10 Biggest Lies in Audio

[square_wave]

Quibble: Why? What is being compared is the resultant sound. the fact that it may result from a cable change is incidental.

There is also testing that does not rely on our perception. If you can hear a difference, there must be a difference; if there is a difference, it can be measured.

For the only reason that an inexperienced listener cannot discern differences!

So are you trying to say that, in this test, if the listener can identify his cables ten times out of ten, there is actually no difference if you cannot measure it?

 

[matbhuvi]

Believe your ears hyeah:

For the only reason that an inexperienced listener cannot discern differences!

If Golden ears means trained ears, then is it a curse or blessing?

 

[ajay124]

Hifi forums and publications exist and thrive because it is not possible for a large percentage of the worldwide audiophile community to audition extensively. Time, distance, money can all become factors which rule out the auditioning option. Folks who live in the vicinity of dealers or an active audiophile community have an advantage in this respect. But for the rest of the underprivileged audiophile community, reading and analyzing the subjective opinions of other audiophiles and professional reviewers becomes the only option. Reading opinions about a product rather than actually looking, touching and listening to it is a compromise. But it is an unavoidable compromise for many audiophiles. Early last year I bought some stuff in a hurry and promptly regretted it. Insufficient research. But round two, or rather round three, was a success even though I did not audition anything. Reading a lot and rejecting 90% of what you read is an acquired talent. Like everything else it comes with practice.

Sooner or later I would like to change my set up in order to try out some thing new. My music is on laboriously collected and irreplaceable compact discs. Therefore the source would have to be a cdp or dac. I am not convinced about the performance, durability and pricing of most tube amps. But last year I had the privilege of a meticulous audition conducted by Viren of his 2A3 and EL84 Set amps with the Harmony and Amity range of speakers. Source was an entry level Marantz cdp playing Viren's excellent jazz cd's. The two amps and Harmony One speakers had a clean and pure sound which I really liked. Build quality, service back up and a price tag of under 100K for amp and speakers makes them an exception to the rule. If I ever wanted a clean sounding, small and moderately powerful system (especially for jazz and vocals) I would buy Lyrita. I am certain that with an Esoteric sacdp they would create some serious magic! I would not buy a lesser known brand of solid-state amp or speakers without an audition, if there was little or no feedback available on forums or reviews. But there are many brands which have a well documented history of building great stuff which I would confidently buy without an audition if the price was right. Specifically where can I begin auditioning in the future in India? I can think of a limited number of options. Some of these I would reject because their prices in India are way too high. Therefore I will not be changing my system in a hurry even if I have the funds and the urge to do so

Source options:

Meridian (Delhi)
Esoteric (XO) (Mumbai)
Accuphase (Mumbai)
Ayon (Bangalore)
Ayre (none)
Weiss (none)
Berkeley Audio (none)

Amp options:

Krell (Delhi)
Accuphase (Mumbai)
Jeff Rowland (Mumbai)
Simaudio (Mumbai)
Ayon (Bangalore)
Lyrita (Delhi)
Rethm (Cochin, Bangalore)
Cadence (Pune)
Pass Labs (none)

Speaker options:

Thiel (Chennai)
ATC (Active/Passive)( Bangalore, Chennai)
Sonus Faber (Mumbai, Pune)
Magnepan (Mumbai)
Harbeth (Bangalore)
Spendor (Pune)
Rethm (Cochin, Bangalore)
Lyrita (Delhi)
Cadence (Pune)
Dynaudio (none)
Totem (none)
Von Schweikert (none)
Acoustic Zen (none)

 

[doors666]

Hifi forums and publications exist and thrive because it is not possible for a large percentage of the worldwide audiophile community to audition extensively. Time, distance, money can all become factors which rule out the auditioning option. Folks who live in the vicinity of dealers or an active audiophile community have an advantage in this respect. But for the rest of the underprivileged audiophile community, reading and analyzing the subjective opinions of other audiophiles and professional reviewers becomes the only option. Reading opinions about a product rather than actually looking, touching and listening to it is a compromise. But it is an unavoidable compromise for many audiophiles. Early last year I bought some stuff in a hurry and promptly regretted it. Insufficient research. But round two, or rather round three, was a success even though I did not audition anything. Reading a lot and rejecting 90% of what you read is an acquired talent. Like everything else it comes with practice.

