from A to B.

Perhaps you are not aware that a hundred years later, tire technology continues to improve with LOTS of driver experimentation encompassing a host of variables that defy any simple numerical analysis. It requires exhaustive track testing by guys like Michael Schumacher to determine what works and what doesn't on differing track conditions.

rw

[FLZapped]

Over at AA, Zapped by Jitter and others usually parade the ex-MacIntosh guy Russell's site as the evidence.
rw

Uhm, how about posting a link to the site I supposedly reference instead of some vague reference to it.

-Bruce

[pctower]

Bruce:

Why don't you and the others who purport to take a "scientific" approach to this subject just admit that most, if not all, of the reported cable DBTs results are woefully unreliable due to lack of appropriate protocol, statistical analysis and/or appropriate documentation of test procedures?

That doesn't mean cables sound different - far from it. It just means that serious scientific DBT cable tests have not been reported. Isn't the goal to get to the truth, as we currently know it, rather than promote a particular agenda. "Truth", it seems to me, includes accurately reporting and commenting on the reliability of test results that are widely quoted and tossed around on the internet.

If I am mistaken and there are DBT cable reports of tests that you believe are reasonably reliable from an appropriate scientific view point, then I will stand corrected. I have no need to promote anything other than a legitimate search for the truth.

[FLZapped]

Bruce:

Why don't you and the others who purport to take a "scientific" approach to this subject just admit that most, if not all, of the reported cable DBTs results are woefully unreliable due to lack of appropriate protocol, statistical analysis and/or appropriate documentation of test procedures?

That doesn't mean cables sound different - far from it. It just means that serious scientific DBT cable tests have not been reported. Isn't the goal to get to the truth, as we currently know it, rather than promote a particular agenda. "Truth", it seems to me, includes accurately reporting and commenting on the reliability of test results that are widely quoted and tossed around on the internet.

If I am mistaken and there are DBT cable reports of tests that you believe are reasonably reliable from an appropriate scientific view point, then I will stand corrected. I have no need to promote anything other than a legitimate search for the truth.

What does this have to do with me asking for a link reference??

BTW - The more I think about it, I believe the whole Alabama thing was a states right issue and the federal courts has no business intervening....

-Bruce

[Monstrous Mike]

A tire is a simple piece of rubber transporting a vehicle from A to B.

Perhaps you are not aware that a hundred years later, tire technology continues to improve with LOTS of driver experimentation encompassing a host of variables that defy any simple numerical analysis. It requires exhaustive track testing by guys like Michael Schumacher to determine what works and what doesn't on differing track conditions.

rw

Sure you are right although I am not sure how much tire technology has improved in the last twenty years. If you take a new tire like a Goodyear with "aquagroove" for supposedly better handling in wet conditions, I'm not even 100% certain these tires are any better than others in rain. And one of the points you keep avoiding is cost range. And aquagroove tire may cost $10 or $20 (i.e. 10-20%) more than a similar tire whereas cables can cost 10-1000% or even 10,000% percent more.

If you don't find that odd, then I guess we are speaking in different languages.

Bruce:

Why don't you and the others who purport to take a "scientific" approach to this subject just admit that most, if not all, of the reported cable DBTs results are woefully unreliable due to lack of appropriate protocol, statistical analysis and/or appropriate documentation of test procedures?

If I am mistaken and there are DBT cable reports of tests that you believe are reasonably reliable from an appropriate scientific view point, then I will stand corrected. I have no need to promote anything other than a legitimate search for the truth.

You are right in that I have not seen a DBT result that has been taken and reported which has a very high standard with regard to scientific approach.

I can only guess at the approach used by Dr. Floyd Toole when he did DBTs on cables because he did not report on it. I only have third hand evidence that he applied his DBT method used in developing his speakers to a test of exotic cables against zip cord. In his very scientific work designing speakers he wanted to know the truth about cables and if they added any value to the sound coming out of the speaker. He found none and stuck with zip cord.

He did write a paper on the necessity of conducting DBTs when evaluating audio equipment due to the biases of sighting listening. It seems some people can't even accept that small fact.

