Ethan Winer Null Test For WIre

[buonassi]

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Winer.  His materials on acoustic treatment were the genesis of my audiophile pilgrimage.  After hearing before and after 'bass management' with traps and treating primary reflection points to improve imaging, I knew that sound can get soooo much better than what the average person experiences.  

 

A bit OT, but I post this to underscore his credibility with me.  I'm somewhat still not sure what to believe at this point because I have been convinced of differences I hear with cables.  Like @barrows what I hear isn't "I think" or "there may be" differences.  They are very clear and easily discernible.  Now, keep in mind this is with different earphone cables primarily carrying a 0.5 ohm balanced output to very sensitive multi BA drivers (total impedance about 12-15 ohms).  

 

A question for the more knowledgeable folks here:  

 

Amp O/I = 1 ohm

cable R = 9 ohms

earphones = 15 ohms

 

if I have an amplifier that puts out 1 ohm and I use a cable that measures at 9 ohms resistance, does that mean what is reaching my spec'd 15 ohm earphones is now an output impedance of 10?  So the damping factor is now 1.5 (10:15). Or does the output impedance remain unchanged, but my earphones are now part of a system that is 24 ohms being driven by an unchanged 1 ohm?  in other words damping is now a factor of 24 (1:24)?

 

I think if I could understand that better, it may explain why I hear such wild differences with my earphones and different cables.   

 

 

[buonassi]

well here's an interesting perspective on Ethan's Null Test, courtesy of Paul McGowan of PS Audio:

 

 

 

[Sonicularity]

This appears to be a public relations disaster recovery attempt from PS Audio.   I like how he sits in front of an electronics workbench to set the stage and fool people like an actor that wears a white coat to give the appearance of being a doctor when selling pills or some other health gadget.

[Richard Dale]

46 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

This appears to be a public relations disaster recovery attempt from PS Audio.   I like how he sits in front of an electronics workbench to set the stage and fool people like an actor that wears a white coat to give the appearance of being a doctor when selling pills or some other health gadget.

What public relations disaster? He is an electronics designer as well as the CEO of PS Audio, and when he sits in from of an electronics bench is not pretending to be an electronics engineer, he *is* an electronics engineer.

 

Someone sent Paul McGowan a question about whether or not he thought that the Null test was 'infallible' or not and he made some interesting points about the history of the test. He also described  a couple of examples where the results should be taken with a pinch of salt - in the context of testing a mains  cable powering a pre-amp, or testing a speaker cable driving a real speaker load.

 

[Sonicularity]

37 minutes ago, Richard Dale said:

What public relations disaster? He is an electronics designer as well as the CEO of PS Audio, and when he sits in from of an electronics bench is not pretending to be an electronics engineer, he *is* an electronics engineer.

 

Someone sent Paul McGowan a question about whether or not he thought that the Null test was 'infallible' or not and he made some interesting points about the history of the test. He also described  a couple of examples where the results should be taken with a pinch of salt - in the context of testing a mains  cable powering a pre-amp, or testing a speaker cable driving a real speaker load.

 

 

Paul usually sits in his office when replying to the carefully selected questions he answers in his videos.  For what Ethan Winer was demonstrating, he was correct, and Paul even admitted as much.  I see similar obfuscations made with digital interconnects and various forms of interference.  

 

 

Those videos are nothing more than smart marketing tools to help sell products, such as their wildly overpriced power cables.  Customers had some concerns about Ethan Winer's video and asked for clarification, so PS Audio provided a counter-attack to help calm the masses by revalidating their ideas and keeping their wallets open. 

 

[fas42]

The biggest failings of that video is that he spends so little time on emphasising that higher integrity of construction can be important- and that's what he's 'selling'; and being clumsy in his explanation of why a difference is not being measured - there will be voltage differences at the output of the system, but they may be low in level, and hard to correlate with what's heard ... precisely measuring the variations that people hear is far from trivial, but that is often glossed over, badly ... people want, Black and White; but as in so many areas of life, it just ain't like that ...

