I may have asked this once before but here goes again. So what are the benefits of having this cord over the standard 16 gauge power cord that came with my amp? Are there any at all?
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ESP MusicCord
- Thread starter MultiScaleMale
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Thank you for at least doing it that way. While still not a "scientific" method per se, it is another data point that can be used.
If you tell someone you're going to change something, they're going to "hear" that change, regardless of if you ACTUALLY change anything or no.
If you're happy with it though, cool. I, personally, cannot see spending this kind of coin on a power cable. In fact, if it somehow DID change my tone, I would avoid it, as I've finally found what I've been looking for tone wise, and I don't want anything to change it
The engineer/physicist in me believes though that a power cable in this application is not going to have a tonal impact - unless it's significantly under-rated.
It sounds like it is likely built a lot better at least. The tonal benefits are up in the air and likely something that you'd just have to see for yourself.
Great article!
Think I mentioned this British hi - fi guy before. If you want to see how far out this stuff can get look up/ google Peter Belt.
Be careful. His followers are fanantical!
Yep, and placebos can't actually cure anything. Real medicine can. One's immune system can maybe given some time.
Shelves are full of self diagnosing medicine that do nothing except prolong people from getting the real medicine they need. Follow the paper trail and you'll find the organic looking label is owned by some big pharmaceutical firm that makes real medicines. They make the crap too because they can sell it.
It's really bad in the US right now. People who believe these cables may also have the tendency to believe the popular, non scientific spew around "health" store remedies. They might buy crap, thinking they feel better, only to delay getting the real medicines they need.
Before I reply in detail, I will salute you for at least reporting the actual findings and not making anything up.
Look, nobody wants to face the truth about ourselves...most of us spend our days tricking ourselves into being happy when we're all miserable wrecks just waiting for something to trigger it. But since you still can't let go of the idea that your ears can be tricked, then I would suggest to you that your ears are no better than anyone else's on this board, because admitting that is the first step to truly having golden ears if such a thing exists, and it does not.
Again, I don't want to take away from your honesty in reporting your findings, but at some point you have to ask yourself if you're the one whose findings are off.
As predicted.
Also as predicted.
Now that IS something! That means you are an effective communicator, and your student picked up something way more valuable...musical skills. That is probably the most relevant point made in this thread.
This translates to me as "I went out of my way to make sure the tests weren't fair to the standard cable, yet people still couldn't reliably tell the difference." Am I wrong? Maybe. But it certainly wasn't a fair test, and still, the results were as predicted.
Who says? Your wife is a conservatory trained pianist. I'm sure her ears are just fine. And if we want to talk golden ears here, I have perfect pitch, and even I don't give my ears credit for having superhuman hearing abilities above the norm.
This only confirms the hunch I had that you tried to make the test as unfair to the standard cable as you reasonably could.
Well the big question here is why aren't YOU taking the challenge? You experimented on your student, your neighbor, and your wife, yet you haven't experimented on yourself. Why? Because you believe that you have superhuman hearing powers way exceeding the norm, and you don't want to face the inevitable conclusion that your ears can be tricked just as much as anyone out there.
Look, nobody wants to face the truth about ourselves...most of us spend our days tricking ourselves into being happy when we're all miserable wrecks just waiting for something to trigger it. But since you still can't let go of the idea that your ears can be tricked, then I would suggest to you that your ears are no better than anyone else's on this board, because admitting that is the first step to truly having golden ears if such a thing exists, and it does not.
I don't, but just get a CD with a very well-recorded track, plug the player into your amp, play the same sample from the CD every time, and have your wife do the switching of cables 10 times, and you guess which one she's using. It's not rocket science.
Again, I don't want to take away from your honesty in reporting your findings, but at some point you have to ask yourself if you're the one whose findings are off.
As long as your cable works and can handle supplying whatever power requirements your amp needs without getting burned up, there are no benefits whatsoever. This question has been asked repeatedly in this thread in different ways and answered the same way many times.
billfitzmaurice
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You get to think that you sound better because you just dropped a wad of cash on it.
Speaking of placebo effect, the golf industry is rife with it. Golfers buy new clubs all the time, especially drivers. They expect to do better with them, and for a few rounds they do. Then the new gear glow goes away and they go back to old habits and they suck just as bad as they always did.
