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Most Important, Unloved Cable...

Ethernet. I used to say the power cord was the most unloved, but important cable. Now, I update that assessment to the Ethernet cable. Review work forthcoming. 

I can't wait to invite my newer friend who is an engineer who was involved with the construction of Fermilab, the National Accelerator Lab, to hear this! Previously he was an overt mocker; no longer. He decided to try comparing cables and had his mind changed. That's not uncommon, as many of you former skeptics know. :)

I had my biggest doubts about the Ethernet cable. But, I was wrong - SO wrong! I'm so happy I made the decision years ago that I would try things rather than simply flip a coin mentally and decide without experience. It has made all the difference in quality of systems and my enjoyment of them. Reminder; I settled the matter of efficacy of cables years before becoming a reviewer and with my own money, so my enthusiasm for them does not spring from reviewing. Reviewing has allowed me to more fully explore their potential.  

I find fascinating the cognitive dissonance that exists between the skeptical mind in regard to cables and the real world results which can be obtained with them. I'm still shaking my head at this result... profoundly unexpected results way beyond expectation. Anyone who would need an ABX for this should exit the hobby and take up gun shooting, because your hearing would be for crap.  
douglas_schroeder
teo_audio
932 posts
 

Next stop, controlled blind testing.


The next problem is that peer reviewed meta testing in parapsychology circles has found that reality is formed around projection and opinion. That unassailably perfected scientific tests are fundamentally violated by expectation bias and projection.

That expectation bias makes things real. As seriously as you can imagine, that point, as a fundamental and firmament point ...in 3-d time-space ’reality’ as we like to call it. No joke. As many times as they cared to try to gain some form of stability in testing, it simply could not work. Science and facts took the big one ---in the ass.

Where does that leave facts and science? It leaves it as reality.... but it also leaves it (reality) as group bias and group consensus.

It leaves sciences and the idea of facts... freaking out...mumbling in a hole writing manifestos... in an aura of projected enforcement. Of a thing that simply cannot be. The fundamental in why engineers are taught law while physicists are taught that no facts exist, only theory. Because the heights of science know ....that facts do not exist. At all. Facts are just theory that is true most of the time, very very much most of the time. But that this premise of ’facts’... can fail--and does.

A bit of a problem for some of the more literal minded....

https://phys.org/news/2017-01-reveals-substantial-evidence-holographic-universe.html
tubegroover
2,279 posts
 
Too bad indeed Teo_audio, I really wish you hadn't as it really summarized in a way I could never articulate the whole crux of the issue, great post and very thoughtful, if you still have it post again!
teo_audio
932 posts
 
I'd love to.... but it makes me a target, for those who drive their little flesh carts in the way they do....
clearthink
672 posts
 
'"How about this. We setup your DAC and Streamer into an ADC and we setup my $250 computer into your DAC and into an ADC. Capture 9 tracks with one system. 1 track with the other. You can then analyze however you would like for as long as you like (you won't know which is which) and let us know which track is different from the other 9 and if it's the track from the $250 system or your streamer. "

While I applaud this contributors' apparent sincere effort to objectively test and verify his theory that there is no audible difference between technically competent ethernet cables when used in a Music Reproduction System, this proposed testing protocol is not valid for several reasons including the simple fact that it is not double-blind. There is no reason to attempt to invent a new scientifically valid listening test when the work towards that end has already been so expertly accomplished. A relatively simple ABX test can test this contributors' hypothesis with a high degree of scientific certainty that the outcome will be valid. I say "relatively simple" because of course you would need a proper ABX comparator and you would need to level-match the two signals to within a tight tolerance and you would need to provide a listening venue that would accommodate the listener but there is no need to do anything other than that and in fact any proposed alternative testing protocol would itself have to be established as scientifically valid which this proposed protocol would probably not be considered because it is so suspect on so many points. However this contributor is to be congratulated for at least trying to move this conversation towards a scenario that could yield a scientifically valid, repeatable test that would produce results that would carry a high level of certainty as to they're validity. While congratulations to him are indeed in order I must also caution that his strict enthusiasm for what he believes to be the obvious truth of his hypothesis strongly suggest that he suffers extreme bias in this instance and should be disqualified from formulating the test but could perhaps participate in the testing as an observer or contributor. There are experts in designing, planning, organizing, establishing, conducting, monitoring and evaluating blind testing protocols and that is who we should seek to be involved in this exploration the result of which cannot be established at this time with scientific certainty based on the facts now in evidence in this discussion.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
There it is! Did I call that one or not? It was just a matter of time. The Appeal to Controlled Blind Testing argument. One of the most oft used logical fallacies of them all.

😀

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