[crenca]

56 minutes ago, Sonicularity said:

 

Paul usually sits in his office when replying to the carefully selected questions he answers in his videos.  For what Ethan Winer was demonstrating, he was correct, and Paul even admitted as much.  I see similar obfuscations made with digital interconnects and various forms of interference.  

 

 

Those videos are nothing more than smart marketing tools to help sell products, such as their wildly overpriced power cables.  Customers had some concerns about Ethan Winer's video and asked for clarification, so PS Audio provided a counter-attack to help calm the masses by revalidating their ideas and keeping their wallets open. 

 

 

Right, and this is the status quo of "high end" or Audiophiledom.  It's not a "public relations disaster", its the confidence game being played.  The game is not about "winning", either in terms of a technical debate or even convincing a majority.  You only have to convince a few that there is something, anything, to a power cable priced over $20.  You only have to keep the wallets open of a very few (who are willing to spend $1k on a power cable) to justify your efforts.

[fas42]

The $20 power cord will do the job, if it is carefully used by someone who understands what the problems can be - this is how I optimise setups, by using ordinary stuff, and circumventing any issues. Someone who just wants plug 'n' play, who is willing to pay someone else to do the sortin' out, with a workaround in the form of an "expensive" product, ends up getting the "good stuff", just via another route.

 

Unfortunately, just using 'ordinary' components without adding effort in various areas will always produce compromised sound - the industry is, yes, not 'mature enough', yet.

[PeterSt]

I rather read my own text in 5 seconds and don't comprehend 100% than wasting 10 minutes on nothing *and* the necessity to dig out the very same message, assumed I didn't fell asleep along the way. What a "We YouTubers" MyNothing world.

 

 

On 11/12/2018 at 3:24 PM, PeterSt said:

it won't make a difference for any of two cables, ignoring the fact that it makes a hell of a difference where they will be laid (he looks at it himself), he can't imagine that possibly shielding may help to what he shows there himself but is still persistent in that the cables measure the same. "This is just stuff picking up from the computer".

 

 

[Thuaveta]

11 hours ago, crenca said:

You only have to convince a few that there is something, anything, to a power cable priced over $20.

 

FTFY

[4est]

On 11/14/2018 at 5:53 PM, barrows said:

The Nordost testing methodology was presented in much greater detail at RMAF, and the mathematician hired through his defense contractor company was also present to answer technical questions regarding the methodology.  I suspect Nordost suspended the project when all the scientific evidence was dismissed by the very people demanding scientific evidence, the fact is that the very people demanding the truth, could not handle the truth, and hence set forth on making excuses as to how the testing methodology was flawed, same as what is happening on this very thread.

I challenge anyone here to do the same test I did, get some real world experience and maybe, just maybe, you might actually learn something new for yourself.  Or you can remain in ignorance, believing what you may, without actually knowing anything about it.  I did not test these wires for anyone but myself, I just shared my experience here because this thread popped up at the same time I was engaged in this test.

I know that I am not supposed to go there, but sadly, many of those posters simply do not know how to listen, cannot hear or refuse to accept. I am utterly perplexed that this even needs to be argued. Some cables sound remarkably different than others-some for the better, many for the worse. Its pretty darned repeatable too. And talk about bias, Winer is a poster child for that...

[vortecjr]

In the video he tries to keep the cables way from noisy sources. I would like him to use his device to compare different cables next those noise sources to determine if some cables shield the noise any better.     

[PeterSt]

2 hours ago, vortecjr said:

I would like him to use his device to compare different cables next those noise sources to determine if some cables shield the noise any better.

 

Maybe he can use his cables to find the least radiating computers. 

[fas42]

Cables are part of the circuit of the overall system - I doubt whether many would argue that making various messes of the cables internal to the case of a component is guaranteed not to cause audible variations; yet some magic seems to switch on external to the cases, and simple things like the dressing or lie of the cords is completely irrelevant.

 

It's not that cables "make the sound better!"; it's that if badly done then they cause the system to be below par - and so "better" cables are those that are engineered to be more robust, and less likely to cause issues!

[vortecjr]

8 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Maybe he can use his cables to find the least radiating computers. 

hahaha.