I haven't bought a ball in ten years. There's one unmowed field of grass to the right of the 5th hole called 'slicer heaven', as any ball sliced into it is unfindable six inches in. Until fall, that is, when the grass goes dormant and you can find literally buckets of balls. Most of them new, and most of them $4 Titleist Pro V1, which is the favorite of hackers who haven't figured out that you can't buy a swing.
Jimmy, in research it's standard to report "limitations" on any findings, and it's rare to strongly state that you've reached conclusions about anything. That's all I'm doing here; following form. The idea of any research it to build on the existing body of literature and help build the case and direction for more studies.
In fact, I was suggesting that I would like to take the blind test myself, I just would prefer to set up a more stringent test first. Which I will be doing when I have time. I'm not afraid to really get honest about my ears, please don't jump on me for not having had time to set it up yet.
I think you can respond to my honest findings without suggesting that I am arrogant or something about my ears.
I've never suggested I wouldn't try.
scotch
It's not rocket science!
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If any MusicCord owners do follow through with more rigorous and quasi-scientific testing, it really would behoove you to use a looping pedal (or equivalent strategy) to take some of the human performance element out of the equation. Trying to play consistently without either a conscious or sub-conscious bias is harder than it sounds! Thats part of the problem with the video demonstrations on the ESP website - it's actually evident that the players are playing different!
Using a loop pedal (recording type, not a true bypass switching sytem) or some other recorded instrument source is recommended. That way, there is no player-induced bias!
I'd recommend a looper pedal as the output impedance of it's recorded signal will be more consistent with a typical bass guitar signal - as opposed to a line-level send from a sound card, etc...
Using a loop pedal (recording type, not a true bypass switching sytem) or some other recorded instrument source is recommended. That way, there is no player-induced bias!
I'd recommend a looper pedal as the output impedance of it's recorded signal will be more consistent with a typical bass guitar signal - as opposed to a line-level send from a sound card, etc...
Robin, with all due respect, you have been saying all along in this thread how your ears are way better than most people's ears. And when anyone suggests that your ears can be tricked, you get insulted and tell them that they can't. And even when others can't reliably tell a difference, you tell us that they can't hear things as well as you, which may be true for the kid, but it's highly debatable if it's true in the case of your classically trained pianist wife. What other conclusion can we come up with?
seamonkey said:
I agree, lots of snake oil salesman. Also the AMA, Pharma companies have spent a lot of time giving us their synthesized versions of home remedies. These old remedies are a mix of placebo, hazard and actually effective. Say, sort of like what's available from our drug manufacturers.
I think we can all agree that medicine is not an exact science and never will be. Electricical engineering, however, seems to be about as exact a science as it gets.I agree, lots of snake oil salesman. Also the AMA, Pharma companies have spent a lot of time giving us their synthesized versions of home remedies. These old remedies are a mix of placebo, hazard and actually effective. Say, sort of like what's available from our drug manufacturers.
Look, I'm all for spirited debate, but can you dial the tone back a notch?
I'm suggesting that my ears are good after 20+ years of musical experience, that I know my bass tone, and know this product in relation to my gear. It's disconcerting to have people suggest to you that your own experience you've had is invalid or flawed, and to not be skeptical of it would be poor functioning; I would be ascribing a lot of power to people on the interweb. There's nothing wrong with that, and if was slow to immediately adopt the conclusions of people on this thread, that's a very ordinary human response to suggestions that the world may not be operating as we previously perceived it. I have self-efficacy, but that does not mean I'm unwilling to examine my assumptions of reality.
Once again, when mentioning my last experiment, it was relevant to the findings to report the listener/subject's musical backgrounds. That just part of good research reporting. Who was the test done on, and are they representative of population the test is going to be generalized too? The test would be highly invalid if I gave the test to a bunch of school kids, or half deaf elderly people, or people who said they didn't even like music. (My student, btw, is 28, speaking of assumptions- not a kid.)
As I just stated, I'm willing to set up a test, so why are you still attacking me?
I'm 50...28 is a kid to me 
Just barely one, but hey...
Again, I'm not saying that your ears aren't really good. I'm just saying that all ears can be tricked, no matter how good they are. I didn't make it up, nor is it a particularly original thought. But I've seen it happen so many times to people who have good ears, including myself, that I just don't know how it can be debated, even with strangers on teh interwebZ.
