>>> "One of the things we did this year at T.H.E. was to do some more playing with cables.

Last year, we compared some Straightwire Maestros to the Purist Audio Aqueous Anniversary cables and had a 100% identification rate. Ethan said the cables must have been broken for this to happen.

This year, in another trial, we stayed 'aquatic' and checked out the Teo Audio Liquid Interconnect." <<<

Kudos for experimenting again with cables !! I remember, after you reported the results of your experiments with cables last year, how Ethan dismissed your results with "for the sound of one cable to be better, one of the cables must have been faulty, let me have them and I will 'measure' them" !!!

In a recent posting (on another thread) Fresh Clip referred back to HIS response regarding the Teo "liquid" cables :-

>>> "KBK used all the same rhetoric on me when I challenged him on the Teo "liquid" cables that he was involved with. I proved beyond all doubt that the cables as constructed were electrically inferior to similar dimensioned copper cables. I'll spell that for KBK, i-n-f-e-r-i-o-r. " <<<

That sentence from Fresh Clip reminded me of Ethan's response to your experiments with cables last year and I was intending responding to Fresh Clip with the following question - "But, HOW did the Teo cables SOUND ???????????"

Now you are actually reporting doing just that - LISTENING to the Teo cables !!!!

It is now over 30 years since the first reports of people 'hearing' different cables 'sounding' different !! Causing seismic eruptions within the world of audio with what Keith Howard described as a "high reading on the audio Richter scale" !!!!

Nothing will move forward until people can ask "Why do different cables sound different ?". "How are they sounding different ?" "What is causing them to sound different ?"

Such as Fresh Clip and Ethan clearly don't WANT to ask those questions. Such as Scott does not even want to enter a discussion on anything he regards as "people's perceptions" but which I prefer to call "people's listening experiences" so those questions obviously never enter into his considerations except to suggest placing them in the category of "it is most likely bias at work" !!

Kudos, Buddha !! It will be interesting to see how the battle lines form !!! Do we think that subject would continue for another 30 years ?

Regards,
May Belt,
P.W.B. Electronics.

try using a nordost blue heaven or red dawn and just about any other quality speaker cable and tell me you don't hear a difference. it will be immediately noticable. you will either think the top end has dropped out or it will be a blessed relief depending on your system.

Well, cable comparisons are not too risky an undertaking. You won't be crucified for playing with cables and reporting results on an audio forum these days. A few people might even say, "that's quite experimental of you!" Whereas you might have been keelhauled 10 years ago as some sort of heretic for comparing cables, there's no risk of that today. Playing around with cables is playing it safe. You won't get much of a rise out of anyone except maybe mossback skeptics and Randi.

However, what you will be boiled in oil for is reporting on a public forum or audio magazine on controversial tweaks. Now, it might take a tough man to make a tender chicken but it takes a super-tough man to report on foil, chip, clock, demagnetization, or anything with the word "quantum" in its explanation. That's what everyone's afraid of: The Slide of Death. Contemplating the consequences of going public on the "unspeakables" strikes terror into the heart of even the most thick-skinned, macho audiophile. That's why you won't see anyone report results for controversial tweaks.

"You can't stop what's coming." Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men

Odds are, Buddha, that the cable you had will also pass a stunningly perfect 1080P Component video signal. Which would confuse the heck out of most people.

But then again, as to the nature of what electrical conduction actually is....engineering does not get into that, whatsoever. Only at the theoretical and quantum level of molecular energetic exchange does it approach this consideration and then it cannot even model it in the slightest. We, as humans can 'grok' what it is doing in the theoretical musings, but we cannot model it.

This execution of an 'audio cable' is notably different. (in quotes, due to the point that it may be a conduit for signal but the signal is handled differently, in the fundamental sense, so it is not associated with the audio cable 'norm', at all).

This is not your granddad's conductor of signal. The mechanical resemblance is purely coincidental.

So, in the end, unless you do theoretical analysis of hydrodynamic quantum function, and how that plays out in plasma flow and development at the subatomic level...you really won't understand what is going on, here.

Think of it as 'esoteric sign' for those who think, and it will pass by those who do not, which is the idea behind esoteric sign. It calls out to those who are open, and is missed by those who are closed.

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Well, cable comparisons are not too risky an undertaking. You won't be crucified for playing with cables and reporting results on an audio forum these days.

My experience is the opposite; in most forums such comparisons are quickly attacked - as are opinions of AC cables, etc.

For me, most cables do not result in an appreciable difference in sound, a few sound bad, and a few I like. I buy and keep the ones I like.

That there can be differences in sound between cables continues to make no sense to me (nor to any EE with whom I have discussed this), but I accept the observation. Now I want to specifically know why there can be a difference.

Nice report, Buddha.

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Ethan said the cables must have been broken for this to happen.

Man, I'm getting tired of repeating myself. I'm sure I have explained this to you half a dozen times so far. The most likely explanation for believing one competent wire sounds different than another is the frailty of perception. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the cable manufacturers that they're not so stupid as to screw up a piece of frigging wire. Maybe I shouldn't be so generous, because I've seen expensive wire that really is incompetent. I've also seen wire with doohickeys inserted inline to "change" the sound. Why anyone would want that is beyond me.

But wire at audio frequencies is trivial to measure thus settling this silliness permanently. You may not know how to measure a piece of wire, but that doesn't mean it can't be measured. You should be asking the wire vendors for proof that their wires sound better than lamp cord or $4 RCA wires from Radio Shack. But watch out for photoshopped waterfalls!

Anyway, please stop mis-characterizing my statements and opinions. Thank you.

Ethan Winer
RealTraps

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Well, cable comparisons are not too risky an undertaking. You won't be crucified for playing with cables and reporting results on an audio forum these days.

