I'm coming 'off the fence'

[Jwg1749]

Since I got 'Get better sound' I have been amazed by how much better I could make my system sound. This was my old system, not the one I have now. Since then, when I would be home from work, I had set my chair up exactly in the middle of the room because I had set my speakers up equidistant from the walls. In the small room it is, my wife got annoyed with it being in the way and asked me to move the chair over. This meant moving my speakers too. I did (the things we do for love). As it turns out that was a good move. The music sounded fuller and less edgy. I wasn't looking for it, I just noticed it. The explanation for it is easy; I moved closer to a window on the left, where there's less reflection, and further from the right, where there's just a wall with more reflection.

This is an example of a blind test as far as I'm concerned. And no, I'm not going to move my speakers and seat back to check whether I was right or not. I noticed a difference without looking for it and that's good enough for me.

If I decide to jump off the fence on the 'cables make a difference' side, it will have to be because of such a defining moment.

My old system was a Denon PMA720 amp and B&W DM14 speakers. I had that system for over twenty five years. Now I have a Devialet 200 and Dynaudio C1, my system sounds clearer, has better imaging, better and deeper bass and it sounds much more like real music than my old system. It also doesn't go as loud as my old system did.


I'm willing to bet my new system that I can pick my new system over my old system 100% of the time in a blind test, even though I never have before. And I also bet my new system that nobody on this forum really believes that this is of the placebo effect. 

IF I'm going to say that my new cable makes a huge difference I want to be able to bet my system on that statement. Otherwise I will jump off the other side of the fence. But jump I will. My ass is getting itchy on here 

I know you want to call your test 'blind', but I doubt many people would accept that definition. You say "I noticed a difference without looking for it and that's good enough for me". The problem is that you haven't removed sources of unconscious bias. Sure, you didn't want to move the speakers, but you did move them, and the act of moving them involved work. One thing we know is that people are unconsciously inclined to attribute consequences to their own work. So by moving the speakers you made it more likely that you'd hear a difference.

Notice I'm not saying the difference wasn't objectively present. I'm confident it was present. That's because speakers (and their interaction with the room) are by far the biggest source of the sonic character of a digital audio system. Speakers make huge, crass differences. We know this for three reasons:
1. engineering (mechanical components are much less easy to control than electronic ones)
2. measurements (although we may disagree about what to measure and how, the measurements themselves are dead easy to get right, and they show that speakers distort far more than other components, excepting cartridges)
3. listening tests (blind tests run by Harman have shown to a fairly high degree of probability that people reliably prefer speakers with flat FR, in other words people can reliably distinguish the sonic character of speakers in blind tests)
Put those three together and you can be pretty certain that speakers (and the room) are where the clever money will go.


If you were to make the same claims about cables, even if you claimed the differences were 'night and day', all these solid objective reasons would melt away, and all we'd be left with would be your subjective evaluation. And that, we can be sure as eggs is eggs, is unreliable.

[baddog]

Interesting discussion. I just parted ways with my LightSpeed USB cable and Regen. Replaced by a DH Labs cable I have had on hand for a number of years. My system still sounds great. And to be clear this is not meant to imply anything bad about either the cable or the Regen. I was very happy with both in my system and once, quite a few months back did some A/B by myself and decided the system sound better with the combination in versus without.

This time not so sure that anything is missing. YMMV. All this being said be mindful my hope one day is to be able to get AIR stable as using that with ethernet between my Mac Mini and Devialet sounds as good as any combination of cables and accessories I have had.

[Pim]

Well, I've received my cable. I was going to have a listen to my old cable first but I just couldn't wait and just plugged the new one in.

Does it sound different? Yes. And my neighbour across the road is mowing the lawn. He's actually started doing my next door neighbour's now so he's even closer. He does that now he's got a ride on...

