Null test of analog interconnects

[Paul.Raulerson]

Of course, and actually, I tend to agree with you, to a point.

Why isn't anyone asking what kind of audio "blindness" causes people to not hear differences?

As for the tests that all prove negative, there are plenty of examples out there otherwise - many people here have provided individual test results, which are immediately dscounted because it does not fit in with some folks preconceptions.

[spdif-usb]

I will point to tests that seem to show that when blinded this discrimination ability disappears. I will also point to the total lack of tests that show otherwise.

I will point to the total lack of tests that show blinded listening test are not fundamentally flawed. I will also point to your pseudo-scientific assumptions about psychoacoustics.

[prufrock]

Contradictio in terminis. The very fact a person partakes in a listening test is what alters said person's hearing. A test is either objective or it's not.

We are not talking about certainties here. We are talking about levels of significance and what's reasonable. If you pick a cable correctly 75% of the time unsighted I will consider that reasonable and hand over the cash.
You are correct in saying that the test itself will alter things. That can be mitigated with clever design. I think its known that the first DBT always needs to be discarded. DBT will not give you "proof". It will give you odds though, and in this business that's all you can expect.
Much of what you use and consume gets to market via the route above.

Which company would you prefer to buy off: (1) The cable company that proper blind tests its products before sale and publishes the results or (2) The cable company that says believe us, we have cracked the killer cable. No test necessary.

[goldsdad]

Which company would you prefer to buy off: (1) The cable company that proper blind tests its products before sale and publishes the results or (2) The cable company that says believe us, we have cracked the killer cable. No test necessary.

You forgot (3) the cable company with customer testimony: "My wife can hear the improvement from the room next door."

[sandyk]

"In fact, I find your comment unscientific and arrogant. If not that, than extremely naive."
Prufrock
I could say the same about you. You admitted that you are a newby in this area , and got off to a pretty shaky start with your original posts.
You simply can't directly translate medical findings to audio like you are so fond of doing.
You have no idea, what I or others, can or can not hear.In fact your much vaunted medical side of things can't explain
how a 73 year old with industrial hearing damage, and a 25mm diameter Acoustic Neuroma pressing on my right ear canal, can hear the differences between 16/44.1 and 24/96, let alone why I can further appreciate good 24/192 recordings over the same in 24/96.There is so much in the audio area that medical science can'tfully explain yet, or at least come to some consensus. I doubt that Dennis would write off peoples hearing abilities as quickly as you do. In fact, Dennis does have a small inkling of what I can still hear, after a recent .wav file comparison that we both took part in, where I gave an indepth report of the differences that I heard.

SandyK

[spdif-usb]

We are not talking about certainties here. We are talking about levels of significance and what's reasonable.

My point exactly. Your pseudo-scientific interpretation of DBT results is both insignificant and unreasonable.

If you pick a cable correctly 75% of the time unsighted I will consider that reasonable and hand over the cash.

Your cash isn't my cash, nor vice versa.

You are correct in saying that the test itself will alter things. That can be mitigated with clever design. I think its known that the first DBT always needs to be discarded. DBT will not give you "proof". It will give you odds though, and in this business that's all you can expect.

I disagree. The only thing DBT can do is give you relatively reliable odds, "relatively" here meaning there is a strong dependence on various types of biases the extremely complex combination of which cannot be sufficiently, nor reliably, mitigated to yield meaningful interpretations when it comes to subtle differences. The theoretical odds you speak of are no more credible than random guesswork.

Much of what you use and consume gets to market via the route above.

Which company would you prefer to buy off: (1) The cable company that proper blind tests its products before sale and publishes the results or (2) The cable company that says believe us, we have cracked the killer cable. No test necessary.

The latter, because a company that proper blind tests its products will typically not explain the full meaning of the word "proper".

[jhwalker]

The latter, because a company that proper blind tests its products will typically not explain the full meaning of the word "proper".

Now you're just being contrary for the sake of it - that's ridiculous.

[prufrock]

The latter, because a company that proper blind tests its products will typically not explain the full meaning of the word "proper".

DBT is widely used in industry. If you delved into the products you use you would find they are often developed using DBP. From the drugs you need to colour on the soda bottle wrapper you just bought. Yet for some reason you seem perfectly willing to let the cable companies off the hook and be an exception to the rule.

