Whoa! I did not see that coming. Prof is back, tan and rested and firing on all cylinders. 😛 I hate to judge before all the facts are in but it appears he wants to turn this place into a peer review council with himself as head peer reviewer.
The Science of Cables
It seems to me that there is too little scientific, objective evidence for why cables sound the way they do. When I see discussions on cables, physical attributes are discussed; things like shielding, gauge, material, geometry, etc. and rarely are things like resistance, impedance, inductance, capacitance, etc. Why is this? Why aren’t cables discussed in terms of physical measurements very often?
Seems to me like that would increase the customer base. I know several “objectivist” that won’t accept any of your claims unless you have measurements and blind tests. If there were measurements that correlated to what you hear, I think more people would be interested in cables.
I know cables are often system dependent but there are still many generalizations that can be made.
Seems to me like that would increase the customer base. I know several “objectivist” that won’t accept any of your claims unless you have measurements and blind tests. If there were measurements that correlated to what you hear, I think more people would be interested in cables.
I know cables are often system dependent but there are still many generalizations that can be made.
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prof
Claims about cables, especially extraordinary claims, ought to be able to pass the same vetting method as any other science.Agreed. But why is it that those who call for this vetting seem to always require that others do the work? Erik even has a thread called, "How I would measure audio cables" and he says it would be "super easy" to do. But: He can't be bothered. |
cleeds, You keep raising that question, even though it's been answered a number of times. Here we go again.... You assume people skeptical about boutique cable claims haven't 'done the work.' But note that most of the skepticism comes from the engineering world in which people work with the electrical theories in question. It is from an understanding - theoretical and practical - of how electrical components work that many EEs and other technically qualified skeptics conclude many audiophile claims are bogus. The "work" on electrical theory and cables has essentially "been done."At least, this is a common position of most EE skeptics I've read. Further, there have been plenty of technically knowledgeable skeptics who HAVE done technical and blind testing of cable claims. Someone has posted quite a few here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/ Science oriented web sites like Hydrogen Audio contain plenty of technical tests on audio components, including cables, and blind test results of all sorts of audio components. You can find more technical tests on Audio Science Review, and on Archimego's blog. More recently, skeptic Ethan Winer has proposed a null test for cable claims...and you can see videos of him showing the results. I myself have, as I've explained before, blind-tested cables and other devices. So this objection you continually raise...as if it had any force...just seems ignorant of all the reasons skeptics give for rejecting many of the claims from high end cable companies, and the knowledge, and work, those objections are based upon. |
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