[Danny Richie]

A subjective difference, true (X sounds better than Y), but audible difference?

A high quality recording could not detect any difference?

Using a stereo mic with our video camera I made some sound clip recordings this weekend.

Live and in person the big differences in my system are in the spatial cues. With my speaker cables the sound stage is huge, open, and deep. And there is more space between instruments. You can also hear differences in decay that other cables cover up. With the good cable the decay of each instrument is really clear. And there is a difference in detail levels as well. And the vocals are a little deeper in the sound stage.

With a straight 12 gauge zip cord style cable the sound stage falls apart and is more two dimensional. Depth is just not there. The decay is gone too. It is just smeared away and gone. Details levels are no longer as clear and the whole presentation is not as musical.

Live and in person the differences are super easy to hear and even an inexperienced listener can hear them pretty quickly.

Now on the video recording you loose about 75% of what you hear in person. You loose the sound stage differences and the layering and depth. All of that instrument separation is gone in the recording. However, the difference in the decay of instruments and detail levels are clearly different. So the recording does capture some of that. I'm going to do some more experimenting. I might have to try some different mics.

[Edgar77]

With a straight 12 gauge zip cord style cable the sound stage falls apart and is more two dimensional. Depth is just not there. The decay is gone too. It is just smeared away and gone. Details levels are no longer as clear and the whole presentation is not as musical.

I still listen and try to learn but I have to admit statements like the one from Danny above don't make the situation any better.
"the sound stage falls apart", "Depth is just not there", "just smeared away and gone"
Sometime I wonder how people could every enjoy music before someone invented hundred dollar speaker cables.

Now we have the full spectrum of people who say there is no difference at all, then people who say you hear a little difference if your system is already top of the range. And now "the sound stage falls apart". It seems we live in different worlds.

[Hobbsmeerkat]

I mean, if you've never direcly experienced it before, it's not something you'll even know to look for. Dannys personal rig is so far beyond anything I'd ever heard, that I didn't have words to describe what I was hearing.

Tho I can experience the same things Danny is talking about on my little system by swapping the speaker cables from his kit cable to my zipcord..
My zip cord with Tube connectors still sound great in terms of clarity & such, but they lack the depth & layering within the soundstage. Of course, I can still tell where things are in a left/right sense, but i can't tell how far forward or backwards they are, and the scale of the room.

It's really a matter of perspective and perception. Like that drawing that can be seen as a duck or a rabbit, or the spinning silhouette. Is she spinning to the left or right? Laurel vs Yanny? Is the dress Black & Blue or White and Gold? Etc. Heck, even tests for colorblindness.
Not perfect analogies, of course, but if you know what details or cues you need to be looking look for it makes those details easier to understand and pick out when they are present.

[77SunsetStrip]

Danny is not saying every system can be audibly improved by the addition of better quality speaker cables.  It is clearly presented as information to help each individual make their own choice.  Don't gloss over how much Danny talked about the listening room and quality of the entire system.

The opposing view in question claims that NOBODY can benefit from better quality speaker cables.  Do you want to be free to make your own choice or be told what to do?

If anyone wants an excellent in depth presentation of the science behind a no holds barred best possible conductor, a retired Belden engineer has a video out there.  For speaker cables, expensive and not for most of us.  However, there is much to learn from the pure science presented.

   

[SET Man]

Hey!

  Man! Danny really opened a big can of cables here. Anyway, I can't believe that it is now 2021 and audiophiles still arguing about cables!

  For me personally, I don't have an uber fancy expensive system compare to many people here, but I can hear differences with each cables, connectors and etc swaps. Back when the NY group was active years ago, I had members over and sometime they would bring over stuffs like DAC, amps and of course cables and we all could hear differences between each cables.
   So, my take is... if like and think your system sound great now and you spend money on "audiophile" cables, put them in your system and you can't hear any differences compare to the free cables that came with the components then consider yourself lucky. You just saved yourself a lot of time and money!

   Anyway, beside that I do enjoy watching Danny's videos on speaker designs... the "Acoustic Center" really confirmed what I've been hearing over the years. Well, I'll catch up with the new episode.

Buddy

PS

   By the way, a little complaint... your flat earth model is a cube earth. I thought flat earth people believe is more like a disc floating in space.... just pulling your cable here

[mlundy57]

Just as the full old saying goes “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”, in this case the proof of the cable is in the listening.