I really don't see any useful DBTs coming out the near future for the reason that they would have a large target on them, the results may be displeasing to many people and cable companies and would probably be generally disregarded.

Why go through that effort?

[E-Stat]

Uhm, how about posting a link to the site I supposedly reference instead of some vague reference to it.

-Bruce

Here 'ya go:

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire.htm

And if you're up to it, my observations on the gripping evidence presented:

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?f...at&r=&session=

rw

[E-Stat]

Sure you are right although I am not sure how much tire technology has improved in the last twenty years.

My Acura TL family sedan corners with the same lateral G force as did Corvettes, Ferraris, and Cobras of twenty years ago. (.82) This is does because of tire technology. There are several performance cars today that exceed 1 G of lateral force. F1 race cars can handle 4 Gs!

You are right in that I have not seen a DBT result that has been taken and reported which has a very high standard with regard to scientific approach.

How about an approach that reveals even the tiniest of details?

I'm not sure what you find sad about those references, other than the word of self-proclaimed technically competent people... (that from an earlier post)

Let me see if I understand you correctly. So you say you know of no credible scientific tests that support the "all wire sound the same" theory. Further you say that you rely on the word from twenty years ago of the guys from Stereo Review and Gordon Gow to establish the current state of the art. Did I miss anything here?

rw

[markw]

Let me see if I understand you correctly. So you say you know of no credible scientific tests that support the "all wire sound the same" theory.rw

OTOH, I don't know of any "credible scientific tests" that justify somewires costing more than others. I know of various semi-religious fanatics that insist upon this and are willing to pump out a bunch of "shoulds", "mighta", "perhaps" and "possibly"s but as to a "real" test? Nada, zip. zulch. They about as "scientific" as ancient myths that sprung up to justify the actions of nature.

Further you say that you rely on the word from twenty years ago of the guys from Stereo Review and Gordon Gow to establish the current state of the art. Did I miss anything here?rw

Again, who can you point with more recents tests to prove (no technobable postulations, but proof) that DON'T sound the same? Again, nada, zip zilch. Careful listening tests would seem to prove otherwise and to try do discount that fact is to bury one's head in the sand.

But, if one wishes to go on faith, all well and good but to use faith as "proof" to another is simply foolish. Let's sacrifice a few virgins and do a few ritual dances to keep the cable gods happy, eh? That'll impove the sound of our systems.

But, we're more modern than that. Nowadays, a simple financial donation to the right companies will guarantee the same results.

[Norm Strong]

First of all, I'm not an electrical engineer! Now that is out of the way, I have some issues that I want to bring up with cables - and hopefully get some very calm and logical responces.

I used to be a cable believer, meaning that I thought these exotic designs for cables make a difference. While testing myself and really nit-picking the result, I came to the conclusion that I could not tell one way or another. So I sold my expensive cables and made a good bit of cash!

I buy some music online, mostly for LP's, through places like Music Direct and Accoustic Sounds. They have great selections, and sell some pretty cool equipment. They also sell cable. The prices on some of these cables is enough to give a guy a heart attack! Some of them are prices more that 3 50 inch plasma screen televisions! Or a small car!

Now I cannot prove they make a difference, and I cannot prove they do not make a difference, so I came up with a few questions:

1. If cables of varying design do indeed make some type of an improvement, why don't audio equipment makers implement (or contract out) the same wire designs within the chassis of a piece of audio gear? Or speakers?

2. If buying premium cables will make such a huge difference ("elevated to a new level of musical enjoyment" as quoted by one advertisement), why not include some lower level model for free with all pieces of audio gear sold? I mean, it would be good advertising, and perhaps the owner would be willing to upgrade if a difference is heard.

I just have a hard time accepting that a thousand dollar power cord, six thousand dollar speaker cables, and eight hundred dollars of interconnects actually yield 7800 dollar increase in musical clarity.

I say buy more music if one has that much to spend!

Rick

Is there a question in there? I see nothing wrong with your logic, and I suspect you are taking the proper action.

[E-Stat]

Again, who can you point with more recents tests to prove (no technobable postulations, but proof) that DON'T sound the same? Again, nada, zip zilch. Careful listening tests would seem to prove otherwise and to try do discount that fact is to bury one's head in the sand.

