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Post by Bob Olhsson on Oct 20, 2016 8:42:40 GMT -6
Actually most firewire cables are incredibly poorly made and intermittent. The format has a massive level of error correction so it took me months to realize a cable was causing my signal dropping problems. After trying and returning a number at office depot, I bit the bullet and ordered an expensive cable that completely solved my problems.
Another shock was trying to replace the connecter on a Hosa cable. It made Radio Shack look like high-end!
ABX tests are only valid when combined with listener training that demonstrates specific artifacts for the subjects to be focusing on. Without that it's a pseudo-science shell game that will always show random results.
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Post by schmalzy on Oct 20, 2016 9:07:58 GMT -6
Actually most firewire cables are incredibly poorly made and intermittent. The format has a massive level of error correction so it took me months to realize a cable was causing my signal dropping problems. After trying and returning a number at office depot, I bit the bullet and ordered an expensive cable that completely solved my problems. On top of that, watch out for the connections themselves. Sometimes the sockets just stop liking certain cables for whatever reason. I had a laptop that didn't like to hold in a certain FW800 cable. It held it tightly at first but, over time, it was less sure of a connection. Eventually I was loading pressure in the cable to hold it into the laptop's socket (by putting a little extra cable between a cable tie and the computer so it was lightly curved upward away from the surface it was sitting on - basically gravity and the cable's tendency to want to stay straight pushed it up against the laptop). I switched the cable out and the connection was tight again. Sooooo...Martin, try a different cable if you haven't already.
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Post by jin167 on Oct 20, 2016 9:08:06 GMT -6
jin167, next time,try asking four musicians who've actually tried switching out cables. When you said, "making claims like 'these cables WILL make a difference' without providing a reasonable scientific explanation or proof is a plain BS".Well, I've been at this over 40 years, and disagree. Look at Jim William's posts and Bob Olson's posts. One said to do a proper scientific test would take massive amounts of money, the other said he and others carefully tested some cables and do in fact hear improvements. By default, your statement means they don't know what they're hearing or doing. Or maybe they've provided as reasonable a scientific explanation as time and money allow? I'm curious, have you actually tried this? jazz noise, I appreciate where you're coming from. It's good to be reminded of priorities. Having already spent a lot of time on this subject over twenty years ago, I probably shouldn't be spending this much time on it now. I don't need guys in lab coats to know what I'm hearing, no offense intended to all the cool engineering cats here. Yesterday, my computer kept dropping the firewire signal from my Apollo. Today, it doesn't see it, and I don't think it's the cable. So, right now, I can't do any musical recording work at all. So, I'll have to bow out for a little while until I hopefully get that resolved. 1. jin167, next time,try asking four musicians who've actually tried switching out cables Four musicians going 'er.. I have a feeling that I can hear the difference but I have no idea why or how' doesn't really help. 2. ,the other said he and others carefully tested some cables and do in fact hear improvements. Personal experience doesn't exactly count as a scientific proof just in case you didn't know. 3. I'm curious, have you actually tried this? Have I tried spending $25,000 on a 1.25m power cable? Er... why would I do that? Have I tried using different cables? Yeah, sure. I've spent a reasonable amount of time and fund on trying out different power cables, speaker cables, power conditioners, outboard hardware, speakers, converters etc. over a decade. Conclusion? I've come to learn that there are things that do make a real difference but also there are things that don't. Got anxious to know why and that's what motivated me to choose electrical engineering as my second degree. Opened up a whole new world for me.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 9:30:56 GMT -6
I can just imagine Dave Pensado and his buddies crammed around his studio computer, flicking through this and other threads like it all over the world, slapping each other on the back and pissing themselves laughing ..... Everyone is right here - in the words of a great salesman - if you say it then it's true..
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Post by BradM on Oct 20, 2016 10:25:22 GMT -6
I'm still waiting for a recommendation for a 14 AWG high end power cord option that we can try. I can pick something myself, but I don't want to pick something that some might see as no upto snuff. Suggestions?
thanks, Brad
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 20, 2016 11:00:37 GMT -6
jin167 aid,"Four musicians going 'er.. I have a feeling that I can hear the difference but I have no idea why or how' doesn't really help".
I wasn't cracking wise, no need to get sarcastic. I meant try four very experienced knowledgable musicians, they might have a different perspective or answer than engineers and scientists.
Of course personal experience doesn't count as scientific proof. But as Bob Olson mentioned, to truly do scientific tests would cost gigabucks, so we're stuck with personal experience and some good engineering data too.
And come on, no one's really talking about $25,000 cables, although that might be a peripheral part of the discussion. I've been discussing cables I've used that cost between $125 and $300, not cables made for billionaires.
