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  1. #1
    Forum Regular Monstrous Mike's Avatar
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    Here's something I never considered before....

    Thanks to skeptic for triggering this reaction in me.

    I believe that speakers and speaker wires are on opposite ends of the spectrum. On one hand, I don't think speaker wires vary that much in performance. Take care of the basics and the sound will travel from amp to speaker pretty much transparently. However, at the other end of the spectrum, it may well be likely that no two sets of speakers sound identical. And on top of that, it is highly likely that even two models build by the same guy on the same day would sound drastically different in different rooms.

    If I wiped my mind clean of all I have heard and read about audio systems (but still retained my engineering knowledge), I would expect to enter these forums and hear about people discussing speakers and rooms in great detail. This could even go as fara as identifying what model speaker you have, how far it is from the side/back wall, how far apart, what kind of rug you have, the toe-in, the listening position, curtains and drapes, doors open or closed, and on and on.

    From an engineering perspective, the most important aspect of audio reproduction starts when an electrical signal hits a voice coil and is converted into sound pressure waves. Ths path from speaker to ear is infinitely more variable than the path from source to speaker.

    I would expect that this is where the bulk of the discussions should take place amongst anyone who is serious about this hobby.

    We spend all this time talking about wires being the same or not when really, as skeptic pointed out, no two sets of speakers sound the same nor do two rooms sound the same.
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  2. #2
    Forum Regular filecat13's Avatar
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    Cool

    ...nor do two ears hear the same.

    We can take differentiation to a ridiculous extreme in any endeavor if we wish to. However, your point is well stated that the speaker wire thing is a relatively small issue compared to speaker placement, room characterisitics, room contents, etc.

    What minor benenfit can be derived in most situations from a better cable is inconsequential to the major benefits of repositioning speakers, addding room treatments, or rearragning the furniture and listening position. Often we get locked into "the speaker has to go there" because we visuslaize the room as looking right in a certain way, or we value visual balance to sonic balance, or we believe that we can compensate for poor placement by electronic gimmickry.

    Even speaker manufacturers contribute to this problem by providing diagrams of speaker placement in ideal rooms where everything looks right. I've never had a room that looked like the perfect rooms in the diagrams, so the diagrams were always more of a hinderance than a help, causing me to try to duplicate placement schemes that weren't even close to my room's reality.

    Once I stopped looking at the diagrams and focused more on the text and the hints therein, it was a little easier to get a better placement. Still, lots of experimentation, rearrangement, and calibration were required to get the speakers to the correct place.

  3. #3
    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    I would expect to enter these forums and hear about people discussing speakers and rooms in great detail. This could even go as fara as identifying what model speaker you have, how far it is from the side/back wall, how far apart, what kind of rug you have, the toe-in, the listening position, curtains and drapes, doors open or closed, and on and on.
    You do over at AA in the various speaker forums not to mention the one dedicated to room acoustics. I've always thought of Hamlet with the cable harpers here in the amount of energy exerted over what they think is irrelevant:

    The lady doth protest too much, methinks.


    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    From an engineering perspective, the most important aspect of audio reproduction starts when an electrical signal hits a voice coil and is converted into sound pressure waves.
    Or the stators in non-moving coil speakers.

    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    would expect that this is where the bulk of the discussions should take place amongst anyone who is serious about this hobby.
    Great. I'll start.

    Although I did not go to the expense of having a room specifically built for acoustics, I do have a large dedicated listening room in the daylight basement. The nice thing about a dedicated room is that is it totally WAF-free and not subject to typical living space compromises. The front wall is sheetrock over poured concrete, the back wall is sheetrock with windows, the right side side entirely sheetrock, and the left a mix of sheetrock over poured concrete at the front, tapering to sheetrock with one window near the rear. The dimensions are not exactly ideal at 30x14x7.5, but do allow my large 'stats to breathe. The tray section above the speakers was due entirely to an inept contractor. Perhaps that assymmetry might help my overly even multiple room dimensions. My speaker setup tools consist of measuring tape, a length of string, and a laser pointer. I use them to ensure a consistent positioning of the speakers relative to each other and to the central listening position. I found the "golden triangle" method as found on the Cardas web site as a good starting point. I have experimented ad nauseum with varying distances of the panels from the back walls and from the panels to the listener. Currently, I use an isosceles arrangement with the panels are about seven feet out into the room and the panel centers about seven feet apart. Listening distance is about eleven feet. My objective is to get the flattest overall upper bass/low midrange response. I typically use voice to fine tune the distance, augmented with concert drum for the bass. As most rooms have numerous nodes that affect the bass, I have eight bass traps placed throughout the room. Actually, the two smaller traps are on the wall behind the panels at present. Six of them are as yet not completed and are positioned only initially. Once I get them sealed and covered, then I will experiment with their location which might also mean I could move to a more equilateral listening position. I use DIY clones of the Argent Room lenses that help with lateral imaging, and have some damping of the wall behind the panels.

