I did visit your website and I see you are not averse to a challenge . . . . .
Well then here is YOUR challenge to win a cheque for a £1,000 from me. Come to my home with your "£2.00 quality nickel plated phono lead" and your freebie kettle cord and for good measure also bring what you consider to be a no-nonsense speaker cable. You will actually need 2 of your interconnects and 4 of the kettle leads to swap the cable loom in my system to keep it simple because my hi-fi is wired stem to stern with this overhyped voodoo wire. No conditions, no trickery or magic, just a simple cable loom swap and listen to the results.
If I am wrong, you stand to get that cheque for £1,000 and unlimited bragging rights which no doubt you will fully exploit until the sun goes cold, but if I win the challenge it will cost you . . . . . nothing.
Now you act like a red rag to a bull - 'If I am wrong, you stand to get that cheque for £1,000'
If I am wrong about exactly what, a one way bet. If I am wrong then nothing, and if you can hear no difference then £1000 my way, interesting.
So where are you in the country?
Please explain the sentence, 'unlimited bragging rights which no doubt you will fully exploit until the sun goes cold', apart from the 10 trillion years that may take, do I brag on this forum, I do talk about my work as I think it relates to the question in hand, and on the site , yes I am proud to 'get there in the end', but bragging for the sake of it, no.
John...
PS Is the challenge something like, you leave the room, I swap some cables all carefully out of site, you return and tell me the changes?
My reference John to "unlimited bragging rights until the sun goes cold" is what is commonly known as HUMOUR Lighten up, you take yourself too seriously IMHO.
Location is Cornwall.
You arrive with bag of your cables, I welcome you with a smile and a warm handshake and offer you a cup of coffee. Your cables get plugged in to my system, we listen, change to my set of cables, we listen, your jaw drops and we agree a verdict. Switch system off, place kettle cords only back into the system and retire from the listening room to the kitchen 20 feet away. Listen. Replace sooper dooper power cords and return to the kithen. Listen. You shake head in disbelief. I tell you the next time you go to a hi-fi show, stand in the corridor and listen to the sound coming from the rooms without entering and playing "Identify the sooper dooper cables" and getting it right every time because you know what to listen out for. You pack up your set of cables, we shake hands and you leave without a cheque for £1,000 from me. Challenge complete. You go home and design a piece of equipment that can capture the essence of why cables do sound different. You become a millionaire overnight because every cable vendor on the planet will want your machine for a start and it will revolutionise the way CD players, DAC's, pre and power amps even speakers are also measured for their performance because the current set of measurements are primitive, outdated and not really relevant to the way a component actually SOUNDS so the world's hi-fi press will certainly want one each. If you can do that it will have been more than worth the risk of losing a £1,000 cheque
Oh and I nearly forgot, every forum owner too will be so pleased that this machine you have designed has settled the never ending cable debates once and for all so their bandwidth usage drops dramatically
Mind you, what will the cable cynics do then? Perhaps they should redirect their bile towards more worthwhile causes like curing cancer, child abuse, cruelty to animals, debunking cosmetics claims, genetic engineering issues, poverty, GM crops, mortality, natural disasters, environmental issues, you know the really important things in life
Yea O.K. I get the point, maybe I am not 'light hearted enougth' on these matters.
I am however surprised at your confidence in the differences heard.
Whilst I love Cornwell, it would for me be about a two day trip, there and back, I am in North London, I do have friends in North Devon, maybe an outing from there one day.
I also think if you would like a 'jaw dropping experience' then listen to my system.
So far comments like:-
This cannot be true, I never thought Hi Fi could be this good.
That is amazing, inner detail like that I have never heard before.
I could listen to this for hours.
And the one I like most is, can we hear that 'Dire Straits' track yet again
A mate from A.C. Lighting & Sound (special projects manager) was here recently, and after hearing one track, got up and searched the room for the 'back' speakers and the surround sound system. So convinced that what he heard could not possibly come from just two front speakers.
Despite my neighbours constant complaints, to me it sounds quite quiet, maybe the result of 'no harshness' and the unending supply of inner detail that is far more engrossing than the overall sound level.
However on measuring the overall sound pressure in the room, it actually rarly goes beyond 85dB, so allowing say 20dB between floors then a hardly disturbing mid evening experience.
I place the results on two key components, Tripath class 'T' amplifier, and Magnat Vintage 650 speakers, those two items alone define the sound, no cables, no magic, no voodoo, simple honest good engineering.
The speakers claim a response from 27Hz to beyond 30KHz, the amp has no crossover artifacts, that in itself explains the incredible 'inner detail' that I hear.
Cable - Speaker, Maplin 50P a metre, interconnects about £5, mains leads whatever was lying about, equipment stands - none, a shelf on the wall.
Other relevant points, good room acoustics, one wall completely curtain, another with four 'Skyline' sound diffusers, next a local artists oil painting mounted in a 'block' and filled with sound absorbent material, coming soon.
