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Perhaps I'm not explaining it well. I think what you meant by as good as it gets...ipso facto...good enough is that if something exceeds the req'd specification, it also meets the spec. Not actually always true but leaving that aside for the moment.
If something is as good as it gets it may have surpassed good enough but it cannot be both at the same time. Just like you cannot simultaneously get 51% and 98% on an exam. It is possible for something to be as good as it gets (a quality of the thing) and good enough (for a task) because those are different things. It is also possible for something to be as good as it gets but not good enough for the task req'd. ( The chocolate teapot)
Hope that explains where I'm coming from.
So I feel in summary, and after quite some drift in other directions - the original question "Does speaker cable actually make a difference?" The answer is Yes it does, but don't bother spending too much on it as you won't hear any difference other than a subconscious difference which may give you more enjoyment from your listening. This may be worth it to you personally in which case go ahead and treat yourself.
Some reasonable discourse...very welcome...it's so dull when those with the strongest beleifs just bash the other side with them.
petercook80
Free Member
So I feel in summary, and after quite some drift in other directions – the original question “Does speaker cable actually make a difference?” The answer is Yes it does, but don’t bother spending too much on it as you won’t hear any difference other than a subconscious difference which may give you more enjoyment from your listening. This may be worth it to you personally in which case go ahead and treat yourself.
well not really, the answer is, it will make a difference up until some basic electrical requirements are met to be able to carry the signal, after that it doesn't matter a hoot. 😆
Whatever makes you happy...
The answer is Yes it does, but don’t bother spending too much on it as you there isn't any difference other than a subconscious difference
Fixed to remove your not so subconcious bias.
God help us all.... 🤦♂️
When I added expensive cable to my system I guess the frequency response was identical – but it all sounded bigger and richer, with more perceived depth, height and separation.
What scientific instruments exist to measure such perceived musical qualities?
It is about perception as has been mentioned many times here already.
Oh, bindun; ignore me.
Your bank statement?
You could probably test it yourself without any fancy equipment. Run both sets of cables and have a friend connect a set at random without telling you. Listen to the music, blindfolded. Rinse and repeat a dozen times. See if you can reliably tell the difference beyond chance.
(I'll bet you a shiny new pound coin that you can't, unless the old stuff was really nasty.)
It’s nice to have nice things.
It’s nice to have very stupid nice things.
I own a £2500 watch and £250 belt. They are nice.
They don’t function any better than a £2.50 watch or no belt as I don’t need a belt.
It’s nice to have nice things.The only point of expensive speaker cable is the owners joy of having expensive speaker cable.
...Is pretty much the perfect summary. Everything else is just waffle.
Maple syrup, anyone?
When I added expensive cable to my system I guess the frequency response was identical
Maybe. There was a guy whose name I forget did some work on this. The resistance in speaker wire is constant across all frequencies. Speaker coils change depending on the frequency. So an infinitely short cable will most closely reproduce what the amp puts out. So reducing resistance in the wire will help reduce whatever cable length you use to the theoretically short one. To a point. What he and Polk, of Polk audio fame, found was that modern wire was actually introducing weird harmonics. They solved that by putting iirc a resistor across the cables. This was back in the 80s I think. People have been having this argument since the 70s.
So they concluded that your wire should match your application. To thin and to long and your amp will release it's magic smoke. Too thick and you introduce weird stuff.
Don't even get me started on guys who re-cap old amos and then complain the sound has lost its warmth and tone.
Given this a website dedicated to riding around the woods on very expensive adult toys, I'd say if anyone wants to spend on speaker cable because: Reasons...Then knock yourself out. If we're living at the stub end of late stage capitalism, may as well take advantage of it.
This place https://www.russandrews.com/ should cause multiple head explosions and might even finish off a few here completely..... 🙂
Run both sets of cables and have a friend connect a set at random without telling you. Listen to the music, blindfolded. Rinse and repeat a dozen times. See if you can reliably tell the difference beyond chance.