    While the 'stats do beam with a decided single seat "sweet spot", I get a naturally wide and deep soundstage devoid of the vertical truncation I hear with all non-line source speakers in my experience.




    How about you, Mike?

    rw

  4. #4
    Forum Regular filecat13's Avatar
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    Cool Harmonics? Vibration?

    Well, I'm not Mike, but I'm interested nonetheless. Do you get any unwanted harmonics or vibrations from the drop ceiling? Have you done anything to the panels to damp them? Does the space above the panels form any kind of resonating chamber at high volumes?

    What effect do you think that central light fixture might have?

    Inquiring minds want to know.

  5. #5
    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by filecat13
    Do you get any unwanted harmonics or vibrations from the drop ceiling? Have you done anything to the panels to damp them?
    Seems like it's only the ladies that give me grief. Madonna and DJ Rap tend to vibrate the vent (located behind the left speaker) and framing when power listening WOT at a kilowatt. Overall, it is pretty infrequent so I haven't done anything as yet. I sometimes compete with my wife when she's playing the baby grand located in the living room directly above the left speaker.

    Quote Originally Posted by filecat13
    Does the space above the panels form any kind of resonating chamber at high volumes?
    Haven't noticed any effect as they are loosely placed tiles.

    Quote Originally Posted by filecat13
    What effect do you think that central light fixture might have?
    The front spots are on a separate circuit from the middle and rear fixtures. I normally listen with only the spots on (sometimes none at all). There are no fluorescents used at all.

    rw

  6. #6
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    "...nor do two ears hear the same."

    I've given this notion a lot of thought and it has occurred to me that for the most part, this has little to do with whether a sound system is perceived as accurate with the sole exception being that if your hearing is impaired, say you can't hear above 10 khz, then there is no point in worrying about reproduction above that frequency.

    People see differently too. I have no idea whether or not any other human being perceives the color red the way I do. But it doesn't matter. I can agree with other people that one red is darker, more intense, more blue than another. We can both look at a picture of a house and know that it isn't a cow. We can agree that a photograph of a house has bowed the vertical lines in or out and is therefore distorted in that way (we can be tricked as the books on visual illusions teach us.) We can remember that our house doesn't look like the one in the photo. The point is that regardless of how our brains react to the stimulus, to the degree that we can remember other stimuli and can differentiate gradations between stimuli, that's all that really matters in judging if one stimulus is similar to or different from another and the nature and degree of that difference. So it doesn't really matter if we hear differently or not.

    I just had my hearing tested Monday and it is normal across the entire audio range in both ears. Maximum sensitivity is 10 to 15 db absolute up to 10 khz, the limit of the test. Happy day.

  7. #7
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    "We spend all this time talking about wires being the same or not when really, as skeptic pointed out, no two sets of speakers sound the same nor do two rooms sound the same."