Sooner or later I would like to change my set up in order to try out some thing new. My music collection is compact discs only and irreplaceable. Therefore the source would have to be a cdp or dac. I am not convinced about the performance, durability and pricing of most tube amps. I do not have confidence in new or lesser-known brands of solid-state amps or speakers. Therefore specifically where do I begin auditioning in India? I can think of a limited number of options. Some of these I would reject because their prices in India are way too high. Therefore I will not be changing my system in a hurry even if I have the funds and the urge to do so

Source options:

Meridian (Delhi)
Esoteric (XO) (Mumbai)
Accuphase (Mumbai)
Ayon (Bangalore)
Ayre (none)
Weiss (none)
Berkeley Audio (none)

Amp options:

Krell (Delhi)
Accuphase (Mumbai)
Jeff Rowland (Mumbai)
Simaudio (Mumbai)
Ayon (Bangalore)
Pass Labs (none)

Speaker options:

Thiel (Chennai)
ATC (Active/Passive)( Bangalore, Chennai)
Sonus Faber (Mumbai, Pune)
Magnepan (Mumbai)
Harbeth (Bangalore)
Rethm (Bangalore)
Dynaudio (none)
Totem (none)
Von Schweikert (none)
Acoustic Zen (none)

Maybe its time you tried diy

 

[square_wave]

If Golden ears means trained ears, then is it a curse or blessing?

You do not need trained ears to enjoy music. A trained mind can enjoy music better though.

A trained ear is necessary to discern differences between different kinds of gear. This can be a blessing or curse depending on who posses it.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

For the only reason that an inexperienced listener cannot discern differences!

So are you trying to say that, in this test, if the listener can identify his cables ten times out of ten, there is actually no difference if you cannot measure it?

Depends how you define "you"

But, essentially, yes!

I had this conversation with Clifford Pereira, of Genelec, at the recent meet, the proposition being that, by putting a stereo microphone in front of a pair of stereo speakers, you cannot recreate the stereo recording you are playing, because it is an illusion, but you can record, and if experience 'a' sounds different to experience 'b' --- so will the recordings sound different (or at least, be different as seen in wave/spectrogaphic analysis). His response was very short: "Yes, of course".

Shall we propose infinitely sensitive mics and infinite quality equipment for the theoretical proof of this? That equipment would hear what you hear (and much, much more), and record it. But I don't think that would be necessary, because infinite-quality equipment was not used to make the recording in the first place.

An inexperienced listener probably can, if they have the interest and the concentration, discern differences. This point is well dealt with earlier, where the example given is that the inexperienced listener may say, something is missing here, whereas the experienced listener may point to a dip in the frequency response at a given point. But, specifically, my quibble was with your requirement that the person be experienced at listening for cable differences. Perhaps, by this, you just meant that they should be experienced at hearing [and describing??] very subtle differences?

A trained ear is necessary to discern differences between different kinds of gear...

There might be levels at which that is true, but in general, A trained ear is necessary to define differences between different kinds of gear. And I do not claim to have one (or two), but I'd say I'm fairly sensitive to differences.

Bottom line with the unmeasurable difference thing (the holy grail of the audiophile?) is that non-one ever tries. For all practical purposes, it would be crazy to expect, because who is going to set up a recording studio to test their hifi? Err... no-one. But, if blind-testing had become a part of the culture, rather than something seldom done, even attitudes might be different today.

By the way, on a lighter note: I believe in homeopathy. Does this mean that a cable might be capable of remembering the music that passes through it?