My experience is the opposite; in most forums such comparisons are quickly attacked - as are opinions of AC cables, etc.

For me, most cables do not result in an appreciable difference in sound, a few sound bad, and a few I like. I buy and keep the ones I like.

That there can be differences in sound between cables continues to make no sense to me (nor to any EE with whom I have discussed this), but I accept the observation. Now I want to specifically know why there can be a difference.

Nice report, Buddha.

Some variables to consider:

1. Diameter of conductor
2. Metal type and purity of conductor
3. Is conductor a pure metal or metal alloy?
4. Geometry of cable - twisted, braided, etc.
5. Solid core or multistrand conductor
6. Is cable shielded or unshielded?
7. Number of conductors in cable
8. Type of connector
9. Metal used for connector
10. How conector is , uh, connected to the cable? - weld, solder, etc.
11. Length of cable
12. Dielectric material
13. Jacket material
14. Color of jacket
15. How long cables are "broken in" before they're evaluated
16. Are cables cryogenically treated?
17. Are cables connected with proper directionality?

See, that's not so difficult. Even a caveman could do it.

Yes we can list these as possibilities, and many more. But for the most they are guesses (leaving aside characteristics we understand and can measure, such as noise rejection by twisted pairs and shielding, etc.).

Moreover, as Ethan points out, when measured by any means we have available there is no difference in the audio signal which is passed.

In fact, even at very high sampling rates the files will null - demonstrating there is no difference.

I don't discount the possibility that there is something there that we do not yet know how to measure. This is the nature of science; we observe and then we learn what causes what we are observing.

There are of course bad cables (rare), and bad cable applications (I'm not going to run 150' of mic signal through two conductor unshielded cable across a stage full of amps and power cords and expect it to be noise free and sound good). However, these causes we understand and can measure.

However once a cable is of good basic construction and is suited to its purpose we have no clue what makes cable sound different, if in fact they do sound different.

I'm not fully convinced cables do in fact sound different. However there are a few that sound better to me. The perceived difference has been worth the cost simply because I hear them as better and the relatively little expense is justifiable.

"Moreover, as Ethan points out, when measured by any means we have available there is no difference in the audio signal which is passed."

'Fraid I have to disagree. John Curl, to name one, measured very noticeable difference in cables - i.e., in the audio signal that was being passed.

"An ordinary man has no means of deliverance." - Wm Burroughs

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I don't discount the possibility that there is something there that we do not yet know how to measure.

Sure, but a null test will reveal any difference between wires, even if you don't know what to look for. Not that there's anything about audio fidelity that hasn't been understood fully for 50 years. Geoff listed a bunch of stuff above, but those can affect only the four known parameters.

Ethan Winer
RealTraps

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'Fraid I have to disagree. John Curl, to name one, measured very noticeable difference in cables - i.e., in the audio signal that was being passed.

Cool!

In two different sets of competent cables? That is, one set did not have absurdly high capacitance or the like?

Can you point us to a link? Or otherwise provide detailed specifics?

As far as I have seen, to far those that have claimed to measure differences in the actual audio signal have done some very odd things. But I would be delighted to see a good rigorous scientific analysis that shows meaningful difference in the audible frequency spectrum.

If such a difference can be shown, I would expect wire manufactures to be all over this.

By the way, I have also seen the poor approach by those that try to show there are no differences. This isn't a one way problem.

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John Curl, to name one, measured very noticeable difference in cables - i.e., in the audio signal that was being passed.

Sure, cables can have different amounts of capacitance. This is easily measured even if there's no change to the sound. And of course there are incompetent cables, and cables that intentionally muck up the response. The point isn't that all cables sound the same, though most do, but that differences are easily measured and proven. As soon as a vendor uses the words "quantum" or "cryogenic" in their ad copy, hang onto your wallet and run away as fast as you can.

Ethan Winer
RealTraps

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I don't discount the possibility that there is something there that we do not yet know how to measure.

Sure, but a null test will reveal any difference between wires, even if you don't know what to look for. Not that there's anything about audio fidelity that hasn't been understood fully for 50 years. Geoff listed a bunch of stuff above, but those can affect only the four known parameters.

I'm fully with you, Ethan. I find a nice complete null between files to be definitive proof there is no audible difference.

That is, I don't accept that I can hear that which is simply not there. Even my hearing is not that good.

"Geoff listed a bunch of stuff above, but those can affect only the four known parameters."

You have constructed a nice little strawman argument. I'll go out on a limb here and speculate that you haven't actually measured the effects of any of the variables I listed on your "four known parameters."

I think can predict what your response will be: "I don't have to do any measurements because the laws of science dictate that only the four known parameters can affect the sound. Therefore, no measurements are necessary." Am I close?

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"Moreover, as Ethan points out, when measured by any means we have available there is no difference in the audio signal which is passed."

'Fraid I have to disagree. John Curl, to name one, measured very noticeable difference in cables - i.e., in the audio signal that was being passed.

"An ordinary man has no means of deliverance." - Wm Burroughs

Just to add regarding the JC cable measurement as I vaguely remember it going back quite a few years.
JC did measure differences and this was then validated by Bruno Putzey and also Stuart Yaniger (name may be spelt wrong but is a physics scientist working or was working on conducting materials and industrial cables).

What was interesting is that they could not replicate the measurements John was seeing; JC was using a modified HP analyser while both of them were using an Audio Precision product.

In the end the differences were not truly identified, it could be something to do with JC analyser but seems a bit unlikely or as some suggested the way APs isolate via a transformer and this does not apply to HP product JC was using.
However some thought this being important as the AP design is not implemented in audio hardware, hence why cables may provide different affects but more to do with the design of the audio hardware.
In the end everyone scratched their head as no-one understood how to fully prove what was happening and its potential for affects on connecting audio equipment with interconnects, nor had the time or inclination to do so.
Still has not been followed up effectively from last I heard about it in 2008.

