Anyone need a Cable?

crunchman

Rocker said:

ICBM said:

I’m actually surprised British audiophiles even tolerate having fuses in their plugs - other countries don’t, so presumably hi-fi systems all sound better elsewhere.

That is a fair point @ICBM. ; There are a lot of contacts inside the standard 13 amp plugtop.  The word in audiophileland is that the Schuko, which looks flimsier and 'wobblier' than the 13 amp plug, is actually better.  I built a socket extension block a few years ago and was tempted to fit Schuko sockets on it but baulked at the possibility that this might invalidate our house insurance.

You alluded to turntables in a post.  'All' a turntable has to do is spin the record at thirty three and a third revolutions per minute.  Mains powered motors on turntables spin the platter at the correct number of revolutions per minute but in a cogging fashion [50 Hz mains!].  This cogging is invisible to the naked eye but has a detrimental effect on the sound.  Literally hundreds of methods of minimizing this cogging have been used (with varying degrees of success), heavy platters, damping, DC motors, external power supply units etc. etc. etc.  Much easier to opt for digital playback. Which has its own set of problems but these are being solved to this day.

For those who laugh at the costs of decent hi-fi and that people are prepared to pay those high costs, remember the fuss generated by the theft of a £13K PRS guitar recently........

Live and let live.   

I believe it was £11k not £13k.

I wouldn't pay that for a new guitar, and I wouldn't pay it for pre-CBS Strat unless I had a lot more money than I do now, but there is a lot more work that does into a guitar than one of those £23k Russ Andrews cables.

The cable is probably of similar complexity to a pickup.  Even if it was wound with silver wire, not even the richest PRS fan boy would pay £11k for a single pickup, let alone £23k.

I can understand paying a few hundred for a decent analogue audio cable if that's your thing.  Up to that point you are likely to be improving audio quality very slightly.  Beyond that though, it is snake oil.  A double blind test would prove it to be snake oil.

Paying stupid money for a mains cable or a fuse is ridiculous though.  It's all rectified to DC inside the unit anyway, so the mains cable or mains fuse will make bog all difference.  Better filtering/smoothing in the power supply might make a difference, but beyond a certain point it won't be audible.  If you think that the 50Hz mains will interfere then doing the AC to DC conversion in a separate, shielded, box might conceivably make a marginal difference, although I would be willing to be that neither you, or any other "audiophile" would be able to tell the difference in a double blind test.

As for the expensive digital cables.  Don't know where to start on that.  How thick can people be?

Three-ColourSunburst

stickyfiddle said:

Are you saying every single piece of wood in the world resonates in exactly the same way regardless of shape, density and cell structure? Because that's hilarious.

No, what I am saying is that - as rigorous and credible scientific research has shown - the variations in the 'resonance' of different species of wood used to make the bodies of electric guitars is irrelevant (or and near as makes no difference is irrelevant) to the sound produced via the instrument's electromagnetic pickups. Main reason is that very little energy is transferred from the string to the body (which is a good thing as the less energy that is transferred, the better the sustain) and even less energy is transferred back to the string. This might run against one's intuition, especially when playing a guitar that it isn't plugged in, but an electric guitar is not an acoustic instrument - at least when it comes to the sound coming out of the amp.

All this has been gone through before - just search for the thread. If you would prefer to believe in the sort of nonsense I cited above, go right ahead. After all we live in the Post-Enlightenment age where everyone can believe what they went, be this the supposed benefits to be had from a £23,000 audio cable, 'tone wood', magical 'mojo' or invisible all-powerful sky fairies.

ICBM

Three-ColourSunburst said:

No, what I am saying is that - as rigorous and credible scientific research has shown - the variations in the 'resonance' of different species of wood used to make the bodies of electric guitars is irrelevant (or and near as makes no difference is irrelevant) to the sound produced via the instrument's electromagnetic pickups.

The proof that it does make a difference is right there in the data of that analysis you posted last time. The fact that the researchers can't see what an up to 10dB difference at different frequencies means does not invalidate their data.

But you just keep on repeating the same conclusion even though it totally flies in the face of that.

Three-ColourSunburst

ICBM said:

The proof that it does make a difference is right there in the data of that analysis you posted last time. The fact that the researchers can't see what an up to 10dB difference at different frequencies means does not invalidate their data.

  If you prefer to base your conclusions on the findings of a half-assed student project, whilst ignoring the finding's of a properly conducted study by a specialist lutherie department within a university physics department, that's your choice. Just don't pretend that your conclusions are empirically sound.

All I'll say is that anyone who thinks this guy talks sense has no right to laugh at audiophiles.



Better bow out there, I don't want the 'tone wood' warriors to come after me - just look at what went on recently with Will Gelvin. What a fascinating car crash all that was!  

stickyfiddle

ICBM said:

Three-ColourSunburst said:

No, what I am saying is that - as rigorous and credible scientific research has shown - the variations in the 'resonance' of different species of wood used to make the bodies of electric guitars is irrelevant (or and near as makes no difference is irrelevant) to the sound produced via the instrument's electromagnetic pickups.

The proof that it does make a difference is right there in the data of that analysis you posted last time. The fact that the researchers can't see what an up to 10dB difference at different frequencies means does not invalidate their data.

But you just keep on repeating the same conclusion even though it totally flies in the face of that.

This. Apart from anything else the bold bit is obviously not true because you can feel a guitar's body vibrating when you pluck a string, and you can hear it very loudly if you put your ear against the body. If body wood made no difference then an SG, Flying V, Les Paul and ES335 would all sound identical if fitted with identical pickups, which is demonstrably not the case.

But in all seriousness, @Three-ColourSunburst I would be genuinely interested in reading any papers you'd like to cite that support your conclusion, as I suspect they have glaring holes in their premise & methodology. Have I missed/forgotten an old thread with this stuff?

ICBM

stickyfiddle said:

But in all seriousness, @Three-ColourSunburst I would be genuinely interested in reading any papers you'd like to cite that support your conclusion, as I suspect they have glaring holes in their premise & methodology. Have I missed/forgotten an old thread with this stuff?

Yes. He went on about it for pages and pages denying it after originally posting the link to the proof .

The remarkable thing is that the researchers so wanted to prove that it makes no difference that they didn't even look at their own data properly, despite publishing it along with the erroneous conclusion. Just like Three-ColourSunburst .

Sporky

Rocker said:

You alluded to turntables in a post.  'All' a turntable has to do is spin the record at thirty three and a third revolutions per minute.  Mains powered motors on turntables spin the platter at the correct number of revolutions per minute but in a cogging fashion [50 Hz mains!].  This cogging is invisible to the naked eye but has a detrimental effect on the sound.

Do you really believe that?

Only I'm sure you've claimed to be an electrician in the past, and if that was true, then you'd know that this "cogging" notion is absolute bunkum.

There is mains powered scientific instrumentation that requires - and measurably achieves - orders of magnitude more precision in its motion than does a record turntable.

I honestly do not understand why you don't just read an electronics book or two and actually learn about the subject. Did you even read the white papers and audio design guides I sent you? 

Three-ColourSunburst

ICBM said:

The remarkable thing is that the researchers so wanted to prove that it makes no difference that they didn't even look at their own data properly, despite publishing it along with the erroneous conclusion. Just like Three-ColourSunburst .

'The researchers'. The 'paper' you seem to hang all your belief on was a student project! And one that was so badly conducted that his advisors apparently helped him to write a conclusion that did not contravene the laws of physics.

Why your insistence on ignoring the findings of that properly conducted scientific study that I cited and discussed in some length in the original thread?

https://physicae.ifi.unicamp.br/index.php/physicae/article/view/physicae.9.5

Three-ColourSunburst

stickyfiddle said:

But in all seriousness, @Three-ColourSunburst I would be genuinely interested in reading any papers you'd like to cite that support your conclusion, as I suspect they have glaring holes in their premise & methodology. Have I missed/forgotten an old thread with this stuff?

Enjoy. Lots of sources to read but, of course, no amount of evidence will ever convert a religious zealot, whatever their faith.

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/112703/body-wood-affects-tone/p1

ICBM

Three-ColourSunburst said:

'The researchers'. The 'paper' you seem to hang all your belief on was a student project! And one that was so badly conducted that his advisors apparently helped him to write a conclusion that did not contravene the laws of physics.

Which you originally posted as a "proof" that it supported your belief, when you'd read their conclusion and thought it did. In fact, their methodology was absolutely sound, it was simply that they couldn't read their own graphs.

No laws of physics were broken, just a lot of useful data was obtained which showed absolute proof that there was a difference in the response from two different bodies.

You can try to spin this any way you want but you're simply wrong.

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Lots of sources to read but, of course, no amount of evidence will ever convert a religious zealot, whatever their faith.

Exactly...



It should be clear by now that no evidence will convince you when you're determined to ignore it, so we may as well leave it there.