And last, for you, upgrading cabling might not make a "real difference", for me it does. I'm not saying that you're wrong, only that my experience is different. I'm not saying you couldn't, but how do I even know if you could hear a difference or not, even if it's there. Some things I never noticed are now obvious as I learned new things and my listening skills got better.
So, I have to take my own impressions and use that, it's certainly not much skin off anyone's back to try a power cord or cable switch, just for fun to see. Hell, we spend hours and hours on things far more esoteric, so why not. Where I get caught up is with all the smug snarky comments, often from people who haven't even tried this because they "know" it can't make a difference. I'm not referring to anyone specific here, but there's been some of that here too.
*Brad, I'm troubleshooting a major breakdown, my interface isn't working, so all music work has stopped for now. So I have no time for research until I'm back onboard. Was the cable I mentioned earlier and posted the Audiogon link not a good choice?
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Post by kilroyrock on Oct 20, 2016 12:26:53 GMT -6
I can just imagine Dave Pensado and his buddies crammed around his studio computer, flicking through this and other threads like it all over the world, slapping each other on the back and pissing themselves laughing ..... Everyone is right here - in the words of a great salesman - if you say it then it's true.. 11 pages deep on this thread.. not many threads get this many pages. I'm not sure if it's due to the frustration of the snake oil style products existing, or if we all just believe in aliens..
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Post by kilroyrock on Oct 20, 2016 12:28:45 GMT -6
I'm still waiting for a recommendation for a 14 AWG high end power cord option that we can try. I can pick something myself, but I don't want to pick something that some might see as no upto snuff. Suggestions? thanks, Brad get this one www.essentialsound.com/musiccord-power-cord.htm
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Post by ragan on Oct 20, 2016 12:56:48 GMT -6
I think that's perfectly valid, but it fundamentally changes the discussion. You're essentially saying "I make a quick call based on my gut feeling and I don't care if it turns out I was wrong or right, I trust my instinct and move on". Nothing wrong with that, but the whole discussion thus far had been between people who do care if there's a correct answer to the question. Also, um, I don't think anyone here has said or would say "you know when a great time for testing gear is? Right in the middle of a session!" Look at the digital transition. Not much argument it was a fundamental leap forward in linearity. But it turns out we don't really want to hear linearity in our recorded music. We want the non-linearity that made the previous analog medium sound euphonic. Has that non-linearity been adequately quantified as a standard to comparatively rate product on? I'd say at this point, we just know it when we hear it. If I take your comparison the way you mean it (which I'm not certain of) the difference there is that there is in fact a measurable difference, right? Compare audio going straight in and out of Pro Tools to audio coming off a Studer (or whatever deck we wanna pick) and you're gonna see why it sounds different. Harmonics, compression, frequency response changing dynamically, etc. In the case of swapping pieces of copper that supply a piece of gear, I've yet to hear that anyone documented the alleged changes in audio (not that I'm any sort of authority, nor am I particularly well read on the matter). And also, an electrical engineer, whose training is specifically geared towards understanding something like a power supply, can give us several reasons why swapping that piece of wire (provided it supplies the voltage the piece of gear's power supply wants) has no way to affect the sonics or the gear. Whereas the evidence that says it does make a difference in the audio seems to be all anectodal, ie "I heard it" or "such and such person whom I trust said they heard it" or whatever. I'm not of the opinion that evidence like that doesn't matter at all, but it's not very persuasive to me personally. I've "heard" things many times that turned out to be complete expectation bias (like the EQ in bypass that's always mentioned). Or this classic clip.
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Post by ragan on Oct 20, 2016 13:00:16 GMT -6
Something got funky with that multiple quote post. Here's the clip.
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Post by ragan on Oct 20, 2016 13:07:30 GMT -6
Again, I don't think people saying they hear a difference is nothing. It is something. It's just that when there's a strong technical argument that there isn't a difference and a strong body of evidence that explains why people constantly think they're hearing things that they actually aren't, I'm one who leans towards the more scientific side.
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Post by svart on Oct 20, 2016 13:36:30 GMT -6
Again, I don't think people saying they hear a difference is nothing. It is something. It's just that when there's a strong technical argument that there isn't a difference and a strong body of evidence that explains why people constantly think they're hearing things that they actually aren't, I'm one who leans towards the more scientific side. I've said multiple times in the thread that I don't doubt people hear something, but I want scientific proof of what they are actually hearing. I want to settle the matter, one way, or another. Is it clarity? Is it extended bandwidth? is it harmonic excitement? Is it filtering? Or.. Is it nothing but wishful thinking? I haven't once accused anyone of *lying* or *imagining* anything, but folks keep getting overly-defensive about their opinions. I've offered to do any test within my power to determine if an expensive power cable actually improves sound over a properly spec'd "cheap" power cable.. Honestly I would have thought folks would have jumped on this chance to prove what they are hearing, but instead I see a lot of push back with arguments like 'I hear it, that's enough for me'. I see this going nowhere really. It seems folks just aren't interested in knowing what's going on, scientifically.