I got into this when I expressed doubt/cynicism about the whole thing in a hi-fi shop on Westover Road in Bournemouth. Without hesitation the sales assistant disappeared behind a counter and re-emerged holding something that looked liked a reel of transatlantic power cable, and told me to go home and plug it all in and listen to it for a few weeks, which I did.
While the exercise convinced my human ears and my soul that cables make a difference, I can't prove it scientifically, and neither would I want to, because music isn't about science and I'm not bored enough to attempt to understand ohms or to assess all of my feelings to a satisfactory level of statistical significance, lol.
Too thick and you introduce weird stuff.
I can't Science this but it sounds plausible. Going back to my "shot in a pint glass" analogy, you would never do that because half of the shot would probably stay in the glass.
Don’t even get me started on guys who re-cap old amos and then complain the sound has lost its warmth and tone.
This is a bit "damned if you do, damned if you don't." Old electrolytic caps have a tendency to be a little bit... explody. In the retro computing scene, re-capping rescued hardware before plugging it back in for the first time in 20 years is pretty standard practice.
One could argue that whilst a re-capped amp has allegedly lost [insert audio-babble here], if it has actually then changed it's likely a lot closer to how it was when it was new and is sounding as intended.
Ethernet is a standard of various categories which are either met or not. It’s not like the old analogue hifi world. What goes in == what comes out, or it’s faulty.
Not entirely true @Cougar I have tested various network cables in electrically noisy environments. When the bit error rate increases so does the number of retries etc. It would not be impossible for this to cause audible jitter on a digital audio signal. I have to admit these were quite extreme tests but its not as simple as saying digital is either there or not when you have timing involved.
told me to go home and plug it all in and listen to it for a few weeks, which I did.
While the exercise convinced my human ears and my soul that cables make a difference,
Was this exercise a blind test as I suggested, or did you swap the cables and convince yourself that it sounded better?
My mum used to work in a pharmacy, for pretty much her entire adult life up until retirement. In her early years she used to fulfil prescriptions for Red Aspirin. They were prescribed for people who'd go to the doctors and go "well, can't you just give me something?" They were little red tablets packed full of pharmaceutical-grade placebo goodness, not a single active ingredient. People swore by them, recommended them to their friends.
It's considered unethical these days to prescribe placebo, unless you're a homeopath. But it does raise rather a large elephant-in-the-room question as to whether it's actually a bad thing if people go away happier.
Enjoy your cables.
It’s considered unethical these days to prescribe placebo
Good. My dad was put on 'trial' drugs for chest pain and died of a massive heart attack 8 months later. After which, we learned his 'trial' drugs were placebo-based.
Was this exercise a blind test as I suggested, or did you swap the cables and convince yourself that it sounded better?
No, I swapped the cables (which were on loan to me, for free) back and forth several times to convince myself they made no difference. Does that affect your argument at all?
I can’t Science this but it sounds plausible.
https://www.passlabs.com/technical_article/speaker-cables-science-or-snake-oil/
This isn't the original article I remember but it talks about some of the same stuff.
I guess I've been lucky with my old stuff. Magic smoke intact in all the caps. I can't imagine what new caps do that old ones didn't that would affect the sound. I've heard all sorts of theories. Lead/Lead free solder. Different mixture of witches brew in the caps. Who knows.
Not entirely true @Cougar I have tested various network cables in electrically noisy environments.
Yes, but we're talking about someone's living room, not a factory plant.
When the bit error rate increases so does the number of retries etc. It would not be impossible for this to cause audible jitter on a digital audio signal. I have to admit these were quite extreme tests but its not as simple as saying digital is either there or not when you have timing involved.
Yeah, I don't disagree, but you're comparing apples with oranges. Digital signals have error checking and correction and it is either there or it isn't. Ethernet can retry and in fact is built by design that collision detection and resending is a core operation, it's not time-critical in the same way that A/V is.
Unless you have two-way communication then as soon as digital audio starts erroring beyond any ECC it's game over. You're not gonna get jitter, you're gonna get gaps. Ever listen to DAB radio in a car? Once you start to lose reception you don't get FM-style static and noise, you get a quick squelch and then silence.
