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In Reply to: One thought posted by commuteman on August 26, 2004 at 10:58:58:
In answer to your specific question, if I understand you right, you would put a weighing system on different measured devitions or different audible deviations or ??? I'm not sure exactly you are referring to. Here's the problem I have. Either a deviation is audible or it isn't. It may be audible to some people but not to others. That's why selection of people with the most accute hearing for a first round of tests is desirable. If they can't hear something, it's likely nobody else can either. Is one audible deviation which is by at least my definition a distortion preferable over another? Maybe yes. A linear distortion, a deviation in frequency response can be compensated for, a non linear one can't. Many "audiophiles" will object that the use of equalization to correct a frequency response error is unacceptable because it brings other penalties and discussing that would just start another flame war so I'll stay away form that except to say I personally have no problem with it.I am afraid that further exploration of this subject will just invite another flame war the way the last one and likely the one before it and the one before that did. I really don't want to instigate another one and I certainly don't want to participate in one.
I've stated my point of view as succinctly and completely as I can in this thread. I think it says the same things I said in my other postings, possibly in different words, in a different order, and maybe fills in a few gaps with what I would have considered easily inferable. I really have nothing further to contribute except perhaps a few observations. The method I outlined has nothing magical or clever or unusual in it. It's more or less what I would expect from a scientist or committee assigned to investigate it. If anyone wants to criticize it, tweak it, or substitute something they feel is better, I'm happy to listen but to nitpick it to death or just shoot it down without any alternative is to say the problem can't be solved. I don't accept that and that is a true naysayer position, one of nihilism. The best telecommunications laboratory in the world, Bell Telephone Laboratories probably solved this problem 50, 60, maybe even 70 years ago. It's probably published in some obscure province of AES, IEEE, or IRE or somewhere. They undoubtedly needed to know the answers to define the requirements for the telephone network and knowing them, they had unlimited funding, were unaccountable to anyone for spending it, and had armies of scientists looking for something to do to justify their generous salaries. Sometimes I get the feeling that there are people who for one reason or another have a vested interest in never seeing this problem solved. That's what I meant when I said that it seemed it was suggested that not only was the proposed methodology not acceptable but that no other methodology would be acceptable either.
So in the hope that I won't be called a troll again, I think I've said all I have to say about audio cables and will just read what other people have to say, when it seems interesting.
Good luck in your war and may the better side win.
Follow Ups:
I'm afraid there ARE people who have a "vested interest in never seeing this problem solved."There are many areas in life where it pays to keep the ball in the air as long as possible. If the issue should ever be resolved, there will be a lot of people proved definitely wrong. This is usually unacceptable. Whatever method you come up with to move closer to the truth will be found to have a flaw--one that rules it out.
I once proposed a method of evaluating speaker cables. It was based on the assumption that doubling the length of the cable would at least double whatever problems it caused, and if nobody could tell the difference between a 10' cable and a 20' one, then they couldn't tell the difference between a 10' cable and a cable of zero length.
I couldn't even get agreement on this. The objections offered bordered on ridiculous, but that's the cable war for you.
I've thought of your idea myself in the past and I for one think it is a pretty good one. But I won't discuss it becaue that will just get me back into the war again.I was much more interested in the fact that a problem had been around for so long (or is it really a problem at all?) and that no methodology had been even discussed let alone agreed to as a starting point for solving it. The actual problem of the cables themselves is much less interesting to me than the methodology of studying it. Besides, it's not my fault if nobody has bothered to exert the effort to study it. That would after all require real work rather than the tinkering a lot of people who fancy themselves scientists do for a living. I personally couldn't care less which way the answer comes out and apparantly the cable manufacturers don't either. They don't seem to be hurting for customers for their products, they don't have the FTC on their backs, so why should they waste their money and rock the boat. (I think they already know just how the answer would come out the way the tobacco companies knew cigarettes caused lung cancer back in the 1950s.) Lucky for them they don't depend on people like me to make a living or they'd all be on welfare. Hehe.
I suppose that this gives people who otherwise would have nothing to say something to fight over endlessly. In the scheme of things, it's fairly harmless amusement. After all nobody ever got hurt being called names. Not even being called a troll.
at least on the points I posted earlier.When I suggested a weighting scheme I wasn't thinking in terms of ranking one audible effect against another.
I was thinking in terms of weighting different technical deviations in terms of their audibility. In other words, does a 1% change in one parameter have the same magnitude of effect as a 0.00001% change in another parameter.
So....do you are agree or disagree?
I'm not sure where you got the impression that I think we can never get to the bottom of this. My original post merely pointed out that the simple measurements posted at AH do not represent a successful end point because they cannot be correlated with audibility.
I do agree that we view the road forward in opposite terms. I want to come back to that in another post.
Peter
"In other words, does a 1% change in one parameter have the same magnitude of effect as a 0.00001% change in another parameter."I don't know. How do you judge them if the effects are different? Does a 1% change in high freqeuncy rolloff equal a .00001% change in intermodulation distortion? Is having instruments having inaccurate musical timbre worse than them not being heard distinctly from each other? Are you trying to place relative values on these different kinds of distortion and equate one degree of badness in one with another degree of badness in another? Aren't these apples and oranges? If you can hear them, aren't both objectionable? If you can't, at least by my reckoning, it wouldn't matter? I'm not sure if it would in yours? How will you judge these changes? On a relative basis from one cable to another? On an absolute basis? If you reject my notion that cables can or should be compared to an absolute reference, how would you test them? How do you control just one variable at a time without inadvertantly changing everything else? Lots of questions? I'm still not sure I even understand the basic premise or thrust of this concept.
You rejected my attempt to establish any sort of weighting scheme (which is essential if you are going to provide any sort of overall comparative rating for a cable, IMO). OK, it wasn't my idea so I'm fine with dunping it, BUT.....Does this mean that you are saying all cables are equally bad UNLESS their measurable deviations from perfect are all below the threshold of audibility, in which case they are all equally good?
Isn't that what this means:
"Are you trying to place relative values on these different kinds of distortion and equate one degree of badness in one with another degree of badness in another? Aren't these apples and oranges? If you can hear them, aren't both objectionable? If you can't, at least by my reckoning, it wouldn't matter?"
I'm trying hard to understand your POV. Am I getting there?Peter
Yes!
OK, I've read that post a bunch of times, and I have to ask something: (apparently I'm a sucker for punishment...)I think you said earlier that you needed/wanted a rational way of selecting a cable, based (I thought) on something measurable?
Was that right, or were you saying that the rational method was to compare each cable by listening to it vs a bypass? "Better" is then a subjective call, but at least it's in comparison to a reference, not another cable.
I only put the "weighting model" in the previous post because I thought you were looking for an objective rating system (hence my surprise when you challenged its value).
Without it, how could you ever decide if cable A (which differs from perfection in one parameter) is objectively closer to perfect than cable B (which differs from perfection in a different parameter)?
Of course, if you're saying that it should be decided subjectively vs the bypass, then you don't need the weighting system at all.
Peter
Perhaps you're right; for whatever reason we can't seem to communicate.Let's call it a day....
PT
Agreed
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