Anyone need a Cable?

John_P

NelsonP said:

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.

I’m fairly sure there are several people here with at least degree level Physics and several with Masters or PhD qualifications.   
I suspect they mostly think it’s obvious that all of the components play a part in creating the sound and it’s just a question of how much and how willing someone is to chase finer details.  

scrumhalf

I have no qualifications, formal or otherwise, in this area but I know snake-oil when I see it and I can smell bullshit.

Three-ColourSunburst

stickyfiddle said:

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. 

I take it you mean that student project that ICBM tries to make so much of?

The proper academic study that I cited - the one the faithful of the high church of mojo and tone wood try to ignore because it showed that electric guitar 'tone wood' is  a myth - did use just such a mechanical picking device, collected a  lot more data than that student project did and was much better deigned and peer reviewed. Translations and discussion are in that thread I linked to.

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

Three-ColourSunburst

Duplicate post due to original post been held for approval. 

Three-ColourSunburst

Duplicate post due to original post been held for approval.  

Three-ColourSunburst

Duplicate post due to original post been held for approval.  

Rocker

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?

Fair point but one of the reasons for hi-fi is to extract whatever music or sounds that are on the disk. It was recorded and included for some reason after all. 

NelsonP

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?

Pardon?

ICBM

Three-ColourSunburst said:

I take it you mean that student project that ICBM tries to make so much of?

The proper academic study that I cited - the one that the faithful of the high church of mojo and tone wood try to ignore because it showed that 'tone wood' does not affect an electric guitar's sound - did use just such a mechanical picking device, was much better designed, peer reviewed and collected much more data than that student project.

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

But no graphs, as far as I could see - unless you'd like to post those separately.

Without that, we simply can't take the results as gospel because you've already posted one research project where they falsely claimed a nul result, when a positive one was clearly visible. And I'll remind you again, *you* posted it, not me - when you thought it supported your belief. You seem keen to discredit it now, but you weren't originally. Why is that?

But (again) I really am out of this (again) because you simply will not accept (again) that your contention has been disproved (again). It only takes one piece of contrary evidence to disprove a theory.

You are wrong. The end.

UnclePsychosis

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

There's at least one professional physicist on this forum with a PhD in musical acoustics. The tonewood debate is just so fucking tiresome that I normally refuse to engage with it. 

To borrow a fantastic quote I saw elsewhere:

"We use six bits of wire effectively nailed to a plank of wood, that create a vibration that induces a tiny current in about a mile of cheap copper wire wrapped around a set of crap magnets, which passes through a simple conductor through (if we're using valve amps, which is what most tone purists swear by) a technology that for every other application was rendered obsolete over 50 years ago because it is know to introduce a pleasing sounding harmonic distortion (distortion is a phenomenon who's dictionary definition basically states is a process of not providing a true representation of what is fed into a system) to get it up to a level where it can be amplified by another bit of the same obsolete technology with the stated aim of running at it's very limits to introduce more of this distortion ('edge of breakup', no less!) into some bits of cardboard moved by yet more magnets that are in fact such a poor representation of whats fed into them that no one would use them in a hi-fi/PA situation held in a glued together wooden box that adds it's own special sonic flavour to the whole mix.

And we worry about patch cables being transparent"

My reluctant professional opinion is that anyone who says material makes literally no difference at all to the amplified sound of a solidbody guitar is almost certainly wrong. It is also my opinion that anyone who thinks that different species of wood could be consistently identified by double blind listening tests is also almost certainly wrong. Its a boring answer to a very boring argument. 

Bridgehouse

Rocker said:

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?

Fair point but one of the reasons for hi-fi is to extract whatever music or sounds that are on the disk. It was recorded and included for some reason after all. 

Or picked up by mistake in some instances.

Three-ColourSunburst

ICBM said:

But no graphs, as far as I could see - unless you'd like to post those separately.

Without that, we simply can't take the results as gospel because you've already posted one research project where they falsely claimed a nul result, when a positive one was clearly visible.

The frequency analysis graphs are shown in the paper I cited.

As to the other 'research project'. If you can't even understand the difference between a student project and a proper peer-reviewed paper published in an academic journal, then no wonder you can't understand why the whole notion of 'tone wood' is so misguided. 