No, I swapped the cables (which were on loan to me, for free) back and forth several times to convince myself they made no difference. Does that affect your argument at all?
No. Because you swapped them, you always knew which was which. It doesn't matter which outcome you wanted or expected, you've got inherent bias there even if it's subconscious. Get someone else to swap them, see if you can still tell the difference.
When scientists are sciencing their preferred method is double-blind, so not even the people setting up the experiment know which thing is which. Otherwise the trial subjects could pick up on accidental clues slipped by the sciencers, that's how strong biases can be.
So, if it's all in your head - how come the first time I bought (slightly) expensive speaker cable I couldn't tell any difference, but then I bought some different and I thought it sounded better?
If it was just money spent make good sound then would I not have noticed it the first time?
There's still a shiny pound coin on offer if you can prove me wrong and reliably tell the difference in blind tests, Mols.
Think of me if you like as a Poundland James Randi.
No. Because you swapped them, you always knew which was which. Get someone else to swap them, see if you can still tell the difference.
Done this with DAC choice a few times - effect is as clear as night and day. Speaker cables is bit of a pain since both need to be connected and disconnected at both ends and blinded. But skin depth for signal conduction and impedance are real things - as is quality of connectors.
Disclaimer - one may have used some Russ Andrews connectors - speaker cable is nothing excessive though and currently 30 year old bell wire that was wired into the speakers from new (Rogers). And my they are nice speakers for the computer!
There’s still a shiny pound coin on offer if you can prove me wrong and reliably tell the difference in blind tests, Mols.
It's too much faff to set up.
Make it 1000 gold pound coins and it might be worth someone getting off there arse and setting up a test environment, but for one pound its not much of an incentive or much strength of conviction...
Is there a TL;DR version of this thread? Does speaker cable actually make a difference?
I've only skimmed that first article but it seems basically to imply that we're not equipped to tell the difference. Which rather has the opposite effect to the one they intended, if that's the case then it destroys in a stroke any audiophile's claims that they can.
And yes, Enjoy The Music, I recognise that name, it's the website that gave us this piece of comedy gold:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hificritic/vol5_no3/listening_to_storage.htm
If there's a greater source of abject bollocks about Hi-Hi than EtM then I've yet to find it.
Make it 1000 gold pound coins and it might be worth someone getting off there arse and setting up a test environment, but for one pound its not much of an incentive or much strength of conviction…
I mean, you could win an argument on the Internet, it's hard to put a price on that.
It doesn't need a "test environment" anyway. It needs your living room, two sets of cables, a blindfold and a glamorous assistant.
Make it £1,000 both ways - so you pay me the same if you lose - and I'd be half-tempted to make that wager. It's probably a safe bet because I highly doubt that anyone here would actually take me up on it if I did.
I mean, you could win an argument on the internet
I don't need to, do I? I'm happy with my system and the £30 or so I spend on cables 20 years ago. I don't think that's excessive.
I have a suspicion that at some point in the future someone will discover a tiny vestigial organ embedded in the brain that can detect super high frequencies via a different pathway to normal aural processing and it is connected directly to the amygdala or something, and it is only present in some people. If this happens I will laugh at all people quoting 'hard science' about the truth of Hi-Fi.
"There’s still a shiny pound coin on offer if you can prove me wrong and reliably tell the difference in blind tests, Mols."
"It doesn’t need a “test environment” anyway. It needs your living room, two sets of cables, a blindfold and a glamorous assistant."
I'd also like to see what you would accept as 'proving you wrong' to even part with your mythical gold coin. Cause I could tell you I have done it and proven it but I know you wouldn't believe me no matter what I said - and you would be perfectly correct in doing so, its the internet after all. So in summary a pretty pointless and useless offer ...
I’d also like to see what you would accept as ‘proving you wrong’ to even part with your mythical gold coin.
If you were going to give me a grand I'd come round to your house and run the experiment myself.