Does it sound better? Yes. I hear more detail already and there's a bleeding lawnmower in the 'background'

So what sounds better? First there's a fair bit of glare gone. The kind of glare that gives digital a bad name. Harshness would be another name for it. I did a little test between the old and new cable. I played one of my favourite songs; Ellis Island by Mary Black live. It takes about 14 minutes and has a few things in it that can be used for testing. First there's Mary's voice. If played loud it can be a bit unforgiving, especially in the first part of the song. Then there's a 'drum' solo (not with sticks but with brushes) and a guitar solo. The guitar solo has another few not so forgiving highs at times. I remember taking this song when I went to audition the Vivid G3's behind a D250. I was waiting for the brightness to start but it didn't happen.... is it as good in my set as then? Nope. I did play it very loud though. On purpose I played it so loud with the old cable so it would hurt my ears and then changed to the new cable and played at the same volume. It still hurt a bit but less so.

The other thing that I think is better is the depth of the bass. There were a few moments where the bass 'locked the room' in the guitar solo with the new cable that wasn't there with the old cable. This one though, I want to have another go at because by the time that happened the lawnmower was in full force...

Depth in soundstage and longer decay I think is a given when you lose glare. I've always been of the opinion that when highs take forefront, the rest gets obscured. The soundstage might be there but you can't hear it as well.

I've got a bit more 'work' to do to prove to some of you and, in part, myself that this is not the placebo effect. An easy test is swapping from USB to AIR. For some reason AIR has worked flawlessly since I've been home and I've done a bit of swapping from USB to AIR and back with the old cable. I found AIR to be the slightest bit more relaxed but it seemed to miss a bit of body in the bass. I'll get back once I've compared between my new USB cable and AIR.

[Eddye]

I'm glad you like the new cables. The only thing that counts is if you find it's an improvement, and it is!

[Pim]

The only thing that counts is if you find it's an improvement, and it is!

That's true Eddy, but I actually bought this cable because I was a bit sick of reading the old cable debate without having a reference of my own. I've never had an opinion for the simple reason that I had never tried any cables out myself. And no way was I going to have an opinion on engineering principles alone. 

I do know there are a lot of con artists out there. The latest Audioquest saga is a good example of a company too eager for the dollar to keep things honest, but that doesn't mean their cables are no good. It's just their 'marketing' that needs a kick up the behind.

More 'work' to do   I'll be back.

[Eddye]

Enjoy the "work"

[Rodney Gold]

Expectation bias is real ...I was fiddling with bass the other night , tweaking here and there with a parametric EQ.. I got it just right and discovered the parametric was actually bypassed... I could swear I heard differences
At any rate , even if the difference doesnt exist in real life but you hear it , it IS a trusim to you...

[Pim]

Expectation bias is real ...I was fiddling with bass the other night , tweaking here and there with a parametric EQ.. I got it just right and discovered the parametric was actually bypassed... I could swear I heard differences
At any rate , even if the difference doesnt exist in real life but you hear it , it IS a trusim to you...

That's the hurdle I want to get past though. I'm not sure how long it will take but I will get to the bottom of this. There's always blind testing. It just means I need to pull the D from it's shelf and position it so it's easier to swap. Then  get the missus to do the swapping and/or listening. She's pretty good.

[Pim]

Update.

I haven't done any cable swapping because I've just been enjoying music too much (is there such a thing?)
I'm just about to knock off for the night but I just wanted to tell you this; When I played Anouk, Loving Whiskey from her Lost Tracks album, my dog Raffie (the one that looks a bit like the Joker in my profile picture. In real life he's quite cute) got up out of a deep sleep and started barking and looking around. I stopped playing the song and he settles down. I played it again from the start and again he got up, quite startled, and started barking and growling. I then played Love, from the same album and again he reacted but not as profound. Both songs have quite a bit of spacial information in them. Loving Whiskey, being live, a bit more.

I played some more songs and after a while went to play Loving Whiskey again, just to see how he would react. And react he did! As if someone poked him he got up, looking all confused and started barking again.

These songs are in my favourites playlist. He hears them all the time but he's never reacted to them. Until now, the only thing he's ever reacted to is people whistling on a live album of Rodrigo and Gabriela. I'm going to have to try this on him again tomorrow.

[Eddye]

That's funny. I've never found Anouk to be annoying, but I know other people do. And now a dog halfway round the world.