Audiophiles beware, the other senses are more connected than you think.

[Mr Peabody]

Mr. Peabody, I don't like majoring in minors. I chose a well built cable that sounded neutral to my ears, degraded the signal the least among those I measured, and was reasonably priced. With all of the cables I heard, none had a bright sound or dark sound, just varying degrees of resolution and that is it. The point I am making is it took a NC-20 room, speaker/room interactions corrected to -+1 from 40-20khz, a extremely quiet amp and pre-amp to hear these very subtle difference. I highly doubt that anyone can hear these subtle differences on a less than $5000 dollar two channel system setup in their living room. Most here do not tackle room acoustics(too complicated), don't have the signal chain to reveal these differences, nor do they have a room quiet enough. If a piece of cable is taking your system to a new level, the old cables were probably not up to snuff. The differences between cables are not night and day, but profoundly subtle if they are well made.

You make a lot of assumptions, "you guys", you have no idea what any one has or has not done. And, in this case most of what you said is just wrong. Don't impress your short comings on the general population. I do agree that my preference in cables would be one not to color but add resolution.

If you look at Analysis Plus website they are one who publishes there measured differences. In is also fact there is audible differences between materials used, the metal or dielectric or lack there of, the configuration of the materials and even quality of the terminals and method of connecting them.

Dr. Floyd Toole's listening test done at the Canadian Radio research lab disputes this.



Well Mr. P., I am listening to the audio, not the cables. And that is the way I like it.



And that is exactly the point of DBT, to remove known pre-judgements and biases that come with sighted testing. Read up a little on sighted pre-judgement, and sighted biases. If I tell you a piece of equipment you are going to listen to is entry level, and audiophile will immediately pre-judge that equipment as insufficient.

When I first started at Disney, we did a sighted shootout between a well regarded a Radio Shack portable CD player, and one of Sony top of the line CD players. We first did a sighted listening test, and of course the engineers who are audiophile types panned the sound of the CD player, even though Stereophile mentioned how well the portable sounded when put up against another high end CD player. Once the curtain was thrown up, those same audiophiles preferred the sound of the portable over the high end CD player over and over again. Bias erased, different outcome.

I don't have a problem with the idea that there are subtle differences(and I mean subtle) between cables. My problem is how you guys who THINK you hear differences are carrying out your tests.

1. You guys don't level match your sources. Perceptive tests have proven that if one source is higher in level by just 1db, it will sound BETTER to the listener.

2. None of you have neutralize the sonic signature of your rooms.

3. None of you have mentioned anything about the ambient levels of your room.

4. All testing is sighted which introduces biases.

5. No instantaneous switching. Any idea that you can compare cables on two separate days, two separate hours, or two separate minutes does not understand the deficit of our auditory memory.

6. Since you guys don't really measure or treat your rooms, room resonances are a lot louder than the subtle differences between cables. If you don't put your head in a vice, then any head movements can move your head in and out of a mode or node - which changes the perception of what you hear.

You guys do not address ANY of the variables that can dog a listening test. Testing is done willy nilly, and I am sorry, but if want to HEAR differences objectively, those variables have to be addressed. This is why testing wires and IC's is done so infrequently - it is too difficult to pull off objectively.

AVSforum and AIX records are doing a double blind shootout between three audio files. A redbook 16/44.1khz file, versus a 24/96khz file, versus a upsampled upconverted 16/44.1khz file to 24/96khz. The criteria to participate in this test is so high, I highly doubt anyone here would be able to meet it.

I listen to music as well but I want the best presentation from my system I can get.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I listen to music as well but I want the best presentation from my system I can get.

Then it would probably be better to pay attention to your room acoustics than to a piece of cable.