If really interested I believe this was covered in two seperate threads on DIYAudio, but bear in mind you will not find anything conclusive for or against what JC measured, and from what I remember were highly convoluted.
But the main posts to look out for were them and a few other engineers who joined in the discussion and participation, ignore 75% of the rest.

Err, hope this is as clear as mud
Cheers
Orb

Thanks, Orb. Very interesting.

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"Moreover, as Ethan points out, when measured by any means we have available there is no difference in the audio signal which is passed."

'Fraid I have to disagree. John Curl, to name one, measured very noticeable difference in cables - i.e., in the audio signal that was being passed.

"An ordinary man has no means of deliverance." - Wm Burroughs

Stuart Yaniger (name may be spelt wrong but is a physics scientist working or was working on conducting materials and industrial cables).

Stu makes corks!

Stu and I have gone head-to-head on the DIY audio forum many a time. I will say that I like Stu..but..we seem to have a problem where he is a moderator and either unconsciously or consciously carries a 'beating crew' around (or they follow his postings) with him order to carry out attacks on unresolved scientific issues that he does not understand. This is not good.

As for Stu's job being exactly that, in my experience of integrating with him on and at those levels on the DIY audio forum since..oh..2003?.. I've never heard that from him, not even once. So, such a point about his background may be quite wrong. I'll ask him next time I'm on the DIY board.

As for scientists and physicists in the possession of a title 'knowing all', that is more in the mind of the person who decides that the title (of the given other) somehow bestows infinite knowledge.

I ran into a gentleman who was working at the original Alcan corporation offices here in Kingston. A metallurgist and physicist. He was designing superconductors in the 70's involving Alcan, whom at one time had some 7,000 lab staff, here in Kingston. Pure research. I told him some things about molecular considerations and superconductor design that he had never considered or worked his way to. Not everyone can or does know everything. We all have our given form of blinkered thinking. The trick is to see it for what it is.

I probably won't make any more posts in this thread as, IMO, it is inappropriate.

The final note being that the operation parameters of these cables, on the fundamentals of electrical function - are different. OK? You can apply the rules you know for/from engineering purposes to some minor degree, and you will not reach a proper/complete/correct conclusion....or you can read and try and understand what I said in the earlier post.

If you want to attempt to mathematically articulate what this cable does, you'll have to utilize Maxwell's original full 20 equations in 20 unknowns, No Heaviside, No Lorentz. The original works. Quantum electromagnetic hydrodynamic function.

I think Stu owns a vinyard doesnt he?
I do know about him having a business associated with wine.

But do not take that away from the fact he is a scientist as it belittles his knowledge and experience; just that he loves audio and wine.

You may have had ding dongs with him, but he does follow traditional scientific methodology.
But I honestly think he is pretty fair considering that many engineers do not necessarily make good company when arguing, and there are many arguments there you must admit
He is not one of the beating crew IMO, and never has been.

Edit:
And I can definitely tell you that was his background even if you want to question it

Cheers
Orb

Just to put this to rest about Stu as it may raise doubts with some, this from Plastipure company after doing a quick search:

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Stuart Yaniger
Vice President of Research and Product Development

Stuart Yaniger is an inventor and technologist with more than 25 years of experience in polymer science and high-volume product development. He was the founder and chief technical officer of Neocork Technologies, which invented, licensed, marketed, and manufactured the synthetic wine cork. Before his ventures in the beverage packaging business, Yaniger was one of the founders, vice president of research and development, and chief scientist of Interlink Electronics, where he invented, patented, and commercialized their core technologies in polymer-based force and position sensing. Yaniger

I recall the cable measurement threads on DIYAudio. Back then I used to converse with Curl fairly regularly and had participated in his (and Crump's) room at CES a couple times previously. It's not terribly surprising that threads on the subject of cables tend to be argumentative and lengthy as well as inconclusive.

OK. that is clarified and I find it QUITE personally revealing that he never stated or indicates such on the forum. In the historical analysis of how the world actually works -I find that information quite illuminating.

And IMO, yes, he does not have impartiality on that forum, he has bias. And that is wrong, deeply wrong-as a moderator, and I'm far from the first person to note that.

He did mention his background occasionally when asked, also discussed it quite happily with me in the past in emails.
Hence how I know

BTW JC was happy to involve Stu in the cable subject as he recognised the knowledge and experience Stu could contribute.
With the different backgrounds or ideologies/philosophies, it is not too surprising that you and Stu probably disagreed a lot, in this context you could say he is biased.
Although I am sure he would say the same to you
But in a way we are all biased I guess, and this is more emphasised when it involves opposites.

Anyway all in the past, but does not take away from the fact he was involved along with Bruno (an exceptional engineer) closer than anyone else on this topic.

Edit:
Yeah not wrong there Geoff, my team are engineers who all have PHD either in maths/science/engineering.
You need a razor mind even dealing with own colleagues when discussing technical aspects as there can be many disagreements between all
Still the positive out of the JC investigation and discussions were that something was noted and plausible reasonings were provided, just these have never been followed through.

Cheers
Orb

One last important and absoutely vital point:

All the areas I am expressing myself in and about, on the DIY audio forum and here..... are areas of deep financial interest (and in other ways) to all the the companies and corporations that he used to work for/with and may still be involved with, on one level or another.

You think about that.

Edit: Any time that anyone on the DIY audio forum attempted to have a reasonable discussion on such things, or esoteric areas of research, on the DIY audio forum... Stu was and is right there, with his crew of buddies, derailing discussion and slamming the participants. This... any casual outside analysis by a clearly unbiased person - may note that point. That would not be moderation of a forum, that would be using the forum, from a moderator's position -to drive an agenda, whatever the source of that agenda may be. It's happened in other ways and on other forums. It can happen anywhere.