Historically, it has taken about fifteen to twenty years following some technology change for the "scientific audio community" to catch up with what discerning listeners ascertain almost immediately. The first solid state preamps were a disaster. This, despite the fact they measured much better than tubes. Well, at least until we discovered that THD tests are useless and there are more pervasive kinds of measurable distortion like TIM to deal with. Similarly, it was twenty years ago that the first "perfect music forever" CDs appeared on the market. They contained NO distortion, right? The first of those too, sounded horrible. Eventually the audible effects of jitter and a few other details of digital signal processing were fully realized.

It is just a matter of time for when some cables (I certainly don't endorse all the snake oil out there) are vindicated in the same way. Until then, I'll just partake of deeper musical enjoyment. Especially those occasions when I get a chance to hear one of my reviewer friend's killer system. Yeah, it's got those hyperexpensive cables.

rw

[FLZapped]

Here 'ya go:

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire.htm

And if you're up to it, my observations on the gripping evidence presented:

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?f...at&r=&session=

rw

Your second link is incomplete. And that's McIntosh. Sheesh. -Bruce

[FLZapped]

A tire is a simple piece of rubber transporting a vehicle from A to B.

rw

But whe people go to buy tires, they have a rating system tht helps them decide what range of performance they are to expect for their money. There is no such thing for cables.

-Bruce

[okiemax]

[QUOTE=Monstrous Mike]

[You are right in that I have not seen a DBT result that has been taken and reported which has a very high standard with regard to scientific approach.]

The DBT studies I have seen on-line are difficult to evaluate since they provide little if any discussion of methodology, and don't show all the relevant data. Some also can be faulted for failure to correctly use statistical methods.

[I can only guess at the approach used by Dr. Floyd Toole when he did DBTs on cables because he did not report on it. I only have third hand evidence that he applied his DBT method used in developing his speakers to a test of exotic cables against zip cord. In his very scientific work designing speakers he wanted to know the truth about cables and if they added any value to the sound coming out of the speaker. He found none and stuck with zip cord.]

I don't know if Dr. Toole is still with Harman, but if so, I find surprising the following quote from the owner's manual for JBL's TiK Series speakers: "Careful selection of cables and interconnects can have quite a dramatic impact on the dynamic contrasts experienced by listeners." I dont think I can link directly to this manual, but you can find it at Harman's web site.

[He did write a paper on the necessity of conducting DBTs when evaluating audio equipment due to the biases of sighting listening. It seems some people can't even accept that small fact.]

I don't think my sighted listening is so bad that I can't make any judgements based on it. For heavens sake, it's got to be right some of the time. Did Dr. Toole find that sighted listening was always inaccurate?

[E-Stat]

Your second link is incomplete. And that's McIntosh. Sheesh. -Bruce

Ah, the pitfalls of automated scripting. In the process of AR's otherwise helpfully inserted html tags, it appears to truncate. The visible part of the preview seems to work again, but appears cut off. Here's another cut & paste attempt and below one stripped of the initial part if it should not work again. Just add the internet prefix stuff.

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?f...at&r=&session=

db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=prophead&n=2386&highlight=russell+E-Stat&r=&session=

A thousand pardons for the misspelling.

rw

[E-Stat]

But whe people go to buy tires, they have a rating system tht helps them decide what range of performance they are to expect for their money. There is no such thing for cables.

-Bruce

While there is a rating system, it like THD measurements is largely useless. The UTQG (uniform tire quality grade) traction rating only attempts to measure straight ahead wet braking traction. It speaks nothing of numerous other performance parameters such as cornering (either in the wet or dry), break away characteristics, etc. Not only that, the grading curve is skewed to the top such that most tires appear to possess the same performance. The rating is absent of useful distinctions within a wide performance envelope lumped into "best". There is a vast gulf between the overall performance of say a Michelin Harmony and a Bridgestone Potenza S02, both having the same traction rating. If there were such a weakly designed cable rating, you could as easily lump Belden 89259 with Nordost Valhalla based on a single factor and be led to believe they are equivalent in overall performance.

