Is there anything better than Golden Ears?

[jaxvon]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting tired of this pointless flame war. Obviously Mr. Risch is set in his beliefs, as are those who are arguing against him. Sadly, no one is really saying anything on either side, so this is just a stagnant pool of hostile words and accusations. I'm tired of it. We all have much more productive things to do than argue over such a trivial subject.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Not quite the whole story mtry.

Oh, but it is. YOU have not demonstrated anything to third parties of interest. Vandy did not. He ran when challenged, by me, for that matter.

Other folks have published articles in popular press magazines, the same kinds of magazines that those null result cable tests you often cite, were done.
Home Theater magazine, HiFi News &RR, What HiFI, and several others have published articles on blind listening tests with positive results for cables.

Yes, you keep claiming this. Try to read them for yourself. I forgot, you cannot read them critically. It supports your claims, so it must have been done properly. BS.

These articles were no worse in terms of "science" than the very same articles you cite as evidence.

READ them.



Why would my anecdote be any more worthless than those from Nousaine,

You have not demonstrated anything to third parties. He has and will. He will sit with you and test you. WHEN???

You are right, I don't have to 'prove' those test results to anyone, I know the results were good, and I know the facts.

Well, you have a singular reality, worthless to anyone else.


Whether or not my conclusions are of any worth to anyone else, because they have not been duplicated by others, has absolutely nothing to do with whether my methods and procedures are of worth.

It has everything to do with it. No wonder you keep getting unreliable data. Worthless.


I repeat, you have not shown any good reasons to be saying things like that, you have not shown any problems or flaws in my paper, just made baseless claims that it has flaws and problems.[/]b

Yep, nothing will sink in with you, Jon.


Until you have provided some serious and significant evidence to show that my listening test methods are flawed,


Everyone seems to get all positive outcomes, close to 100% accuracy. Impossible, period. That by itself, without exaqmioning your paper is a clue.

 

[mtrycrafts]

AFAIK, Mr. Risch hasn't demonstrated that his cables are likely to sound different from Home Depot standard, based on the known reasons for cable difference. Thus Mr. Risch needs to have someone conduct or proctor a proper ('sterile') DBT, with him as the subject if he likes, to confirm his claim of audible difference.

THAT will never happen. He has had several offers in the past, time and expenses paid and he still is a no show, ala Sylvia Brown, although she did accept the challenge, Jon will never accept it as he would fall flat on his face as he cannot hear what he claims to hear. That is bankable

AND, he has stated that he has nothing to demonstrate or show others about his claimed prowess of perception.

So, in the end, he has an empty claim.



Btw, noted DAC engineer Dan Lavry and others on the ProSoundWeb board have weighed in on the subject of speaker cables, Cardas & MIT pseudoscience, etc
Cables - fact and fiction.

I think he would go ape sh.. over the AA cable forum LOL

 

[mtrycrafts]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting tired of this pointless flame war. Obviously Mr. Risch is set in his beliefs, as are those who are arguing against him. Sadly, no one is really saying anything on either side, so this is just a stagnant pool of hostile words and accusations. I'm tired of it. We all have much more productive things to do than argue over such a trivial subject.

Yes, sorry. Get carried away, from time to time.

 

[WmAx]

That's one of the problems isn't it, I can't even make such a statement, and some folks are trying to say I am lying, that I did not conduct said listening tests. That is a different issue altogether, and one that leads to the dark side of these debates.

You can make any statement(s) and(or) claim(s) that you like in regard to unproven cable sonics: do not expect them to be taken as credible until substantiation is provided. It's not personal, it's logic.

This is a common misconception: that somehow, the hearing thresholds, or the JND's for something, actyually have been correlated with what we hear with music, on any particular amp, CDP, or audio cable.

