Topic: James Randi Posts $1M Award On Speaker Cables

[som]

This is great reading (and surprisingly civilized), +T's all around.

I got anti-cables awhile back, mostly because:

1 - They were cheap
2 - Good reviews
3 - Supposedly okay to have a long run and a short run. One speaker is next to the stereo, one is about 8 feet away.
4 - Thin enough to slip into the tiny space between my fireplace and hardwood floors. I had fat wire before, and it ran right in front of the fireplace....bad WAF. (of course, stuffing the wire into a little crack, vs. having aged cedar blocks lifting it off the floor, probably destroys any possible benefits I may have received from the "cable upgrade"  )

Did I hear a change like someone opening a window and letting the air in, pulling the scales off my eyes, pulling the cotton out of my ears, whatever....? Well, I sorta kinda maybe thought it sounded better, maybe sorta kinda. There was a touch more....clarity.....extended, tighter bass.....greater resolution.....instruments more precisely located not just on a flat plane, but in a 3-d holographic spacial juxtaposition.....maybe.

But then, how could that be, since I'm still using Rat Shack interconnects?

I like the way my system sounds (not that it's perfect, and not that I don't have some improvements planned). 

[Frank in JC]

I've been partial to Alpha-Core for years, but when I upgrade speaker cables, there's a good chance they'll be Analysis Plus.  The handful of audio writers whose opinions and observations I value have spoken highly of it.

analysis-plus hollow oval technology

you can get it in oxygen free copper, silver pc, and gold pc.

It will leave pretty much anything else in the dirt, and has massive, real scientific documentation behind it, including solid white-paper research results.
http://www.analysis-plus.com/design_whitepaper.html

all of your favorite musicians are finding out about it and arming themselves with it.
don't get on the train too late.

shouldn't the shape of the signal at the amplifier be the same shape of signal recieved at the speaker?
anything else is distortion.

when I'm dead and gone, you all can pass around my bi-oval9's

[carlbeck]

analysis-plus hollow oval technology

you can get it in oxygen free copper, silver pc, and gold pc.

It will leave pretty much anything else in the dirt, and has massive, real scientific documentation behind it, including solid white-paper research results.
http://www.analysis-plus.com/design_whitepaper.html

all of your favorite musicians are finding out about it and arming themselves with it.
don't get on the train too late.

shouldn't the shape of the signal at the amplifier be the same shape of signal recieved at the speaker?
anything else is distortion.

when I'm dead and gone, you all can pass around my bi-oval9's

They cite two papers from the 1930's and one from 1988.  Kind of dated supporting arguments.  I am surprised there is no recent research to support what he claims.  And, the manufacturer is making these claims.  Oh, that's a surprise.  When an independent third party or so starts to support this I will be interested.  As of now it is just the manufacturer, not possibly objective, and three obscure papers which are cited but not quoted.  That in itself is curious.  Oh, well.  Those folks in the audio world never cease to amaze me.  As usual, YMMV   

you can ymmv all you want.

there are lots of us in this playback forum with exquisite playback rigs, who have spent many, many hours tweaking and comparing, over several decades.
for you to come in here and banter about how we know nothing about what we speak is proving nothing but of you having an argumentative side.

The results of switching to AP cable are nothing short of mindblowing, and for you to counter it with nothing but a smilie is asinine.

Thank F-ING god someone has finally said it, all this guy wants is an argument. He still has not ever owned any of the cables we have mentioned but yet only "heard" them in a rig at a store that he doesn't own. I am not saying whose rig is better than whose but I know my rig & I know it sounds damn fine. I challenged him or anyone else to bring ANY cable they want to my house & prove to me there is NO difference in wire, he can't because it is impossible. Thank you Moke for finally bringing out this point, thank you thank you, I am sick of arguing with someone who has no real world experience in what he is talking about & until he spends his money on his own cables & compares no name vs expensive he has no right to judge how good ANY cable is.

[Frank in JC]

all this guy wants is an argument...

That seems to be what many objectivists want. 

Guess who has more fun listening to music.

[boojum]

all this guy wants is an argument...

That seems to be what many objectivists want. 

Guess who has more fun listening to music.

"1) objectivism. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
...Philosophy One of several doctrines holding that all reality is objective and external to the mind and that knowledge is reliably based on observed objects and events...."

Thanks for the compliment and tacit admission that you are subject to wishful thinking.  While I am sure you can hear that esoteric cables sound better to you I wonder can you demonstrate it.  Randi does, too.  While I find his number 12 qualification strange, I do support his position.  I think that the number 12 condition is in there from his dealings with quacks in the paranormal field.

All I am saying is that I would like to see double-blind proof that one set of cable sounds better than another.  In response I have gotten brickbats and rage, but not one iota of proof.  If the cable differences were all that wonderful they would be reproduceable and demonstrable.  I am not looking for an argument; I am looking for proof.  All I have seen demonstrated here is opinion, and not just mine.  So come down off the rager and righteous indignation.  We are all entitled to opinions. 

