Instrument cable help...

[bongomania]

...to claim that there's no difference and the companies are selling lies is irresponsible at best.

Quite the reverse. I've seen audio showroom "ABX tests", and they generally consist of the salesman saying "now I've changed it, do you hear the difference?" Yes, when prompted that something has been changed, most people will in fact hear a difference--one that was created in their brains. Cable and hifi salesmen rely on such tricks of the brain.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Quite the reverse. I've seen audio showroom "ABX tests", and they generally consist of the salesman saying "now I've changed it, do you hear the difference?" Yes, when prompted that something has been changed, most people will in fact hear a difference--one that was created in their brains. Cable and hifi salesmen rely on such tricks of the brain.

It would also be extremely strange to use an ABX method on cables. The actual double-blind method that works best with cables is a same-different test.

 

[superchicken_VI]

I was selling expensive gear. If my customers couldn't reliably hear the difference and think that it improved their rig, I didn't want them to buy it.

By no means am I saying that all hifi salespeople are doing it right. What I'm saying is that the gear makes a difference. If $20 on your $2000 rig makes what you judge to be an improvement in sound, shouldn't you spend that $20? Shouldn't you use your ears to decide?

Now, I will agree that in a live band playing in a bar full of drunks trying to find a hookup, I'm not going to bother with that and I'll use whatever cable I grab first out of the bag.

 

[bongomania]

The point is though that people's ears do not always tell them the truth. And the listening tests that hifi salespeople set up for customers are not designed to encourage critical thinking or unbiased judgment. They are designed to take advantage of people's desire for the "best" thing they can afford, and that desire comes with a boatload of expectation bias and other filters that make people hear -actually hear, for real- what they want to hear.

Now granted, if having premium gear makes somebody feel good, then there's nothing wrong with that. And maybe it will help them feel good on stage, making them play better and thus sound better.

But saying people should "use their ears" rather than using science is like saying people should take whatever medication makes them feel better, rather than taking a medication clinically proven to treat the issue. Opioid addiction from self medicating has a lot in common with GAS.

 

[superchicken_VI]

Different cables have different inductance and capacitance. That changes things. Listen to them, decide if the changes matter to you.

 

[superchicken_VI]

And believe me, I know how salespeople are trained to sell stuff. I went through the training. I rejected it and did it the way I wanted to do it in an effort to find truth.

Part of the scientific method is observation of experiment.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

did it the way I wanted to do it in an effort to find truth.

Using phrases like "cloth ears" suggests otherwise, though.

 

[Mark Reccord]

Is a cloth ear worse than a tin one, or is it in between tin and golden?

 

[S-Bigbottom]

Is a cloth ear worse than a tin one, or is it in between tin and golden?

I used science to find cloth between tin and gold and only found these,
50- 118.71 Tin Sn
51- 121.76 Antimony Sb
52- 127.6 Tellurium Te
53- 126.9045 Iodine I
54- 131.293 Xenon Xe
55- 132.9055 Cesium Cs
56- 137.327 Barium Ba
57- 138.9055 Lanthanum La
58- 140.116 Cerium Ce
59- 140.9077 Praseodymium Pr
60- 144.24 Neodymium Nd
61- 145 Promethium Pm
62- 150.36 Samarium Sm
63- 151.964 Europium Eu
64- 157.25 Gadolinium Gd
65- 158.9253 Terbium Tb
66- 162.5 Dysprosium Dy
67- 164.9303 Holmium Ho
68- 167.259 Erbium Er
69- 168.9342 Thulium Tm
70- 173.04 Ytterbium Yb
71- 174.967 Lutetium Lu
72- 178.49 Hafnium Hf
73- 180.9479 Tantalum Ta
74- 183.84 Tungsten W
75- 186.207 Rhenium Re
76- 190.23 Osmium Os
77- 192.217 Iridium Ir
78- 195.078 Platinum Pt
79- 196.9665 Gold Au

 

[superchicken_VI]

Using phrases like "cloth ears" suggests otherwise, though.

I used that in direct response to that it's all "snake oil". Those are the Hatfields and McCoys fightin' words.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

I used that in direct response to that it's all "snake oil". Those are the Hatfields and McCoys fightin' words.

Are you arguing against "all snake oil" or just "snake oil?"

 

[superchicken_VI]

Are you arguing against "all snake oil" or just "snake oil?"