There has been no such correlation, no such papers, no such magic rossetta stone

You are straying off into a tangent. I am not discussing, specifically, any other factor(s) or threshold test(s). However, credible test(s) do exist for the known relevant factor(s) such as bandwidth, signal to noise, thd, imd, etc.. My reference to threshold(s) was intended to refer to showing correlation between a known JND and (a) specific cable effect(s). But, regardless, in a case of unsubstantiated claims, whether concerning cable audibility, or THD, the appropriate tests must have been carried out to move it beyond an idea/theory. Regardless of what you argue, this is the method generally accepted in the scientific world. If you ever want to move beyond being viewed as a speculator, you'll need to meet the burden(s) of substation, just like everyone else. Under what justification should your claims be accepted as an established fact by others when you have not provided substantiation?

Of course it matters, as I said: I am aware that what I claim is true. For me to ignore the information I posses, to ignore it as if it did not exist, or had not been obtained, would not only be unscientific in itself, but would be a deriliction of my responsibility as a scientist and an engineer.

But, without submitting data to prove such, it's equal to testimony/speculation.

Then why do these ABX/DBT's get used as if they were real evidence, by the cable naysayers, instead of presenting them as the uncertain evidence they actually represent.

I don't make it a point to defend everyone's ABX/DBT tests.

As for my listening tests, I did make an AES presentation on the methodology and procedures, none of which violate accepted scientific standards.

For the sake of discussion, let's assume the methodology you presented was valid: how does this substantiate your claim(s) of audibility concerning cable parameters that are previously unsubstantiated?

"The other aspect of all of this, is that, with one notable exception (an individual who has gone off on a crusade about me), EVERYONE who has ever built one of my DIY cable designs has been highly impressed, and again, there have been some open-minded folks on the fence, or even leaning anti-cable, that came away understanding and believing in cable sonics after building a set of my cables."

I'm willing to listen to anyone with substantiation; I consider every established threshold and/or parameter as being tentative, open to revision when better or new data collected under useful conditions comes along.

Science admits and accepts anecdotal evidence, and in the case of audio cables, where some folks try to make it seem that sonic differences are utterly ludicrous, it is relevant that many folks differ with that assessment.

Science does not admit pure anecdote with the same weight as observations made under proper controls, nor is anecdote accepted and assumed as fact. Anecdote, of course, is the basis of a theory. But it's a big step to move from theory to established fact that can be used reliably in a universal model.

-Chris

 

[WmAx]

Sadly, no one is really saying anything on either side, so this is just a stagnant pool of hostile words and accusations.

It seems you are generalizing. However, I would argue that it's not fair to throw me into this pot: I've made no hostile accusations. In addition, if you read my replies and don't find me "saying anything" of substance, I'll presume you are not actually reading my replies. I don't typically argue/debate on baseless grounds; I try to be as clear and logical as possible, debating the issue from a point of reason. I may stray when talking about some issues I consider personal(and are clearly labeled as such in my posts), but this is not one of them.

-Chris

 

[jaxvon]

Yeah, I was generalizing. But I must say, the majority of this thread is fluff. Yes Chris, I do agree that your posts are quite level-headed, logical, and substantive. Sorry if I offended you.

 

[Audioholics]

Keep in mind that we're not too quick to close threads here - obviously the ones participating want it to go on. The ones who are annoyed can simply ignore it.

Now if it deteriorates into a personal bashing fest with no actual discussion we'll certainly end it.

 

[zipper]

Just a word from a non-EE,audio enthusiast.............

Does the fact that one speaker cable sounds "different"(not better) than another warrant spending obscene amounts(to most) of cash on them? I would venture to say that for most in this hobby, this could be equated to putting a $3K paint job on a Chevette in the hopes that it would become aero-dynamically slicker, therefore making it that much faster. I'm not here to insult anyone, I just don't understand why someone would choose to approach sound improvement(?) from this angle.

I sure as hell can't hear the difference in 1 ft. of cable, mismatched or not. Then again, my entire sound system has only garnered about $5k from my wallet.............perhaps when I reach the $100K threshold I'll be concerned(or could afford to be) about what wire is serving my speakers.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I sure as hell can't hear the difference in 1 ft. of cable, mismatched or not. Then again, my entire sound system has only garnered about $5k from my wallet.............perhaps when I reach the $100K threshold I'll be concerned(or could afford to be) about what wire is serving my speakers.