[esldude]

16 hours ago, vortecjr said:

In the video he tries to keep the cables way from noisy sources. I would like him to use his device to compare different cables next those noise sources to determine if some cables shield the noise any better.     

I've done that test.  Using RCA interconnects wrapped around the actual power supply of a desktop PC you get some noise at audible levels though just barely audible.  Move cable 6 inches away and it drops into the thermal noise floor. 

 

Same test with balanced XLR cables wrapped 5 times around PC power supply and you get nothing above the noise floor.

 

In this particular case if there were any spikes above -130dbFS they would have shown up.  

 

If you are worried about noise pickup use balanced cabling.  Or keep your RCA cables a foot away and you'll have nothing to worry about. 

[shtf]

18 hours ago, 4est said:

I know that I am not supposed to go there, but sadly, many of those posters simply do not know how to listen, cannot hear or refuse to accept. I am utterly perplexed that this even needs to be argued. Some cables sound remarkably different than others-some for the better, many for the worse. Its pretty darned repeatable too. And talk about bias, Winer is a poster child for that...

 

Regrettably, in 21st century high-end audio we have witnessed our "untrustworthy" ears become unnecessary apendages and have been replaced with our "trustworthy" eyes.  Mind you, in an audio-only industry.

 

So rather than strive to improve ones ability to discern what they hear and improve their playback system, they instead try to bring everybody else down to their base levels.

 

The old holy grail of striving toward the live performance or the absolute sound has been replaced with measurements and paper tigers on audio websites.  Even though there has yet to be invented a measuring instrument to measure sound quality or levels of musicality.  Go figure.

 

Perhaps this explains why guys like Ethan (and many reviewers) have so many followers.  Sad fer sure.

[esldude]

1 hour ago, shtf said:

 

Regrettably, in 21st century high-end audio we have witnessed our "untrustworthy" ears become unnecessary apendages and have been replaced with our "trustworthy" eyes.  Mind you, in an audio-only industry.

 

So rather than strive to improve ones ability to discern what they hear and improve their playback system, they instead try to bring everybody else down to their base levels.

 

The old holy grail of striving toward the live performance or the absolute sound has been replaced with measurements and paper tigers on audio websites.  Even though there has yet to be invented a measuring instrument to measure sound quality or levels of musicality.  Go figure.

 

Perhaps this explains why guys like Ethan (and many reviewers) have so many followers.  Sad fer sure.

Striving toward live performance is a worthy goal.  Stereo has inherent limitations making that impossible.  The path to maybe get closer to the illusive goal isn't gilding the lily of stereo, but doing something else instead.  No golden ear gilding will do the trick.  I've come to this conclusion recording music.  Not any base level other than I've heard the live sound, and the live feed and the recording.  Stereo can't get us there.  MCH is a significant though not fully sufficient step forward.  

 

Even then, the main impediment is over-processed recordings which is true of 99.9% of those you can buy.  

[fas42]

13 hours ago, esldude said:

Striving toward live performance is a worthy goal.  Stereo has inherent limitations making that impossible.  The path to maybe get closer to the illusive goal isn't gilding the lily of stereo, but doing something else instead.  No golden ear gilding will do the trick.  I've come to this conclusion recording music.  Not any base level other than I've heard the live sound, and the live feed and the recording.  Stereo can't get us there.  MCH is a significant though not fully sufficient step forward.  

 

Even then, the main impediment is over-processed recordings which is true of 99.9% of those you can buy.  

 

Not even close. "Come to the conclusion recording music"? The huge hole in your argument is that listening to the live feed has magically done away with the need to have the highest quality in the replay chain of that live feed ... umm, I have heard the live feed of live musicians completely mashed to pieces by a lousy playback chain, an infinite number of times.

 

The refusal to accept that audible playback anomalies undo all the good work achieved by the microphone is deeply embedded, and has a while to go before being loosened. The "doing something else" is the objectivists' version of snake oil, and is about as useful for getting genuine benefits.

 

Conventional standards of playback quality have inherent limitations making the illusion of a live performance impossible - that's been the case the case for decades ... but it doesn't have to be that way forever ...