We could video it. If you can reliably tell the difference between say three sets of speaker cables in a fair blind test, we'd make a **** lot more than a grand on the back of it. You'd have places like Enjoy the Music selling a kidney for that sort of footage.
You'd think, really, that it'd already exist...
I don’t need to, do I?
Of course you don't. But here we are. You're happy with your cables, I too have bought 'proper' speaker cable in the past and I was happy with that also.
If this happens I will laugh at all people quoting ‘hard science’ about the truth of Hi-Fi.
It doesn't need hard science (whatever that is, opposed to 'science'). If you can tell the difference then the how and the why doesn't matter, we can worry about that later. This is the homeopath's "science doesn't know everything" argument.
I'm positing that you cannot in fact tell the difference, and that it would be trivial for you to prove me wrong. Yet you're happy to sit here arguing the toss for hours but actually demonstrating it would be too much faff.
Is that perhaps because, deep down, you know I'm right?
I could tell you I have done it and proven it but I know you wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said
I don't know you from a cheese sandwich, but I'd likely take Molgrips at his word.
Yep; I'm with Cougar on this. The "hard science" as molgrips puts it - agrees that beyond a minimum spec to actually cope with the power required there's little difference between £2 cable and £2000 cable. I'm caveating "little difference" because different cable sizes and configuration might have slightly different inductance and capacitance - to avoid the 'hah; but...' crowd.
I'd flip the question actually - what level of proof would people like petercook80 accept as proof that there *isn't* a difference ?
This is the homeopath’s “science doesn’t know everything” argument.
Well, it doesn't. Those tests with frequency analysers and so on, they are testing within the bounds of the equippment they are using. Popular science books are stuffed with conclusions that were drawn from measurements that turned out to either be not measuring the right thing, or the equipment wasn't working the right way but appeared to be for some other reason, etc etc. they are important lessons in interpreting the results of experiments.
Not entirely true @Cougar I have tested various network cables in electrically noisy environments. When the bit error rate increases so does the number of retries etc. It would not be impossible for this to cause audible jitter on a digital audio signal. I have to admit these were quite extreme tests but its not as simple as saying digital is either there or not when you have timing involved.
This comes up in audiophile reviews of network cables and reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of *what* is being transmitted.
Audio is not being transmitted over a ethernet cable (unless you're using Audio over Ethernet, but at home you're not). A digital representation of the audio, at least chopped up into chunks and typically compressed, is transmitted. The playback device will stream and buffer a chunk of audio that will be at least many seconds and easily a minute long. There's no way jitter or retransmissions can impact the digital signal that is being transmitted when it's not being used in realtime.
You cannot measure anything like this accurately as putting the measuring device into the system changes it. Basic science
’m positing that you cannot in fact tell the difference,
cougar - do you agree you can hear a difference between bell wire and proper speaker cable? I am sure i even could tell the difference between using 2+e and proper speaker wire
Its just that you get into diminishing returns very quickly and after a certain price point ( few quid a m?) then any "improvements" are insignificantly small.
You cannot measure anything like this accurately as putting the measuring device into the system changes it. Basic science
You don't need to put something inside the system; this is audio; you can measure the output of the speaker using a calibrated microphone. If that's not accurate enough for you then lousy organic ears haven't got a cat in hells chance of finding a difference either 😀
Well, it doesn’t. Those tests with frequency analysers and so on
And again, this is irrelevant.
The claim is nothing to do with frequency analysers. The claim is "I can tell that it sounds better" and my counter-claim is "no you can't."
Even if it's just for your own amusement and curiosity this could be readily resolved with no more fancy hardware than a bag of cables, a notebook and a lazy Sunday afternoon. No spectrum analysers, oscilloscopes or PKE meters required.
Prove to yourself that you can in fact hear a difference in a fair test and then we'll worry about how that might be.
This comes up in audiophile reviews of network cables and reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of *what* is being transmitted.
You need to read the link I posted earlier. It is glorious.
do you agree you can hear a difference between bell wire and proper speaker cable?
