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Mods that make no discernable difference in your sound.

#61
Yes! If it were on my own bass. A bass my ears were tuned into. It is certainly about feel and 'tone' as a cohesive unit.

Understand that 'mods' are sometimes 'subtle'. You gain 5-10%, that is it. This is often a game of inches when it comes to tone and that is the quest. As a music producer I have purchased a new mic or preamp many times for 2-3x more than others I may have had available. I do not get 2-3x 'better' sound. I get the additional 5%. But often times it that 5% that makes me get the tone I am after.

After a certain point, this is a game of subtleties. For the record, I used to be able to 'hear' Thomastik flats because they were the only string I used for years and my ears were tuned to them. Not so much anymore.

Subtleties are important. Mods are important part of the inspiration of tone and feel.

Much respect and blessings!

Harper said:
So you think that you could sit down blindfolded, play a bass with a B/A and play one without, then tell which was which? Without reaching down and touching the bridge?
Click to expand...
 
#63
I too have never subscribed to the logic that MODs make a huge difference in tone or playability. Yes...some bridges make everything feel a little different; but at volume I could hardly tell a difference. The only time I get into modding (like many in these forums) is upgrading a relatively cheap bass (SX and the like) with a preamp, or a nut that's NOT falling apart, or a bridge that isn't rattling in the screw holes. But that's just me.
 
#65
bongomania said:
The thing is that in A/B'ing cables and mods, there is usually no science used. Just "I recall it sounding one way, and now I perceive something else".

First, most people don't understand how many variables may have changed, nor even which variables exist. For example when changing cables, how often do people have and use either a scope or a sensitive-enough LCR meter to determine the total capacitance of each cable they're using? Almost never. Fine, they say, my ears tell me there are more lows with this cable than that one; but is it really more lows, or is it less highs? Did the resonant LCR peak shift up or down? In the case of changing a nut or bridge, what else may have changed in the setup, tightness, or alignment of all the parts of the system, when it was disassembled and reassembled?

Secondly, our perceptions are massively filtered by our expectations. Our senses do not connect straight to our conscious thoughts--first our brains fit the sensory input against known patterns, and then the adjusted result goes to our consciousness.

Third, when there is a gap of more than a second or so between hearing A and then B, our recollections become extremely unreliable. The old bridge didn't have as much sustain, did it? Surely not! There's lots of sustain now, so "obviously" there was an improvement. But sustain and tone are awfully hard to pin down in our recollections. Sustain and tone change drastically up and down the fretboard, and with harder or softer fingertip attack--and that's without changing the bridge or other parts. So then when you do change a part, and then compare against your recollection from a few minutes before, are you sure absolutely nothing varied between the sessions of playing and listening? Are you sure it's not just the fact that you've got a nice new part on there, giving you a sense of satisfaction?

See "confirmation bias", "expectation bias", "ear fatigue", "abx testing", etc.

It's not that cables, nuts, etc. "can't" sound different; it's just that when they DO, the listener almost never knows WHY--and that's where they run up against the critical wall of science.
Click to expand...

If only more TB members were aware of this phenomenon and paid attention to it, there would be so many fewer pointless, circular arguments on TB that cover the same ground over and over and over...........
 
#66
bongomania said:
The thing is that in A/B'ing cables and mods, there is usually no science used. Just "I recall it sounding one way, and now I perceive something else".

First, most people don't understand how many variables may have changed, nor even which variables exist. For example when changing cables, how often do people have and use either a scope or a sensitive-enough LCR meter to determine the total capacitance of each cable they're using? Almost never. Fine, they say, my ears tell me there are more lows with this cable than that one; but is it really more lows, or is it less highs? Did the resonant LCR peak shift up or down? In the case of changing a nut or bridge, what else may have changed in the setup, tightness, or alignment of all the parts of the system, when it was disassembled and reassembled?

Secondly, our perceptions are massively filtered by our expectations. Our senses do not connect straight to our conscious thoughts--first our brains fit the sensory input against known patterns, and then the adjusted result goes to our consciousness.

Third, when there is a gap of more than a second or so between hearing A and then B, our recollections become extremely unreliable. The old bridge didn't have as much sustain, did it? Surely not! There's lots of sustain now, so "obviously" there was an improvement. But sustain and tone are awfully hard to pin down in our recollections. Sustain and tone change drastically up and down the fretboard, and with harder or softer fingertip attack--and that's without changing the bridge or other parts. So then when you do change a part, and then compare against your recollection from a few minutes before, are you sure absolutely nothing varied between the sessions of playing and listening? Are you sure it's not just the fact that you've got a nice new part on there, giving you a sense of satisfaction?