    The most important descriptor of a loudspeaker system not counting harmonic and other non linear distortion and input/output nonlinearity is the spatial radiating pattern. Completely describing this encompasses many other notions normally separated or not considered at all. This not only includes the on axis frequency response and the totaly frequency versus power radiating curve, it looks at the relative energy radiated from the speaker as a function of solid angle through 360 degrees. It also looks at the geometry of the source and the interference patterns created by multiple drivers radiating at the same frequencies but displaced in both time and space. The signiture of a particular loudspeaker system would be as individual as a fingerprint. Furthermore, the way in which room acoustics and placement interact with a loudspeaker must take into acount this spatial radiaing pattern. It is a factor most speaker designers have given little or no thought to. The current paradyme of a two or three driver forward firing loudspeaker is extremely limiting and indicates the so called "Chinese Wall" syndrome many designers in other industries experienced. This syndrome is the manufacturer's way of saying, OK, I did my part in designing a speaker that works for me in my laboratory, now the problem of getting it to sound right is up to you. He washes his hands of every variable from room acoustics and placement to amplifier selection. If he gives you even a few hints, that's considered a lot. Within the limited concept of two channel stereophonic sound, an idea in itself many decades old, there is still a lot of room for improvement and a lot of work to be done. Nobody seems particularly interested in doing it especially when you consider that in the beginning of the 21st century, the focus of customer attention is on whether or not to buy a tube amplifier, which one, and what wires to use. Not much interest in tackling the real issues but then that is hard work.

  8. #8
    Forum Regular Monstrous Mike's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by E-Stat
    While the 'stats do beam with a decided single seat "sweet spot", I get a naturally wide and deep soundstage devoid of the vertical truncation I hear with all non-line source speakers in my experience.

    How about you, Mike?

    rw
    I'm willing to bet that I could sell all your cabling, replace it with modestly priced stuff (assuming you have a sum of money invested in your cabling), and use the difference to improve your room acoustics which in turn would improve the sound of your system. That's the entire point of my original post.

    BTW, I am not as dedicated to this hobby as you are (well at least in the financial aspect of the equipment, I am very involved in listening to and playing music being in a band) . You sometimes seem to imply I cannot possibly know or comment on these things since I don't have the high end stuff. I don't even have the acoustically treated room (which would be my first financial investment). Well, I suppose I presume to know more because I have a couple of degrees so I guess we cancel out there.

    As for the time and effort I put into discussing these things, keep in mind that it is not just about audio. I am very interested in how people decide what they do or buy what they do. Plus it keeps my writing and debating skills up to speed. And also in general, I am not a fan of quackery. Psychic hot lines almost bankrupt my grandmother and the callousness of the these quacks is shocking (i.e. when my sister and I investigated where all our inheritance was going).

    Audio is different in that most of it is not snake oil. But the pursuit of excellence in audio reproduction does set up an environment where people will purchase based on emotions and this tends to cloud judgement. So I feel audio is a fertile ground for dubious products although it appears on a small percentage are intense about this hobby and their claims about their system performance.

    So I think our objectives are similar and our intent is good. You wish to help others find audio nirvana and I wish to aid people to head for the actual nirvana and not bankruptcy.

    Like was said recently on CSI: "The evidence doesn't take sides."
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  9. #9
    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    BTW, I am not as dedicated to this hobby as you are (well at least in the financial aspect of the equipment, I am very involved in listening to and playing music being in a band) . You sometimes seem to imply I cannot possibly know or comment on these things since I don't have the high end stuff. I don't even have the acoustically treated room (which would be my first financial investment). Well, I suppose I presume to know more because I have a couple of degrees so I guess we cancel out there.
    Whether or not you own high end gear is irrelevant - what is relevant in my mind is having experienced them. Otherwise, you really have no point of reference as everything is really speculation on your part. Our resident class clown here takes that to extremes. He wouldn't recognize high frequency harmonics if they bit him on the ass.

    Think about any of your other lfie experiences and what you thought they would be like before you really experienced. them. Skydiving was very different from my original speculations, despite reading about it and having a brother who had skydived before. Performing a loop jump on the ice feels very different from what I thought it would be like based upon watching others and reading about the technique. It is also a skill (like many others) that requires experience and muscle memory. You can intellectualize it only so far. I would challenge anyone to read as much about jumping as they please for as long as they please, and go out and land an axel jump. Won't happen. Our senses are far too involved in the process. I can only imagine what it is like to play a guitar as I have zero point of reference. My wild ass guess is that like ice skating, there comes a time when you "let go" of the conscious aspects and let your mind just do it. Is that how it works?

    So, we both have hot buttons that provoke us to respond. Yours is triggered by those who make wild claims about various audio components. I don't go for the Tice Clocks, Mpngo (sic) disks, and Bybee filters myself. Mine is triggered by those who make claims without having the experiential basis on which to make them. How do you know that room treatments would sound better than using higher rez cables without directly experiencing the effect of either? Don't get me wrong - I'm a big believer in the value of room treatments and find them to be an essential "component" in any musical system. But my experience shows that cables can improve things as well. It is a matter of preference which one is most important for any individual. So which finger of yours is your favorite or best finger? I don't have one myself.