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Post by ragan on Oct 20, 2016 13:46:15 GMT -6
Again, I don't think people saying they hear a difference is nothing. It is something. It's just that when there's a strong technical argument that there isn't a difference and a strong body of evidence that explains why people constantly think they're hearing things that they actually aren't, I'm one who leans towards the more scientific side. I've said multiple times in the thread that I don't doubt people hear something, but I want scientific proof of what they are actually hearing. I want to settle the matter, one way, or another. Is it clarity? Is it extended bandwidth? is it harmonic excitement? Is it filtering? Or.. Is it nothing but wishful thinking? I haven't once accused anyone of *lying* or *imagining* anything, but folks keep getting overly-defensive about their opinions. I've offered to do any test within my power to determine if an expensive power cable actually improves sound over a properly spec'd "cheap" power cable.. Honestly I would have thought folks would have jumped on this chance to prove what they are hearing, but instead I see a lot of push back with arguments like 'I hear it, that's enough for me'. I see this going nowhere really. It seems folks just aren't interested in knowing what's going on, scientifically. And I don't see anything wrong with saying "I don't actually care to know the answer, I believe what I believe and I'm moving on" as long as the person is fine acknowleding that that's, distilled down, their position. And as has been said, there's no reason to have any feelings invested in the matter, at least not to me. I don't mean to step on anyone's identity and I can't conceive of myself even being able to get upset by anything in this realm.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 13:54:32 GMT -6
Nobody is going to do these expensive tests. For a very simple reason. They are absolutely unnecessary. Serious engineers with degrees know the outcome. Those who believe something else are a very small minority which does not want it's belief demystified. Because they a) invested money and/or time to buy or build this stuff and do not want to hear that this was totally pointless. or b) sell this stuff.
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Post by rowmat on Oct 20, 2016 14:25:05 GMT -6
Over the years (mainly when I was working in the industry) I attempted to have several proponents of expensive esoteric cables agree to conduct blind testing with a group of interested hi-hi buffs.
It always turned out the same.
Some would just say blind testing doesn't work and refuse to conduct a listening session while some others would initially agree but then change their mind citing that blind testing is flawed, or arguing how the test should be carried out, or the listeners would not be used to the equipment, or the room acoustics, or the listeners had not spent enough time to learn the subtleties and characteristics of various cables and interconnects etc. etc.
It seems all were happy to have a listening session with the esoteric cables already installed but not if it involved a shootout.
So in the end NONE would put their mouths where their, or other people's money went!
Of note is these were either people/organisations who were selling cables or those had already spent a LOT of money purchasing cables.
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Post by kcatthedog on Oct 20, 2016 14:29:20 GMT -6
11 pages long
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Post by Martin John Butler on Oct 20, 2016 15:48:24 GMT -6
No time to read through and catch up, I'm teaching today. Thanks for mentioning the cables Bob, Schmalzy, I did change one cable, so I knew I had at least one that was working properly to test. Firewire sucks, I hope Thunderbolt will be better when I eventually switch. Once again, a better cable sounds better ;-) (just teasing, of course it's probably the connection). Got this from tech help at UAD this morning. I'd only ever done repair disk permissions, the other things were new to me. So far, it's working, don't know for how long yet.. crossing fingers. John R (Universal Audio) Oct 20, 9:39 AM PDT Hello Martin, I would try the following steps. Clear DYLD Cache Repair Disk Permissions: Using the Finder select: GO/APPLICATIONS/UTILITIES/DISK UTILITY Double click on DISK UTILITY. Select your system drive and then select: REPAIR DISK PERMISSIONS. When this is completed proceed and clear the dyld Cache in the system. Clearing the dyld Cache: 1) Launch Terminal, located at /Applications/Utilities/. 2) At the Terminal prompt, enter the following command. Please note this is a single line; some browsers may show this command spanning multiple lines. sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force 3) Press enter or return. 4) You will be asked for an administrator account password. Once the password is accepted, Terminal may display some warning messages about mismatches in the dlyd cache. Don't worry; these are warnings about the content that is being cleared out and then updated by the command. Clearing the dyld cache can take a few moments. Once it's complete, the normal Terminal prompt will return. I also recommend doing a reset of the PRAM and SMC support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063Best Regards,
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Post by jimwilliams on Oct 20, 2016 16:06:58 GMT -6
Actually most firewire cables are incredibly poorly made and intermittent. The format has a massive level of error correction so it took me months to realize a cable was causing my signal dropping problems. After trying and returning a number at office depot, I bit the bullet and ordered an expensive cable that completely solved my problems. Another shock was trying to replace the connecter on a Hosa cable. It made Radio Shack look like high-end! ABX tests are only valid when combined with listener training that demonstrates specific artifacts for the subjects to be focusing on. Without that it's a pseudo-science shell game that will always show random results. There are plenty of higher end USB cables out. The Audio Quest line is popular with PC audio souls. Kimber has a nice varistrand pure silver USB with high end connectors for $1195. Transparent XL Ref Digital AES digital cable will set you back $3595 for one meter, add $1000 for each additional meter. It may be cheaper to move the building instead.