One last edit: I would like to personally thank Ethan for his wording of his comments, not just in this thread but in other places and ways. I do notice.

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Just to add regarding the JC cable measurement as I vaguely remember it going back quite a few years.
JC did measure differences and this was then validated by Bruno Putzey and also Stuart Yaniger (name may be spelt wrong but is a physics scientist working or was working on conducting materials and industrial cables).

What was interesting is that they could not replicate the measurements John was seeing; JC was using a modified HP analyser while both of them were using an Audio Precision product.

This is a bit confusing. On one hand, you're saying that Bruno's data validated John's results, and on the other you're saying that Bruno couldn't duplicate John's measurements. I'm not aware of any aspect of this controversy in which Bruno's measurements validated what John was claiming.

It was actually Steve Eddy who got Bruno involved in trying to replicate John's measurements. One of the threads at Audio Asylum where this was discussed is here. Basically John had measured harmonic distortion in an interconnect using a Sound Technologies distortion analyzer. Bruno tried to duplicate the measurement using an Audio Precision System 2, which has far lower residual distortion than the distortion levels John reported for the cables. Bruno didn't see anything. Since the levels of distortion reported by John were well within the ability of the AP System 2 to resolve, yet no such distortion was found, John's results were dismissed as a measurement error.

Since then, an acquantance of JJ has constructed a special instrument for measuring ultra-low levels of harmonic distortion and reported some cable and/or connector distortion measurement results in AudioXpress. I haven't seen this article, so I can't comment on it. I'd love to get a copy if anyone has one though. Last time I tried to get it, it wasn't the current issue, yet it was too new to be available as a back issue.

Thanks, andy_c, for getting this thread back on track and for the additional clarifying information.

Excellent stuff.

Buddha, I have a theory as to why the Teo cables sounded noticeably different. It may be to do with the fact that the eutectic alloy used as conductors in the cable have much higher electrical resistance than copper. The people who designed the crossover in the speakers probably did so using copper as the connecting cable from the amplifier. The resistance of which would be very small. Subsequently, the much higher series resistance in the Teo cable might be altering the response of the filters in the crossover. With the electrical resistance of the Teo product being orders of magnitude higher than copper it may be making a difference in the sound reproduction.

The other thing I've noticed about the cable auditioning stories is that the testers always say something like "I have never heard Mrs Mills like this before. The Spong cables really made the recording come alive" etc etc. So does this mean that the true audiophile needs a different set of cables for every recording they own?

Forums and late night do not make it easy.
Validation as in a process, which in this case did not provide equal results for the reasons I provided, but does eventually come up with possibilities why it is happening.

And your info is not fully correct, I did not make any claims as to how Bruno was involved and I did say a few other engineers were also involved.
And no offense but Steve is not an engineer (apologies if wrong) with the same in-depth knowledge as them or a few others involved, but I appreciate he may had been the catalyst that caused further investigation.

However, the main point is that the ones who did the testing with APs going over what JC and then followed up was in fact Bruno and Stu, possibly Charles Hansen, and maybe a few others but cant remember all the discussions back then.
Nothing wrong with what I said and that is only one thread, there were at least two on DIYAudio.
Not sure even if that thread covers all the aspects regarding the AP design.

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I'm not aware of any aspect of this controversy in which Bruno's measurements validated what John was claiming.

What are you going on about?
There is no controversy, unless someone seems to have some bias on this, ie you
The reasoning came down to some engineering princples, that could either agree with JC or disagree.
As I said this was never followed up by any parties, probably because as I hinted the amount of work involved does not pragmatically make much difference in terms of priority when building audio hardware.

Here is one of the links from DIYAudio, really cannot be bothered to find the others as it just boiled down in the end to what I stated earlier.
The new testing device you mentioned never did clarify what came out of the old investigations.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/24582-cable-distortion-measurements-part-deux.html

Cheers
Orb

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Edit:
Yeah not wrong there Geoff, my team are engineers who all have PHD either in maths/science/engineering.
You need a razor mind even dealing with own colleagues when discussing technical aspects as there can be many disagreements between all
Still the positive out of the JC investigation and discussions were that something was noted and plausible reasonings were provided, just these have never been followed through.

Cheers
Orb

Seems to me at a certain level having PhDs on the case is a bit like having a good team of lawyers - i.e., one capable of presenting winning arguments to the judge and jury... you know, as opposed to the actual facts of the case. Recall that OJ got off because of razor sharp minds... All depends on whose ox is being gored... so to speak.

Well aint the universe full of coincidence
Seemed Bruno has been dragged back into the discussion just yesterday, Steve Eddy still arguing with JC on this, and everyone else arguing as well.

Here is the post from Bruno on DIYAudio, the bold are IMO the crux of all the discussions from before.

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Blast from the past! SE wrote me to ask if I would come here. So:

My goodness is this thing still going on?!!

Unbalanced cables are notoriously sensitive to contact noise in connectors (what with the same connection being responsible for equalising ground potentials and providing a reference for the signal), and RCA connectors are notoriously liable to develop such trouble.
What I remember John explaining during our chat was that somehow his setup highlighted these.
The unbalanced I/O of the AP test sets are floating so such problems would not ordinarily arise.

During my measurements in 2004 -done by request of SE who wanted a second opinion whilst being embroiled in a discussion with John- I still occasionally got distortion but when that happened I always checked solder joints and cleaned the connectors which invariably solved it.
Again, in a system with non-floating I/O this might still not cut it.

