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

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

The only testing I ever did was between copper based cables and leegeddy's silver cables. They sound different, very different. Silver cables are much cleaner whereas coppers have a low end bloom. I know what I heard, it was obvious.

QFT, even on my crappy system, it was obvious...  Same results going to DogHouse silvers...

I'd agree the there are diminishing returns as you get these higher priced cables, but everyone should invest in good cables, it really does make a difference...

Terry

[Nick's Picks]

but thats the fault Carl.
paying for it..., mental investment before you even hear them.
and not just you, but anyone.

its hard to be objective when you have personal claims and investment at stake.
I, for one..would LOVE to partake in a great double blind test.
how would you even do that?
you'd need two identical stereo systems? and a way to switch back and forth.

Imagine if it were seamless...., the ability to switch.
would you want to know when the change was happening, or would you like to see if you can perceive any differences in the stream w/o knowing whats going on in the background ?

[carlbeck]

I completely disagree about the money aspect. Also john had no financial stake in the test & he could hear the difference.
Finally I forgot but I had a similiar èxperience when I swapped out johns kimber 8Tc cables for my ZU cables. I preferred the zu cables. Honestly again please some one take me upon my offer. Bring your cables to my house & prove to me that there is NO difference in cables & they all sound the same. I am waiting.

[boojum]

The topic is about the offer made by Randi.  If it is so damned easy to tell the difference, go and collect your one million dollars. 

[RebelRebel]

I have never been in a double blind test.  or even a blind test where I had no clue what cable I was hearing.
I bet you could use the same cable in each test and get wildly different reviews between them.

Yea, I am a believer in cables.
but i dont kid myself.

Yeah, I believe somewhat..but not past a certain price point In a couple of studios that were acoustically treated to the hilt and built to rigid Acoustic  Specs I was able to ID cables accurately..but in less than stellar acoustics(IE real world) settings, I have done much worse. I do not believe that differences are as obvious as some peddlers of magic would have one believe..but I am certain that they do exist, be they miniscule.  There is a lot of clever marketing going on and I would bet any amount of money that for a lot of folks these(and I am not talking about anyone here--neither TS members that are dealers nor non-dealing TS members) "drastic differences" would dissapear into oblivion once put into a blind testing enviroment,,stripped of buzzwords, dealers with agendas, and mindscrewing scripts read by acolytes ..  Stereophile in particular(and the absolute sound, TNT, and pretty much every other ad-driven publication) provides hours of laughter, and for that I am thankful.

Again, I do believe that there are differences, but think that a lot of those "glaring" differences have a lot to do with psychology and marketing, and less to do with real scientific sonic differences..in a double blind test, differences became less obvious to me --most of the time, hardly noticeable at all in all environments but  "perfect" ones.. Crazy what the mind can do.  Cable/component shopping and setup(and research) is so fun, and I was quite dissapointed to see the lines blur. I want to believe in magic,but there is a line..and it stops at around 300 dollars.  When cables I have cost as much as a car or a treehouse for my daughter or a quilting machine for my wife, I question my own sanity and lack of dignity.  I also know that I , in times past, have bragged my ass off about things that I paid too much for. Partly for shame, partly because my dumb ass believed that these things were superior because they costed more. An immediate turnoff for me(dealer-wise) is when a dealer says something like "well those cables that costed XXX dollars are ok, but to get good sound, you must buy the cables that cost XXX dollars." That is a load of garbage. One cannot quantify "good" first of all, and it damn sure cant be defined by how much money is spent.

I am a proud disciple of vampire wire now. They sound as good as anything I have ever worked with, the maker isnt full of shit, and most importantly..they dont cost a damned fortune.

[Nick's Picks]

Carl...
the scientific community has proved that objectivity doesn't exist unless test are done in the double blind world.
you're sort of saying that your basement test trumps all that.
it doesn't matter who else was there.  I'm sure I would have also been nodding in agreement had it been myself w/you while you were swapping cables.

you cant claim to do a non-scientific test, that you conducted, performed and evaluated yourself and say that it is superior to "real science" (a good test).
you just can't.
to make that claim is just rediculous.  you have to know that you're going to hear a difference.

and i'm not saying there was or wasn't a difference.  i'm just saying that putting your foot down and claiming fact doesnt' happen this way.

[carlbeck]

I understand the scientific explanation of all this but what you are suggesting is that I don't in fact like what I like or hear what I hear? So if I was told that vanilla is the only flavor worth enjoying it would make it valid? My original feeling regardless of scientific tests is that I know what I heard, I know what I like.

There is in fact a difference in wire & all wire DOES NOT sound the same. According to the "scientific community", it is possible that if we took 3 different kinds of vanilla ice cream & double blind tested them that no one could pick out a taste difference? That is the most preposterous thing I have ever heard & strictly what I have issue with.


***Editied to say the Scientific community not you Nick, even though I still think your a dumbass  ***

[Tim]

The topic is about the offer made by Randi.  If it is so damned easy to tell the difference, go and collect your one million dollars. 