 

[cricfansd]

I think I have discussed this many times amongst the audiophiles and never received a satisfactory answer. People spend thousands of dollars on audio interconnects expecting improvement of soundstage, blackness and what not.
My simple test was to see the effect of audio interconnects. Audio signals are typically 2V p-p with 20 KHz bandwidth, whereas Video signals are 1v p-p with 150 MHz bandwidth.
So given all the supposed science, I should be able to see the distortion on analog video signals by changing interconnects. End of the day I am yet to see any difference on the final video output when comparing $1k+ audio interconnects against $5 monoprice cables. On my signal analyzer all output signals are identical. So please don't give me a golden ear explanation here.

What Asit describes as scattering/diffusion is typically modeled as multi-path propagation through conducting medium. They do cause inter symbol interference (ISI - wonder why ISI is always bad) but at much higher symbol rate not at 20 KHz because the multipath time is miniscule to cause any effect. Multipath propagation never changes the frequency of the signal but the phase, so Lata's voice will NEVER sound like Asha.
Mere mortals like us who have few degrees in communication theory and statistical signal processing; design using these theories for a living and if all the effect was so pronounced that a human detection was possible, then your cell-phones would have never worked and all you would have seen on the latest LCD TV was garbage.
Researchers in the EM compatibility, (you can read IEEE Transactions on EM compatibility) have been studying these for ages and I have never seen any result where the signal was not around 1GHz or more.

 

[square_wave]

Depends how you define "you"

But, essentially, yes!

I had this conversation with Clifford Pereira, of Genelec, at the recent meet, the proposition being that, by putting a stereo microphone in front of a pair of stereo speakers, you cannot recreate the stereo recording you are playing, because it is an illusion, but you can record, and if experience 'a' sounds different to experience 'b' --- so will the recordings sound different (or at least, be different as seen in wave/spectrogaphic analysis). His response was very short: "Yes, of course".

Shall we propose infinitely sensitive mics and infinite quality equipment for the theoretical proof of this? That equipment would hear what you hear (and much, much more), and record it. But I don't think that would be necessary, because infinite-quality equipment was not used to make the recording in the first place.

An inexperienced listener probably can, if they have the interest and the concentration, discern differences. This point is well dealt with earlier, where the example given is that the inexperienced listener may say, something is missing here, whereas the experienced listener may point to a dip in the frequency response at a given point. But, specifically, my quibble was with your requirement that the person be experienced at listening for cable differences. Perhaps, by this, you just meant that they should be experienced at hearing [and describing??] very subtle differences?
There might be levels at which that is true, but in general, A trained ear is necessary to define differences between different kinds of gear. And I do not claim to have one (or two), but I'd say I'm fairly sensitive to differences.

Bottom line with the unmeasurable difference thing (the holy grail of the audiophile?) is that non-one ever tries. For all practical purposes, it would be crazy to expect, because who is going to set up a recording studio to test their hifi? Err... no-one. But, if blind-testing had become a part of the culture, rather than something seldom done, even attitudes might be different today.

What we are trying to find is whether cables induce differences and can the human ear hear it. The test is only to ascertain this. Whether the difference is good or bad is a completely different discussion.

If in this test, a listener can discern differences ten times out of ten, why is it difficult to conclude that the human ear / brain can discern differences between different cables ? I am a bit lost here.

We listen to music with our ears and brain. So I do not see any reason to do any other kind of measurement to validate this test. Ten out of ten score by the ear / brain is enough.

Yes someone who is experienced with testing differences between cables in highly resolving systems is an absolute must for this test. I am not interested in how he describes the differences. All I want is his ability to identify his cables blindly. A random listener will have no clue. Horses for courses!

 

[murali]

It is a bit unfortunate that all these threads resulted from a guy's 10 biggest lies in audio, someone who started as a decent audio reviewer and critic, suddenly turned into speaker manufacturing which ended in a disaster, and with a vengeance, came back to write on audio, turning more into ramblings and provocations and often absurdities. Of course, it is a free world and everyone is entitled to express his or her views and opinions. We all do.

Let us look at some simple explanations given by Jon Risch who is one of the most respected persons in cable circles and one who publishes various recipes for DIY cables costing little and performing well.

