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Isolation Ward From ebony pucks to magic foil, mystical and controversial tweaks. |
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Isolation Ward From ebony pucks to magic foil, mystical and controversial tweaks. |
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In Reply to: Re: Clark, etal: Why the long face on the AES? posted by May Belt on May 14, 2007 at 02:11:51:
Another interesting post.“A bunch of people at an AES convention in 1991 tried to get the high-end cable industry collectively dragged out and shot, or something like that."
“To engineers, steeped in conventional electronic theories, other people claiming that they can 'hear' different cables give different sounds appears nonsensical, particularly when it can be a half a metre (20 inches !!!!!) length of cable being listened to Conventional electronic theory dictates that any changes to an audio signal that (might) occur along a half metre (20 inches) of cable would be so insignificant that no one, no human being, could possibly hear any changes, let alone describe those changes in the way people do - greater height, greater depth, greater width, better separation of instruments and so on. Now, if those same people described hearing changes in different cables ONE MILE LONG, then the conventional engineers would concede that, yes, people might be able to hear the effect of different 'losses on the line'. But, cables half a meter long 'sounding different' - NO WAY !!! End of discussion. And, as for suggesting that there can be directionality in wires - better hide behind the parapets !!â€Well fwiw, I’m not an engineer I am inventor but I was an invited speaker at a number of AES and ASA conventions and a member until 1996 when I let my membership lapse.
I had presented a number of papers by that point and had attended most of the main conventions as a result of already being at the trade show for work
My impression was that it is a way for manufacturers to gather respect for new technology (assuming it works etc) and it is a way for engineers to hear what others in the fields have to say, this is one of the very few places where an engineer from JBL might present technical breakthroughs followed by someone from EV or Servodrive.
I quit because it seemed to be more of an academic forum as opposed to “news†and inventions, at the time heavily weighted by the “supporting†companies.
I had presented a paper on eliminating power compression at the same meeting Doug B. from JBL presented the first paper on it.
I presented a paper on a rotary motor driven loudspeaker and demonstrated it, the QA time went over an hour longer than scheduled.
I presented and demonstrated both a low frequency (as in Phoenix Gold Cyclone) and full range full rotary loudspeaker drivers (Quantum Sound), again very long QA time.
All of these things were totally new transducers / designs, genuinely worked but none were selected for publication in the AES journal.
I finally made me wonder why am I busting my butt writing these things and showing these people anything I’m doing?
I do not recall a lynching event like above. I do recall a number of challenges where people compared wires blind and many were puzzled why they couldn’t hear the difference they heard when they knew which wire was which.
I do recall discussion about the properties of wire and how that could impact the transmission of a signal.
Just as there are those who ridicule them for “not hearing the obviousâ€, there were those who ridiculed the customers of many hifi business that used snake oil tactics to effectively steal from the customer.Keep in mind, while you mention Snow and Lister as examples of someone finding something new, I think the connection to modern day high end audio is fallacious as both of these guys were scientists, using scientific method and discovery.
In the case of Lister, he noticed carbolic acid killed germ cultures and thought to spray it in the air before surgery, Snow used statically analysis, realizing when seeing a distribution map that there was as distinct pattern.
London’s famous sewer system with its massive steam engine pumps and surgery without near certain death were results.
Both discoveries were readily reproducible and passed “blind†analysis as well.
This is simply inspired men using science to work at discovery.The disparaging frame engineering is ALWAYS painted in with the “hifi†types is particularly curious.
ALL of the electronic world outside of “hifi†is governed by the “rules†which seemingly don’t apply in audio.
The engineering view might be that 20 inches of speaker cable has an effect, it has resistance which will ALWAYS produce a voltage potential across it proportional to the current flowing. There are effects limited to frequencies above DC ( 0 Hz) too.
The impact of these is frequency dependant and these kinds of properties are measured with a network analyzer.
An equivalent circuit can be formed with this information and its accuracy can be examined by comparing the output of the circuit to the item under test.
At high frequencies like those in your computer or cell phone, these products couldn’t exist without this kind of design approach.At audio frequencies, the engineering argument would be to say as long as the signal coming out was similar enough to the input signal, that there could be no electrical reason to hear the difference claimed.
The logic being that in order for a signal to be audibly different, there would also have to be that same difference showing up when the input and output were compared.That is not to say there aren’t other non-electrical mechanism’s that can cause an obvious difference in some situations.
As with the disparaging reflex towards the technical, the hifi types also tend to pretend ALL pf what is know about perception, desires and Bl;ind testing outside of hifi similarly don’t apply in hifi.
These folks seem to think they are 100% aware, in control and are “so confident†of that that they go nuts when you say “ok, prove what you say by demonstrating it without prior knowledgeâ€.Meanwhile as one might imagine, automotive engineer types react similarly when “a believer†tries to tell them they get better gas mileage when they wrap there radiator hoses with Velveeta cheese. And yes, they may well get better gas mileage.
So, what’s the deal with the frozen music, has the thread cooled enough to let folks know which tracks were which?
Best,
Tom
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Follow Ups
- Why the long face on the AES? Kai's powergoo - tomservo 08:59:45 05/14/07 (25)
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