There is, however, one useful UTQG metric: tire wear. It is here where you might read between the lines and gather something of the real performance difference between the two tires I just mentioned. The Michelin is 680 vs. 140 for the Bridgestone. That suggests that the Michelin should last nearly five times as long as the Bridgestone. Softer tire compounds are typically "stickier" and thus trade wear for traction. Once you factor the price differential ($97 vs. $140) and the longevity, the high performance tire is 7 times more expensive. The Bridgestone is the OEM tire found on a number of high performance cars such as the Ferrari Modena, Porsche 911, and the Honda S2000 (of which I am a happy owner).

BTW, your post is missing a couple of letters. Ask Vanna next time for assistance.

rw

[Monstrous Mike]

I don't think my sighted listening is so bad that I can't make any judgements based on it. For heavens sake, it's got to be right some of the time. Did Dr. Toole find that sighted listening was always inaccurate?

No. He stated that when trying to distinguish very small differences, biases played a role in the decision of the listeners when they knew what (equipment or cables) they were listening to. His theory was that double blind testing elimates those biases and makes the test more accurate.

I personally don't do DBTs when purchasing any audio equipment although I have done a few in my own home on cables just to satisfy my curiosity. When I purchase speakers, I can do direct sighting listening using a side by side technique to decide which speakers I prefer and in the past I did some serious listening to turntables and cartridges before buying.

[Monstrous Mike]

Let me see if I understand you correctly. So you say you know of no credible scientific tests that support the "all wire sound the same" theory. Further you say that you rely on the word from twenty years ago of the guys from Stereo Review and Gordon Gow to establish the current state of the art. Did I miss anything here?

rw

I'm not relying on anybody's word about cables. I am simply stating that there is no credible evidence for or against cable techology being scientifically valid as far as performance improvements.

I hypothesize that expensive cables do not give any sonic improvement over zip cord. If I am wrong, then surely somebody should be able to identify some parameter of zip cord that is distorting the sound. And that's really the crux of the matter. If hyper expensive cables sound superior then average cables must have some sort of deficiency.

And finally, I base my hypothesis on my education and work experience. It really irks me when people say that since I don't actually work in the field of "audio engineering" that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Hey, I really would love to have some solid scientific evidence to ponder over. That's why I became an engineer, to figure out how things work and why they work the way they do. You might be right in that in the coming ten or twenty years all of this cable technology will be proven. However, if somebody had a gun to my head today and told me they would blow my head off if I was wrong, I would say cable technology is a myth (shaking in my boots of course).

[skeptic]

Why the two preamps in series?

The Citation 11 is the main system control preamp. The Marantz 3800 is a slave for controlling the main speakers. The arrangement I have facillitates independent adjustments of the main system and the surround system independently. The controls on the Citation 11 preamp allow control of the entire system from one point. For example, the 5 band equalizer can be used to compensate for frequency response or tonal balance variations in different recordings without upsetting the relationship between the main and surround systems. This is an extremely complex system to operate. And it may get worse. I probably need at least one more DSP1 to duplicate the effect I got from an earlier but cruder prototype which employed several tape decks for time delays. When you sail in uncharted waters....you are strictly on your own.

[E-Stat]

The Citation 11 is the main system control preamp. The Marantz 3800 is a slave for controlling the main speakers. The arrangement I have facillitates independent adjustments of the main system and the surround system independently...

Thanks for the info.

rw

[FLZapped]

Ah, the pitfalls of automated scripting. In the process of AR's otherwise helpfully inserted html tags, it appears to truncate. The visible part of the preview seems to work again, but appears cut off. Here's another cut & paste attempt and below one stripped of the initial part if it should not work again. Just add the internet prefix stuff.

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?f...at&r=&session=

db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=prophead&n=2386&highlight=russell+E-Stat&r=&session=

A thousand pardons for the misspelling.

rw

Well, okay, but I don't see where I had anything to do with that conversation. I do know of the site you mentioned. It's okay, no glaring errors. Won't win any technical awards.

The mis-spelling really had me going for a minute, it's not you average typo.....

No problem though.

-Bruce