(Someone in these threads suddenly mentions about trying biwiring of his/her speakers and claiming it sounded worse than single wiring.) Let me presume he or she made sure that the speakers tested had 4 terminals for biwiring. Bi-wiring is where the crossover inside the speaker has been separated into its HF and LF sections, and separate pairs of connecting terminals provided to access those separate sections independently. Normally, the LF and HF crossover sections are in parallel, connected internally to the same single pair of binding posts. For single cable use, a set of jumpers is provided to bridge the terminal pairs, paralleling the separated crossover sections outside the cabinet instead of inside. Then, separate speaker cables are run from the same amp output to these separated pairs of terminals at the speaker. Some say that any improvement in the sound it makes is strictly due to the decreased total DCR, and this makes the speaker less prone to frequency response variations due to cable resistance. According to this view, simply running the two cables in parallel at both ends will do the same thing. In my opinion, this is a very simplistic and incomplete way of looking at the situation. Once the crossovers have been electrically separated, they present different impedances (loads) to the power amp within their passbands and outside of their passbands. The woofer and corresponding low frequency crossover section will present a low impedance at low frequencies and a high impedance at HF, while the tweeter section will present a low impedance at high frequencies, and high one at LF's. With the electrical separation, differing currents will flow within the two cables that make up a bi-wire set. For the separate cable feeding the woofer section, a lot of current will flow at LF's but not much current at HF's, and the tweeter cable will have some current flow at HF, but very little at LF's. A division of labor has occured with bi-wiring, whereby a single cable does not have have to carry the HF currents simultaneuously with the LF current.
Two things happen due to this:
1. The losses in the cable due to "eye-squared-are" losses (current squared time the resistance equals voltage drop) are reduced for each frequency band, so that any tendency for the woofer to modulate the tweeter due to current draw is greatly reduced. This form of IM would be in lock-step with the original signal.
2. The magnetic fields due to the HF and LF currents have also been separated out, and any tendency for them to intermodulate and cause sonic artifacts has been greatly reduced. This form of IM would be occuring both at the same time, and in a time delayed form due to mechanical resonances and motor/generator action.(My own experience is that I use speakers designed for biwire operation and strongly recommended by the manufacturer himself. Starting with single wiring, I moved to single biwiring and finally to double biwiring, and can vouch for the fact that each jump was quantum. There are amplifiers, both balanced and unbalanced, and the former is a bit misleading, especially if you see single input but two balanced outputs. Such devices just use a phase splitter at the output, rather pseudo-balanced. If you really want the truely balanced amplifier, everything has to be duplicated right from the input stage and both halves of the signal kept separate throughout. No doubt that doubles the cost of the amplifier, something you have to be prepared to accept.)

Another question is the cable between a transport and DAC. A very common misconception about digital signal transmission with respect to audio is that if the signal does not get corrupted to the point of losing or changing the 1's and 0's, that nothing else can go wrong. If the transmission system had been designed with cost no object, and by engineers familiar with all the known foibles and problems of digital transmission of audio signals, then this might be subtantially true. No differences could rear their ugly head. Many arguments about this issue arise from computer background. Computer systems never convert the 1's and 0's to time sensitive analog data, they only need to recover the 1's or 0's, any timing accuracy only has to preserve the bits, not how accurately they arrive or are delivered. So in this regard, computer systems ARE completely different than digital audio systems.

Finally, it all depends on, whether truth or lie, the objective and constraints one has. When one wants to move from point A to point B in a car, there are several options in the selection of the car. The final choice depends on the objective. What also matters is the constraint manifesting as "cost". It never means that a cheap audio system is bad or a costly system is great, but also implies that just because I have a budget system which satisfies my needs, the other's costlier system is crap and waste of money.