The issue is not how expensive the system should be before one is concerned about speaker cable audibility characteristics but will any system respond to it or in fact, our hearing is the limiting factor. It is that.

 

[Mudcat]

You related to mtrycrafts or something?

No, thankfully. I think you and I are in complete agreement when I say I think mtry is a PITA (sometimes)

You too are making assumptions.

I was speaking of ADDING one foot of speaker cable to an existing cable (10 feet), specifically, one foot of Monster Original 12 ga. zip to one of my own CC89259 cables, as well as about the difference between a high quality shunt, and one foot of the same Monster cable.

Okay, here is your entire response to Soundripples with post 103790. The only cable mentioned was Canare 4S11, not anything else.

Through many years of experimentation, I have found that on a revealing system, one can "hear" the efects of as little as one foot of speaker cable. Is that one foot a sonic problem? Not for most folks, but it adds up with every additional foot of cable.
Would YOU hear a change from 11 feet of Canare 4S11 cable to 5 feet?
Possibly, but it wold depend to a large extent on just how good your system was, how well set-up, how many tweaks you have already applied, etc. It usually takes at least a 2 chanel system that cost more than $1000 in order to hear the benefits of better tha OEM IC's and simple zip cord speaker cables.

You have gone one step beyond simple zip cords, and have bi-wired as well. I think that if you can hear a change when you swap from single wiring to bi-wiring and vice versa, then you could probably hear the inmprovement if the length of your speaker cable was halved.

However, the placement of your rack in-between the speakers may cause more damage acoustically than you would gain with the shorter cables!
This assumes that your rack is now out of the way of the speakers, ideally, well behind them, or off totally to one side and away from the speakers.

If placing the rack inbetween the speakers would actually get it more "out of the way" acoustically, then this would also add to any improvement due to cables as well.

Finally, based on your other posts here, it sounds like you might like what adding the silver plated teflon 11 ga. cables in as the HF portion of a bi-wire would do, with the Canare re-wired to be an 11 ga. single cable for just the lows of the bi-wire. This might be the easiest thing to try first, if it doesn't sound as good to you, then try the 5 foot Canare approach.

So, what were you referring too? Definitely not adding any 12 awg zip wire to your own CC89259 cable.

After that, several folks requested anonyminity, due to the nasty response to Vandy. Others not related to that board have e-mailed me, gotten the info, and done the tests, and came back to me with results, but they also wished to remain anonyomous.
I can't blame them for wanting to remain below the radar from fools and jerks.

Yeah, I can understand that, there are an inordinate number of fools and jerks living on the CA at AA arn't there. Most of them are your acolytes.

Your response tends to reinforce my contention that cable naysayers are predisposed to ignore rersults they do not believe in. That is indeed a non-scientifc belief system..

My response was slanted toward pointing out that people who want to hear a difference will hear a difference whether a difference is there or not. I've stated this before and I'll state it again. I thinks cables can have different sonic properties when viewed in concert with the speaker and amp. Each component will have a set of very specific electrical properties (RLC) at a very specific frequency. So at say 8000 Hz cable A can deliver 1.83 volts to Speaker A's terminals from amp A, and cable D can deliver 2.01 volts while amp A's setting have remained the same. But cable D may only deliver 1.75 volts when used with speaker E and amp F. Well you see where I'm going. Now whether these differences are audible is another matter. I'm still trying to figure out the math and algorithms for all of this. When I get them, I'll be sure your the last to know.

Very simply, if you did not use Belden 89259, then you DID NOT make one of my DIY cable designs, only an unknown kinda-sorta approximation.

This is the kind of disingenious thinking that occurs all the time. In your mind, you duplicated my cables, but for the vast majority of folks who are into DIY audio, and cables, they would not consider them to be equivalent.

mtry thinks that others have conducted any sort of listening test (half-effort or not), therefore, they have duplicated mine. Another example of the shortsightedness of some folks, eh?