So where John and I agree is that these (and some other) problems are real.
His test setup was not so much different from the kind of condition under which these cables would be normally used.
The worst thing you could say is that it did not allow proper control of all variables involved.
After all, a layer of oxide on the connector shell belongs neither to the cable, nor to the test equipment.
Same for a circulating current.
But that does not mean the readings are meaningless.
The same problems arise whenever an RCA cable (and occasionally XLR, see "pin 1 problems") sits between two boxes.

Where John and I take different routes is not in the physics but in emphasis on where to start working the problem.
I'll first try to address it electronically (design circuits which are minimally sensitive to anything a nonideal cable might throw at it).
His is first to attack the connection (use cables & connectors that don't cause problems for most circuits).
This is as literally as I can remember what we said.

Both go a long way, but for perfect results you need to do both of course.
You can't design an input that'll successfully recover an audio signal transmitted along two parallel wires, and you can't design cable that will prevent hum in an unbalanced connection with a ground loop and stamped sheet-steel pcb-mounted RCA connectors.

Now note that I didn't bother reading much of this thread. The lone fact that nearly 6 years after all this I could still suddenly be yanked back into the same discussion says something.
I hope you'll understand that I'm not going to follow up on this thread, but I hope that this reply will be helpful.

Just to clarify Bruno's points, from a technical perspective oxidisation, truly floating input/output -isolation transformer, joints-contacts issues,etc are not actually part or integral to the cable even if they do affect results that may vary depending upon the rca cable.

I tend to agree with the view that the HP setup due to not having the same isolation as the APs managed to replicate the behaviour caused between two seperate audio products connected by RCA cables.
In other words cables may have different subtle affects, but they should not if audio circuit design was modified.
Of course this is just theory and as I mentioned earlier no-one has bothered to investigate further this possibility, or any of the others.

Thats my take on it anyway and I am sure many will have a different perspective.

Cheers
orb

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Edit:
Yeah not wrong there Geoff, my team are engineers who all have PHD either in maths/science/engineering.
You need a razor mind even dealing with own colleagues when discussing technical aspects as there can be many disagreements between all
Still the positive out of the JC investigation and discussions were that something was noted and plausible reasonings were provided, just these have never been followed through.

Cheers
Orb

Seems to me at a certain level having PhDs on the case is a bit like having a good team of lawyers - i.e., one capable of presenting winning arguments to the judge and jury... you know, as opposed to the actual facts of the case. Recall that OJ got off because of razor sharp minds... All depends on whose ox is being gored... so to speak.

So true

Cheers
Orb

Thank you again, Orb. I appreciate your efforts.

Interesting discussion.

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Ethan said the cables must have been broken for this to happen.

Man, I'm getting tired of repeating myself. I'm sure I have explained this to you half a dozen times so far. The most likely explanation for believing one competent wire sounds different than another is the frailty of perception. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the cable manufacturers that they're not so stupid as to screw up a piece of frigging wire. Maybe I shouldn't be so generous, because I've seen expensive wire that really is incompetent. I've also seen wire with doohickeys inserted inline to "change" the sound. Why anyone would want that is beyond me.

(Edited)

....Anyway, please stop mis-characterizing my statements and opinions. Thank you.

Ethan Winer
RealTraps

Hello Ethan

I have to agree this is a sensitive subject. Yet I have to say that I do hear a difference between lamp cable and a decent and not silly overpriced audiocable.

But like you I have problems hearing the differences between those ones, and most of the 'high end' cables.

That said with a few exceptions, and it is those than made me reply here. Because I have heard a few really costly cables that actually degraded the sound somewhat.

So we can agree on one thing, and that is that the cost-benefit for the more expensive cables often are negligible and in some cases even negative.

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Ethan said the cables must have been broken for this to happen.

Man, I'm getting tired of repeating myself. I'm sure I have explained this to you half a dozen times so far. The most likely explanation for believing one competent wire sounds different than another is the frailty of perception. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the cable manufacturers that they're not so stupid as to screw up a piece of frigging wire. Maybe I shouldn't be so generous, because I've seen expensive wire that really is incompetent. I've also seen wire with doohickeys inserted inline to "change" the sound. Why anyone would want that is beyond me.

(Edited)

....Anyway, please stop mis-characterizing my statements and opinions. Thank you.

Ethan Winer
RealTraps

Hello Ethan

I have to agree this is a sensitive subject. Yet I have to say that I do hear a difference between lamp cable and a decent and not silly overpriced audiocable.

But like you I have problems hearing the differences between those ones, and most of the 'high end' cables.

That said with a few exceptions, and it is those than made me reply here. Because I have heard a few really costly cables that actually degraded the sound somewhat.

So we can agree on one thing, and that is that the cost-benefit for the more expensive cables often are negligible and in some cases even negative.

Unfortunately, many folks jump to the wrong conclusion when auditioning expensive cables or any cables for that matter. Because cables must be "broken in" - with signal - for at least a week, preferrably a month, to sound their best, people can jump to the conclusion that expensive cables are poor compared to less expensive cables that have been in the system for some time. This is especially true for cables that have undergone cryogenic treatment, now widely used by manufacturers. Then the break-in process is even more critical. Without proper break-in, it is common for new cables, and cryo'd cables especially, to sound closed in, tonally funky, threadbare, undynamic, generic and unextended. Ergo, the results of quick cable comparisons - without waiting the necessary time for break in - can be thrown out.

Cheers

Quote:

Unfortunately, many folks jump to the wrong conclusion when auditioning expensive cables or any cables for that matter. Because cables must be "broken in" - with signal - for at least a week, preferrably a month, to sound their best, people can jump to the conclusion that expensive cables are poor compared to less expensive cables that have been in the system for some time. This is especially true for cables that have undergone cryogenic treatment, now widely used by manufacturers. Then the break-in process is even more critical. Without proper break-in, it is common for new cables, and cryo'd cables especially, to sound closed in, tonally funky, threadbare, undynamic, generic and unextended. Ergo, the results of quick cable comparisons - without waiting the necessary time for break in - can be thrown out.