    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    Psychic hot lines almost bankrupt my grandmother and the callousness of the these quacks is shocking (i.e. when my sister and I investigated where all our inheritance was going).
    That is truly sad how those charlatans prey upon the elderly.


    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    But the pursuit of excellence in audio reproduction does set up an environment where people will purchase based on emotions and this tends to cloud judgement.
    You brought up an interesting point. I believe there are two completely separate "emotion" based motivations here. My guess is that you are referring to that aspect where shallow audiophiles purchase stuff based on perceived status. That factor is certainly not limited to the audio vein, either. I do buy audio goods based on emotion - not status based, but that which takes me closer to the musical event (which does closely strike my emotions)

    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    So I think our objectives are similar and our intent is good. You wish to help others find audio nirvana and I wish to aid people to head for the actual nirvana and not bankruptcy.
    Well financial ruin has never been my objective, but I do wish to share the benefits of my experience, some part of which has been due solely to the dumb luck of having access to some incredible systems through my audio reviewer friends.

    In what part of Canada do you live? Let's have a beer sometime.

    rw

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    I'm willing to bet that I could sell all your cabling, replace it with modestly priced stuff (assuming you have a sum of money invested in your cabling), and use the difference to improve your room acoustics which in turn would improve the sound of your system. That's the entire point of my original post.

    BTW, I am not as dedicated to this hobby as you are (well at least in the financial aspect of the equipment, I am very involved in listening to and playing music being in a band) . You sometimes seem to imply I cannot possibly know or comment on these things since I don't have the high end stuff. I don't even have the acoustically treated room (which would be my first financial investment). Well, I suppose I presume to know more because I have a couple of degrees so I guess we cancel out there.

    As for the time and effort I put into discussing these things, keep in mind that it is not just about audio. I am very interested in how people decide what they do or buy what they do. Plus it keeps my writing and debating skills up to speed. And also in general, I am not a fan of quackery. Psychic hot lines almost bankrupt my grandmother and the callousness of the these quacks is shocking (i.e. when my sister and I investigated where all our inheritance was going).

    Audio is different in that most of it is not snake oil. But the pursuit of excellence in audio reproduction does set up an environment where people will purchase based on emotions and this tends to cloud judgement. So I feel audio is a fertile ground for dubious products although it appears on a small percentage are intense about this hobby and their claims about their system performance.

    So I think our objectives are similar and our intent is good. You wish to help others find audio nirvana and I wish to aid people to head for the actual nirvana and not bankruptcy.

    Like was said recently on CSI: "The evidence doesn't take sides."
    Geez Mike. You wanted to see discussion of speakers and room accoustics. He have you what you wanted. And you just wanted to bring it right back to the same old, tired ranting about cables. True colors shown perhaps? Talk is cheap.

  11. #11
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    "How do you know that room treatments would sound better than using higher rez cables without directly experiencing the effect of either? "

    That's actually quite simple. As a system control element, cables are virtually worthless. There is no way to know in advance what the nature or degree of change they will make is. There is no way to adjust their effect. Because any efect they might have, however small depends on their relationship to the characteristics of the remainder of of an electrical network consisting of a source and load for which all but the most technically savvy user has no understanding, not data, and no useful knowledge for assessing their performance in advance there is no practical way to make a choice. The only thing he can do is to keep trying and trying and trying an endless stream of them hoping that he comes upon one that somehow makes an improvement. It's actually quite a hopeless task. And what does an improvement consist of? In all likelihood for people who buy and use these products, it is purely subjective with no objective measure over whether or not anything of real value was actually gained.

    On the other hand, the use of "room treatments" like sound absorbing panels have been used by acoustic architects and engineers for decades, their properties well known, and the general rules which may only serve as guidelines for consumers have been fairly well established. There is far less mystery here. Of course, to really use these panels or any other acoustic treatments properly, a professional with the equipment and knowledge to identify problems and impliment engineered solutions is far preferable to the more haphazard use the average audiophile or other consumer would make of them. But they will have an effect, used in greater or lesser quantity and they can be moved around to adjust that effect.