What more could you ask of a sound system, it lightens my days, it impresses all that hear it, and it didn't cost a fortune, and it has no overpriced cables???
Frank - you present a rather odd invective for one whose stance is well away from perceived wisdom. If special cables make you happier in your little world, who am I to stop you? But please, do attempt to present this claptrap as though science was on your side; it is not.
Please point me to even ONE quality citation of a test that supports your position - that is all I ask. The audio press and web is full of individuals like yourself who shout their version of the "facts" from the rooftops, yet who writhe and squirm when asked to produce one shred of proper experimental evidence in support of their position.
Merely sitting in your listening room when you know which cables are in situ is, by itself, no test at all. All such a test is likely to achieve is to have you saying to your opponent, "if you can't hear the difference you must be deaf".
Are you willing to attempt such a test under blind conditions?
John, my confidence isn't at all misguided I promise, these differences are way about what you would expect. The cables I have now are the culmination of a long search and I'll be quite honest too by saying some very high priced cables HAVE been no better I expect that the ones you personally use and that's probably where this generally held perception comes from, hence my cryptic remark about finding the ones that do work as claimed. My system is pretty humble, but the cable loom that I have is rather exceptional trust me. As fine as your system undoubtedly is already, these cables would also turn it into something exceptional there is no doubt at all.
Pluto, I'll extend the same open challenge to you also. While you are hear I'll show you the results of the blind tests I have carried out.
The trouble is with the "official" recorded blind tests is they have all been flawed, so what's the point in finding instances for you to peruse? They are flawed because the samples being tested are not necessarily representative of a good performing product - fact. Secondly, every test I have analysed has been flawed because the human psychology aspect was ignored and too much emphasis placed upon the equipment and test measurements.
I have never once challenged or ridiculed science either, but what I am saying is traditional LCR measurements of cables are primitive in the extreme and cannot account for the differences being heard. Not by me alone, not by tens, not by hundreds or thousands, but by millions of individuals worldwide across different cultures too.
Now then, I am going to spend some quality time with the missus and tomorrow is my birthday so tara for now.
You make the point 'traditional LCR measurements of cables are primitive in the extreme'. so what tests do you have in mind, what aspects of a cable do you feel are important.
Is there some other 'dimension' that science has missed over the past 100 years that you know about, and what is that. If it can not be described in terms of L,C & R then what are you describing, is there another parameter that, over the past 100 years, has not been noticed, then what is it. I ask out of curiosity only, if there is another factor then I would love to research it, and find some correlation, and answers.
Unfortunately so far I haven't, but that does not mean that I have given up, no, only to state that 'so far' I have found nothing to contradict the present measurements L,C,R, and nothing to suggest that the methods used are 'missing the point'.
Perhaps you could explain the unexplainable, the non L,C,R characteristic that you hear, to my knowledge a cable only has these characteristics, if I've missed a point then please enlighten me.
Maybe you have some results/figures/measurements/proof that shows otherwise, OK lets see them, lets publish them, and lets get this subject 'buttoned up'
I have to admit that I am getting rather bored by this continuing discussion over matters that were not even mentioned in the Hi Fi press 20 years ago, when reproduction hit it's peak, and to my mind, has never really improved.
It took nearly 200 years before it was realised current flows in the OPPOSITE direction to that which was believed
If I knew those answers I would be making those millions myself and not giving the secrets away. The answer though will lie through "thinking out of the box" rather than pursuing the LCR route because those are strictly linear measurements whereas what we are looking to measure are not. That's a bit like looking for crocodiles at the north pole, hence every effort at LCR culminates in a dead end.
We haven't got off first base yet in answering the question "do cables makes a difference in sound perception?" If the answer is "Yes" THEN go on to look for the causes because then you are no longer chasing spooks but a real quarry.
I agree John, the arguement is getting nowhere and we're going round in ever decreasing circles.
I think it maybe safer for the two sides of this arguement to agree to disagree.
At the end of the day its up to the individual concerned how their money is spent, if you feel it worthwhile then great!!
I personally will be sticking to the proven, measurable facts and continuing to use suitably rated copper cables.
As i see it theres nothing to discuss, provided a mains lead supplies power without significant voltage drop, then its done its job. I matters not one bit whether its made of silver, copper or wet spaghetti provided its resistance is low enough. L & C dont really come into it with mains leads anyway, the cable is only carrying 50 or 60 Hz, so unless it's many miles long, the values of L & C present are of no significance.
However at the T6 stage I am in now, I feel particularly that the original discussion should be kept alive.
If anyone out there can give me a clue as to what these unmeasurable differences are, maybe a 'group awareness' of what I am missing, even a slight inclination of what I should be looking for, then I will look, I will measure, I will research.
I would dearly love to conjure up the magic 'cable diagnostics box' that we all would like to see.
