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Why do audiophiles elevate their cables? - Page 3

post #31 of 118
2/8/08 at 5:10pm
Is the criticism based on the idea that this stuff in fact has no discernible effect, or the idea that the effect is so negligible that no 'rational' person would care?
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post #32 of 118
2/8/08 at 5:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quirk View Post
Is the criticism based on the idea that this stuff in fact has no discernible effect, or the idea that the effect is so negligible that no 'rational' person would care?

My position is that many of the whacked-out mods and such often address sounds outside the range of normal human hearing ...
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post #33 of 118
2/8/08 at 6:23pm
http://www.bybeetech.com/ourtech.asp


I love the utterly incorrect quantum physics babble they toss around on this one, while making it seem legit by interspersing it in with actual, but irrelvent physics.
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post #34 of 118
2/8/08 at 7:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quirk View Post
Is the criticism based on the idea that this stuff in fact has no discernible effect, or the idea that the effect is so negligible that no 'rational' person would care?

Both, and obviously those lines overlap. Even if there is a very small percentile of the human population who can tell the difference in some of these mods, there's also a hell of a lot of people who are talking themselves into hearing the difference.
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post #35 of 118
2/8/08 at 9:13pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian278 View Post
Both, and obviously those lines overlap. Even if there is a very small percentile of the human population who can tell the difference in some of these mods, there's also a hell of a lot of people who are talking themselves into hearing the difference.

Most people can learn critical listening skills. You don't need golden ears to hear differences. You just need to love music and listen closely and a whole new world will open up for your ears.

There is a lot of snake oil out there but some things like cable elevation, power conditioning and better cables are very, very effective but difficult to explain to those without experience.
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post #36 of 118
2/8/08 at 9:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artisan Fan View Post
Most people can learn critical listening skills. You don't need golden ears to hear differences. You just need to love music and listen closely and a whole new world will open up for your ears.

There is a lot of snake oil out there but some things like cable elevation.

I thought the elevation point was exploded in the first few posts to this thread.
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post #37 of 118
2/8/08 at 10:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artisan Fan View Post
There is a lot of snake oil out there but some things like cable elevation, power conditioning and better cables are very, very effective but difficult to explain to those without experience.

I have no time for anything less than very, very, very effective tweaks.

--Andre
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post #38 of 118
2/8/08 at 11:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RJman View Post
I thought the elevation point was exploded in the first few posts to this thread.

You'll never explode any of this stuff. There are people that believe in it, just like there are people that believe in god. All the double-blind experiments in the world will not convince them. There are actually people that spend 200k on cables for their audio systems. We're talking cables that cost several thousand dollars PER FOOT.
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post #39 of 118
2/8/08 at 11:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quirk View Post
Is the criticism based on the idea that this stuff in fact has no discernible effect, or the idea that the effect is so negligible that no 'rational' person would care?

As Brian said, both. However, I'll go further -- the effect may be so trivial that only instruments can detect it, or that it's so faint its only a theoretical improvement.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Artisan Fan View Post
Most people can learn critical listening skills. You don't need golden ears to hear differences. You just need to love music and listen closely and a whole new world will open up for your ears.

There is a lot of snake oil out there but some things like cable elevation, power conditioning and better cables are very, very effective but difficult to explain to those without experience.

Yeah, but if they are explaining it with pure snake oil (as that article absolutely was) then they have to put up something a little better to explain the reasoning. Scientific people have no problem explaining scientific results to other scientific people. The difficulties lie in non-scientific people trying to convince scientific people of marketing.

~ Huntsman
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post #40 of 118
2/9/08 at 1:54am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by RJman View Post
I thought the elevation point was exploded in the first few posts to this thread.

RJ,

You seem intent on relying on some others' views on this. Have you experience listening to the resolution of a high end stereo? Have you tried cables with and without elevation?
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post #41 of 118
2/9/08 at 1:57am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by GQgeek View Post
You'll never explode any of this stuff. There are people that believe in it, just like there are people that believe in god. All the double-blind experiments in the world will not convince them. There are actually people that spend 200k on cables for their audio systems. We're talking cables that cost several thousand dollars PER FOOT.

That's fairly rare among audiophiles. Hundreds of dollars is more common and the difference over Home Depot zip code is real. I have a lot of experience with the Kimber and Cardas lines and it is quite easy to hear the sonic improvements among the different models. I wish I could save some money and be happy with the entry level cable but the reference level stuff is realy amazing.
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post #42 of 118
2/9/08 at 2:09am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huntsman View Post
As Brian said, both. However, I'll go further -- the effect may be so trivial that only instruments can detect it, or that it's so faint its only a theoretical improvement.

H,

This is a very general statement that will not hold. How do you know the ear cannot detect a particular audio event? You would be surprised how small changes in the playback chain of a highly resolving stereo system can matter.

Look at CD players for instance, at one point scientists felt that digital timing differences in the data stream were trivial. Over time, engineers like Julian Dunn discovered that nanosecond (!) timing differences were readily detectable. Now experts I talk to believe that picosecond differences can be heard. The human ear is an amazing instrument.
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post #43 of 118
2/9/08 at 3:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by GQgeek View Post
All the double-blind experiments in the world will not convince them.

I actually recall an artical in some audiophile magazine I was reading a year or so ago that was argueing that double-blind testing was not relevant. It just really is truely amazing how many shysters exist in this industry.
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post #44 of 118
2/9/08 at 5:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artisan Fan View Post
You seem intent on relying on some others' views on this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Artisan Fan View Post
Over time, engineers like Julian Dunn discovered that nanosecond (!) timing differences were readily detectable. Now experts I talk to believe that picosecond differences can be heard.

First, thank you for giving me my FDA-recommended daily serving of irony.

Second, we've been over this before. The reason nanosecond and perhaps picosecond jitter is audible is not because the human ear is sensitive to such things, but because the audio equipment used is so badly designed that they react to incredibly miniscule differences in timing. Good equipment will never let you hear jitter of any level.

--Andre
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post #45 of 118
2/9/08 at 5:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artisan Fan View Post
H,

This is a very general statement that will not hold. How do you know the ear cannot detect a particular audio event? You would be surprised how small changes in the playback chain of a highly resolving stereo system can matter.

Look at CD players for instance, at one point scientists felt that digital timing differences in the data stream were trivial. Over time, engineers like Julian Dunn discovered that nanosecond (!) timing differences were readily detectable. Now experts I talk to believe that picosecond differences can be heard. The human ear is an amazing instrument.

General statements rarely hold, and that's the point of them. Though that was the least substantive and most general thing I've said in this thread, it's the only one to be jumped upon, even though I was merely displaying the wider canvas.

My sister has super-hearing, in some frequencies she can hear down to 0dB. It really disturbed her ENT. So you can believe I know the resolving power of the human ear is staggering.

I believe that there are aspects we don't understand and are not aware of.

I believe that there are a host of factors that improve/contribute to high quality audio that are well understood.

I believe that on occasion certain improvements in the audiophile world make a difference that cannot be easily understood/ cannot easily be detected by a panel of listeners (Just as I know you can detect differences in vodka, when many claim they cannot).

I believe that others may take advantage of a technical gap to claim improvements that do not exist, or to cite real improvements to non-physical phenomenon.

The darkfield elevators fall into that last class. Perhaps raising speaker wires does improve the sound, I don't know. I do know that the reasoning for the claims made on that website are massively specious. The language is overblown and sounds good to non-technical people, but physicists laugh at it.
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