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In Reply to: RE: on second thought posted by op48no1 on August 14, 2014 at 07:39:30
my suggestion is unanswered. Are you saying you can not conduct your own test, but that you epect me to do so?
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I think Henry is saying that the burden of proof falls on you because you're the one making the extraordinary claim.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
"I think Henry is saying that the burden of proof falls on you because you're the one making the extraordinary claim."This is a very key point here, I think. From the EE point of view, the claim about the audibility of the difference between the wire types (to take one example) is implausible. One could invent thousands upon thousands of implausible claims, and in fact a visit to the "tweakers' forum" quickly reveals that there are a lot of people doing just that. (Quantum fuses, the effect of different coloured wires, etc., etc.) None but the most suggestible and gullible will fall for most of that stuff, but it does raise the question of how one should discriminate between the various improbable-sounding claims that are made; how to sort out the wheat (if there is any) from the chaff.
What one clearly cannot do, as becomes abundantly clear if one looks on the tweakers' forum, is to believe something merely because someone reports that he heard it. (Or, as seems to happen suspiciously often, that even his wife in the next-door room heard it and came running in gasping in amazement at the improvement.) An appeal to numbers is not useful either. As was observed by, I think, Anatole France, "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
How, then, is one to recognise the odd genuine claim amongst all the nonsense? Could it be that amongst all the foolishness of quantum fuses, magic pebbles and the like, there might be a valid claim about the difference between copper and silver wire? A few moments of rational thought show that it is certainly an extraordinary claim; there is no plausible-looking reason from an EE point of view why that change of wires in the DAC output should have anything but the most utterly insignificant effect on the sound, and almost certainly below the threshold of hearing. As such, it is a claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
Clearly, as a trip into the fantasy world of the tweakers' forum reveals, the mere fact that one, or even many, people say they can hear the difference is not of much value. Indeed, sometimes those same people who "hear" the differences between wires are the same ones who "hear" the effect of magic pebbles or quantum fuses.
In the end, different people will set the bar at different levels when they decide whether a particular extraordinary claim is worth trying for themselves or not. Those who are more technically minded will typically be more inclined to require some sort of arguments that would make the claim have at least some level of technical plausibility, before they would think it worth trying. That is certainly where I myself stand in this kind of a discussion.
But the technical arguments need to be genuine, not bogus pseudo-technical garbage. Henry expressed this point very eloquently the other day, when he spoke of "the way audiophiles seize upon random, disconnected semi-technical facts and put them forth as proof of their beliefs. Facts they do not understand and cannot place in the context of their real-world significance."
On this thread we have, for example, seen the greater conductivity of silver being put forward as the explanation. When the utter insignificance of this in the context of the DAC was pointed out, attention was switched instead to the magnetic properties. There was then a rather confused claim that copper was "2 1/2 times more magnetic" than silver," and that this was an important consideration. Quite apart from the fact that copper is not in fact "2 1/2 times more magnetic than silver," absolutely no plausible arguments were presented for why this would matter in the DAC output wires even if it were true.
I, for one, am happy to take my chances and not spend time, or money, experimenting with wire changes unless someone can give some genuine arguments for why they might actually make a difference. Such arguments could either be "theoretical," in the sense of arguments indicating at least to some level of plausibility that there could be a real physical explanation that stood a chance of being above the threshold of audibility. Or they could be "phenomenological," which really means properly documented experiments involving rigorous double-blind testing.
But I am not impressed with anecdotal claims. ("I hear it, and the difference is like night and day." or "My wife in the kitchen could hear it.") Nor am I impressed by the almost religious fervour of people saying "But if you would only try it, then you would become a believer too."
If, as a result, I am truly missing out on a wonderful new level of audio experience then that is just too bad.
Chris
Edits: 08/14/14 08/14/14 08/15/14
how does one prove or disprove a subjective claim?
i think the bulk of the people here are passionate and genuine. i also feel both extremes in this debate have seen the audio charlatan.
I have discussed with john chapman the possibility of an AB-X box that would randomly swap between samples at the push of a button. The data collection has always been the hard part but now with the magical smart phone and bluetooth the collecting of data is simple.
rather than fight each other, lets all work together to try to collect some data and see how people manipulate it. If we all get involved I'm sure we can arrange dedicated rooms at a few shows to do the comparisons with any device someone wants to bring in.
statistics will show where the anomalies happen and then science can come in to try to explain.
dave
Making a statement bout what I hear n having to provide proof.
LOL!!!!!
Why not dog Audioquest or Nordhost or Kimber or DH Labs or Eichmann or Neotech or the many other cable manufacturers offering silver wire or even silver plated wires. Why hold me to different standard.
Reminds me of a pack of jackels....
not that i care. As i stated my feeling is that no matter what i write, the pack.will jump on some small facet to negate my observations, which you may have noticed i never stated. It would be far better.for a skeptic to conduct the test, that way he can address procedural issues to his satisfaction. Or is that asking too much?
If it is then why, especially in the light of so many different cables being offered?
talk bout double standards.....
"Why not dog Audioquest or Nordhost or Kimber or DH Labs or Eichmann or Neotech or the many other cable manufacturers offering silver wire or even silver plated wires. Why hold me to different standard."
I'm not. I dog everyone who makes unsubstantiated claims.
"...better for a skeptic to conduct the test....Or is that asking too much?"
Yes. The skeptic is not the one making the extraordinary claim.
As for "......so many different cables being offered"
That proves nothing except a fool and his money are soon parted.