Cheers

Hello Geoff

Yes I am aware of the claims that cables should be played for a while, and even though I am not quite all convinced that cables need to be 'broken in' I can tell that those I done listening tests with all had many hours of use - used for demonstration purposes and also ones I borrowed from our small group of audiophile persons in my area.

Yet despite all said I was unable to hear any improvement for most, and despite my original intention I will mention one, the silly priced Audioquest 72V DBS - over my own Van Den Hul cable.
And even worse, a small degradation or distortion in some parts of the audio spectrum for a few speaker cables and one interconnect cable.

And I hope no one blame my ability to hear, I do have one ability to pick out details that few others are able to hear.
Like a few others on this forum, also I have worked as a sound engineer, a position I wouldn't have ended up in that position if I hadn't had this acute sense of hearing.
So well I have had a career spanning a number of years both at a radio station plus that I have recorded a few albums.

So yes i'm not fully convinced about the benefit or claim about certain cables. But I certainly do agree amps and players need to be run for some time before they sound as they should. My own Vincent amp a good example, it sounded horrible at first and as all new.

And I am also certain that speakers need to be 'broken in', and that goes not only for the mechanical parts of the speakers such as cones and the coils. But the filters as well.

So the bottom line about filters: My own experimenting in creating better filters revealed the fact to me. Some designs were very much 'to the book' for conjugate filter and according to specs. Yet they sounded not quite to expectations when I tried them at first, but after removing them I gave them a second chance and was surprised they performed better after a while of use.

(And yes I still warble about the conjugate filters when I can, they certainly improve on any filter the manufacturers choose to put in their medium priced speakers.
Some day I would like to rip open a few of the high end ones to see what they got inside - hehe!)

Quote:
Validation as in a process, which in this case did not provide equal results for the reasons I provided, but does eventually come up with possibilities why it is happening.

(...)

What are you going on about?
There is no controversy, unless someone seems to have some bias on this, ie you

The scope of my comments was exactly the same as the scope of John's original claim. Fortunately this claim was very specific and testable, namely that one could measure with interconnect X, a certain level of harmonic distortion, and that level was supposedly of the same order of magnitude as a good solid-state amplifier. Using an instrument having lower residual distortion and less sensitivity to external factors (things other than the cable under test itself), Bruno was unable to duplicate the results. The distortion, if present, was at a level lower than the residual of the AP System 2. So John's measurements were in error. That was the original source of what I'm calling the "controversy" (that is, the discussion of whether or not John's measurements were correct). Others can look at the Audio Asylum link I posted earlier and decide for themselves whether or not it could be considered a controversy.

Note that John's original claim, referred to earlier by Geoff, had nothing to do with the notion of "process". It was simply that one could easily measure distortion in a given interconnect, and what the magnitude of the distortion supposedly was. While John and Bruno may agree on a number of other issues, these issues (what might affect the measurements, the sound, and so forth) are different from John's original claim of measured harmonic distortion.

Well I guess you got your view and deciding to argue on semantics.
Yes JC did make a claim but then further investigation/testing provided some explanations as to what is happening.
But as Bruno pointed out there is no controversy, the quote I provided explains pretty clearly what the differences are (even if they are summary one liners), which I also touched upon.
No-one will learn anymore reading the link you provided apart from Steve arguing a lot on semantics like it seems you want to, especially after it is identified that the AP design is different to that of the HP (which is closer to real world implementation for designed amps).
All the continuing argument you propose takes away from the recent post quoting Bruno that puts this to rest until someone further tests the theory of the transformer isolation/floating IO and that of real world audio hardware connected by RCA cables.
As Bruno explains, they agree on the principle just different approach to resolution.

Thanks
Orb

Okay, let me just lay this out as directly as possible.

1) Geoff referred to John's cable distortion measurements as a possible explanation of differences in sound between cables.

2) Bruno attempted to duplicate John's measurements with a more accurate piece of equipment than what John has, using the same cables, but was unable to measure any distortion at all.

3) This demonstrates that, for whatever reason, John's measurements were in error.

4) Whatever the reason for the measurement error might be, it's not germane to the points above.

That's all I'm trying to say.

Quote:
Okay, let me just lay this out as directly as possible.

1) Geoff referred to John's cable distortion measurements as a possible explanation of differences in sound between cables.

2) Bruno attempted to duplicate John's measurements with a more accurate piece of equipment than what John has, using the same cables, but was unable to measure any distortion at all.

3) This demonstrates that, for whatever reason, John's measurements were in error.

4) Whatever the reason for the measurement error might be, it's not germane to the points above.

That's all I'm trying to say.

JC measurements are not necessarily wrong.
Somehow you keep missing about floating I/O and transformer isolation; this is one of the reasons some of the engineers state JC gets the measurements he does while those using AP do not.
JC measurements have yet to be proved right or wrong, but the theory above is what most see as the likely cause.
Read carefully what Bruno says in the quote, he touches on this in his one liners and explains the resolution as far as he is concerned is circuit design changes to audio hardware.
Anyway lets hope one day one of the engineers finally decide to replicate JC's test but taking into consideration the design difference of the AP to HP / real world audio products and cable use.
But pragmatically, this is not a priority as you still buy the audio boxes and use whatever cables you want to, so it could be argued for audio builders this is a waste of investment/R&D to investigate and design new circuits.

Thanks
Orb

Quote:
Okay, let me just lay this out as directly as possible.

1) Geoff referred to John's cable distortion measurements as a possible explanation of differences in sound between cables.

2) Bruno attempted to duplicate John's measurements with a more accurate piece of equipment than what John has, using the same cables, but was unable to measure any distortion at all.