So let us be honest and try to understand things as there are plenty yet to be comprehended fully, rather than blindly arguing because a lunatic had written something rubbish and nonsense.

cheers.
murali

 

[Asit]

What Asit describes as scattering/diffusion is typically modeled as multi-path propagation through conducting medium. They do cause inter symbol interference (ISI - wonder why ISI is always bad) but at much higher symbol rate not at 20 KHz because the multipath time is miniscule to cause any effect. Multipath propagation never changes the frequency of the signal but the phase, so Lata's voice will NEVER sound like Asha.
Mere mortals like us who have few degrees in communication theory and statistical signal processing; design using these theories for a living and if all the effect was so pronounced that a human detection was possible, then your cell-phones would have never worked and all you would have seen on the latest LCD TV was garbage.
Researchers in the EM compatibility, (you can read IEEE Transactions on EM compatibility) have been studying these for ages and I have never seen any result where the signal was not around 1GHz or more.

I am sorry to say, the above is completely inappropriate. I am not sure what you are trying to prove, but a few jargons from telecommunications will not help matters at all. I am actually very very disappointed. I am terribly sorry, but as a physicist I am trained to point out when the physics is absolutely wrong. Perhaps you have completely misunderstood me - I am not writing these posts here to show off or as a casual exercise. If you want to know my background in physics, please PM me and I will let you know. As I said before, condensed matter physics is not the subject of my specialization, however, the physics I am trying to describe here is actually quite general for a theoretical physicist and not too wrong and captures the essential points,I think.

The problem at hand is not one of wireless transmission and telecommunication. The physics involved here is completely different. To put it in the simplest form, in a metal the atoms/molecules are arranged in a real 3 dimensional lattice which has a particular symmetry. The dynamics of an electron traveling in such a potential is obtained by Schroedinger equation of quantum mechanics where the symmetry of the lattice plays a crucial role and the solution is generally known as Bloch waves. Anyway, the end result of the lattice symmetry and quantum mechanics is the band structure of the electrons in a metal. Actually, the problem is better described by quantum many body theory which is some kind of non-relativistic quantum field theory and is a subject even of current research in condensed matter physics. Multipath propagation does not capture any of the essential physics here.

The problem is made interesting and more difficult by the imperfections in the crystal structure (which I called defects) and this mutilates the lattice symmetry and hence the periodic symmetry of the Bloch potential in which the electrons move is not perfect any more resulting in what I called scattering.

I was trying not to use these hard-core physics terminologies in my previous posts because this is a public forum on audio/video.

Regards.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

How many posts before we move on to "Lie number 2" ?

 

[cricfansd]

I am sorry to say, the above is completely inappropriate. I am not sure what you are trying to prove, but a few jargons from telecommunications will not help matters at all. I am actually very very disappointed. I am terribly sorry, but as a physicist I am trained to point out when the physics is absolutely wrong.
Regards.

I think we have reached an impasse here. Your understanding of electronics/communication theory is no better than my understanding of particle physics. You can argue all day about your theory and I can refute how it is theoretically possible but practically irrelevant based on my experience and my knowledge in communication theory.
Enjoy your music.

cricfansd, let me warn you here. Asit is a scientist of very high standing who works for one of the best R&D labs in India. He has been chosen by his lab to help them set up and manage the complete networking and related communication system in the labs.

If you want to argue, please do so on scientific theories that can be proved or disputed. Saying Asit does not understand something is inappropriate (as Asit softly puts it), and insulting (as I put it). All members here have tremendous respect for Asit, and I will not allow his name to be sullied. It takes us great effort to keep Asit here. Asit is also highly respected for his knowledge on music, that very few of us can even match.

If you have any substance, please argue scientifically. Else just back off. I am just warning you now. If I see any continuance of disrespect to Asit, I will infract you.

VenkatCR

 

[arj]

Does anyone really think that anyone in the other camp is going to change their view ?seriously ?

Also does it matter if the other person thinks that cables matter or don't..


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Asit]

I think we have reached an impasse here. Your understanding of electronics/communication theory is no better than my understanding of particle physics. You can argue all day about your theory and I can refute how it is theoretically possible but practically irrelevant based on my experience and my knowledge in communication theory.
Enjoy your music.