  12. #12
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    "...nor do two ears hear the same."

    I've given this notion a lot of thought and it has occurred to me that for the most part, this has little to do with whether a sound system is perceived as accurate with the sole exception being that if your hearing is impaired, say you can't hear above 10 khz, then there is no point in worrying about reproduction above that frequency.



    Interesting what the experiments do in fact show. They show that most, in the 90% + we do prefer the same good speakers but only when bias is not part of the decision making process
    mtrycrafts

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by mtrycraft
    "...nor do two ears hear the same."

    I've given this notion a lot of thought and it has occurred to me that for the most part, this has little to do with whether a sound system is perceived as accurate with the sole exception being that if your hearing is impaired, say you can't hear above 10 khz, then there is no point in worrying about reproduction above that frequency.



    Interesting what the experiments do in fact show. They show that most, in the 90% + we do prefer the same good speakers but only when bias is not part of the decision making process
    Are you sure about "we" ? The experiments may have been with a select group of listeners rather than a representative sample of listeners in general. How about those guys who like booming bass in their cars and want other motorists to hear it too? You know --- the ones who sometimes pull next to you at traffic lights. There are lots of them, and I don't think I share their speaker preferences.
    Last edited by okiemax; 07-27-2004 at 08:01 PM.

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    I think that there are two entirely separate issues here and it is important to draw a distinction between them. It goes to the heart of the purpose of the function audio equipment should fulfill.

    On the one hand, there is the matter of accuracy. In the same way a camera is accurate, for some people like me, the process of recording and reproducing music should strive for accuracy. This is an extremely complex and difficult subject because it is usually impossible to hold the original side by side with the duplicate to compare them and because the different kinds of distortions are so varied, not the least being that the copy will be heard under very different conditions from the original. This is analagous to a photograph being viewed under different lighting conditions. The closest that anyone has ever come to testing the achievement of this goal were live versus recorded experiments and demonstrations such as those conducted by Acoustic Research Corporation in the 1960s and 1970s. You alternatively heard the live musical instrument and you heard the recording. You could make up your mind if the recording sounded like the live or not. Much to the annoyance to some people here, and even anger, I have said that the goal of reproducing the worlds greatest music, performed by the worlds greatest artists is the only justification for the vast investment in time and money in scientific investigation and engineering to produce the technology which makes this possible and available, paltry as the best results it currently are. When you sit in an audience listening to this comparison, what you are listening for is differences, not absolutes. However your ear/brain perceives the sound you are presented with is not important. What is important is the degree of similarity or difference so the fact that one person hears differently than another only enters into it in the sense that their hearing accuity is a limiting factor of how accurately the reproduction must be. Do they sound alike or not is the only issue. It's quite an extrapolation from that type of test to the experience of listening to a commercial recording at home and saying whether or not that sound is accurate. There are many new variables introduced not the least of which are the acoustics of your home.

    Now when you talk about what people like or prefer, that's a whole different matter. I don't like photographs of babies. If a photograph of a baby looks exactly like a particular baby, that may be true but I don't prefer to look at it. If someone likes the sound of particular recordings produced through particular sound systems which make no pretense at being accurate in the sense I have described above, that is their business. But then you must accept that there is no longer any objective standard by which to judge equipment, not even a crudely imperfect one. No one preference for distortion is any better or more justifiable than any other except for the fact that it pleases or displeases the owner. Frankly, for the most part, that goal is of no interest to me whatsoever. In my view, that is not what high fidelity is about.

  15. #15
    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    This is analagous to a photograph being viewed under different lighting conditions.
    Direct comparisons are not required when one has a good overall understanding of how objects look (or sound) in real life. Are you unable to draw a qualitative judgement using pictures of, well anything - one taken by a Hasselblad and the other, a disposable camera using fast film?