All of you should check out the affordable Belkin gold series USB cables, only $15. No more excuses. www.belkin.com
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 20, 2016 16:31:54 GMT -6
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Oct 20, 2016 16:59:00 GMT -6
Firewire is not USB!
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 20, 2016 17:18:37 GMT -6
Got anxious to know why and that's what motivated me to choose electrical engineering as my second degree. Opened up a whole new world for me. Problem is that formal electrical engineering schools have had nothing whatsoever to do with anything audio for a good half century. (God has it really been THAT long?) and the people now teaching EE know nothing (about audio). Some programs even teach things that are absolutely wrong when applied to certain types of audio equipment.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 20, 2016 17:23:14 GMT -6
Of course personal experience doesn't count as scientific proof. Well, no. But all scientific proof must start with personal observation. As bob said (on another forum): "The appropriate role for science is the study of observed phenomena to gain an understanding. It is not dictating what people ought or ought not to be observing."
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 20, 2016 17:31:46 GMT -6
Nobody is going to do these expensive tests. For a very simple reason. They are absolutely unnecessary. Serious engineers with degrees know the outcome. Those who believe something else are a very small minority which does not want it's belief demystified. Because they a) invested money and/or time to buy or build this stuff and do not want to hear that this was totally pointless. or b) sell this stuff. There is an accepted term for those who preach that they "know" the truth and don't have to bother conducting experiments to prove it. That term is not "scientists". That term is "pedants". (No disrespect intended.) BTW, the world is flat. Ask anybody (who lives on Diskworld!) It also is propelled through space on the backs of four huge elephants standing on the shell of a gigantic turtle named A'tuin. Like I said, ask anybody..... (And if you don't read Terry Pratchett, you need to.)
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Post by M57 on Oct 20, 2016 17:46:39 GMT -6
It also is propelled through space on the backs of four huge elephants standing on the shell of a gigantic turtle named A'tuin. Like I said, ask anybody..... ..and for those who would dare question what the turtle stands on.. It's " turtles all the way down."
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 20, 2016 17:51:23 GMT -6
Over the years (mainly when I was working in the industry) I attempted to have several proponents of expensive esoteric cables agree to conduct blind testing with a group of interested hi-hi buffs. It always turned out the same. Some would just say blind testing doesn't work and refuse to conduct a listening session while some others would initially agree but then change their mind citing that blind testing is flawed, or arguing how the test should be carried out, or the listeners would not be used to the equipment, or the room acoustics, or the listeners had not spent enough time to learn the subtleties and characteristics of various cables and interconnects etc. etc. It seems all were happy to have a listening session with the esoteric cables already installed but not if it involved a shootout. So in the end NONE would put their mouths where their, or other people's money went! Of note is these were either people/organisations who were selling cables or those had already spent a LOT of money purchasing cables. I am of the opinion that blind testing often does not work for two reasons: One is procedural - Many ignorant practitioners of the blind testing religion attempt to use it to prove a negative, i.e. "Well, none of the people in the test heard it so it doesn't exist!" Wrong. All they've proved is that nobody in their sample could hear a difference under the particular conditions imposed by the test. (Which speaks to the second reason, we'll get to that...) You can't prove a negative, you can only prove a positive. And if even ONE PERSON can perceive the phenomonon in question it doesn't matter how many can't - it's proved, and those people simple don't have the acuity to pick up on it. The second reason is that, IMO, the way that most blind tests are set up- biases the tests by forcing a certain perceptual mindset on the subjects that is unnatural. People process audio in different ways depending on context, and blind testing forces an analytical mindset that fosters uncertainty and is antithetical to the mindset employed by experienced audio professionals engaged in artistic critical listening. I'm not saying it isn't a useful tool for many things. I'm saying that it isn't the untimate be-all and end-all that the fanatics purport it to be. A corrollary of this is that I don't believe that electronic testing is the be-all and end-all, either. No test gear is perfect. If it was they wouldn't need (or be able) to keep improving it.
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