[spdif-usb]

Now you're just being contrary for the sake of it - that's ridiculous.

Tell me the definition of a proper blind test and I will tell you what's ridiculous.

[spdif-usb]

DBT is widely used in industry. If you delved into the products you use you would find they are often developed using DBP. From the drugs you need to colour on the soda bottle wrapper you just bought. Yet for some reason you seem perfectly willing to let the cable companies off the hook and be an exception to the rule.

Yes DBT is widely used in industry. Proper DBT, however, is not.

[prufrock]

Yes it is.

[spdif-usb]

Yes it is.

That is only your opinion.

[prufrock]

No it isn't ;]

[spdif-usb]

No it isn't ;]

Grats! You've just completed another circle.

[prufrock]

Yes, it is. Ta.

[esldude]

Come on guys don't be juvenile about this.

Now here is something I wish a cable maker would answer for me or maybe a few somethings.

How do you go about your cable design?

Also, why is it that we get some kind of spec's for every single thing in an audio system except cables. A few will give you capacitance numbers per foot. Beyond that there isn't much of anything.

A few advertise some kind of signal, but it is pretty much always a bogus graph or something without markings or shows something ridiculous like megahertz range effects. What is it about cables that matters to these cable makers? Do none of them have any technical tests? What are they? If some well regarded maker runs tests on his cable how does it compare to another companies products? We don't see response measures or distortion measures or any meaningful phase plots? Why is that? Do the major makers have testing procedures they agree upon?

And most of all why no measurements by the magazines? Stereophile of all people. They do lots of good measurements of lots of stuff. Have for years despite saying it often hasn't added up with differences they hear. They do jitter testing of all things. Yet they don't measure cables. Why is that? Seems even if they just put them through the standard ringer it is no different than another round of testing solid state amps that all have low distortion and wide response. Why don't they measure jitter differences in SPDIF cables vs some standard?

[spdif-usb]

Yet they don't measure cables. Why is that?

Personally, I, believe the only plausible answer to your question has been explained in this interview article, which I have already linked on here before (but, for one reason or another, you seem to completely have missed it).
TAS 194: Meridian Audio's Bob Stuart Talks with Robert Harley | AVguide

[esldude]

Personally, I, believe the only plausible answer to your question has been explained in this interview article, which I have already linked on here before (but, for one reason or another, you seem to completely have missed it).
TAS 194: Meridian Audio's Bob Stuart Talks with Robert Harley | AVguide

Nope, haven't missed it. Looked it over a couple times in recent weeks. A problem I have with it is some of the interview sounds rather different than what is in some of Mr. Stuart's AES writings (some of which are listed in the second paragraph). I don't know if it was massaged by Robert Harley, or slanted by Mr. Stuart with regards to whom his audience was or what. I don't expect an audio mag interview to be handled like an AES presentation anyway.

I am not talking of DBT's of cables, though that would be worthwhile sometimes. I am simply talking about basic electrical measurements.

In one of Mr. Stuart's papers, the trained in psycho-acoustics designer, specifies very clearly what he thinks is required for a transparent audio playback system. Flat response DC-26khz, distortion at or below .1%, and 20 bit levels of SNR with good digital filtering. That pretty well covers it. I missed the part in the article where he speaks about cable testing or whatever. He explains in the paper in psycho-acoustic terms why each of these levels is set where they are in his mind.

http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF

Mr. Stuart believes we can have a truly transparent playback system today. He explains why and what it takes. No voodoo or anything else. Quite straightforward. He seems to have the idea that a difference of -60 db or less will be inaudible.

[Paul.Raulerson]

In one of Mr. Stuart's papers, the trained in psycho-acoustics designer, specifies very clearly what he thinks is required for a transparent audio playback system. Flat response DC-26khz, distortion at or below .1%, and 20 bit levels of SNR with good digital filtering. That pretty well covers it. I missed the part in the article where he speaks about cable testing or whatever. He explains in the paper in psycho-acoustic terms why each of these levels is set where they are in his mind.

http://www.meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF

Mr. Stuart believes we can have a truly transparent playback system today. He explains why and what it takes. No voodoo or anything else. Quite straightforward. He seems to have the idea that a difference of -60 db or less will be inaudible.

