I'm one of those audiophiles who go on about speaker settings and placement, cables and DACs to play all my vinyl and high bitrate music, and force people listen to 'my incredible setup'.
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@fesshole
When I worked in engineering at the Beeb the research department wanted to discover if the “golden ears” (mix engineers, sound supervisors etc - people who are trained to hear audio problems in recordings) could tell the difference between expensive OFC speaker cable and 10A mains cable. Turns out when tested blind they can’t.
It’s the same for most audio-fool products; when they don’t *know* what they’re listening to they can’t tell.@IsItBroke @fesshole to be fair, power flex cable is actually good for audio... I've used it for decades
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@fesshole
When I worked in engineering at the Beeb the research department wanted to discover if the “golden ears” (mix engineers, sound supervisors etc - people who are trained to hear audio problems in recordings) could tell the difference between expensive OFC speaker cable and 10A mains cable. Turns out when tested blind they can’t.
It’s the same for most audio-fool products; when they don’t *know* what they’re listening to they can’t tell.@IsItBroke @fesshole Most people use their equipment to listen to music, audiophiles use music to listen to their equipment
It's like any such hobby - cycling, coffee, wine, whiskey. In the end small differences don't matter that much, but the hobbyists seem to enjoy knowing they're there.
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@fesshole
When I worked in engineering at the Beeb the research department wanted to discover if the “golden ears” (mix engineers, sound supervisors etc - people who are trained to hear audio problems in recordings) could tell the difference between expensive OFC speaker cable and 10A mains cable. Turns out when tested blind they can’t.
It’s the same for most audio-fool products; when they don’t *know* what they’re listening to they can’t tell.Yeah. Some things make a real difference, but, with speaker cable, IMHO, good enough is good enough.
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I'm one of those audiophiles who go on about speaker settings and placement, cables and DACs to play all my vinyl and high bitrate music, and force people listen to 'my incredible setup'. Turns out I've had my left/right speakers the wrong way round. For 7 years.
@fesshole Oh, whoops?
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@fesshole I live with one of those. Really sick of hearing it all. This did make me chuckle though. Strange that you didn't catch on sooner.
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I'm one of those audiophiles who go on about speaker settings and placement, cables and DACs to play all my vinyl and high bitrate music, and force people listen to 'my incredible setup'. Turns out I've had my left/right speakers the wrong way round. For 7 years.
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Yeah. Some things make a real difference, but, with speaker cable, IMHO, good enough is good enough.
@CppGuy @IsItBroke @fesshole A good sound engineer will have the skills to identify many problems in a recording that an untrained person might not notice. Differences between speaker cables is not one of these. All that matters there is that the resistance is low enough, and any moderately fat cable will do the job.
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@CppGuy @IsItBroke @fesshole A good sound engineer will have the skills to identify many problems in a recording that an untrained person might not notice. Differences between speaker cables is not one of these. All that matters there is that the resistance is low enough, and any moderately fat cable will do the job.
Exactly.
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R relay@relay.publicsquare.global shared this topic
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@IsItBroke @fesshole to be fair, power flex cable is actually good for audio... I've used it for decades
@mossman @IsItBroke @fesshole yeah it's copper cable and pretty good diameter, probably perfect for audio
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@fesshole
When I worked in engineering at the Beeb the research department wanted to discover if the “golden ears” (mix engineers, sound supervisors etc - people who are trained to hear audio problems in recordings) could tell the difference between expensive OFC speaker cable and 10A mains cable. Turns out when tested blind they can’t.
It’s the same for most audio-fool products; when they don’t *know* what they’re listening to they can’t tell.@IsItBroke @fesshole I remember some experiment where "audiophiles" failed to differentiate between super expensive speaker cables and a coat hanger in a double-blind test.
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@CppGuy @IsItBroke @fesshole A good sound engineer will have the skills to identify many problems in a recording that an untrained person might not notice. Differences between speaker cables is not one of these. All that matters there is that the resistance is low enough, and any moderately fat cable will do the job.
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@IsItBroke @mansr @CppGuy @fesshole Not just speaker cables – there are special audiophile power cords, and then there's this guy: https://mk.absturztau.be/notes/amm9boo4bie601ea
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And so would I.
I've spoken before about the pimply-faced youth who tried to sell me audio-grade Sata cables and felt superior when I told him it wouldn't make any difference, because, between a hard drive and a motherboard, either the data gets through perfectly or it doesn't get through at all. "Well, Sir," he said, smugly, "maybe you can't hear the difference…"
The placebo effect is real.
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@IsItBroke @CppGuy @fesshole Oh, I know the sort.
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I'm one of those audiophiles who go on about speaker settings and placement, cables and DACs to play all my vinyl and high bitrate music, and force people listen to 'my incredible setup'. Turns out I've had my left/right speakers the wrong way round. For 7 years.
@fesshole
So, you like to listen to an orchestra from backstage.
Good choice. -
@IsItBroke @mansr @CppGuy @fesshole Not just speaker cables – there are special audiophile power cords, and then there's this guy: https://mk.absturztau.be/notes/amm9boo4bie601ea
@jernej__s @IsItBroke @mansr @fesshole
My word! I hope it makes him happy.
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@fesshole
When I worked in engineering at the Beeb the research department wanted to discover if the “golden ears” (mix engineers, sound supervisors etc - people who are trained to hear audio problems in recordings) could tell the difference between expensive OFC speaker cable and 10A mains cable. Turns out when tested blind they can’t.
It’s the same for most audio-fool products; when they don’t *know* what they’re listening to they can’t tell.@IsItBroke @fesshole yeah Pete Thomas of PMC speakers fame used to demo his speakers using bell wire and Quad 405 amps at trade shows just to wind up the audiophile brigade!!
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I'm one of those audiophiles who go on about speaker settings and placement, cables and DACs to play all my vinyl and high bitrate music, and force people listen to 'my incredible setup'. Turns out I've had my left/right speakers the wrong way round. For 7 years.
@fesshole fond memories of spending a weekend setting up 5.1 surround speakers for my PC
several months later, discovered where in the Windows settings you configure if you have stereo speakers or 5.1 or some other thing
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@IsItBroke @fesshole yeah Pete Thomas of PMC speakers fame used to demo his speakers using bell wire and Quad 405 amps at trade shows just to wind up the audiophile brigade!!
@pheedbackPhil @fesshole
I built an edit facility in the late 90s and the head of audio chose TB1s for all the edit suites and it was the first time I’d heard speakers that sounded as neutral as Roger’s LS3/5s (I trained and worked at the Beeb late eighties/early-nineties) - heaven save us from Yamaha NS10s! -
And so would I.
I've spoken before about the pimply-faced youth who tried to sell me audio-grade Sata cables and felt superior when I told him it wouldn't make any difference, because, between a hard drive and a motherboard, either the data gets through perfectly or it doesn't get through at all. "Well, Sir," he said, smugly, "maybe you can't hear the difference…"
The placebo effect is real.
@CppGuy @IsItBroke @fesshole I'll grant that maybe it's possible to make a SATA cable so poor that reads need to be retried so often that the transfer rate drops enough to make audio playback choppy.
