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Old 26th Feb 2021, 4:18 pm   #2086
knobtwiddler
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Join Date: Mar 2016
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 1,046
Default Re: The Audiophoolery Thread.

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
It does seem particularly strange to me that this audio woo is applied to digital interconnects. If you're buying a cable to connect a high end record deck to a preamp, it's not impossible that an expensive cable will sound better, and indeed it's very difficult to prove conclusively that it won't. All you can do is run some double blind subjective comparisons.
If you've ever looked at the very best MC carts, playing a flat 1K test record, on the outer groove at 45rpm, you'll notice that the 2nd harmonic is still around -50dB. In the case of cheap carts, and ones designed for DJs, the 2nd can be above -30... The question in my mind would be, even if such a cable gave those pesky electrons a therapeutic massage on their way along the cable, how would the improvement manifest itself musically?

I wonder how many here have ever brought up the concept of A/B/X testing amongst those who work in the hifi industry? It's basically a way to get blacklisted... And if you managed to arrange such a test, there would *always* be a pseudo-scientific objection to the methodology to undermine any findings.

I am reminded of Carl Sagan and his Dragon in the Garage: http://people.whitman.edu/~herbrawt/.../110/Sagan.pdf

Quote:
With digital interconnects, you can look at the zeros and ones at each end, and clearly see that the information hasn't changed. I think this was first done to debunk those marker pens that were sold to 'improve' CDs in the 80s, but all digital technology can be examined in the same way. It's not a subjective judgement, it's just physical reality.

There is a really frightening review on What Hifi? where they mark a USB cable down for having 'flaccid bass'.
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