On the other hand, there's more to a cable than the metal used.
I will concede that in the end you might be right about copper vs. silver.
It's just that it's up to you to substantiate your claim.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Well interestingly I make no money from my conclusions, at least not directly. But yes, I have spent a lot of money to investigate many claims. Most of which, you may be interested to know ( you probably are not, but I don't really care as a lot of it is for my satisfaction), have turned out to be negative. Then again, I do not regard incrementally small gains ( to some people) as a waste of time and effort. I find that incrementally small gains can add up significantly, but hey, that's my experience.
I can live with the speaker in my truck, no problem, although it lacks critical amounts of detail, and when you come down to it, all systems regardless of cost come down to the same incremental increase in relative performance. Choosing where to stop is a truly personal issue, but if you have stopped, it is utterly foolish to impose the same limitations on others.
Since you think silver and copper wrs are overpriced ( many are), and that a few inches of wire make insignificant difference, might I suggest you change out your input wires with steel. Yeah the resistance is higher but all you need as others have mentioned is to simply turn up your volume control: no problem, right.
Or use aluminum. After all many miles of high voltage power line employ aluminum cables already. The highly rated ( by some) Magnepans all use aluminum wiring in their voice coils as do Altec and many JBL drivers. Significantly cheaper than either copper or silver, so why not save a lot of money and push for manufacturers to use aluminum wire? There are a few who do use aluminum, although it is copper clad aluminum...(JPS, IIRC)
I have not seen anything you write advocating this so I suspect you are NOT practicing what you write: "a fool and his money are easily parted", hah ! In studios, why bother with copper wire since you use miles of the wire. Aluminum is much cheaper and and you have plenty of gain to compensate for higher resistance. In fact, use steel wire, much stronger and very cheap. Try placing a couple of inches of aluminum or steel wire in your signal path and see what it does for your sound.
Hell, you want to hear what a few inches of wire can make, check out phono cartridges. Moving coils use very little wire but funny how so many sound so different even when from the same factory and seemingly the similar design (take Benz models, for example, and they actually build many of the Van denHull models, too, some of which use gold wire.
I already outlined very basic parameters for wire performance: Composition, purity, insulation, configuration which can cover construction, gauge, etc. Theoretically all wire has only three parameters: capacitance, inductance and resistance. If this was universally true and recognized why do so few companies actually publish their specs. The only company I have seen such figures from is Kimber in a special brochure they once printed off.
Are any of the contributors to this thread following up on such specifications? Hmmm....I don't think so. I listed the wires I compared, but no one even bothered to ask the configuration of the wire, although I listed the gauges. Blanket statements about the inaudibility follow when the naysayers themselves betray their own ignorance of the parameters which an affect sonics.
The issue is one of laziness, if you ask me. Most readers think a simple google search will answer every question in the universe. Its like the head of the US patent office in the late 1800's who proclaimed that everything which needed inventing had already been done ....Or even earlier, when the Church declared everything to be known to be revealed in the Bible....
Most people are too damn lazy to actually try something new. They want to wait till a review comes out or more accurately a bunch of reviews come out with the same conclusion. The let John do it attitude, I find rather irritating, as it points out a fundamental issue with the vast majority of Americans: too lazy to really do a bit of work......
That was a lot of typing to say very little.
I never said that wire doesn't make a difference but I also never said it does.
You did, so you are the one that needs to show the proof when others disagree.
You can state whatever you want as your opinion but when you state things as facts you need to back that up with more than just opinion.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Stu doesn't "need" to back up his opinions with facts. He should just expect that there are some people who will take him to task when he doesn't.
LOL.
-Henry
.
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Copper has many properties that make it ideal for wiring. For instance, it's soft and easily drawn, flexible, and easy to solder. Aluminum is nearly impossible to solder and is brittle. Steel is stiff and grossly magnetic. And so on.Commercial wire companies do publish their specs. Companies like Kimber don't publish specs for two reasons. First, there's nothing remarkable about the specs that would recommend their wire. Second, doing so wouldn't increase their dollar bottom line. They are selling mystique.
Adding gain always adds noise and distortion. Precisely because they use miles of wire, studios use low-resistance wire to minimize loss.
A cartridge is a delicate, complicated electromechanical transducer with both electrical and magnetic circuits. There are many objective reasons why different wires would make a difference in the performance of a cartridge.
Resistance, inductance, and capacitance are extremely useful but also simplistic models of circuit behavior. Without a deep understanding of what R, L, and C really mean, and the principles of circuit analysis, it's a gross oversimplification to say that "theoretically" the only properties of a wire are resistance, inductance, and capacitance.
You are committing several logical fallacies here, including Begging the Question and Appeal to Ignorance.
Again, it's important to remain calm and to focus on the real question at hand. And the question is, "How do we know that the differences we hear are due to the physical changes we make in our equipment, and not to some other change in the state of our minds?"
Nothing you have said here comes close to answering that question. Trust me when I say I'm not a lazy person. I started out at a very young age with a simple desire: to know how to design and build my own hi-fi amplifier, and to understand how it works. Certainly, this is a very different goal than the one you set for yourself. But trust me when I say, I have not been lazy in the pursuit of my goal. Even now, I seem to be putting a lot more effort into this discussion than you are.
-Henry
Edits: 08/16/14
"How do we know that the differences we hear are due to the physical changes we make in our equipment, and not to some other change in the state of our minds?"
Yes, that is the question.
I wonder if Stu has ever watched the TV show "Brain Games"?
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
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