Forget the financial rewards, I have had them enough though actual electronic designs, I want to prove facts, and take a 'snake oil' company to court over their 'outlandish' claims, not necessarily to win but to highlight the ridiculousness of their claims, and to increase public awareness of the scams that abound, not just in Hi Fi but in all areas of life. Financial loans are high on the list, insurance scams are next, and there are very many - based on untruths - lies - and downright deception.
Maybe I have only looked at the Hi Fi ones but a'm sure there are very many.
Of cause this is IMO so any reply would probably be IYO, though actual examples are very welcome.
We haven't got off first base yet in answering the question "do cables makes a difference in sound perception?" If the answer is "Yes" THEN go on to look for the causes because then you are no longer chasing spooks but a real quarry.
Unfortunately mate I have never seen or heard any differences that substantiates your claims, by experiment, by research, by tests and by web searches.
So what exactly are you claiming, that you can hear an - unmeasurable, un proven, un explainable, un repeatable and un testable difference.
O.K. so what do you hear that is so different, that I have never heard, I would love to know, I would love to hear, I would love to understand.
An answer would bring me closer to the ultimate cable measuring system!!!
As you well know everything can be calulated from LCR values, so in theory you just need an LCR bridge, however, there's nothing like seeing a plot on a screen. Perhaps an audio network analyser? From my design days (mainly RF) we used to test cables, amongst other, things on a hewlett packard network analyser. This would provide real time, on screen, frequency/phase/reflection response plots as well as smith charts. It did throw up some odditys from time to time but that was in the 500MHz upwards region, not at audio frequencies. The most notable oddity was a sharp 2db drop at multiples of 520MHz when right angle connectors were used, not that it's likely to happen at the frequencies we're taking about here.
Unfortunately the 'subjectivist's, do not believe that everything can be described from LCR values, they believe a new 'X' factor explains the differences they hear.
So far no one has come up with any reason for the 'X' factor, no answers have been offered for the 'X' factor, no one can measure it, no one can hear it, no one can quantify it.
But it is a major reason for spending many hundreds or thousands of pounds on the unexplainable 'X' factor.
Maybe in the next couple of years I will market the 'Y' factor.
This will take the form of 'a hearing enhancement drug', beautifully packaged, with many testimonials as to it's effectiveness, and maybe sell it though the major 'snake oil' vendors. RA comes to mind!
This would take the form of a beautifully sculptured pill or maybe a taste strip as are sold to give you an instant 'hard on', apparently works on the girlies as well
The pill could be 'nice tasting' and of course extremely expensive.
But you would only need one for a complete evening of 'Hi Fi bliss' 'Nevana' 'the ultimate sonic experience' etc.
I think £99.99 a pop would not be unreasonable, but lets not be greedy, say £99.99 for a pack of 20 sugar pills, cost to me - maybe 10p, about the same markup as is often done with exotic cables
Any ideas on this, a total placebo, a complete joke, a money making scam, like so many others, maybe I could be a millionaire before retiring
I was thinking along the lines of manfacturing some old practical wireless valve amp in a nice looking chassis, preferably a single ended design which audiophiles love for its non-symetrical saturation of the output transformer and the distortion and intermod products it brings. While i was about it i thought i would leave out the negative feedback, another sought after feature recognisable by the lack of a decent damping factor and a gain which wanders with time and temperature. I also thought a valve rectifier would be good too as for some reason it seems desirable along with the HT sag that comes with it, but ive heard on the grapevine that people are spending thousands on power leads for solid state equipment in a vain attempt to reduce the very same thing so im a bit unsure on that one. I thought a price tag of ten grand would be quite reasonable until i heard your idea, what a cracker!!! I'm in on that one, my sister's a pharmacologist i'm sure she'd help us out.
This is going against what I have done for many many years and that is doing nothing whatsoever on my birthday, but when I get so many thread notification emails in my inbox and come to see what has gone on here I have to respond.
I sit here with head in hands in disbelief when I read some of the utter tosh you people can write which amply demonstrates your thought processes. That isn't being offensive just for the sake of it by the way, it just highlights just how tight the lid is on the box you keep thinking within! I see bias, prejudice, conjecture, supposition, blanket derision, you name it it's there except for some logical thinking. Not one single "maybe" or "what if" and that's the part which saddens me most. For goodness sake, nobody yet has the nous to ask what my system is or even what cables I use, that's how arrogant and blinkered you gentleman are. Your work experiences drives you down that single narrow track of not even caring to ask because you already know all the answers. Carry on, don't let spoil your obvious fun.
It's a good job Alexander Fleming started thinking out of the box otherwise we wouldn't have penicillin that saved thousands of lives and gave us modern antibiotics. Good job too old Einstein could also think out of the box isn't it otherwise we would still be fighting the second world war. One day someone will think out of the box again and tell us what gravity actually is, maybe cure cancer, eliminate AIDS and master the human aging process. Cables are small fry compared to all those, but the prevailing attitude here isn't.
Lighten up, you take yourself too seriously IMHO.