Somebody said that all Monster Cable is snake oil. It's not. Especially with their older products in the hifi world, there is a distinct improvement in sound with their products over basic lamp cord/16ga speaker wire. Is their 12ga 7-nines pure O2 free speaker wire better than anybody else's 12ga speaker wire? No, not really. Are their interconnects a big step up from gimme cables? Yes. If you can't hear it, then I don't know what to tell you other than don't waste your money on something that gives *you* no value. I can hear differences in double blind and ABX. I can tell you in double blind testing if either of my line conditioners is being used--I did this before forking over my own money on them. I heard plenty of gear that did nothing. High-end power cables make no difference over any other IEC power cord. Is there a lot of marketing hubbub and less-than-ideal demo practice? Yes. Does that mean that there's no merit to the products? No.

If you're dyed-in-the-wool believing that wire is wire, then I'm not going to be able to convince you. And I've spent way too many hours successfully identifying cables in double-blind testing (even digital interconnects--must be witchcraft) for you to convince me that wire is wire. We will just have to either agree to disagree or just go our separate ways.

 

[seamonkey]

If you hear a difference in a cable, just a little microscopic touch of an eq knob, or gain and it all evens out. That's what knobs are for.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Somebody said that all Monster Cable is snake oil. It's not. Especially with their older products in the hifi world, there is a distinct improvement in sound with their products over basic lamp cord/16ga speaker wire. Is their 12ga 7-nines pure O2 free speaker wire better than anybody else's 12ga speaker wire? No, not really. Are their interconnects a big step up from gimme cables? Yes. If you can't hear it, then I don't know what to tell you other than don't waste your money on something that gives *you* no value. I can hear differences in double blind and ABX. I can tell you in double blind testing if either of my line conditioners is being used--I did this before forking over my own money on them. I heard plenty of gear that did nothing. High-end power cables make no difference over any other IEC power cord. Is there a lot of marketing hubbub and less-than-ideal demo practice? Yes. Does that mean that there's no merit to the products? No.

If you're dyed-in-the-wool believing that wire is wire, then I'm not going to be able to convince you. And I've spent way too many hours successfully identifying cables in double-blind testing (even digital interconnects--must be witchcraft) for you to convince me that wire is wire. We will just have to either agree to disagree or just go our separate ways.

Not snake oil? Why aren't these exotic hi-fi cables and power "conditioners" with mystical physical properties used in anything other than audio? Maybe avionics? Medical instrumentation? Why haven't these inventors been mentioned for Nobel Prizes?

Answer: because in audio we can easily delude ourselves.

The electrical properties of wires are pretty well understood and have been since early into the last century, especially at audio frequencies.

Not everyone who claims they've done double blind and ABX tests have actually done so, or even know how to. I asked what your methodology was and haven't gotten an answer.

 

[superchicken_VI]

Simple--same rig, cables run. I would listen to a piece of music using one cable. An associate would then move behind the gear. I didn't know if he changed the cables, or just pretended to do it. We would listen to the same passages multiple times. Up to a dozen times. I'd write down if I thought it was the same as the first, different from the first, or a third cable. It's not hard, and not hard to hear the differences.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Is that all you're going to tell us?

 

[superchicken_VI]

What else do you want to know? Associated equipment? Audition lists? I could reliably and repeatedly identify when cables changed and identify what I heard that allowed me to identify them. After time, with the same front end/amp/speakers/music, I could reliably tell you if we were listening to Monster M550 or M1000 interconnects.

I'm not trying to get into a spitting contest, but it seems like you are.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

What else do you want to know? Associated equipment? Audition lists? I could reliably and repeatedly identify when cables changed and identify what I heard that allowed me to identify them. After time, with the same front end/amp/speakers/music, I could reliably tell you if we were listening to Monster M550 or M1000 interconnects.

I'm not trying to get into a spitting contest, but it seems like you are.

Well, what are the criteria for concluding that you can reliably identify what you were listening to by sound alone?

Earlier in this thread you claimed to have done ABX testing with cables, but you haven't told us how that was done yet.

It's not a spitting contest. You make bold, extraordinary claims but have not yet offered any reason why we shouldn't be skeptical of them.

 

[superchicken_VI]

Well, I thought I explained how I did this. See the following link:
Link Removed

I took notes, compared my conclusions to what my associate recorded as his actual connections. He would sometimes use 3 or 4 different models, sometimes use cables we didn't sell so I didn't know their signatures. Like I said, we would do up to a dozen tests in a session. I was reliable at hearing them. We did this in an effort to try to find new and better cable lines to add to the store's brands.

I wasn't the only one in the store to do this. It's not an extraordinary claim, it's pretty easy to do.

Plus, I have a bachelor's degree in music and had just spent 4 1/2 years of college ear-training when I got into the audio business. Lots of practice in critical listening.

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

I asked what the criteria were for concluding that you could hear a difference. Sorry, but you haven't said anything about that yet.

I also asked about your ABX methodology, but that also has gone unanswered.

It's great that you have a bachelor's degree in music, but that doesn't necessarily teach one real double-blind testing. Extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence.