Do expensive cables make a difference?

[yairhol]

All of this doesn't mean anything if the difference between the cables is inaudible which is the point I'm trying to make all along.

As stated in the links I provided:

...showing all kinds of oscilloscope pictures of impulse response, "phase noise" (their term, not mine), and other time-domain performance characteristics of MIT cables, in documentation of their alleged technical superiority. The trouble is that the time axis in the scope pictures either isn't labeled at all, or else the time-per-division information is buried somewhere in the small print.......in reality all of that time-domain action is happening in nanoseconds, totally unrelated to the audio range....MIT is seeling megahertz performance to the audio market for big bucks...

http://www.theaudiocritic.com/back_issu ... c_16_r.pdf

[aciddose]

All of this doesn't mean anything if the difference between the cables is inaudible which is the point I'm trying to make all along.

you don't start with a conclusion.

it means a lot if the difference is audible, which in every example i gave it is extremely audible.

you should look at the numbers first, then decide whether you think it should be audible, then look at studies if you can't make up your mind.

1db differences are audible. this is a quite well studied fact. we can start from there.

you can hear -40db signals relative to others, this is 1/100th scale.

so any situation in which either:

1) the system is changed to introduce 1db or greater difference in it's frequency response
or
2) any harmonics or other signals -40db or greater relative to peak are introduced

it's likely to be audible, except in specific cases.

you're starting from the assumption that all the equipment being used is not going to be affected by cable capacitance or EMI, which is just an outright stupid thing to assume.

what i'd like you to do is take an electrical engineering course and find out just how wrong you are in many of your assumptions.

facts:
- cable capacitance might range from 100pf to 500pf for that 10ft cable

that's it, we don't need any more facts. now your argument is reduced to "you can't hear the difference between 100pf and 500pf". you haven't bothered to specify where that is applied.

now i know you're clueless so it's pointless for me to post schematics and show you lots of places where 100pf vs. 500pf makes a whole circuit stop working completely.

so instead i'll just tell you flat out you're wrong.

[aciddose]

specific example:

maudio fasttrack pro
15 ft cable
some alesis monitors

connecting from the fasttrack to the monitors using a cheap cable creates oscillations which allowed you to hear the usb bus switching through the monitors. connecting using high quality low capacitance cable eliminated this effect.

science:

why did this happen? the lower capacitance cable moved the frequency of oscillation and changed it's peak level. it was no longer clipped as much at the monitor inputs and so the non-linear processing no longer created as much side-band frequency which happened to land within the audible range using the cheap cable.

reality:

the maudio fasttrack is a total piece of crap, and the monitor inputs were unfiltered crap as well.

conclusion:

don't buy crap.

if you do buy crap you'll have to deal with it.

if you don't know what you're doing you're screwed.

[yairhol]

All of this doesn't mean anything if the difference between the cables is inaudible which is the point I'm trying to make all along.

you don't start with a conclusion.

it means a lot if the difference is audible, which in every example i gave it is extremely audible.

you should look at the numbers first, then decide whether you think it should be audible, then look at studies if you can't make up your mind.

1db differences are audible. this is a quite well studied fact. we can start from there.

you can hear -40db signals relative to others, this is 1/100th scale.

so any situation in which either:

1) the system is changed to introduce 1db or greater difference in it's frequency response
or
2) any harmonics or other signals -40db or greater relative to peak are introduced

it's likely to be audible, except in specific cases.

you're starting from the assumption that all the equipment being used is not going to be affected by cable capacitance or EMI, which is just an outright stupid thing to assume.

what i'd like you to do is take an electrical engineering course and find out just how wrong you are in many of your assumptions.

facts:
- cable capacitance might range from 100pf to 500pf for that 10ft cable

that's it, we don't need any more facts. now your argument is reduced to "you can't hear the difference between 100pf and 500pf". you haven't bothered to specify where that is applied.

now i know you're clueless so it's pointless for me to post schematics and show you lots of places where 100pf vs. 500pf makes a whole circuit stop working completely.

so instead i'll just tell you flat out you're wrong.

First of all, don't make assumptions...ever.
I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.
Why I haven't mentioned this before? because it makes no difference.
Audio is not something I majored in so knowing about different electrical components does not make me anymore knowledgable about the audio difference they make. Only double blind testing can determine if any difference in cables is audible or not. Not a bunch of numbers and equations on a piece of paper. For audio knowledege I turn to professional literature. In that literature there's also a lot of snake oil and one must use his woo woo meter to determine which source is reliable and which is not.
But here's a proposition for you. If you think you know what you're talking about you can win $1M. The money is real and you have a chance to win it.
http://gizmodo.com/305549/james-randi-o ... are-better

From the link I provided and which I totally agree with its last sentence:

While Pear rattles on about "capacitance," "inductance," "skin effect," "mechanical integrity" and "radio frequency interface," - all real qualities and concerns, and adored by the hi-fi nut-cases - we naively believe that a product should be judged by its actual performance, not by qualities that can only be perceived by attentive dogs or by hi-tech instrumentation.

[aciddose]

those are speaker cables, a case i specifically gave in which cable quality does not matter.

for someone with a phd you sure are ignorant. i recommend you go back and actually bother to read my posts. you should know what i'm talking about and agree, and if you don't you should probably specifically address those issues rather than trying to gloss over the details.

we're all about the details.

Only double blind testing can determine if any difference in cables is audible or not

hah. add to that "to a particular group under particular conditions". you've left out the details again!

oh, i should also mention that if you take a twisted pair of 30awg, the cables in question are indeed better, and significantly so. not only will they carry the required current without burning up, but they'll have less inductance which will result in potentially audible high-frequency rolloff if the twisted pair is twisted enough.

again, things you should already know.

[Meffy]

Speaking of things people should already know: resorting to personal insults isn't just failsome, it can earn time out.

To nobody's surprise, lock time.

P.S.: Next time a thread like this comes up, if someone would remind me and/or other mods how this thread ended up so we can just link to this thread and lock before people go "off," I'd appreciate it. Nobody who's adamant about such things will ever be convinced to change their minds so there's no point leaving such stuff open. Might as well remove the temptation to flame.