Maybe; but it really depends on the bell wire and what volume you wanted to listen at. You might notice a *volume* difference between the two; as the bell wire is likely to have higher resistence and therefore greater attenuation. But we're at the extremes here - something as cheap as possible vs something that's not.
bell wire v couple of quid a metre speaker wire was an obvious difference - not just volume but tone
You cannot measure anything like this accurately as putting the measuring device into the system changes it. Basic science
Basic hogwash.
Even if that were the case, it'd change every test by the same amount. But, what Steve said.
cougar – do you agree you can hear a difference between bell wire and proper speaker cable?
Honestly, I don't know. The last time I hooked up speakers with not much better than bell wire it was a Midi system in the 1990s. I want to say that I could (and it's why I have a bagful of the stuff in the cupboard) but that's likely my own bias, I'd have to test it to be confident in what I could hear.
TBH with the cable being the speakers' only power source I'd have greater concerns over the wire melting. (-:
I am sure i even could tell the difference between using 2+e and proper speaker wire
Bullshit you could. Shiny pound coin Jezza, shiny pound coin.
You don’t need to put something inside the system; this is audio; you can measure the output of the speaker using a calibrated microphone
the microphone changes the environment :-). Its a really nitpicking thing but any attempt to measure something changes it. Observer effect I believe its known as
Measure it with your ears.
This is, after all, how and why we listen to music.
Cougar - the bell wire to proper cables was very obvious. 2+e to speaker cable - I am quite happy that I could hear a difference but also happy to ascribe that to placebo
State my ears are in now tho................
Measure it with your ears.
This is, after all, how and why we listen to music.
Now we are back to it being subjective not objective
*runs away*
Bastard.
Well, it doesn’t. Those tests with frequency analysers and so on
You can however, as suggested, use the scientific methodology to test it without needing frequency analysers etc as has already been mentioned.
Just get someone else to switch the wires out so you dont know which is which and repeat several times and see if you can reliably identify which one is better.
Looking at that russandrews site their objections to ABX testing is a curious one.
Actually, no, we aren't. There is a difference between "I think that this sounds better" and "I can reliably tell that this sounds better."
the microphone changes the environment :-).
It's the same microphone; in the same place - all your changing is the cable connected to the speaker. So actually; I don't buy this one bit.
Tone and volume are intrinsically linked; this is why I mentioned the volume change 🙂 I'm not arguing there isn't a difference between bell wire and something appropriately sized. Just that the difference probably is more likely to be down to losses (as Cougar says; the worry is more about melting the wire) rather than any magic sound colouring
indeed - double blind trials will tell you. But then you are entering a world of weirdness 'cos the brain is a funny thing. Like the woman who could tell colours by touch. Like visions and telepathy etc. If they can tell the which cable is which is it the sound or are they getting the info from something else
And for shits and giggles, if it's a blind test, swap the polarity round on one of the speakers! That will make far more difference than any cable (for the worse) and see what they say. 😀
the microphone changes the environment :-). Its a really nitpicking thing but any attempt to measure something changes it. Observer effect I believe its known as
I know you wish to believe that you are correct (as with everything) but nope….nope….nope..
Industry standard klippel speaker measuring device
stevehine - but the microphone is not hearing the same as you are as by putting the microphone in there you change the acoustics of the room. so the microphone is not measuring what you hear.
Observer effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)
State my ears are in now tho
Honestly TJ, that's the other elephant in the room. To wit, most of the correspondents here are likely more Indian elephant than African elephant. Even if the answer to "does cable make a difference?" is an emphatic "yes," our middle-aged middle-class whiny cockbag ears are probably too sodded to hear it.
Meanwhile, teenagers with their perfect teenage ears are listening to music on a phone speaker.
If they can tell the which cable is which is it the sound or are they getting the info from something else
You should be able to make it safe from other factors. Have the cables covered up with something that even an audiophile agrees wont interfere with the sound (or maybe blindfold them) and have two assistants so the one swapping the cables has absolutely zero contact with the subject and so minimise the risk of tells.
somafunk - observer effect is real. sure thats a good standard test but it cannot replicate what your ears do.