Anyway, because you probably are a really good player, and because I respect that you teach in a jazz-influenced way that makes the music itself the number one priority, I will dial it back. All I'll say is there is not a single set of ears on this planet that are infallible. My perfect pitch is deteriorating with age, for example. That was a very hard thing for me to admit because once I realized that not everyone can do it, I became extremely proud of it, even though it was a gift that I have no idea how I got it, and I really shouldn't be so proud of it
Just barely one, but hey...Again, I'm not saying that your ears aren't really good. I'm just saying that all ears can be tricked, no matter how good they are. I didn't make it up, nor is it a particularly original thought. But I've seen it happen so many times to people who have good ears, including myself, that I just don't know how it can be debated, even with strangers on teh interwebZ.
Anyway, because you probably are a really good player, and because I respect that you teach in a jazz-influenced way that makes the music itself the number one priority, I will dial it back. All I'll say is there is not a single set of ears on this planet that are infallible. My perfect pitch is deteriorating with age, for example. That was a very hard thing for me to admit because once I realized that not everyone can do it, I became extremely proud of it, even though it was a gift that I have no idea how I got it, and I really shouldn't be so proud of it
I'm 50...28 is a kid to me
Again, I'm not saying that your ears aren't really good. I'm just saying that all ears can be tricked, no matter how good they are. I didn't make it up, nor is it a particularly original thought. But I've seen it happen so many times to people who have good ears, including myself, that I just don't know how it can be debated, even with strangers on teh interwebZ.
Anyway, because you probably are a really good player, and because I respect that you teach in a jazz-influenced way that makes the music itself the number one priority, I will dial it back. All I'll say is there is not a single set of ears on this planet that are infallible. My perfect pitch is deteriorating with age, for example. That was a very hard thing for me to admit because once I realized that not everyone can do it, I became extremely proud of it, even though it was a gift that I have no idea how I got it, and I really shouldn't be so proud of it
Cool man. I have to admit the idea that my ears could be tricked this much is new to me, which is why I'm as interested in this as anything else. That has broader implications for me purchasing gear that matters (like basses) in the future, as well as mixing and eq'ing stuff obsessively live and in the studio.
I don't have perfect pitch but I have recently realized I've developed the ability to hear a "C" in the last few years (at age 32), which I had previously thought was impossible for someone w/o perfect pitch. Speaking of assumptions being challenged.
I'm going to think of an experiment design that I can accomplish with my gear here, and report back in more detail.
Cool man. I have to admit the idea that my ears could be tricked this much is new to me, which is why I'm as interested in this as anything else. That has broader implications for me purchasing gear that matters (like basses) in the future, as well as mixing and eq'ing stuff obsessively live and in the studio.
I don't have perfect pitch but I have recently realized I've developed the ability to hear a "C" in the last few years (at age 32), which I had previously thought was impossible for someone w/o perfect pitch. Speaking of assumptions being challenged.
I'm going to think of an experiment design that I can accomplish with my gear here, and report back in more detail.
Do you have a loop pedal and a way to record a live rig? That would eliminate a few variations as far as playing technique is concerned. Not to mention the visual record would ensure to any naysayers that you didn't mess with any EQ settings in any way.
Well if it makes you feel any better, perfect pitch only means that I can figure out stuff slightly faster than someone without it, and other than winning an occasional bet, has proven to be of no great benefit to me. I still have to practice, and I still can't get my voice to be on the same level of pitch as my hearing
I don't have a loop. I should anyway, they're fun.
Here's an idea:
What if I recorded myself playing onto my computer, then sent the output to my live amp, and had someone switch the cable repeatedly without me seeing it, and then record my assessment of which it was? That could all be recorded on camera as well.
I think to create good reliability, we could use two different bass tracks (two items), and I should have to assess a good number of responses to each. Maybe 10 tries per sample?
This is a really important point that I think gets lost sometimes in these discussions. When we say that you may be hearing something that is not necessarily there, it is not a personal attack or a criticism of your integrity. We're really just saying that your ears and brain function normally.
I've always found it interesting that people will readily accept the concept of optical illusions. For example, suppose I were to say to someone, "you're seeing gray at the intersection of those white lines and black boxes, but it's not really there. It's just a trick that you're eyes and brain are playing." That person would probably readily accept that without taking it as a personal criticism. But people tend to get very defensive when the same type of statement is made about what they hear.
With me, it's an F#. Go figure.
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