doctor_big wrote: > A point - I like nice, thick, well-made cables, ones that cost a lot of > money (which I can afford). I liken it to putting proper P0 tires on my > Maserati. Would General tires from Green and Ross do just as well for > way less money? Probably. Would I notice a difference? Probably not. > But I'm not gonna do it. I would KNOW they're sub-par for the car. > Same with my stereo. I won't put zip cord between my tube mono amp and > my $30k speakers. Does the cable I have in there now sound better than > zip cord? Seems to me like it does. Could I pick it out in an ABX > test? No goddamn way - I'm not stupid. But still, I think it sounds > best with these here high-end cables, so I'm going to leave them in. It > works for me. > Jason
I don't believe that is an appropriate analogy since there may, in fact, be very differences between the two brands of tires. And besides no one here is claiming that zip cord makes a good speaker cable. What many of us believe and what science backs up is that the differences between to well made speaker cables are not audible. Perhaps a more appropriate analogy might be that one goes out an buys a super expensive gold plated bathroom faucet and then tells the plumber to replace all the piping supplying the faucet with larger, gold plated piping since the expensive gold plated faucet will work better with expensive large gold plated supply piping. doctor_big wrote: > Yes, yes, yes. I understand scientific method. But you (again, your > group) are agenda driven. I've seen the "tests" you perform where you > set up two utterly different systems - one lo-fi, one upper-mid-fi, and > abx them behind a screen. You trot out a bunch of audiophiles who are > utterly wamboozled and unable to differentiate which one is X. > > I've taken these tests and know how incredibly difficult they are, even > when there's an easily-verifiable difference waiting to be noticed. If > you're not practiced at it -- really well practiced -- you're gonna flub > the test. > > So, I am quite convinced by my own experience that ABX is not a valid > test for subtle differences in audio. JH901 or whatever his name is, is > trying to set up an ABX test using cables. Without even knowing the > scenario in detail, I do know that if he sets the test up correctly he's > going to fail miserably. Does that mean there's no difference? I > really don't know. I hear differences in cables, but I can't say for > sure whether it's expectation bias or a real difference that flies under > the ABX radar. I suspect the latter, but have no way of proving it. > I'm not about to spend my time and money trying to figure out how better > to run or create a test, but my suspicions are, I feel, the basis for > audiophile's rejection of ABX. It seems wrong, and nobody's trying to > figure out anything better. There's no money in it, so nobody's putting > effort into it. > > As I stated up front, I feel that you're 100% agenda driven, so I don't > expect you to find any merit in what I'm saying, but I had to try. I'm > gone now, until my blood pressure boils up again in a month or so. > > Jason > > Edit: last word - I promise (myself). Just because you have a > background in science doesn't mean you aren't agenda driven or biased. > Wakefield was a scientist, right? Remember him? The autism/MMR guy? A > background in science doesn't grant you a free pass. I do believe that you are onto something there but outside of carefully controlled double blind listening tests there really isn't much else to go on other than anecdotal evidence. And I agree that ABX tests can often be misleading since not all possibilities can be accounted for, in other words, a passage of music that might reveal a real difference may not be used during the test. Kind of like how test driving a car on a bright sunny day tells you nothing about how the car behaves on a rainy night. Oh no I may have incurred the wrath of Arnyk so Arny if you disagree with what I've said please tell me how one can conduct an ABX which accounts for these possibilities. Living Rm: Transporter-SimAudio pre/power amps-Vandersteen 3A Sign. & sub Home Theater: Touch-Marantz HTR-Energy Veritas 2.1 & Linn sub Computer Rm: Touch-Headroom Desktop w/DAC-Aragon amp-Energy Veritas 2.1 & Energy sub Bedroom: Touch-HR Desktop w/DAC-Audio Refinement amp-Energy Veritas 2.0 Guest Rm: Duet-Sony soundbar Garage: SB3-JVC compact system Controls: iPeng; SB Controller; Moose & Muso Server: SBS on dedicated windows 7 computer w/2 Drobos 'Last.fm' (http://www.last.fm/user/jazzfann/) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=103950 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