    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    No one preference for distortion is any better or more justifiable than any other except for the fact that it pleases or displeases the owner.
    In the real world of many imperfections, one does make choices as to which distortions are more acceptable. Which was exactly my point to Mike. My cables improve the sound, mostly in detail resolution. My room treatments improve the sound. Mostly in flattening out the response and imaging. The question of which one is "better" is naturally subjective.

    rw

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    The answer is not necessarily. Depending on what is being photographed and the conditions of lighting, the disposable camera can conceivably take a better picture than the Hasselblad especially when the subjects are different and the results are being viewed under different lighting conditions. A disposable camera can take a perfectly acceptable picture with fast film in direct sunlight while a Hassleblad may take an awful photograph under dim light with slow film and no flash. Assume even the same landscape, the disposable taken at midday and the Hassleblad taken an hour after sunset and both with no tripod. If you need to read the license plate number of a car in the scene, which one would you prefer? Depending on the limitations and distortions present in a recording, any one sound system might sound better than any other sound system. It is only when we get to the most contientiously made "documentation" type recordings that we can begin to use our imperfect auditory memory to decide which of two sound systems is more accurate. And even there, due to the lack of standards for making recordings, recording 1 might sound more accurate on sound system A than B but the reverse may be true on recording 2.

    Your anecdotal evidence for the benefits of your cables are not convincing, at least not to me. A dip in mid bass freqeuncy response can make the treble sound clearer. I don't view that as an advantage. Can you demonstrate that there are real tangable and useful benefits in the electrical performance of your cables? Do they offer low harmonic distortion, better input/output linearity? Are you talking about a few tenths of a db louder treble? How do you account for the improvement? How do you know that if such audible changes exist at all, they are not a deterioration in performance. Their deliberately taylored electrical characteristics may have been conceived with the idea in mind of appealing to popular preferences, not in the service of greater accuracy of electrical transmission.

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    BTW, for certain applications, even in the hands of an expert, a Hassleblad is a very poor choice. In sports action photography for example, an autofocus SLR with a fast f2.8 300mm lens (sometimes called a "baseball lens") is far perferable to a Hassleblad which is a slow large and cumbersome machine by comparison. And you really do have to be fairly familiar with photography and medium format cameras to use it. In the hands of a tyro, it is virtually useless because he woudn't have the skill to operate it. Unlike a point and shoot supermarket checkout counter camera, 30 seconds of instruction won't be sufficient.

    Clearer doesn't necessarily mean more accurate in sound systems? Huh? Has skeptic finally lost it? (Some of you probably thought he lost it a long time ago while others think he never had it.) Actually that is correct. Anyone who is familiar with communications systems such as short wave know that there are special "speech microphones" which deliberately have a frequency response peak at about 4 khz to give them punch. This makes them more intelligable in marginal reception conditions because the silibant and explosive parts of speech occur in this region. By concintrating more rf energy transmitting these frequencies, speech is more intelligable meaning clearer but less accurate. The propensity to choose audio equipment that sounds clearer is used to advantage by some manufacturers knowing full well that it can also mean less accurate if clarity is achieved at the expense of frequency response distortion. This is a mistake people who are not very familiar with the sound of live acoustical instruments can easily make. When clarity is achieved by extending high end response linearly or reducing harmonic and intermodulation distortion, it is valuable. When it is achieved by peaking the frequency response in one region or reducing it in another, it does not serve the purpose of improved accuracy but improved sales and profits.

  18. #18
    Forum Regular Monstrous Mike's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pctower
    Talk is cheap.
    Right now, talk is all I have and all I am willing to pursue. I do enough engineering in my real life so I dedicate moments like this to philosphical talk. And you my friend are one interesting subject.

    And this is for you too, E-Stat.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Monstrous Mike
    Right now, talk is all I have and all I am willing to pursue. I do enough engineering in my real life so I dedicate moments like this to philosphical talk. And you my friend are one interesting subject.

    And this is for you too, E-Stat.
    And you my friend are one interesting subject.

    I don't know if that's a compliment or a slam and I don't think I care to know.

    The funny thing is, I think I'm about as boring as a person could get on the stuff we talk about. All I ask is that if someone makes a claim, he either admit it is just an opinion and phrase it as such, or if he claims it to be his view of the truth, then I expect him to substantiate his claim and be willing to discuss the validity of the evidence in support (and possibly in opposition) to his claim in a rational, civil, non-personal way.

    When it comes right down to it, that's about all I have or will ever have to contribute to the discussion.

  20. #20
    Forum Regular Monstrous Mike's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pctower
    Monstrous Mike you are one hell of a dickwad.
    That's okay, I still like you.