Just like some people will like the taste of the pudding while others won’t, some will hear differences they feel are worth the cost while others won’t. Guess what, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s like the way Rex and Daniel of the whisky tribe answer the question “Whar’s the right way to drink whisky?” Answer... “However you like it”.

[Tyson]

I still listen and try to learn but I have to admit statements like the one from Danny above don't make the situation any better.
"the sound stage falls apart", "Depth is just not there", "just smeared away and gone"
Sometime I wonder how people could every enjoy music before someone invented hundred dollar speaker cables.

Now we have the full spectrum of people who say there is no difference at all, then people who say you hear a little difference if your system is already top of the range. And now "the sound stage falls apart". It seems we live in different worlds.

Well, just logically it makes no sense to mess around with cables until you have a good system in place.  Otherwise it's like putting racing tires on a Honda Accord.  It might make a difference, but it would be small and really what you need is a higher performance car, not better tires. 

Once you have a better car, now messing around with better tires makes sense. 

It's the same with high end cables, IME.  Don't worry about them until you have a great system in place.  Can they make a difference on a mid/low system?  Sure, but you're money and focus is best spent elsewhere.  I'm a big believer in buying the very best speakers you can, then building the rest of the system around them.  Worries about cables should come dead last. 

In fact, I recommend getting a the full system set up and in place, and then living with it for at least 6 months before you even think about playing around with cables.  If there's a difference, you'll hear it.  If not, then you won't. 

[opnly bafld]

[

[mlundy57]

Fixed it for you. 

‘60s VW van? 🤗

[Hobbsmeerkat]

‘60s VW van? 🤗

VW Busses, esp campers, actually reqire reinforced tires for proper handling. I only know that cuz my Dad owns two from mid 70s. One Westy camper, one hard top.

[opnly bafld]

[

[Hobbsmeerkat]

So basically you are saying Tyson's tire analogy was bad.   

No, his analogy works for most typical cars having racing tires will make no difference since most standard tires are rarely pushed to their limits where a different sort of tire would be necessary or even useful. (Tho low profile tires that were popular 10 years ago were notorious for wearing out quickly and having a terrible ride.)

Just pointing out that a heavy VW Bus/van does have particular needs that say a VW Bug wouldn't.

[opnly bafld]

Back to speaker wire........

[Early B.]

Speaking of analogies, Danny provided a good one on his most recent YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNKRWvbIwUw

Starts at 1:30 minutes and ends at 2:30.   

[JWCoffman]

Speaking of analogies, Danny provided a good one on his most recent YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNKRWvbIwUw

Starts at 1:30 minutes and ends at 2:30.

I found it interesting when he started talking about a system that can become too filtered it constrains the sound.  It seems that it might filter out some of the subtle sounds and frequencies that we use psycho-acoustically as cues to give us a sense of the size of the room (recording room, not listening room).  When those frequencies get lost, the room collapses to the size of the listening space or even the space between the speakers.  Is that a correct understanding?  I'm still trying to get my head around this stuff.
Sounds kind of like when people talk about over treating a room with absorption, it deadens it and makes the room lifeless.  Anechoic chambers may be "accurate", but they're probably no fun to listen to music in.

[JTF]

I've watched them. Those were funny.

On the first one he showed FRI all over a standard zip cord style speaker cable. So he not only confirmed what I was saying, but he took it a step further and showed it full bandwidth. He then plugged it into a load and it dropped about half of it out. That's typical. Almost every piece of gear out there has some form of RF filter in it. My DAC even has adjustable filter settings for it. So if the RF is not a problem then why does almost every piece of gear out there address it?

But then he measured the voltage levels of the RF noise and of coarse it was very low. If it amounted to any real power levels we'd call it wireless transmission of power and be using to do things.  So I am with him on all of that. But then he jumped to a conclusion and really just theorized that we can't hear it or its effects.

I'm with him on the measurements, just not jumping to an unfounded conclusion.

The second one was in response to the idea that cables pick up EMI (electromagnetic interference). So he used the same zip cord type speaker cable and was taking a measurement on it. Then he twisted it around a power cable that he said was plugged in to the wall and he showed little to no EMI transferring to the speaker cable. But he never plugged the power cable into anything. So there was no currently flowing through that cable. So of coarse there will be little to nothing picked up from it.