See "confirmation bias", "expectation bias", "ear fatigue", "abx testing", etc.

It's not that cables, nuts, etc. "can't" sound different; it's just that when they DO, the listener almost never knows WHY--and that's where they run up against the critical wall of science.
Click to expand...

+10million

people also seem to love parroting back someone else's anecdotal evidence
 
#68
Harper said:
Wanna bet?
Click to expand...

You have a valid point if you cannot discern differences. At some point you may with certain mods. Still others, who over time have matured and developed their ears and who can discern the differences also have a valid point.

After 10-15 years of playing the same bass or same strings or same amp etc. I know when anything (bridge, nut, pickups, tension, weight etc.) has changed in my setup, blind test or not. This is not imagination, but rather simply knowing my instrument and/or setup intimately. This is very common.

Again as stated before. Mods are often subtle. Tone is often a game of inches, not feet, not yards.
 
#69
bassbenj said:
...the actual REASON I got the TUSQ nuts was I got tired of strings being hard to tune because of nuts being all sticky. You'd tune and then pull on strings to try to "seat" them and so on. The lubed Tusq nuts fixed that problem.

But then after installing the nuts much to my surprise, I found that the Tusq claims of better tone etc. actually seemed to be true! Intonation was better able to be set precise.
Click to expand...
then i suspect the originals were not cut properly; intonation would only be affected by the physical shape of the slot and its height off the first fret, not the material it's made of.

for that matter, unless they were cheap "grabby" plastic, the original problem of the strings hanging up was also just due to the slots not being shaped right.
 
#70
Bonafide said:
You have a valid point if you cannot discern differences. At some point you may with certain mods. Still others, who over time have matured and developed their ears and who can discern the differences also have a valid point.
Click to expand...

I see what you're getting at, and trust me; my ears are mature enough to discern differences when they exist. I've also been doing this long enough to separate the wheat from the chaff, and I know a money pit when I see one.
 
#72
bongomania said:
The thing is that in A/B'ing cables and mods, there is usually no science used. Just "I recall it sounding one way, and now I perceive something else".

First, most people don't understand how many variables may have changed, nor even which variables exist. For example when changing cables, how often do people have and use either a scope or a sensitive-enough LCR meter to determine the total capacitance of each cable they're using? Almost never. Fine, they say, my ears tell me there are more lows with this cable than that one; but is it really more lows, or is it less highs? Did the resonant LCR peak shift up or down? In the case of changing a nut or bridge, what else may have changed in the setup, tightness, or alignment of all the parts of the system, when it was disassembled and reassembled?

Secondly, our perceptions are massively filtered by our expectations. Our senses do not connect straight to our conscious thoughts--first our brains fit the sensory input against known patterns, and then the adjusted result goes to our consciousness.

Third, when there is a gap of more than a second or so between hearing A and then B, our recollections become extremely unreliable. The old bridge didn't have as much sustain, did it? Surely not! There's lots of sustain now, so "obviously" there was an improvement. But sustain and tone are awfully hard to pin down in our recollections. Sustain and tone change drastically up and down the fretboard, and with harder or softer fingertip attack--and that's without changing the bridge or other parts. So then when you do change a part, and then compare against your recollection from a few minutes before, are you sure absolutely nothing varied between the sessions of playing and listening? Are you sure it's not just the fact that you've got a nice new part on there, giving you a sense of satisfaction?

See "confirmation bias", "expectation bias", "ear fatigue", "abx testing", etc.

It's not that cables, nuts, etc. "can't" sound different; it's just that when they DO, the listener almost never knows WHY--and that's where they run up against the critical wall of science.
Click to expand...

+1. Wow that was easy! :hyper:
 
#75
bongomania said:
<snip>
Secondly, our perceptions are massively filtered by our expectations. Our senses do not connect straight to our conscious thoughts--first our brains fit the sensory input against known patterns, and then the adjusted result goes to our consciousness.
Click to expand...

I get a few ads in my spam filter for this same kinda thing - penis enlargers. 'Adjusted' result indeed!
 

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