    Quote Originally Posted by pctower
    The funny thing is, you are most boring as a person. Just admit your opinion is wrong and you are never able to communicate in a rational, civil, non-personal way.
    Now that's starting to sting a little.



    Quote Originally Posted by pctower
    When it comes right down to it, all you will ever have to contribute to the discussion is useless.
    Beer buddies all the way.
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  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    The answer is not necessarily. Depending on what is being photographed and the conditions of lighting, the disposable camera can conceivably take a better picture than the Hasselblad especially when the subjects are different and the results are being viewed under different lighting conditions. A disposable camera can take a perfectly acceptable picture with fast film in direct sunlight while a Hassleblad may take an awful photograph under dim light with slow film and no flash.
    You can successfully dumb down any situation you please. Professionals don't buy 2 1/4 square cameras because they occassionally work better.

    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    Can you demonstrate that there are real tangable and useful benefits in the electrical performance of your cables?
    No more successfully than other effectively useless specifications used for other components.

    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    Do they offer low harmonic distortion, better input/output linearity?
    Most likely yes under the dynamic conditions found in music and in the presence of interference found in the environment.

    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    Are you talking about a few tenths of a db louder treble?
    Never used cables for frequency shaping.

    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    How do you account for the improvement?
    Shielding, better time domain performance, current delivery, depending on which cables you refer.

    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    Their deliberately taylored electrical characteristics may have been conceived with the idea in mind of appealing to popular preferences, not in the service of greater accuracy of electrical transmission.
    Or "B", your wild ass guess is nothing more than that. Obviously, you have not spoken with Joe Skubinski of JPS Labs.

    rw

  22. #22
    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    Anyone who is familiar with communications systems such as short wave know that there are special "speech microphones" which deliberately have a frequency response peak at about 4 khz to give them punch.
    Yeah, yeah my older brother is a ham where "punch through" is more important than fidelity.


    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    When clarity is achieved by extending high end response linearly or reducing harmonic and intermodulation distortion, it is valuable.
    I'm glad you acknowledge the guiding principal behind my cable purchases.


    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    When it is achieved by peaking the frequency response in one region or reducing it in another, it does not serve the purpose of improved accuracy ...
    Ironically, the JPS cables I use initially sounded "darker" to me. As in duller. Yet they measure flat out to cell phone frequencies. Upon longer term listening, what I really find missing from other cables I've used before is a high frequency "tizz" that ultimately masks what detail is present in the recording. That apparent darkness is also a phenomena that I experience at the symphony. Just like some folks like to crank the color level on their TVs that make everyone look a bit radioactive, there are folks who like to crank the treble where everything sounds bright. Live symphony concerts never sound bright to me, yet when a triangle is struck, you clearly hear it's sweet sound and harmonics float above the orchestra. You know what I'm talking about.

    rw

  23. #23
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    "You know what I'm talking about."

    Yes I do and I've explained it here so many times I've practically turned blue in the face. Do I really have to explain it again?

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    "You can successfully dumb down any situation you please. Professionals don't buy 2 1/4 square cameras because they occassionally work better."

    Professionals buy the right tool for the right job. In a photo studio taking portraits, a Hassleblad is the machine of choice. On a tripod in the quiet meadow for photographing cows and wildflowers, they will produce sharper pictures than Nikons, Canons, or even Leicas. But on a sports field getting action shots, you're better off with a Pentax autofocus and a 300 mm f 1.8 AF Tamron.

    Skeptic; "Do they offer low harmonic distortion, better input/output linearity?"

    E-Stat "Most likely yes under the dynamic conditions found in music and in the presence of interference found in the environment."

    Not one shred of evidence exists to support that statement.

    Skeptic; "How do you account for the improvement?"

    E-Stat; "Shielding, better time domain performance, current delivery, depending on which cables you refer."

    Not one shred of evidence to support that statement exists either.

    "Or "B", your wild ass guess is nothing more than that. Obviously, you have not spoken with Joe Skubinski of JPS Labs."

    NO I HAVEN'T. And why should I. What does he know? Where did I get my advice? From Belden BEFORE they went into the audiophile cable industry in a small way. At that time, they had no reason to even pretend.

  25. #25
    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by skeptic
    Do I really have to explain it again?
    Of course not. I used that as an experience that I presume we have in common.

    rw

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