Phil_aka_Pip

I just read the review of the SuperFuse. I couldn't help thinking he was taking the piss.

crunchman

In various threads it has also been repeatedly pointed out to 3CS that if his premise is true, then a Les Paul, an SG, and a 335 should all sound exactly the same with the same pickups.  You can find variations of all three with 57 Classics but they don't sound the same.  If he doesn't believe that then he needs to go and try them.

stickyfiddle

Have read that paper. The conclusion is obviously rubbish since not a single graph shows the 2 guitars with the same curve. Presumably it wasn't marked highly by anyone competent

I'd argue that the methodology should have used a mechanical rig as a "pick" to ensure that the force and position of the picking was identical in every case, and it should have been repeated LOADS of times, rather than apparently just a single pluck of each string. But the alder shows a clear increase in db above 6k Hz for all strings. Certainly the curves are nowhere near the same. 

Bridgehouse

I’ve always wondered, it’s all very well spending all this money to improve the quality of your audio equipment, but what if the quality of your hearing is crap?

Three-ColourSunburst

crunchman said:

In various threads it has also been repeatedly pointed out to 3CS that if his premise is true, then a Les Paul, an SG, and a 335 should all sound exactly the same with the same pickups. 

With a cooking amp they can sound the same even with different pickups, bridges and all the rest.

Sporky

How about clean?

It's OK, we all know the answer. They sound different if you don't pile on enough dirt to make a cello sound the same as a kazoo.

Legionreturns

Bridgehouse said:

I’ve always wondered, it’s all very well spending all this money to improve the quality of your audio equipment, but what if the quality of your hearing is crap?

That's something that completely throws the whole argument. Was thinking about that last night. Hearing, and the range of frequencies you can hear, degrade with age. Given that most people who can afford to spend this much money on cables will be older, surely they'd be better off getting an ear transplant. 

I'm 42, and I can hear and feel the difference between different body woods played both acoustically and though an amp though. 3cs trying to equate 23 grand audio cables with getting a guitar made out of demonstrably more resonant wood is comparing chalk and cheese in an effort to prove a point which doesn't exist.

stickyfiddle

Bridgehouse said:

I’ve always wondered, it’s all very well spending all this money to improve the quality of your audio equipment, but what if the quality of your hearing is crap?

Well obviously audiophiles all have better ears than normal people otherwise they wouldn't be able to hear the difference between expensive fuses and shit, innit.

NelsonP

Three-ColourSunburst said:

stickyfiddle said:

But in all seriousness, @Three-ColourSunburst I would be genuinely interested in reading any papers you'd like to cite that support your conclusion, as I suspect they have glaring holes in their premise & methodology. Have I missed/forgotten an old thread with this stuff?

Enjoy. Lots of sources to read but, of course, no amount of evidence will ever convert a religious zealot, whatever their faith.

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/112703/body-wood-affects-tone/p1

I remember this discussion. I took out the following:

- it does not seem possible to fully conclude that body material has NO effect on the tone.
- the original study (student one) appeared to show that there were observable differences in different tone woods (as measured by frequency response) and that these differences were either overlooked, ignored or inadequately explained.
- any effect on tone from the body material is likely to be small relative to differences in tone settings, amplifiers, speakers etc. Additionally the sting to neck coupling was probably more important than the string to body coupling in terms of influence on overall tone
- it seems that no-one has properly investigated the full 'system' when playing an electric guitar - ie. the strings, guitar AND amplifier and the interactions between them.
- attempting to do so would be harder than a very hard thing
- that there aren't many PhD level physicists who are guitarists and those that are don't appear to be on this forum
- that I should buy a semi or hollow body guitar so that I can understand more about how the body influences tone, particularly when amplified via a speaker.

That last bit is very fun so at least some good has come from it!

As to whether someone will pay £1,500 for an old cable. Well, good luck with the sale, as they say.

Sporky

NelsonP said:

- that there aren't many PhD level physicists who are guitarists and those that are don't appear to be on this forum

I do have a Masters in electronic engineering and music technology systems, with a fair bit of acoustics in the, and I design audio-visual systems for a living, so I'd like to think I have a bit of background knowledge and experience in the general area. 

This is partly why I find the audiophile habits of self deception and superstition so ridiculous. They refuse to learn about the underlying technology, and they don't understand how to make sound decisions (pun partly intended). The desperately bizarre explanations they come up with (such as juxtaposing 33.3rpm with 50Hz, as if the one has anything to do with the other) are just the daft cherry on the laughable cake.