3) This demonstrates that, for whatever reason, John's measurements were in error.

4) Whatever the reason for the measurement error might be, it's not germane to the points above.

That's all I'm trying to say.

I only mentioned John because someone made the statement that cables had never been measured. I did NOT mean to imply that sonic differencs in cables can necessarily be measured or that differences in cable measurements necessarily mean anything sonically.

I guess noone ever suspected that Bruno's test was in error, not John's.

Quote:
I guess noone ever suspected that Bruno's test was in error, not John's.

Do you have any evidence to support this allegation of misconduct and/or incompetence on Bruno's part?

Please post here your convincing, testable, verifiable evidence for your insinuation immediately.

Interestingly neither may be in error, hence why it looks to me why Bruno agrees with the principle of what JC measured and states, with the focus on the audio design causing the variations with cables.

IF this is the case, then IMO any cable measurements/testing will prove nothing unless tested in an environment that truly replicates end to end audio designs, which JC setup was closer to with the HP analyser.

Still, for me the real interest is the possibility of the RCA cable variation being down to audio hardware design/circuitry.

Edit:
JJ, its academic anwyay as at least one other ended up with the same results as Bruno , using an AP as well.
But it does always seem to come back to the AP design and isolation, which as an additional point interestingly Bruno suggests may deal with the oxidisation problem better.

Cheers
Orb

Quote:
Somehow you keep missing about floating I/O and transformer isolation; this is one of the reasons some of the engineers state JC gets the measurements he does while those using AP do not.

It may seem like it to you, but I'm not actually missing this. The AP instrument Bruno used has isolation on its input and the Sound Technology instrument John used does not. Isolation in turn eliminates the influence of ground loops on the measurement (that is, it helps prevent the instrument from measuring the properties of something other than the device under test - the ground system). So anything that does not have isolation has the possibility of having ground loops influence the measurement. One could argue as Bruno implicitly did in your quoted text of his post, that the measurement system that does not have isolation is closer to a real-world audio system, because very few real-world unbalanced components have such isolation. But then this becomes an issue of "what are we trying to measure anyway?"

The goal of a measurement is to characterize the device under test, not the behavior of the device in the system - unless we are specifically testing the system itself. This might seem wrong at first glance. It might seem quite sensible to try to measure the cable's effect in a real-world system by avoiding isolation. But thinking about it more, it should become apparent that, in most cases, this is a fool's errand. In general, the systems the device under test will go into are all different, so it then becomes an issue of "which system should the test equipment try to emulate?" Unless there is one specific system in mind, there is no answer to this question. Therefore the only sensible approach in general is to measure the properties of the device under test, and only the device under test. When this is the goal, if having isolation and not having isolation give two significantly different answers (difference more than the noise and the manufacturer-specified instrument error itself), then the measurement taken without isolation should be, at the very least, considered suspect.

These issues are "close to my heart" figuratively speaking, from having worked on development of automated test systems for many years. So I've had to face a lot of head-scratchers like this.

Finally, it should be noted that what Bruno is saying about the isolation is only speculation at this point. There was no controlled experiment in which John's cable distortion measurements disappeared into the instrument noise when isolation was added for example. Bruno's concern about isolation is just an educated guess as to what may have been going on. It's something about the AP and the Sound Technology instruments that's different, but it's not known whether that's the real cause. BTW, I'm using "AP" for "Audio Precision", the instrument Bruno used. John's instrument was made by Sound Technology. To the best of my knowledge, no HP distortion analyzer was involved - but I may have missed something.

Yes and looking back I said none of the engineers have yet bothered to really prove this as it will be a pain in the backside.
Remember I mentioned validation as a process and what came out was the JC measurements may not be wrong for the reasons given, or they could be wrong.
This can only be proved with further investigations by those engineers, it is not going to happen anytime soon.

So why do you say JC measurements are wrong?
When in reality this is not proved.

You are arguing about semantics, and I can appreciate the point of view but your are ignoring the whole picture that both Bruno and other engineers noted.
If it makes you happy this is what the semantics boil down to, look back and I even stated this earlier but you seem locked on to the intent of proving somehow that JC measurements are contentious.
Anyway the semantics;
Testing of any product should be done in isolation, specifically this would prove that cables do not measure differently in the way JC measurements found.
Yes you are correct, I even state that testing cables in isolation will probably forever give no measurements outside of what Bruno and other engineers using AP found.

So you can say JC is technically wrong for saying cables measure differently if taking this from a scientific isolated test.
I do not disagree with this, nor does Bruno and this has been stated many times even if not so clearly.

But, cables can potentially measure differently in the real world connected to real audio products.
These external influences from JC test showed different affects for each cable.
Even Bruno says his measurements should not be ignored as it points to the whole of the audio solution to being compromised with current designs.

So its right to say, from a scientific investigation cables measure predictibly with nothing untoward (due to lab-isolation conditions).
Its also right to say, cables may measure differently when connected to audio products due to other parameters.

As I say your arguing over semantics, on something that has never been proved right or wrong with regards to JC measurements under real world environment.
And as you say is speculation by the very engineers (Bruno being one of them) who you seem content to use as proving JC is somehow wrong.

So in real world practices/environment you cannot necessarily say JC is wrong with his test because as you say all that the validation has provided so far is plausible effects that need further investigation.

If your arguing the point on this, then your arguing with what I quoted from Bruno.
If you feel so strongly then why not re-create the test with the HP analyser or test cables outside of isolation to compare to real world?
Seems your happy though to just take data from cables tested in isolation, and this is no reflection of audio setup as Bruno comments.
Just to re-iterate Bruno on this:

Quote:
The worst thing you could say is that it did not allow proper control of all variables involved.....