[Ralf11]

16 hours ago, esldude said:

Striving toward live performance is a worthy goal.  Stereo has inherent limitations making that impossible.  The path to maybe get closer to the illusive goal isn't gilding the lily of stereo, but doing something else instead.  No golden ear gilding will do the trick.  I've come to this conclusion recording music.  Not any base level other than I've heard the live sound, and the live feed and the recording.  Stereo can't get us there.  MCH is a significant though not fully sufficient step forward.  

 

Even then, the main impediment is over-processed recordings which is true of 99.9% of those you can buy.  

 

well put

 

 

[shtf]

20 hours ago, esldude said:

Striving toward live performance is a worthy goal.  Stereo has inherent limitations making that impossible.  The path to maybe get closer to the illusive goal isn't gilding the lily of stereo, but doing something else instead.  No golden ear gilding will do the trick.  I've come to this conclusion recording music.  Not any base level other than I've heard the live sound, and the live feed and the recording.  Stereo can't get us there.  MCH is a significant though not fully sufficient step forward.  

 

Even then, the main impediment is over-processed recordings which is true of 99.9% of those you can buy.  

 

To follow your logic, since recording music brought you to this conclusion, then you must also think the MQA format is crazy outta' this world the most musical "hi-rez" format that ever existed.  That's what Robert Harley of The Absolute Sound and John Atkinson of Stereophile think and they are both sound engineers.  So you must think like them. 

 

Nobody said anything about golden ears but rather the simple ability to discern or interpret what we hear.  Without even basic audible discernment we probably would all derive at the same conclusions as you.  In other words, developing our ability to interpret what we hear helps us to realize just how far short of the mark a given playback system is. 

 

As for your plug for multi-channel, well, again you lack understanding of the severe distortions already plaguing virtually every last playback system and are compounded with every additional speaker, cable, and amplifier.  If the distortions are so severe with just 2-channels then, according to you, even more distortive channels will draw us closer to the live performance? 

 

Interesting.  Not surprising but interesting.

[Ralf11]

1. distortions are tiny w.r.t. the benefits of multi-channel

2. distortions are not additive

 

you are certainly an odd one, shtf

[esldude]

1 hour ago, shtf said:

 

To follow your logic, since recording music brought you to this conclusion, then you must also think the MQA format is crazy outta' this world the most musical "hi-rez" format that ever existed.  That's what Robert Harley of The Absolute Sound and John Atkinson of Stereophile think and they are both sound engineers.  So you must think like them. 

 

Nobody said anything about golden ears but rather the simple ability to discern or interpret what we hear.  Without even basic audible discernment we probably would all derive at the same conclusions as you.  In other words, developing our ability to interpret what we hear helps us to realize just how far short of the mark a given playback system is. 

 

As for your plug for multi-channel, well, again you lack understanding of the severe distortions already plaguing virtually every last playback system and are compounded with every additional speaker, cable, and amplifier.  If the distortions are so severe with just 2-channels then, according to you, even more distortive channels will draw us closer to the live performance? 

 

Interesting.  Not surprising but interesting.

You aren't capable of following my logic based upon this post.  Your thinking on channel number is backwards.  Well heck most of it is backwards. 

[esldude]

On 12/17/2018 at 11:40 PM, esldude said:

I've done that test.  Using RCA interconnects wrapped around the actual power supply of a desktop PC you get some noise at audible levels though just barely audible.  Move cable 6 inches away and it drops into the thermal noise floor. 

 

Same test with balanced XLR cables wrapped 5 times around PC power supply and you get nothing above the noise floor.

 

In this particular case if there were any spikes above -130dbFS they would have shown up.  

 

If you are worried about noise pickup use balanced cabling.  Or keep your RCA cables a foot away and you'll have nothing to worry about. 

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2018/12/measurements-intel-i7-pc-and-raspberry.html

 

Good article on how choosy asynch USB and balanced vs RCA interconnects are to radiated noise or PC activity. 

[Ralf11]

Let's cut to the chase:

 

"even a computer that's not "optimized" for audio with ostensibly "noisy" hardware does not actually deteriorate measured playback quality nor actually worsen the noise floor much at all even when put under a very intense processing load. "