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Comparing the tone of three different "boutique" cables

#102
No one has stated this in blunt terms yet, but the only cables any human can hear the difference from are the ones that meet the "crap" definition. You know what they are when you pick them up; thin conductors, lousy insulation and junk end fittings.
Once you get out of the garbage cables and into decent cables, no human ear is going to hear the difference.
The biggest reason in a cable for signal degradation is capacitance, which is caused by poor shielding between the conductors.
If you wonder what my credentials are for making this statement, I was a bench tech for an industrial controls manufacturer for a number of years, and the biggest problem we had was people installing them with crap cables and the capacitance in the line pulling the signals down to the point where the digital thresholds were unreadable.
That kind of effect cannot be good for a complex musical signal.
I always buy the cheapest cable in the store that isn't obvious junk and that's what I tell anybody who asks.
 
#104
bongomania said:
OK, I just did the RTA on the cables in series with a P-bass pickup.

Click the link to see it full-sized. As you can see though, while the pickup drastically changed the overall frequency spectrum, all eight cables performed exactly identically. Hopefully within a few days I'll be able to test the capacitance, and within two weeks I'll be able to test the timing and accuracy of transient peaks.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, your graph disagrees with my spice models, so your graphs are wrong :eyebrow:

Just kidding..... that graph is great. The bump is out much farther than I expected. My model put it at about 1.8k... which always seems to low to me.

Did you run it through one P bass pickup, or both pickups in a split pair?
 
#105
The pair, in series. :) I might add a vol and tone pot. As far as lowering the z in of the audio converter to match an amp, any suggestions for a DIY approach? I know there are products out there specifically for this purpose, but it would be nice if a cheap homebrew circuit would do the trick.
 
#106
bongomania said:
The pair, in series. :) I might add a vol and tone pot. As far as lowering the z in of the audio converter to match an amp, any suggestions for a DIY approach? I know there are products out there specifically for this purpose, but it would be nice if a cheap homebrew circuit would do the trick.
Click to expand...

What is the Z of the audio converter? If it is 1M or greater, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
#110
mulchor said:
So how to explain the fact the empirical measurements can not detect differences?

Is it that the human ear is hearing differences that are only on the spiritual plane? :confused:
Click to expand...

Sometimes people want to hear a difference. And what do ya' know? They hear a difference.

Couple in the fact that expecting or wanting to hear a difference can entirely skew how they play their instrument or listen to what's being played. Now throw in the fact that somebody just paid 3 figures for a cable & it's no surprise that they often insist that there is some sort of tonal benefit.

I'm always open to listen to something & try it. I'm also sometimes 'fooled' into thinking there is a benefit when there's really no difference (I'm as fallible as anybody else!). Bongo's scientific approach is a great way of tempering our own exuberance over a "deluxe cable" and trying to mix in some objectivity.

Of course, not everyone will be convinced & will spend more effort in trying to debunk the testing method. There's probably some people who still believe the world is flat, too. ;)

Still, it seems Bongo is on track to really deliver a comprehensive and unbiased (by not employing so-called double blind ear tests) comparison of what these cables have going on inherently.
 
#111
scotch said:
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!

...

Bongo's more labaratory style approach may not tell the whole story, but it tells a far more objective story! :)
Click to expand...

scotch said:
Still, it seems Bongo is on track to really deliver a comprehensive and unbiased (by not employing so-called double blind ear tests) comparison of what these cables have going on inherently.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that you have a good understanding of what a double blind ABX test is. An ABX is objective. Its purpose is to determine whether a listener can tell the difference between A and B in a statistically significant number of trials.

In a double-blind ABX test, the listener is presented with X, which may be either A or B, and asked to identify whether X is A or X is B. This process is repeated over a predetermined number of trials, and then the results are evaluated to see whether the listener was able to correctly identify X enough times to establish with a high degree of probability that the listener was not guessing. Since X is selected randomly for each trial, the listener's expectation that there should be a difference does not determine the outcome of the test.
 
#112
Febs said:
I'm not sure that you have a good understanding of what a double blind ABX test is. An ABX is objective. Its purpose is to determine whether a listener can tell the difference between A and B in a statistically significant number of trials.

In a double-blind ABX test, the listener is presented with X, which may be either A or B, and asked to identify whether X is A or X is B. This process is repeated over a predetermined number of trials, and then the results are evaluated to see whether the listener was able to correctly identify X enough times to establish with a high degree of probability that the listener was not guessing. Since X is selected randomly for each trial, the listener's expectation that there should be a difference does not determine the outcome of the test.
Click to expand...

I understand the theory & process. Still, the listener is expecting to hear differences. Whether or not there is an actual difference, a human isn't a disinterested measuring tool. The statistic generated is still entirely an average of "opinion" and in now way a guarantee that there is a demonstrative, measurable and repeatable result. You could do the test again 12 months later with the same products, instruments and people & end up with totally different results. Not because the cables have changed, but because the expectations & biases of the "testers" (people) have changed.

That's why I think the double-blind test is less objective in matters regarding "tone" or "feel". It's a human response, and every human is different- leading to largely useless data for objective purposes regarding actual capacitance, etc.
 
#113
scotch said:
That's why I think the double-blind test is less objective in matters regarding "tone" or "feel". It's a human response, and every human is different- leading to largely useless data for objective purposes regarding actual capacitance, etc.
Click to expand...

An ABX test does not test for "tone" or "feel," at least not in the sense that it provides any qualitative data regarding either of those parameters. It tests only whether a particular listener is in fact able to distinguish one sound from the other. Whether a listener can actually hear a difference (as opposed to whether the listener perceives a difference when things like visual cues, expectation biases, etc. are not controlled) is an objective fact.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the type of testing that Bongomania is doing and following this thread with great interest, but I think that ABX testing complements that type of analysis. For example, if Bongomania's measurements show that there is no quantitative difference between two cables, yet listeners can repeatedly and consistently distinguish between those two cables in an ABX test, that would suggest that he is not measuring the right thing.
 
#116
With something like this, ABX test the question would be Same vs Different first, and see if its detectable beyond chance levels.

First see if there's a detectable difference.
Second see if the difference matters for subjective quality of sound.

Again, I think the people who value empirical methods will be unsurprised by the results. And the people who are sure there are obvious quality differences will be unconvinced ("because MY ears are better" :bassist:).
 
#118
scotch said:
I wonder if a true ABX test has ever been done by a party other than the manufacturer or paid reviewer? Somehow, I doubt it!
Click to expand...
They have. Years ago, I read the results in Stereo Review (a sort of Consumer Reports for the audio world - they accept(ed) no money from manufacturers and they ran no ads) of a double blind test of speaker cables. They tested the most golden eared listeners they could find on their ability to distinguish by listening between several extremely high dollar exotic speaker cables and zip cord they bought at a hardware store. Not a one of them could tell the difference.
 

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