Randi won't let Carl or any of us....

http://www.randi.org/research/challenge.html

12. This offer is not open to any and all persons. Before being considered as an applicant, the person applying must satisfy two conditions: First, he/she must have a “media presence,” which means having been published, written about, or known to the media in regard to his/her claimed abilities or powers. This can be established by producing articles, videos, books, or other published material that specifically addresses the person’s abilities. Second, he/she must produce at least one signed document from an academic who has witnessed the powers or abilities of the person, and will validate that these powers or abilities have been verified.

reading that, does ANYONE qualify?

[Tim]

there's some good discussion of this here...

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=music&m=153874

some good points....

Apart from that, listening tests—which is what Mr Randi's challenge involves—will never show whether one cable is better than another, only whether or not someone can hear a difference between them. Provided there is an audible difference, the question of which is better is a matter of taste or personal preference and that can't be proved by a listening test so even if someone can prove they hear a difference Mr Randi would be quite within his rights to say that hearing a difference doesn't prove the superiority of the preferred cable so he could hang on to his million dollars and I'm sure that, like anyone else with a million dollars, he wouldn't like to part with it. That means that he's always going to stack his challenges in his own favour and he certainly knows how to do that.

To my mind, the purpose of audio equipment is to enable a listener to enjoy the experience of music. This is about hearing, and it is about the ability of equipment to produce sound that is *audibly* evaluated by the *listener* as being poor, good, better, realist, unrealistic ..... whatever. We make those judgments every time we sit down to listen to music. How does it *sound* --- to *me*.

This is quite different from scientific measures. By most scientific measures, the audio produced by analog stereo systems just does not compare very well with the measures of digital. And yet, many people enjoy listening to LPs much more than they do CDs, and in fact consider the audio of LPs *superior*.

I think Randi is quite disingenuosly blurring the distinction between preference and better performance in his challenge and that he knows quite well what he is doing. He knows that a listening test can't demonstrate that one cable is better than another yet he's not asking people to prove that they can hear a difference. Instead he's asking them to show that one is better than the other by a listening test when this can't be done. The most one can do is say at the end of the test, if one has reliably demonstrated that one can hear a difference, which one of the two one preferred.

[boojum]

Well, when you find that difference in wire let the engineering world know.  They will welcome the info.  Comparing ice cream to wire is silly and a distraction.  No one, other than the poster, is saying that the scientific community says this.  That is because they do not.  CU tests ice cream in a double blind test and rates the differences.

This argument is so easy to settle: try a double blind test.  One test is worth a thousand opinions.   YMMV   

[Jammin72]

I can hear a difference between crap cable and decent cable, between decent cable and esoteric cable not so much if any.

Differences between Copper, Silver, and Silver coated copper though are fairly provable and consistent.  But then you're speaking of sonic character rather than good, better, best.

[cshepherd]

It all comes down to system matching.  You have to listen for yourself. A proper cable budget is different for every system.  For the Circuit City shopper who just bought a $500 stereo, a $100 set of interconnects is going to be a waste of money.  Perfectly good rca cables come with the stereo.  A $300 set of speaker cables may be stretching the limits of sanity for some, but that amount only holds true for that person and his system.  The perceived differences between a $500 interconnect and an $150 interconnect on a $150 dvd player will likely be marginal.  On a $2000 phono stage, the differences become much more apparent.  The differences between cables depend on the gear used to make the comparison.

How much should be spent wiring up a $25,000 reference system?  I'll offer a hint...it's more than $2500. 

Chris

http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,67089.msg910689.html#msg910689
^^interesting reading here^^

[Tim]

Well, when you find that difference in wire let the engineering world know. 

are you saying that all wire is exactly the same?

[carlbeck]

Well, when you find that difference in wire let the engineering world know. 

are you saying that all wire is exactly the same?

This is my major argument in this thread that there seems to be a perceived notion that all wire is the same. IMO, those that feel all wire is the same have never heard good wire PERIOD. I don't feel a $7500 pair of cables is necessarily worth it but there are some genuine sonic advantages in using better cable. Until someone performs the test themselves they have no right to comment & I could care less about double blind tests or the scientific community, it's all heresay until you do it yourself.

[Tim]

This is my major argument in this thread that there seems to be a perceived notion that all wire is the same. IMO, those that feel all wire is the same have never heard good wire PERIOD. I don't feel a $7500 pair of cables is necessarily worth it but there are some genuine sonic advantages in using better cable. Until someone performs the test themselves they have no right to comment & I could care less about double blind tests or the scientific community, it's all heresay until you do it yourself.

yeah I'm with you, I was just curious if the position really was that ALL wire is EXACTLY the same. That's just silly imo. Certainly there's diminishing returns with the really expensive cable but cheap cable v. quality cable, there is a difference.

They're not using cheap cable in the Space Shuttle