There is a difference between “I think that this sounds better” and “I can reliably tell that this sounds better.”
Indeed. It reminds me of some tests that were done a few years ago on oboes. Basically plastic and resin bodied oboes are considered inferior to wooden ones. A blind test was set up and listeners (including oboe professionals) were asked to rate different oboes for sound quality and to identify the material. The first part was easy, it's subjective. The second part came to the conclusion that no-one could accurately and repeatedly identify the oboes by material.
Just a thought, I wonder how many "audiophiles" who fuss so much about speaker cables ever bother to think about the internal cabling.
but the microphone is not hearing the same as you are as by putting the microphone in there you change the acoustics of the room.
If you can tell the difference aurally between a room containing a microphone and a room not containing a microphone, you can have my bike.
And even if that were the case, your baseline is "microphone in the room and switched off."
so the microphone is not measuring what you hear.
It doesn't need to. The (hypothetical) microphone is measuring audio signal, what's measuring what you hear is your ears.
Just a thought, I wonder how many “audiophiles” who fuss so much about speaker cables ever bother to think about the internal cabling.
I have a cambridge audio amp where the internal wiring is totally symmetrical - so the right and left channels not only are identical electrically but physically. Its always amused me
Cougar says he can't 'science' but what we are talking about is sciencing. Any results that you might to record have to be interpreted and evaluated.
And you have to remember, I'm not a hi-fi buff or an audiophile. I like decent sound, but only on a budget. I'm spending the minimum I can. I have Cambridge Audio stuff from circa 2000 that was bought used or in one case shop damaged and repaired. And I'm critical rather than gullible.
I now stream music - I have tried HD audio (uncompressed) and I can absolutely tell the difference, but in interesting ways. Not that I can hear more frequencies or anything, but MP3 audio via headphones makes my head hurt after about 20 minutes, whereas uncompressed audio doesn't. I'm sure Cougar knows how MP3 works, it relies on dropping frequencies you cannot hear when other things are happening - but for me, whilst I cannot exactly identify the missing sound it has an effect on my brain. This apparently doesn't affect many people though judging by the numbers of people I see walking around listening to what must be compressed audio all day.
BUT
I cannot tell any difference between HD and Ultra HD (on Amazon). If I were swallowing any old bullshit, surely I'd claim that Ultra HD was better?
I'm not lusting after any new hifi stuff, I have zero interested - the only thing I bought recently was a streamer, so I could ditch the CDs and get the shelves out of the living room. However, it sounds pretty different to the CD player. Much sharper, clearer, and the frequency response is wider, but less warmth. An interesting side effect is that having wired the streamer directly into the power amps, rather than through a pre-amp, is that it can be on very low volume but still sound as if it's on higher volume. I keep thinking its loud but then I realise I can talk very quietly and still be heard.
There is an awful lot going on between the TCP packets coming into my streamer and my conscious brain assessing it.
cougar - read up on observer effect. Even a microphone switched on or switched off will make infinitesimal changes
but the microphone is not hearing the same as you are as by putting the microphone in there you change the acoustics of the room. so the microphone is not measuring what you hear.
But we're comparing two things; not measuring a single. So the observer effect is present in both setups A + B - or are you claiming the presence of the microphone somehow negates the differences in the cables ?
No - all I am saying is in physics it is accepted that trying to measure something changes it. thats all. so you can never accurately measure a sound.
Its a tiny effect in this case and I would very much doubt audible
edit - and again we are back at subjective ( sounds better) and objective ( what can be measured)
mp3 (and many audio formats) are lossy; they absolutely do introduce artefacts. Hell; even 24bit digital audio introduces some quantisation noise; it's just a tiny amount. And different sources will undoubtedly sound different.
But we're talking about speaker cable; the final 3m of high power signal; It's the least technically important piece of the kit (maybe with the exception of the mains cable)
I’m sure Cougar knows how MP3 works,
I do, and not all mp3 is equal. You can be approaching lossless or sound like it's coming from the other end of a landline. Gonna need more information than "mp3" to comment further.
