John Dunlavy On "Cable Nonsense"

Gregm, I could not agree more. As my system evolved into the current collage of stuff, I tried different cables to achieve the sound that I desired. I have a mixture of silver plated and plain copper. What I use is not important to this discussion but the fact that they work in my system is. I have taken some cables to other systems and found the synergy is not there. I can clearly identify with the concept of matching cables to a system and the owner's taste.

No way to quote an earlier post...

Unfortunately there's no way to *quote* a previous post
in order to respond - like you can do on a usenet newsgroup by hittin the "reply" button... Grungle, I was responding to
your post and copied parts of it in order to make point by point responses... sorry if it caused confusion...

plus it looks like the software quotes the first few words of your post to make a title...thus my first line above!

:- )

JHunter wrote...

-->
Bear is up to his usual "debating" tactics. If decades+ of established acoustics
methodology and all the evidence (from scientifically valid testing) goes against
you, then just claim that the testers don't have a system with sufficient
resolution. Could you give us an example of a system that you feel does have
sufficient resolution? <--

I'm not sure what you mean, since I am relatively new here on Audiogon...

But, the published tests quote the systems that are used for the "testing." so it is fairly simple and easy to determine what level of resolution they are capable of.

As I have stated earlier, the limiting factors are: A) your hearing, B) the system and C) the source.

I have also said that it is far easier to hear very subtle
changes on an instantaneous basis when listening to PINK NOISE, as compared to *any* musical source. None of these tests involved any Pink noise.

HOWEVER, what counts in terms of long term listening is how much 'internal brain processing' is required for your concious to figure out what it is hearing! That is the difference between systems - nothing more.

It does NOT require a high-end system for you to recognize speech - a telephone is good enough. You can listen to a tiny 2" TV speaker and understand what is going on. Right?

So, the point that I make is that thus far the systems used for these tests are at minimum *questionable* in terms of ultimate quality and resolution, AND the source material is also questionable. SO, the conclusions drawn are valid ONLY for the specific TESTING that was done, nothing more.

JUST to exagerrate for clarity, IF the cable 'tests' were done with 2" TV speakers, it is very unlikely that anyone could possibly hear any differences, right?

This is clear.

As far as a "system" that I think has sufficient resolution, there are all sorts of candidates that I think would likely do the job. But, there is little point in quoting a list of components, as that is NOT the point at all. Needless to say, IMHO, none of these candidates were utilized in said published tests.

The point is to truly understand the limitations of published tests, and what they mean in reality.

Bear, by "internal brain processing", do you mean familiairity leads to recognition?

Ah, gotcha Bear. It's even more confusing in that we both use CAPS for EMPHASIS.

Doc Warnock, good point about practicality. I was geting carried away because I just finished a statistics course. I was all ready to wip out the null hypothesis, sample size, and a confidence interval...bunch a' greek letters too.
The point being that anecdotal evidence isn't really that strong, and enjoyable as they may be, these arguments can't be satisfactoraly settled without something more rigorus. Even then people would keep setting up straw men, flawed analogies, etc. so they won't have to change their comfy little outlooks.
Anyway, until I can at least try this stuff out properly for myself, I'm going to side with the skeptics and spend my resources elsewhere.