But that does not mean the readings are meaningless.
The same problems arise whenever an RCA cable (and occasionally XLR, see "pin 1 problems") sits between two boxes.

So yes not isolated lab controlled, and yes his testing is not meaningless as it reflects what may be happening with real world audio.

Edit:
And I am sure JC uses a modded HP analyser, will try to find this but goodness knows why - this is starting to turn into a semantic argument and ignoring what came out of the original investigation and validation process.

Edit2:
Ok he has the modded HP HP3563 (greater resolution/sensitivity), ST1710, and TEK 485 scope.

Edit:
BTW while it is speculation by the engineers regarding the floating I/O isolated transformers, it is not really that far fetched as floating I/O and its benefits/downsides are well known with some audio equipment designed with this in mind.
But I agree and said it many times, it needs to be proved either way for JC's results to have real meaning as a way forward or for some to prove he was wrong.

Thanks
Orb

Quote:

Edit:
JJ, its academic anwyay as at least one other ended up with the same results as Bruno , using an AP as well.
But it does always seem to come back to the AP design and isolation, which as an additional point interestingly Bruno suggests may deal with the oxidisation problem better.

Cheers
Orb

Well, speaking as somebody who had the rather surprised chance to measure this, I had a problem in one of my old listening rooms wherein there was just obviously something wrong in one channel.

I could measure some kind of rather perverse center-clipping using an AA501 and a scope (looking at the residual output with a spectrum analyzer) that was not particularly far down.

HOWEVER this all disappeared when I unplugged and reinserted an RCA connector.

So oxidation on connectors is an issue, and it wasn't stationary that long either.

Ditto noise rejection in non-lab settings, but this kind of noise is trivially measurable.

Ditto for ground loops, etc.

All of this IS trivially measurable in-situ.

But measurements ought to be measured in-situ, to get the best results, and perhaps not with an AP, depending on how you want to measure.

Yeah I was shocked to how quickly it can require the RCA connector to be unplugged and reinserted, from what Bruno and JC said.
I am bad for not checking them, and I bet many other listeners are as well.

I appreciate we are discussing interconnects (which is easier to model-understand in terms of RCA cable/two box solution engineering), but should speaker cables also be removed and reinserted?
I dont mean to expand the conversation on to speaker cables per se as its a mine field with less known probable causes (very loose/vague speculation compared to interconnects), but the oxidisation aspect would be interesting.

Thanks
Orb

Quote:
So you can say JC is technically wrong for saying cables measure differently if taking this from a scientific isolated test.

Cables do measure differently! Only someone not familiar with the technical issues of cable measurements would claim otherwise. What John was claiming was something much more specific - that some cables have harmonic distortion measurements on a par with those of a solid-state amplifier. That's an extraordinary claim.

What I'm talking about is not semantics (the meaning of words), but the "philosophy", if you will, of measurements - what is the correct way of performing them, how do you know whether or not the data are correct, and so on. This discussion doesn't seem to be working, but let me give it one more try.

One necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the correctness of measurements is that if person A on one side of the world and person B on the other side both perform the same measurement, they should get the same answer within the specified accuracy of the instruments involved. If they don't, one or both of the measurements must be wrong. The only way for two measurements to give significantly different answers and have them both be correct is if they're measuring different things. So it's important to ensure that the same thing is indeed being measured. This is not as simple as it may first appear. Sometimes it appears that two things are being measured the same way, but after more careful investigation, one or both of the measurements may be found to be influenced by confounding factors. Therefore it's important to eliminate such confounding factors as much as possible. Ground loops might be considered as one such factor.

As to why I think John's measurement is wrong, it's because another measurement, performed with a much more accurate instrument, gives totally different results, consistent with theory that, as of yet, has not been knocked down. The chances of the more accurate instrument giving wrong results and the less accurate instrument giving correct results are slim. John is in the difficult position of trying to knock down an existing theory (that the nonlinearity of cables is negligible). If a person is to attempt this and operate within the scientific method, this places a lot of burden on that person.

Quote:

Edit:
And I am sure JC uses a modded HP analyser, will try to find this but goodness knows why - this is starting to turn into a semantic argument and ignoring what came out of the original investigation and validation process.

Edit2:
Ok he has the modded HP HP3563 (greater resolution/sensitivity), ST1710, and TEK 485 scope.

Ah, I get it now. The ST1710 is the distortion analyzer, and its residual output goes to the input of the HP3563, which is being used as a spectrum analyzer to look at the individual harmonic components. Thanks - I was wondering what the HP reference was about, and this clears it up.

Then we are going to disagree, because you seem to think its OK to use Bruno as a point proving JC is wrong with his measurements, and then want to say Bruno is wrong to suggest that JC measurements do have a use.
Not sure how you can pick and choose like that, and now IMO your using the initial claim as the absolute on something that covered months of discussions with various engineers that eventually generated a plausible cause.

Anyway IMO what your saying does not necessarily tie in with Bruno's last post I quoted.

I guess we had different perspectives on the validation process and what they actually thought in the end (which Bruno summed up nicely).
But I Still cannot understand how you can equate the AP testing to being identical to what JC did, even Bruno acknowledges they are not the same.

In other words the measurements your using to prove JC wrong mean nothing as they are different environments, not sure how many times I can quote Bruno on this.

Quote:
The unbalanced I/O of the AP test sets are floating so such problems would not ordinarily arise.......

His test setup was not so much different from the kind of condition under which these cables would be normally used....

But that does not mean the readings are meaningless.
The same problems arise whenever an RCA cable (and occasionally XLR, see "pin 1 problems") sits between two boxes.....

Where John and I take different routes is not in the physics but in emphasis on where to start working the problem

Heh ah well its interestingly how even just discussing the historical process and engineering views can provide what may be opposite perspectives, nothing wrong with that IMO

Cheers
Orb