And, Moke, you never did answer the question about the dodgy citations in the manufacturers fluff piece on his cables.  I am quite willing to accept that these oval cables are the best in the universe but I would like to see it substantiated by some folks other than those in marketing.  The marketing department is not known for either honesty or technical prowess.

In short, "Sounds better to me" is not the same as "is better."

 

[Wiggler]

I have several thousand dollars worth of cable in my house mostly Audioquest and Kimber.
I really don't know if it sounds better or not.
I even went as far as to buy a $800.00 pair of Audio magic excalibur II mic cables from Nutter.
I'm going to sent them out and chop them up to make some interconnects out of them.
Now they sit in the closet because I paid even more for a pair of Kc5 actives.
I often wonder how much difference the cables make.

[SparkE!]

The results of switching to AP cable are nothing short of mindblowing, and for you to counter it with nothing but a smilie is asinine.

So you are saying that you could pass a double blind test to identify your cables vs. other reasonable speaker wires that contain a similar amount of copper?

By the way, the AP cables suffer from the same problem that other low distortion cables have.  Their geometry of construction causes them to be more capacitive than your typical speaker cables.  I've been looking at speaker wires that are based on CAT-5 cables (and other similar impedance controlled cables).  The general idea is to parallel enough of the connections that the resulting cable impedance is the same as the impedance of the speakers that they drive.  That way, they present the same impedance as if you had connected directly to the speakers.  Like your cables, this increases the capacitance of the cables, relative to your typical 2-wire speaker cables.  The danger is that if your speakers are not connected at the other end of the cables, your power amplifier ends up driving a highly capacitive load.  Some power amps will break into oscillation when driving a highly capacitive load, essentially becoming a power oscillator.  In some cases, the oscillation is at such a high power level that it will damage the amp.

[SparkE!]

How can you see a double blind test result. isn't that an auditory experience?
aren't the results of your sacred d-b test, just more expressed opinions?

Moke, I know these questions weren't aimed at me, but I would like to comment on them anyway.  A double blind test in this context is a test to see if you can reliably identify a particular audio source when you hear it.  The test result is that you either can identify which source you are listening to or that you can't.  The result of a double blind test is not opinion or subjective auditory experience, it's merely the outcome of an experiment that is aimed at whether or not you can tell the difference.  Either you can tell the difference or you can't.  There is no subjectivity involved, nor is there any opportunity for opinion to shape the outcome of the experiment.

[boojum]

all this guy wants is an argument...

That seems to be what many objectivists want. 

Guess who has more fun listening to music.

"1) objectivism. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
...Philosophy One of several doctrines holding that all reality is objective and external to the mind and that knowledge is reliably based on observed objects and events...."

Thanks for the compliment and tacit admission that you are subject to wishful thinking.  While I am sure you can hear that esoteric cables sound better to you I wonder can you demonstrate it.  Randi does, too.  While I find his number 12 qualification strange, I do support his position.  I think that the number 12 condition is in there from his dealings with quacks in the paranormal field.

All I am saying is that I would like to see double-blind proof that one set of cable sounds better than another.  In response I have gotten brickbats and rage, but not one iota of proof.  If the cable differences were all that wonderful they would be reproduceable and demonstrable.  I am not looking for an argument; I am looking for proof.  All I have seen demonstrated here is opinion, and not just mine.  So come down off the rager and righteous indignation.  We are all entitled to opinions. 

And, Moke, you never did answer the question about the dodgy citations in the manufacturers fluff piece on his cables.  I am quite willing to accept that these oval cables are the best in the universe but I would like to see it substantiated by some folks other than those in marketing.  The marketing department is not known for either honesty or technical prowess.

In short, "Sounds better to me" is not the same as "is better."

 

you need to do the research for yourself. I'm not willing to do one bit of it for you.
there are any number of rave writeups about these cables by some of the most cynical critics out there. you need to find them, I'm not going to find them for you.

How can you see a double blind test result. isn't that an auditory experience?
aren't the results of your sacred d-b test, just more expressed opinions?

for you to deny that a study done in 1933 is of any worth, is completely ridiculous. It wasn't as if they were still sweeping up dinosaur terds, at that point. My father-in-law received his masters degree in EE not much removed from that cited date. I can guarantee you that USC didn't extend him that advanced degree because he figured out how to make two wires spark when they touched.
Yes, there was entirely substantial science surrounding electrons, audio, auditory sensitivity, back in the day.

As far as do I trust their claims?
I consider it to be beyond reproach, as do substantial other people.

