03-Feb-2016, 17:06
Pim, you have a higher pain tolerance than I do. Cheers! I hope you create a successful honeypot here for the cable skeptics.
Your water-jet communications system is very interesting, thanks for the explanation. Just think of the acronyms Devialet could invent for that. What a cool job you have!
For some background I worked in telecom at Bell Labs so might know a little about optical fiber, communication data transmission, etc. I did human-interface design and testing so have some professional education and experience in evaluating the sound of things (among other aspects of perception). However we're not playing with a long-haul backbone here but rather with audio cables so my technical understanding doesn't necessarily apply. I too was skeptical of an audible difference even after I understood some of the science of audio cables. In addition to having a technical bent I'm a cheap bastard so wanted a cable of sufficient opto/electical specs. to sound as good as anything else to me. I have no attraction to the aesthetics of thick cables, fancy casework, or other audiophile bling. My ideal system would be invisible and cheap. However, hearing very clear differences convinced me to test with my ears. Even when I can hear I difference I want to understand why the difference exists though.
At this point there is plenty of data about why digital cables don't just transfer bits perfectly and thus end the story. If anyone wants that information it is publicly available, or I can provide some links. You got to the core already though, Pim: we're transferring digital bits through an analog physical medium and therefore the properties of the analog world influences the transmission of digital data in audible ways. That doesn't excuse any of the snake-oil salesmanship which is rampant in the audiophile industry and especially in tweaks such as cables, but it does explain why some people hear a clear difference among digital cables.
Even hearing a clear difference is more complicated than one would assume though, given how effective placebos are due to expectation bias, psychoacoustics, etc. Even blind testing is complicated, and conducting a valid blind test isn't trivial. You can easily create a blind test that yields results which aren't repeatable and thus are invalid. There's also no absolute truth to perceptive senses. I've done some studies with color perception. I can display a perfectly calibrated color to a set of people and they will see it differently. The color is scientifically absolute but irrelevant given relative human perception of color due to eye and brain differences. We've done voice-quality transmission testing that found more correlation to the time of day when we tested than to anything else because how humans perceive sound changes during the day. We need to recognize the whole system, including the human element. Back to this hobby, our target isn't necessarily the perfect transmission of a live recording given all the manipulation of recording, mastering, etc. Our target is what sounds best to the person doing the listening. So the valid test for you is what helps you determine what you like to hear. I would be interested in hearing how people like to test what sounds best to them. Since few of us have multi-million-dollar test lab budgets (and even those aren't necessarily useful) we need to figure out how to find the pieces of equipment that sound good to us among the chaff and snake oil.
Since we can't try everything it is useful to hear what others have heard (and thus we talk about equipment including cables). I use the experience of others to decide what I want to try myself, and then find it useful when dealers allow me to take home some options to hear in my room. Unfortunately I don't have easy access to many options and can't afford most of them so have to make decisions with limited experience. I find both quick A/B testing and longer listening useful evaluations. I can concentrate on the analytic differences and am also learning to concentrate on the emotional impacts as well. I use friends to help me avoid some of my biases, either by changing the equipment while I listen or through their perception. If I'm the only one who can hear a clear difference I would certainly question myself. I find it fun to have friends who are musicians play their music on my system, and I like to hear my favorite recordings in different systems/rooms. I also recognize the wisdom of finding something emotionally acceptable and then just enjoying listening to it. After all as interested as I get in the technical aspects I simply love listening to music.
Pim, I hope you enjoy your test, and I look forward to reading what you hear. Please tell us what USB cable you got if you're not too embarrassed (you can wait until after testing it to admit what you bought if you like it).
Your water-jet communications system is very interesting, thanks for the explanation. Just think of the acronyms Devialet could invent for that. What a cool job you have!
For some background I worked in telecom at Bell Labs so might know a little about optical fiber, communication data transmission, etc. I did human-interface design and testing so have some professional education and experience in evaluating the sound of things (among other aspects of perception). However we're not playing with a long-haul backbone here but rather with audio cables so my technical understanding doesn't necessarily apply. I too was skeptical of an audible difference even after I understood some of the science of audio cables. In addition to having a technical bent I'm a cheap bastard so wanted a cable of sufficient opto/electical specs. to sound as good as anything else to me. I have no attraction to the aesthetics of thick cables, fancy casework, or other audiophile bling. My ideal system would be invisible and cheap. However, hearing very clear differences convinced me to test with my ears. Even when I can hear I difference I want to understand why the difference exists though.
At this point there is plenty of data about why digital cables don't just transfer bits perfectly and thus end the story. If anyone wants that information it is publicly available, or I can provide some links. You got to the core already though, Pim: we're transferring digital bits through an analog physical medium and therefore the properties of the analog world influences the transmission of digital data in audible ways. That doesn't excuse any of the snake-oil salesmanship which is rampant in the audiophile industry and especially in tweaks such as cables, but it does explain why some people hear a clear difference among digital cables.
Even hearing a clear difference is more complicated than one would assume though, given how effective placebos are due to expectation bias, psychoacoustics, etc. Even blind testing is complicated, and conducting a valid blind test isn't trivial. You can easily create a blind test that yields results which aren't repeatable and thus are invalid. There's also no absolute truth to perceptive senses. I've done some studies with color perception. I can display a perfectly calibrated color to a set of people and they will see it differently. The color is scientifically absolute but irrelevant given relative human perception of color due to eye and brain differences. We've done voice-quality transmission testing that found more correlation to the time of day when we tested than to anything else because how humans perceive sound changes during the day. We need to recognize the whole system, including the human element. Back to this hobby, our target isn't necessarily the perfect transmission of a live recording given all the manipulation of recording, mastering, etc. Our target is what sounds best to the person doing the listening. So the valid test for you is what helps you determine what you like to hear. I would be interested in hearing how people like to test what sounds best to them. Since few of us have multi-million-dollar test lab budgets (and even those aren't necessarily useful) we need to figure out how to find the pieces of equipment that sound good to us among the chaff and snake oil.
Since we can't try everything it is useful to hear what others have heard (and thus we talk about equipment including cables). I use the experience of others to decide what I want to try myself, and then find it useful when dealers allow me to take home some options to hear in my room. Unfortunately I don't have easy access to many options and can't afford most of them so have to make decisions with limited experience. I find both quick A/B testing and longer listening useful evaluations. I can concentrate on the analytic differences and am also learning to concentrate on the emotional impacts as well. I use friends to help me avoid some of my biases, either by changing the equipment while I listen or through their perception. If I'm the only one who can hear a clear difference I would certainly question myself. I find it fun to have friends who are musicians play their music on my system, and I like to hear my favorite recordings in different systems/rooms. I also recognize the wisdom of finding something emotionally acceptable and then just enjoying listening to it. After all as interested as I get in the technical aspects I simply love listening to music.
Pim, I hope you enjoy your test, and I look forward to reading what you hear. Please tell us what USB cable you got if you're not too embarrassed (you can wait until after testing it to admit what you bought if you like it).
