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Perspective vs Understanding vs Reality

Posted by Sean on February 13, 2007 at 12:20:18:
RF is very sensitive to impedance. By manipulating specific electrical characteristics to purposely alter impedance in a controlled manner, the susceptability to picking up external RFI and / or conducting existing RFI already on the line can be drastically reduced and / or negated. The same can be said about EM fields to varying extents.
As to believing that shielding is a cure all to RFI, i am not of that school. In fact, i know that shielding can create as many ( if not more ) problems IF improperly applied. If you've read any of the hundreds and thousands of posts that i've made either here or on Audiogon, you would be well familiar with this fact. Most all commercially available products that i'm aware of apply shielding in what "I" consider to be a less than optimum manner. I'm sure that there are some products out there that don't fall into this generalization on my part, but i'm simply not aware of them at this point in time.
As to "measuring" the differences in performance when changing cabling, i've done that more than a few times. Not only in the amplitude and bandwidth of distortion characteristics, but also by taking in-room frequency response measurements. I can do this with good and repeatable accuracy due to having the necessary test equipment ( HP distortion analyzers, HP spectrum analyzers, HP tracking generators, Tek scopes, etc... ). I've discussed this in the same hundreds and thousands of posts that i've made both here and on Audiogon.
Obviously, i'm not of the audiophile persuasion that thinks that one can wave a magic wand or sprinkle fairy dust and hear a difference. I know that much of what we hear can easily be measured. Having said that, i also know that much of what we hear is not easily interpreted by standard test procedures. As such, this gives us further reason to expand our knowledge and the test methodology used. Hopefully, we will continue to do so until we can not only measure and quantify such things, but also understand and explain them in both reasonable and logical terms.
At one point in time, the greatest, most learned minds in the world thought the world was flat. Many of these same folks would have also sworn that the Earth was the center of the universe. As such, they were promoting certain ideologies that were less than fully understood, even though they were accepted as fact. In the long run, those very learned and great minds ended up being a stumbling block to further knowledge and exploration. In effect, they were part of a problem that they helped create, not part of the problem that they helped resolve by working towards a solution.
Those that found the solution were those that ignored conventional wisdom. They took it upon themselves to learn and experiment on their own. That's how i got to where i am today, as i too was once a "cable naysayer". That is, until i actually tried, tested, heard and later measured the differences.
All of this does not make me smarter than anyone else, but it does change my level of understanding and therefore provide a different perspective. As i've said many times before, i know what i do because someone else took the time to help me explore and understand what was already common knowledge to them.
With all of that in mind, your ears & brain are more sensitive than you think. If you do some testing, you'll find that proper testing and interpretation of the results will, most of the time, verify what your ears & brain have already told you. That is, if you're a skilled listener and have the technical background to properly interpret the results.
Most people aren't skilled listeners, even though they might qualify as "dedicated audiophiles" or "avid music enthusiasts". Most people also don't have the technical background to properly interpret test results, so they resort to trusting their ears and picking what they like most or seems to work best in their system. Since everyone hears slightly differently, and has slightly different personal preferences, there's no wonder that it is hard to reach a general consensus in this area. That doesn't mean that we can't hope to achieve such results though, through further testing, experience and education. Even with all of that, removing personal bias from the equation would be a tough task to conquer. Sean
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