Now this line is likely to bear some juicy fruit. I think it is quite possible to have an utterly transparent playback system today, as far as the hardware is concerned. So not we get to the music itself, and how it is recorded, and what if any effects does the media have. That on top of the artificial enhancements added in the engineering stage.

I would very much like to see some testing that uncovers and documents what effects the choices made in the engineering and mastering stage make, and what effect playback from different media make. I think it is going to be some kind of additive effect starting at the very beginning of the recorded music process.

As has been noted, music seems to sound different ona pressed CD, and that difference seems to disappear when the CD is ripped to disk.

Paul

[sandyk]

Paul
An interesting exercise it to take some well known CDs that you have, rip them to your computer as .wav files, then DL the posted (usually .flac) versions from a UseNet Server such as UseNeXT etc. Convert the .flac to .wav for example, and compare with your ripped copies. I have found time and time again that unless they were illegal .flac copies from HD Tracks etc. that they sound like crap compared with your own rips.I tried that recently again with some Jheena Lodwick XRCD DLs to see if they were worth buying, and found they sounded vastly inferior to the CD I have already ripped.
Regards
Alex

[Paul.Raulerson]

Paul
An interesting exercise it to take some well known CDs that you have, rip them to your computer as .wav files, then DL the posted (usually .flac) versions from a UseNet Server such as UseNeXT etc. Convert the .flac to .wav for example, and compare with your ripped copies. I have found time and time again that unless they were illegal .flac copies from HD Tracks etc. that they sound like crap compared with your own rips.I tried that recently again with some Jheena Lodwick XRCD DLs to see if they were worth buying, and found they sounded vastly inferior to the CD I have already ripped.
Regards
Alex

Hi Alex - well one problem with that is simple; 99+% of the music I have is not legally downloadable. So getting a comparison by downloading is not an easy or legal task. It would still be problematic in any case, with no "chain of custody" type of way to track what format the file has been in, and where.

I do know I can rip to AIFF, convert to ALAC, then FLAC, then back to AIFF, repeating the cycle 100 times, and I cannot detect any difference from the original. Same is true if I rip to ALAC format at the start and cycle all the way back to ALAC.

I don't appreciate WAV format so much as you do, so I supposemImshould try it.

Paul

[esldude]

Thought it would be nice for some to put some of the exported spectrum info from this difference testing I have been doing.

Attached is a zipped Excel file. This is the spectrum from Audacity. First column is the resulting difference file when the test music is played on the Audioquest Diamond and the cheap generic interconnect. This is for 30 seconds. Each entry is the average level over that 30 seconds for slices a bit smaller than 3 hz each. Next two columns are the levels for the recorded files being compared. Finally just a straight subtraction of the db level for each file. Pretty small differences at least on average. Apparently easily audible to some. Those are awfully small differences.

[esldude]

BTW, the above files were pegged at only a -101 db null by Diffmaker.

The superiority of the Audioquest Diamond Hyperlitz winding, pure silver conductors and teflon insulation with welded on RCA terminations is obvious here.

[sandyk]

Hi Paul
I should have made it clear, that if the CDs I want are quite expensive, then occasionally I DL a few tracks that are illegally posted to get some idea of whether the real thing is worth buying or not. Irrespective, I then delete the DLs after a quick listen.You used to be able to listen before you buy in "bricks and mortar"stores. If the majors provided something like a short
segment at decent quality,(NOT Mega Poop 3) I wouldn't feel the need to do that.With those tracks that Dennis and I listened to,for example, I ordered the CD only to find that although it had only been released in 2008, what I purchased had been hit with the damn "loudness brush".

Alex

[sandyk]

Hi Dennis
Is the Audioquest cable REALLY superior,or is it just illustrating why so many valve amplifier owners use silver conductors, both for internal wiring, and interconnects, in order to try and overcome some perceived minor HF loss ? I also wonder just what part some crimped connections play in comparison with good quality soldered connections. To put this into some kind of context, I have never felt the need to use silver conductor interconnects with a high quality amplifier or preamplifier.
Kind Regards
Alex