i am an electrical engineer so HARD DATA and actual measurments are very important to me but when it comes to audio equipment it is a very difficult thing to measure. the human ear is an extrmely sophicated device. you may build a speaker that has a perfectly flat response across all frequencinces and it could still sound like crap to most people. almost all major speaker manufactures (and cable manufactures) use actual listening sessions to evalute their products because measurements alone are not enough.
with all that being said, my best advice for anyone is to try stuff out for your self. everyone hears things differently, and different equipment combinations, including SPEAKER CABLE does make a difference.
I need to totally disagree with you on this, especially since or in spite of you being an EE.
I would say with high degree of confidence that you have no or minimal immersion into human psychology, bias and human gullibility, the Barnum Effect.
If you did, you would know that human bias is innate, subconscious with no on/off switch and this is a gotcha, big time. FMW made mention to this.
OK, hard data is important to you in your field. Great. Now that you venture into audio listening, what hard data or any data can you share that shows audible differences between comparable cables? Have you tried to compare any of your wires and components, level matched and under double blind conditions? I bet not as then you would be singing a different tune most likely. Have you researched what data there might be out there about this?
Being an EE, or a PhD, for that matter, is no guarantee or gives one immunity from being biased and leaving their baloney detection bag at the office, as Carl Sagan was used to say.
Then you go on about the ear, how sophisticated it is. Yes, but it has short coming, lots of it, in fact, especially being connected to the brain that abhors blank data fields so it fills them in with anything, imagination.
Acoustic researchers know this well. Have you investigated this at all? After all, it is important to listening to audio.
Then you mention speakers with flat response and what people prefer. Have you consulted research what people really prefer, or just going along with the audiophile flow?
Just a small snippet form the research at NRC Canada
• These tests determined that the characteristics that people preferred in speakers were:
- Low Distortion
- Flat Response and wide bandwidth
- Wide Dispersion
Obviously the research disagrees with your assessment on the subject.
Yes, speaker companies use listening tests as do some component designers. Cable companies do listening tests? Is that a joke? You got to be kidding me.
And the question I have is that do you know how those listening tests are conducted or just guessing?
Perhaps you should read some AES Journal articles, specifically by Dr. Floyd Toole how those listening tests are conducted. Interesting reading to be sure.
And, maybe you will be shocked that measurements do correlate very well with what you do hear. It is a shocker, I know. Or, maybe it may be too much of a shocker for some.
Once you do some of the component comparisons properly, perhaps you will have a different message to the new posters here and the old times as well. We'll see. Or, you may want to ask FMW, a former gullible audiophile until he was enlightened first hand.
Thanks for posting