Communication theory as you perhaps know it as far as I can see has nothing to do with electrons in a metal. Please know your limits. Can you write how the communication theory (multi path propagation model) that you are talking about applies to the electron in a metal? Please do. The theory that I have discussed is not 'my' theory, my arguments are based on established facts of condensed matter physics and most of the physics I have written here is known for a very long time. We physicists do not use a working 'model' when we can apply fundamental physics principles in a given situation. Frankly, this is getting absolutely ridiculous: you don't have any of the essential ingredients here to address the underlying physics, and you are describing it as an impasse of ideas or theories. I am just speechless. This is coming to a level where I do not think I should participate in this discussion any more.

 

[venkatcr]

cricfansd, please read my comments on your post no. 72 very carefully before saying anything more.

Cheers

 

[doors666]

Communication theory as you perhaps know it as far as I can see has nothing to do with electrons in a metal. Please know your limits. Can you write how the communication theory (multi path propagation model) that you are talking about applies to the electron in a metal? Please do. The theory that I have discussed is not 'my' theory, my arguments are based on established facts of condensed matter physics and most of the physics I have written here is known for a very long time. We physicists do not use a working 'model' when we can apply fundamental physics principles in a given situation. Frankly, this is getting absolutely ridiculous: you don't have any of the essential ingredients here to address the underlying physics, and you are describing it as an impasse of ideas or theories. I am just speechless. This is coming to a level where I do not think I should participate in this discussion any more.

Hi asit,

I got the parts regarding the crystal structure as well as the scattering effects of impurities in the structures. I still dont see how the burn in will take place. We are talking about relocating some of the entire crystal parts at molecular level. Electron movement should not make that happen. while electrons are moving, lots of them will pass through unhindered right. An electron to a nucleus is like a football to earth isnt it. Electron cant hit electron due to same charge, an electron cant hit nucleus because it needs to loose energy levels to get closer to nucleus (i might be wrong on this one). Is it because of the charge present on the nucleus (electron left, so its positively charged) and presence of a potential difference that the movement happens.

If the purity of material is all that matters, it simply should be a matter of using 6N or whatever copper or silver or whatever. Some of the cables cost more than if you make them using pure gold.

Square_wave:
I do have an open mind. If someone can show me cables can make a difference, I am willing to change. I have a very limited experience in the matter, but whatever experimentation I have done, I havent found a difference, either by using interconnects or speaker cables. I have only used stuff like MX, belden rg59 etc. i have good enough spkrs and a tp20 and essence stx.

And so far whatever research I have done on the subject, I have always found that no one is able to tell 10 out of 10 times which cable is being used. I have found enough info on the net where audiophiles fail to find out which cable is being used.

 

[square_wave]

Does anyone really think that anyone in the other camp is going to change their view ?seriously ?

Also does it matter if the other person thinks that cables matter or don't..


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I agree ! There is no point in these arguments and it does not matter

The sun is shining for anyone to see. The sky is ablaze. But you need measurements to acknowledge that the sun exists sorry couldn't resist

 

[Kannan]

I have a decent quality stereo system with pre amp and power amp setup. I use panasonic interconnects which dont cost a bomb, but do make a difference when compared to the cheap local stuff which I use in my car to connect my head unit and amp.
the primary difference that I find is in the stereo balance. With panasonic it is almost perfect and centered, but with the local ones I have to adjust the balance setting more often than not. Regarding soundstage, fidelity, tonal quality etc the difference is very marginal and according to my personal listening experience, does not warrant the huge spending when you compare the cost-benefit ratio.
Actually during a recent meet In Chennai, a session with cables was planned, but sadly could not go ahead due to time constrains.

 

[doors666]

I agree ! There is no point in these arguments and it does not matter

The sun is shining for anyone to see. The sky is ablaze. But you need measurements to acknowledge that the sun exists sorry couldn't resist

Maybe I am blind, maybe measurements show sun doesnt exist. Does it really exist or is it that your eyes are playing tricks on you:lol:

 

[square_wave]

I agree doors !

But lets go back to a very direct point which we discussed earlier.

In the test which I described, if the listener is able identify the cables correctly each time and every time, how can it be a trick ?

Can you please elaborate ?