You have to DUPLICATE the experiment, you have to DUPLICATE the cable design, not what you THINK is the experiment, not what you think the cable design is. THAT is science.

Lets see, Belden 89259 is RG59/U 75 ohm coax with a 22 awg (7x30) stranded center conductor, the dialectric is PE, jacket is vinyl, nominal capacitance is 17.3 pF/ft. Shield is 95%

The cables I used are:

Alpha 9179
Alpha 9011
Something from Giant (I think it had a Belkin label, but not sure)

So yeah we did not use the same cable (I like stranded cables for flexibility), but since one of your acolytes is always calling me a champion of mediocrity, now is my turn to "turn the table" since you choose to use inferior products (well that may not be the case exactly, since Belden owns entirely or in part Alpha, but for the most part, Alpha has the Mil-Spec line up, Belden does not).

 

[philh]

This thread has actually been fun to read.

This came from another thread, that I started, but it's an important point, that just because someone says so, doesn't make it real.

http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina27.htm

Now, I noticed an improvement from 30 year old 16g zip cord to my home made CAT5 cables. I made the cables out of leftover CAT5, more for the fun of it then anything else. The configuration I put together was three CAT5 cables, removed from the jacket and braided together. I've been struggling to get this mechanical engineering brain around why there was a sound improvement, and the only thing that made sense came from Madisound. One of the engineers said there is some cross talk (inductance?) that can happen on zip cord and the design of CAT5 is to eliminate potential cross talk.

 

[J Risch]

Some cable physics

Now, I noticed an improvement from 30 year old 16g zip cord to my home made CAT5 cables. I made the cables out of leftover CAT5, more for the fun of it then anything else. The configuration I put together was three CAT5 cables, removed from the jacket and braided together. I've been struggling to get this mechanical engineering brain around why there was a sound improvement, and the only thing that made sense came from Madisound. One of the engineers said there is some cross talk (inductance?) that can happen on zip cord and the design of CAT5 is to eliminate potential cross talk.

Going from zip cord to braided CAT5 will lower the overall inductance, and by quite a bit.

For some discussion on cable inductance, see:
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/cables/messages/17.html

There are several things going on with braided CAT5.

First, you have multiple twisted pairs in parallel. Each twisted pair has it's own total inductance, but when paralleled N times, the individual wire pair inductance is reduced by L/N.

Second, the braiding keeps any given pair from staying in the middle of a bundle of wires, and this helps with the outside portion of the twisted pair that would be subjected the most to the other wire pair EM field's.
This also lowers inductance somewhat.

Finally, and the most controversial, is that with most CAT5, you have solid wires, instead of stranded wires. These solid wires are individually insulated, and thus, there is none of that awful (insert forbidden word here) - jumping occuring.

Jon Risch

 

[J Risch]

Wrong info

First, no where in my reply to Soundripples did I say that I was speaking of 1 added foot of Canare 4S11, in fact, I spoke quite deliberately in more general terms. I talked about "the effects of as little as 1 foot of speaker cable".
Now in this forum, after you asked the question, I provided a more detailed reply, with specifics. No contradiction, no mystery, nothing to get excited about.

Lets see, Belden 89259 is RG59/U 75 ohm coax with a 22 awg (7x30) stranded center conductor, the dialectric is PE, jacket is vinyl, nominal capacitance is 17.3 pF/ft. Shield is 95%

The cables I used are:

Alpha 9179
Alpha 9011
Something from Giant (I think it had a Belkin label, but not sure)

So yeah we did not use the same cable (I like stranded cables for flexibility), but since one of your acolytes is always calling me a champion of mediocrity, now is my turn to "turn the table" since you choose to use inferior products (well that may not be the case exactly, since Belden owns entirely or in part Alpha, but for the most part, Alpha has the Mil-Spec line up, Belden does not).

Sorry, Belden 89259 is not insulated with PE, but rather, with foamed FEP teflon. Regarding the other specs, you left of some of the more important ones: the conductors are all bare copper, no tinning, no silver plate, etc.