My dear friends Tom, whom i've recorded extensively with, and was amongst the first true audiophiliac dead tapers, is an AP dealer, and is very close friends with the AP staff, since its inception.
He / we've been running this stuff for about 8 years now, and in that time, we've sat back for any number of comparison sessions, on what can be thought of as being some of the finest of audio componentry.
In that time, nothing has come close, including cables that come in at several times most costly.
This includes your sacred double blind tests, set up in hotel suites, at the big conventions. While I've not experienced it myself, Tom has, and IMO, his word is golden, as we've spent so many countless hours taping this stuff, and then critically tearing it apart, for at least 20 years, as a "team".
The worlds top audio manufacturer are rigging with AP, both as amp to speaker feed for demo's, but internal componentry wiring as well.
As far as I'm concerned, and in the opinion of the finest of critics out there, design is where its at, and  hollow-oval is it.

Well, I am happy that you admit it is an opinion.  I never said that research in the 30's was not significant.  I just wondered why there were no citations of more recent work and why the works were not quoted.  We used to have an old sergeant who used to quote various Army manuals in support of what he was saying.  Like, "FM-22-5 says that these items should be stored in such-and such manner."  Well, someone wrote down the numbers of the manuals he was quoting.   One was about laundry, one was about the motor pool and so on.  They bore no relation to what he was saying.  He was bulllshitting.  Now these two articles from the 30's may be very pertinent to the oval wire story.  But how do we know??  We do not even see the referenced text in his article.  If they had data supporting his argument I would think he would have it quoted there.  I would.  I suspect that you would, too.  It is supporting proof.

As for double-blind tests.  They are not just so important to me, they are important to the entire scientific community.  This is not some quirky bias I have.  All of science uses it.  I programmed computers for years, and damned little was put into production on an untested basis.  Testing is how to evaluate things.  Double blind testing eliminates the possiblity of unconscious and unintended bias.  I would think that the audio community would leap at the chance to demonstrate that one particular item was far superior to other, if, indeed, it is.

[SparkE!]

What I'm saying is that every other cable that I've tried was removed, and the AP's were put back into place.

My recommendation for these cables came from the very person quoted in the bottom of your signature line.

Please understand that I'm not doubting that your cables are among the best available or that they don't enjoy the endorsement of true experts in this field.  What I'm doubting is that the differences are discernible by mere mortals.

[fsulloway]

In short, "Sounds better to me" is not the same as "is better."

For me, when it comes to listening to music, sounds better IS better. That's all, carry on. 

[Tim]

I would think that the audio community would leap at the chance to demonstrate that one particular item was far superior to other, if, indeed, it is.

You're trying to apply a scientific test to something that is wholly subjective. For example, "superior" measurements do not necessarily make for "superior" audio, look at tube amps vs. ss. We can obtain objective measurements but all people hear things differently and have their own preferences.

As Skalinder pointed out to you in the open forum, we might be able to tell you that one cable sounds different than another cable but there is no way to "prove" that one actually sounds better.

I'm all for science and reason but when discussing a subject that is by it's very nature subjective NO ONE can ever meet your or Randi's standards.

In short, "Sounds better to me" is not the same as "is better."

For me, when it comes to listening to music, sounds better IS better. That's all, carry on. 

This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. We're all very impressed by your dedication to science boojum; it's just that these scientific tests can not measure something that is inherently subjective - audio preference.

[fsulloway]

My second fave's were a home-built pair, made from coast guard approved battery cable bulk stock by a company that I don't recall, but can look up again (the leading cable manufacturer in marine wiring). They were thcker gauge, at something like 4ga, if I'm not mistaken.

Ancor maybe?

[Frank in JC]

As Skalinder pointed out to you in the open forum, we might be able to tell you that one cable sounds different than another cable but there is no way to "prove" that one actually sounds better.

That's my position too.  Perception is subjective by definition, and when doing something as astronomically irrational as listening to music, perception is all.  All that matters is, how do you feel?  What you know doesn't mean squat.

Why the hell do we enjoy music in the first place?  There's no rational, objective basis!


That's the last from me in this thread.  I'm wise enough not to belabor the point.  [Edit: by wise, I mean I know how these discussions go.]

[boojum]

As Skalinder pointed out to you in the open forum, we might be able to tell you that one cable sounds different than another cable but there is no way to "prove" that one actually sounds better.

That's my position too.  Perception is subjective by definition, and when doing something as astronomically irrational as listening to music, perception is all.  All that matters is, how do you feel?  What you know doesn't mean squat.

Why the hell do we enjoy music in the first place?  There's no rational, objective basis!


That's the last from me in this thread.  I'm wise enough not to belabor the point.  [Edit: by wise, I mean I know how these discussions go.]

Randi's test is can you tell one from the other.  That is all.  Can you??  BTW - it is news to me that listening to music is irrational, astronomically or otherwise.  Have you ever listened to Bach??  That is not irrational.

Cheers