Three-ColourSunburst

UnclePsychosis said:

My reluctant professional opinion is that anyone who says material makes literally no difference at all to the amplified sound of a solidbody guitar is almost certainly wrong. It is also my opinion that anyone who thinks that different species of wood could be consistently identified by double blind listening tests is also almost certainly wrong.

I said the wood the body of an electric guitar is made from is as near as makes no difference irrelevant to the sound produced via the pickups, especially when the amp is been driven. I.e. if there is an effect then it is imperceptible, and therefore irrelevant. Even it it made a tiny perceptible difference, say as much as turning the tone knob a fraction, it would still be all but irrelevant, given all the other factors that do affect the sound produced to a vastly greater degree. (Playing technique, pick used, strings, pickups, the wiring, pots resistors and capacitors, the amp...)

Anyhow, it at least seems that we can agree that this guy is talking nonsense. As are Chapman and Anderton, who can't do any better than resort to logical fallacies and a belief in 'spiritual mumbo jumbo' as one commentator puts it. Something 'spiritual' that can't even be measured and yet determines '80%' of the sound of the instrument. Absolute, irrational BS!

UnclePsychosis

You must be a riot at dinner parties.

Sporky

Do you think anyone invites him? He'd constantly steer the conversation, no matter how it started. 

ICBM

Three-ColourSunburst said:

As to the other 'research project'. If you can't even understand the difference between a student project and a proper peer-reviewed paper published in an academic journal, then no wonder you can't understand why the whole notion of 'tone wood' is so misguided. 

Please quote where I have ever used the phrase 'tone wood' (other than right here).

Actually I can remember one - I did once describe particle board as 'a tone wood compared to MDF'.

And for the nth time, it was YOU who used that first study to try to prove your point, not me.

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Body Woods and an Electric Guitar’s Frequency Spectrum

Keith J. Soper

University of Toledo

ABSTRACT

There are many theories as to what significance particular wood species contribute if any to the overall tone of an electric guitar. In this paper two differing wood types are studied, ash and alder, and a method are investigated to determine their tonal spectrums. Analysis of the data shows that in an electric guitar the body wood type does not contribute significantly to the sound of the amplified instrument.

http://www.stormriders.com/guitar/telecaster/guitar_wood.pdf

I bothered to find this, just to check. And there it is - that's the whole post, not edited, no attempt to dismiss it as being wrong based on just being an undergraduate study or anything.

I simply pointed out that the conclusion was wrong based on the data contained within, as you are every time you raise this subject AGAIN.

(Note to self: resist answering any further posts about this and stick to it.)

Legionreturns

I've just remembered why I had 3cs in silent mode... Thus topic wasn't even about tone wood. I vaguely recall a gazillion page thread about it somewhere else that got equally as boring. 

Anyway, 23 grand cables are snake oil. We can all agree on that. Right? 

Paul_C

Legionreturns said:

I've just remembered why I had 3cs in silent mode... Thus topic wasn't even about tone wood. I vaguely recall a gazillion page thread about it somewhere else that got equally as boring. 

Anyway, 23 grand cables are snake oil. We can all agree on that. Right? 

You'd think so, but there's always one. * It doesn't need an Einstein to work out who.

NelsonP

Some of this high price cable stuff just looks like internet scamming. Someone accidently adds it to their basket or leaves it in there and buys it alongside something else at a later date.

Then they receive a 'perfectly legitimate' bill for tens of thousands for a crappy bit of cable.

I can't believe that anyone would knowingly pay that much for a speaker cable.

Gagaryn

Rocker said:

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?

Fair point but one of the reasons for hi-fi is to extract whatever music or sounds that are on the disk. It was recorded and included for some reason after all. 

Even within the world of Hi-Fi the aim is not to reproduce the recorded sound exactly; the aim is to replay it in a pleasing manner.

Otherwise speakers would all be flat response monitors and the use of valves would be redundant.

This is even more true when it comes to vinyl, it is recorded with the bass attenuated (otherwise the stylus couldn't track) and the treble boosted. Amplifiers (phono) are designed to do the opposite at playback. The amounts of attenuation and boost are set out in the RIAA standard. 

Sure you knew all this but the RIAA stuff is something I once knew and then forgot all about until recently - currently researching  building a valve phono preamp to inaccurately play back my records!