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Comparing the tone of three different "boutique" cables

#42
I think it's telling that when purported differences are described, they're in notably non-sonic ways.

This one is snappier. This one is darker, richer, warmer, livelier. This ugly one is indistinct, muddy. Thick, well-defined bottom.

Try to pin down someone who says such things as to what they really mean, if it could be measured, and it's just frustrating for all involved.

So the fact that your computer can't hear a difference really doesn't matter, because we never said it was in the frequency response anyway. You DON'T have a graph for the muddy tone vs rich well-defined bottoms.
 
#44
mulchor said:
I think it's telling that when purported differences are described, they're in notably non-sonic ways.

This one is snappier. This one is darker, richer, warmer, livelier. This ugly one is indistinct, muddy. Thick, well-defined bottom.

Try to pin down someone who says such things as to what they really mean, if it could be measured, and it's just frustrating for all involved.

So the fact that your computer can't hear a difference really doesn't matter, because we never said it was in the frequency response anyway. You DON'T have a graph for the muddy tone vs rich well-defined bottoms.
Click to expand...
True on some levels, but also not as true as they'd like to believe. You're absolutely right that that's their M.O., and audiophiles will even go so far as to say the things they're describing cannot be measured.

But many of those qualities can actually be measured! Most of those tonal elements amount to a form of distortion: amplitude, harmonic, frequency, and/or phase; and all of those can be tested and graphed. To the best of my hobbyist ability, I plan to do just that. :) The only distortion that can't be tested is the imaginary.

To test the claims of transient response, I will trigger one pulse wave with an amplitude and duty cycle similar to a big bass spike, and compare the scope image of the pulse at the other end of the cable.
 
#46
Bijoux said:
how about those cables by Evidence Audio.
I was once recording using my monster cable, and the engineer asked me to use one of his cables, Evidence Audio that costs $150!!!
i thought it was BS.
turns out I thought my bass was suddenly twice as loud!
maybe he turned me up.../ ... without me noticing it?....
Click to expand...

No it is true. I have that cable and I had a guitar player try it at the end of the night and there was a volume difference. I paid 112 I think, for a 12 ft cable. Very good cable.
 
#47
Cables DO make a difference - whether the "difference" is worth the difference is up to you to decide. There is a lot more going on that these basic response curves show because the frequency response plot is a steady-state test. Music is NOT a steady state - it's transients - especially bass.
The biggest difference in cables I have ever experienced is the Essential Sound Musichord Pro (it's an IEC power cable). I guarantee that you will hear a difference when you put one of those on your rig.
 
#48
Bassist30 said:
No it is true. I have that cable and I had a guitar player try it at the end of the night and there was a volume difference. I paid 112 I think, for a 12 ft cable. Very good cable.
Click to expand...

Unless the cable has some sort of amplifier attached to it, it can't increase volume. It is passive- it won't increase volume at all. The only cables it can have more volume than are poorly made/highly attenuated cables. And it doesn't cost much to get a cable that isn't poorly made or highly attenuated.
 
#49
Gizmot said:
There is a lot more going on that these basic response curves show because the frequency response plot is a steady-state test. Music is NOT a steady state - it's transients - especially bass.
Click to expand...
Actually, the pink noise used has a constantly-varying amplitude, so it is not static at all. And as I noted, I will be including transient spikes in my next tests.
Gizmot said:
The biggest difference in cables I have ever experienced is the Essential Sound Musichord Pro (it's an IEC power cable). I guarantee that you will hear a difference when you put one of those on your rig.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but that is an egregious case of what I described in the first post. It has been shown repeatedly that the only people who hear a difference with those power cords, are people who are led to expect there may be a difference, and their brains actually construct that difference for them. It does not exist outside your head. That is not an insult, it is a well-established fact of human biology and psychology.
 
#50
This makes me wonder what else is not as much of a difference as we think... pickups, strings, etc... obviously there are differences in these and are much different than a cable, but how much does that human psychology and biology play a part in this.

I spent my saturday swapping electronics in my friends guitar because he swore the difference was huge, (went from MIA standard to 60s custom shop pups). I personally couldn't hear much of a difference, it was clear in his brain there was a HUGE difference in the two.

Regardless... interesting stuff here.
 
#51
Personally I don't know much about leads or signals, but I did just find out recently about impedance matching and why you need a good pre for a passive bass and not so much for an active bass, so it sounds like the original difference you heard may have something to do with the leads interacting with the bass signal. This wouldn't be tested here because I assume you use a line out/line in system with a frequency sweep or something? Therefore I think you should do a DOUBLE BLIND BASS LEAD EXPERIMENT!