He then theorizes another conclusion that it would have no audible effect. 

To be fair, audio science guy had an update in the description of the EMI video showing results with the power cable plugged into an amp. He does also mention in one of his videos (maybe that one titled "fancy audio cables") that he listened and heard no difference between cables. He even invites his audience to do their own listening tests, as you do.

However, in the end the only way to answer if a cable makes an audible difference or not requires listening.

Haha, it's funny how this sounds like something a 'flat-earther' would say, like "I looked out my window and I can see that the earth is flat." It reminds me of a guy I worked with back when I was in college. I worked construction during the summers, one summer I worked for a builder, we were framing out a custom home. It was me, another guy my age, his name is Kyle and our boss, Steve. One afternoon I was taking a water break and chatting to Steve, while we both watched Kyle secure a partition wall without checking it for level or plumb. Steve waited till Kyle was finished then asked him if the wall was plumb, to which he replied "Yeah, it looks straight!"

Anyway, the latest video on power cables seemed like 20mins of anecdote and hyperbole. I look forward to getting past all this to the final video(s) that document the listening test or provide sound clips that demonstrate the huge differences you're hearing in your system.

[Early B.]

I look forward to getting past all this to the final video(s) that document the listening test or provide sound clips that demonstrate the huge differences you're hearing in your system.

Sound clips?? Seriously? That's like asking Stevie Wonder to take an eye exam. If you can't see, a vision test will only confirm that you're blind.

Danny is doing precisely what you're asking him to do -- he's documenting his listening experiences with cables over the course of 30 years. His experiences mirror mine and many, many other audiophiles. If that's not enough, note that the naysayers cannot more sufficiently document nor prove that they don't hear differences between cables.   

[mkrawcz]

Sound clips?? Seriously? That's like asking Stevie Wonder to take an eye exam. If you can't see, a vision test will only confirm that you're blind.

Danny is doing precisely what you're asking him to do -- he's documenting his listening experiences with cables over the course of 30 years. His experiences mirror mine and many, many other audiophiles. If that's not enough, note that the naysayers cannot more sufficiently document nor prove that they don't hear differences between cables.

This

[theater_lover]

Sound clips?? Seriously? That's like asking Stevie Wonder to take an eye exam. If you can't see, a vision test will only confirm that you're blind.

Danny is doing precisely what you're asking him to do -- he's documenting his listening experiences with cables over the course of 30 years. His experiences mirror mine and many, many other audiophiles. If that's not enough, note that the naysayers cannot more sufficiently document nor prove that they don't hear differences between cables.

I'm not asking for that.

I am asking Danny to apply the same logic, tools and methods to his speaker cables as he applies to his other products.
I'm also not asking for "sound clips", but detailed waveforms of averaged clips taken under optimal circumstances, with high quality gear.

I am open to the idea that different cables could present a different sound for a number of reasons, but anyone who says that modern recording tech can not capture any difference, but their ears can, is not being honest with themselves or others.

It would either be that you do not want to show what that difference is, or, you don't want to admit that you can't actually hear a difference, or you want to be able to hear a difference.  Who doesn't want things to be better?

At some point you have to admit that an argument lacks merit if you aren't willing to use logical methods to prove or disprove it.

[Edgar77]

I found it interesting when he started talking about a system that can become too filtered it constrains the sound.  It seems that it might filter out some of the subtle sounds and frequencies that we use psycho-acoustically as cues to give us a sense of the size of the room (recording room, not listening room).  When those frequencies get lost, the room collapses to the size of the listening space or even the space between the speakers.  Is that a correct understanding?  I'm still trying to get my head around this stuff.
Sounds kind of like when people talk about over treating a room with absorption, it deadens it and makes the room lifeless.  Anechoic chambers may be "accurate", but they're probably no fun to listen to music in.

When I understood Danny correct in his last video he spoke about filtering a power cable too much. What exactly could be filtered too much in a power cable? Could the RF be filtered too much? Or the AC 50 or 60Hz filtered too much?
I accept that speaker cable with the audio signal can make a difference. And obviously that audio signal should not be filtered (too much). But how can anything filter mains power too much so that it changes the sound?