MP3 audio via headphones makes my head hurt after about 20 minutes
I do get this though. I have a similar issue with fluorescent strip lights.
cougar – read up on observer effect. Even a microphone switched on or switched off will make infinitesimal changes
Who cares?
I had the same album ( exodus) in 3 formats. vinyl, CD and MP3 you could hear a difference between them played thru the same setup. MP3 was obvious ( less stereo separation, less range) vinyl or CD - sounded different. I would guess the CD was more accurate but sounding "better" - simply a matter of tastes.
@tj - ok; so having the mic in front of the speaker changes the system. But if you are using the microphone to compare the output of the speaker when two different cables are connected *and nothing else changes* - then you have controlled for that.
It might change the response of the system as a whole; but it's changing the response in the exact same way for either cable.
I moved into a house and three music systems ended up in the same room
Sanyo mini disk tape and cd player that looked like separates but wasn't. The wire to the speakers can't have been 2mm thick. Thinner than the bell wire my folks use for their door bell.
2nd hand Yamaha natural sound system with thick cable and fancy wires. I had stopped by a car boot on the way back from collecting these and bough a pair of speakers for £5.
Bottom of the range marantz separates with equivalent speakers and directional copper cable.
I could hear the speakers sounded a touch different to each other. None was better or worse just different for 30 seconds until it sounded like music.
I couldn't hear any difference at all between any of the wires.
I could barely hear the difference between a tape and a cd of bloodsexsugarmagic. I'd bought the cd as I'd worn the tape out on under the bridge learning it.
That's when I realised I will never need to spend anything more for "better" hifi.
In my current house the big thick wire wasn't long enough to get to the speakers. So I spliced it with some tiny thin wire. Sounds fine!
I have a cambridge audio amp where the internal wiring is totally symmetrical – so the right and left channels not only are identical electrically but physically.
I should have specified - internal wiring in the speakers.
As for a mic changing room acoustics I would imagine if you attempted to quantify that it would be in the region of nine tenths of three fifths of **** all.
slowoldman - Gnats bawhair is the correct unit for measuring that.
Stevehine - but the microphone is not "hearing" the same as your ears. Observer effect and many other issues. so that can give you a "more accurate" or "same accuracy" but cannot tell you "better" - only your ears and the processing in your head can tell you that
In currently doing some work for a big, well known music studio here in Munich.
I'll ask the guy what he thinks, seeing as he is able to talk for ****ing hours about frequency, resonance and some other terms that I have no idea about.
Spent the last few months building various abstractly shaped boxes, frames and other things to catch the sound/direct the sound.
Gonna need more information than “mp3” to comment further.
The MP3 that Amazon serves up, which I think is 320kbps, but it's the same all the time regardless of bit rate.
cougar - another elephant in the room - we have an awful lot of processing between the ears and our consciousness. do our heads work at different bitrates?
We process out background noise, alter thresholds at which we hear things and react differently to different frequencies. We also alter the threshold art which we hear depending on ambient noise. If you have tinnitus as I do then this processing is damaged
Cougar "If you were going to give me a grand I’d come round to your house and run the experiment myself.
We could video it. If you can reliably tell the difference between say three sets of speaker cables in a fair blind test, we’d make a **** lot more than a grand on the back of it. You’d have places like Enjoy the Music selling a kidney for that sort of footage."
Now why the hell would I dream of doing that (you need to keep up more) I've always believed that blind testing in audio doesn't work (look back at my previous posts) so I'm hardly likely to give anyone a grand to do something I don't believe works am I.
Also if your going to quote people at least have to decency to not miss of part of the post just so you can try to score another point or whatever the reason was....
The whole context I said "Cause I could tell you I have done it and proven it but I know you wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said – and you would be perfectly correct in doing so, its the internet after all." And if you had quoted all of that your cheese sandwich response would have been pointless.
So I'm done, waste of time...