Go ahead and get someone to label (without you knowing) all the leads with numbers, then get somebody else (who knows nothing about leads or bass playing or audio at all) to switch them with you playing blindfolded and write down your ratings and thoughts for each number without telling you which number it is. Get them to do it randomly, chuck in a few leads multiple times etc. Then see, do you actually prefer one lead over another? Can you tell two leads apart? Can you recongnise a lead second time it comes up?

Obviously levels, bass, amp everything except the lead would have to remain constant.

DOET DOET DOET!!!
 
#53
timbledum said:
Personally I don't know much about leads or signals, but I did just find out recently about impedance matching and why you need a good pre for a passive bass and not so much for an active bass, so it sounds like the original difference you heard may have something to do with the leads interacting with the bass signal. This wouldn't be tested here because I assume you use a line out/line in system with a frequency sweep or something? Therefore I think you should do a DOUBLE BLIND BASS LEAD EXPERIMENT!

Go ahead and get someone to label (without you knowing) all the leads with numbers, then get somebody else (who knows nothing about leads or bass playing or audio at all) to switch them with you playing blindfolded and write down your ratings and thoughts for each number without telling you which number it is. Get them to do it randomly, chuck in a few leads multiple times etc. Then see, do you actually prefer one lead over another? Can you tell two leads apart? Can you recongnise a lead second time it comes up?

Obviously levels, bass, amp everything except the lead would have to remain constant.

DOET DOET DOET!!!
Click to expand...

You see, that's just it- these sort of double blind tests done by a player always result in odd results. Why? Because the player is either expecting to hear a difference between cables, or decidedly expecting not to hear a difference!

As I've stated before, there is a human element that comes into play & can definitely affect results via performance & how that player is responding/influenced by the gear he/she is using. If you are open to the idea that a cable is going to sound different, you may very well play different without even trying to.

Bongo's more labaratory style approach may not tell the whole story, but it tells a far more objective story! :)
 
#54
Gizmot said:
Cables DO make a difference - whether the "difference" is worth the difference is up to you to decide. There is a lot more going on that these basic response curves show because the frequency response plot is a steady-state test. Music is NOT a steady state - it's transients - especially bass.
The biggest difference in cables I have ever experienced is the Essential Sound Musichord Pro (it's an IEC power cable). I guarantee that you will hear a difference when you put one of those on your rig.
Click to expand...

Is somebody shilling for Essential Sound or is there an 'Emperors New Clothes' syndrome kicking in? ;)

Let's keep this discussion focused on the actual signal-carrying cables. The whole AC Cord from Heaven thing has already played itself out ad-nauseam in other threads...
 
#58
Gizmot said:
Cables DO make a difference - whether the "difference" is worth the difference is up to you to decide. There is a lot more going on that these basic response curves show because the frequency response plot is a steady-state test. Music is NOT a steady state - it's transients - especially bass.
The biggest difference in cables I have ever experienced is the Essential Sound Musichord Pro (it's an IEC power cable). I guarantee that you will hear a difference when you put one of those on your rig.
Click to expand...
I do not buy it for a moment. The power that comes into your rig comes over wires from a power plant many miles away, through several transformers. The wire in your "special" power cord may have higher current carrying ability than the wiring in your house, but it's only the last few feet of a much longer path back to the load center that feeds your home, not to mention all the stuff that's between your house and the power station. The first thing your amp does with this power is to boost the voltage through a transformer and rectify it to DC, anyway; the best it can be at that stage is clean of any AC component at all, and the specific voltage is not that important.

I don't mean to offend, but the claims made by these manufacturers are designed to take advantage of folks who do not understand electricity.
 
#59
ggunn said:
I do not buy it for a moment. The power that comes into your rig comes over wires from a power plant many miles away, through several transformers. The wire in your "special" power cord may have higher current carrying ability than the wiring in your house, but it's only the last few feet of a much longer path back to the load center that feeds your home, not to mention all the stuff that's between your house and the power station. The first thing your amp does with this power is to boost the voltage through a transformer and rectify it to DC, anyway; the best it can be at that stage is clean of any AC component at all, and the specific voltage is not that important.

I don't mean to offend, but the claims made by these manufacturers are designed to take advantage of folks who do not understand electricity.
Click to expand...

It's the fried bits of squirrel on the line that add that extra "oomph" to my tone.
 

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