The Alpha 9179 uses TFE teflon insulation, but more important, it uses a silver plated copperweld center wire, which is essentially a steel cored wire. Not even hard-core cable naysayers recommend using steel-cored wire for speaker cables. Finally, the jacket for 9179 is TFE teflon, but you got the 89259 jacket wrong, it is solid FEP teflon.

Not the same as 89259, not even close.

As for the Alpha 9011, it uses tinned copper for the center wire, and solid PE for the center insulation. Jacket is PVC. Again, not the same as 89259.

RG numbers alone are not sufficient to properly identify or grade a cable for audio use, see:
http://www.AudioAsylum.com/audio/cables/messages/25155.html

Additionally, you did not mention twisting them together, if they were merely laid down nearby one another, some of the cross-connect inductance cancellation would not have occured.

So the bottom line is, you have NOT listened to my DIY speaker cable design, the cables you used did not have the correct materials.
Alas, this is all too common, even though you may claim, and even may think that you listened to my design, you have not.

Jon Risch

 

[gene]

Finally, and the most controversial, is that with most CAT5, you have solid wires, instead of stranded wires. These solid wires are individually insulated, and thus, there is none of that awful (insert forbidden word here) - jumping occuring.

Hi Jon, no controversy here. You are merely stating opinion in which everyone is entitled too.

 

[philh]

Finally, and the most controversial, is that with most CAT5, you have solid wires, instead of stranded wires. These solid wires are individually insulated, and thus, there is none of that awful (insert forbidden word here) - jumping occuring.

Jon Risch

Even this slow mechanical engineer isn't going to fall for the "jumping" phenomenon I'd sooner buy corner rocks to improve a rooms sonic capability, or a piece of magic plastic to improve my CD's

I had to turn the music to an unlistenable level and intentionally try and listen for individual instruments. There was a difference, but for normal listening, you couldn't convince me or anybody else there was a difference. That was far from being enjoyable.

Even this forum said CAT5 performed well. I thought it would be a fun experiment, and it was. there is no way I was going to spend any money for minor improvement.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Going from zip cord to braided CAT5 will lower the overall inductance, and by quite a bit.

So What? Fred Davis plotted cable responses due to inductance differences of 20X. Barely see it on the charts. You cannot even hear 20kHz, please. Do you even know the JND at 16kHz??? When you find out, lets talk about that inductance related roll off. YOU CANNOT HEAR IT!!!
You don't have the evidence that you can.

 

[Mudcat]

First, no where in my reply to Soundripples did I say that I was speaking of 1 added foot of Canare 4S11, in fact, I spoke quite deliberately in more general terms. I talked about "the effects of as little as 1 foot of speaker cable".

Jon, can't you even read your own post? Apparently not.

Sorry, Belden 89259 is not insulated with PE, but rather, with foamed FEP teflon. Regarding the other specs, you left of some of the more important ones: the conductors are all bare copper, no tinning, no silver plate, etc.

The Alpha 9179 uses TFE teflon insulation, but more important, it uses a silver plated copperweld center wire, which is essentially a steel cored wire. Not even hard-core cable naysayers recommend using steel-cored wire for speaker cables. Finally, the jacket for 9179 is TFE teflon, but you got the 89259 jacket wrong, it is solid FEP teflon.

Not the same as 89259, not even close.

As for the Alpha 9011, it uses tinned copper for the center wire, and solid PE for the center insulation. Jacket is PVC. Again, not the same as 89259.

No arguement, I got to get me an updated Ugly's or Ryerson's (if they're even printed any more).

Additionally, you did not mention twisting them together, if they were merely laid down nearby one another, some of the cross-connect inductance cancellation would not have occured.

Four twists per foot, them wraped up with the dreaded plumbers teflon tape (more flexible than vinyl electrical tape).

So the bottom line is, you have NOT listened to my DIY speaker cable design, the cables you used did not have the correct materials.
Alas, this is all too common, even though you may claim, and even may think that you listened to my design, you have not.

I will though, and I'll bet that any improvements over Sound King 10 or 12 awg zip wire and insignificant, inaudible, imaginary, and can be measured.

TTFN