Scientific proof to differences in sound quality

Bit of a rush today, but :-

1. Just because scientists can't measure or 'explain' something doesn't mean it isn't real or can't exist. It just means THEY have'nt figured it out yet.

2. We can delude ourselves into thinking something sounds better (phycological effects). This certainly makes evaluating hifi more entertaining. And we need to be careful NOT to delude ourselves - difficult.

3. Cables (and the wires from which cables are made) are usually made by 'pulling' solid metal into long, thin strands called wires. The direction of pulling and the method of pulling probably affect the crystaline structure of the metal, which in turn could affect the sound properties, thus making the wire sound 'better' one way rather than the other. Same probably applies to the way in which the insulation is applied to the cable.

Must rush - i'm flying at 09.30 hrs - BTW, not many engineers or scientists can explain how an aeroplane works - this doesn't mean it can't fly (fortunately!)

Cheers

Don

From what I've read, transmission of RF can be affected by quite small changes to the wires, and systems which carry RF intentially (downfeed from your TV aerial, for instance) use Coaxial cables to eliminate of this variability.

I bet this is easily measurable.

High quality / wide bandwidth equipment can be quite susceptible to out-of-audio-band RF interference. This is the main design criteria for the MusicWorks leads, AFAIK.

cheers, Martin

quote:

---

1 - The engineers are claiming that there is no way that an audio cable will be affected by the direction of it.

---

Ayr,

Try this simple experiment if you can. Assuming your using Naim cable.

1. Listen to a piece of music/voice or whatever with the mono switch on. The sound should be focussed in the centre between the speakers.
2. Disconnect the speaker cable from one channel.
3. Reconnect it the wrong way - but ensure polarity is correct.
4. Play the same piece. It should now be somewhat diffused rather than centrally focussed.

You don't need any equipment to measure this except your ears.

Steve B

2. Just because some audiophile thinks they can hear a difference doesn't mean there really is a difference.

3. Everything is measurable. Audio is not hocus pocus. Nor does it exist outside the world of physics. But the art is in knowing what to measure and how to measure it. Then what to do about it! Contrary to popular belief, I don't believe Naim's engineers dance naked around Stone Henge every night praying for favourable sound quality from the Druid gods (however appealing a notion this may be).

4. The physics that explain how a 100 tons of metal can float in the air are well known. So no fear of crashing like Wile E Coyote when he realises he should not be able to hang in mid air having accidentally run off the cliff edge.

A word about cable directionality. The non-technical readers may make the mistake that the electricity flows from one unit to another. This is not correct. The signal is AC so it flows first one way then the other. So by definition the signal experiences both directions of the cable equally, no matter which way around you plug it in. That is, unless there is a residual DC current in the interconnect - if there was then the cable would be biased and the AC signal would not cause equal electrical flow in both directions. I can only speculate as to why cable direction makes a difference - if indeed it does (I haven't experienced a blind test myself).

quote:

---

I don't believe Naim's engineers dance naked around Stone Henge every night praying for favourable sound quality from the Druid gods

---

If it was only scientific matter, than a good engineer could predict exectly the quality of sound while he is planing the component.
I remeber that Mark Tucker told us that few people in Naim are "the last word" about releasing components by a listening tests.

As I understand it, a product comes to a listening test after the engineers did all their best about it, and now the people who are testing the product by listening, can ask for some changes.

I may be wrong of course, but I guess that the fact the a quality of product musured by a listening test, gives something like "knowing how"
that the engineer follows by the experience of the company - and maybe can't explain every thing or each thing by a scientific way.

Arye

I don't believe Naim's engineers dance naked around Stone Henge every night praying for favourable sound quality from the Druid gods (however appealing a notion this may be).

Cheers

Don

But with any new design it is essential to give it the ultimate test (listening to it). This is because not everything that is important to measure is known or is easily measurable and sometimes mistakes are made. But I see nothing unscientific about this process. It's just making sure you've done what you think you've done.

On another note, it's worth considering that it is one thing to develop a good sounding prototype but to set up a production process to reliably make hundreds is really hard. Maintaining repeatable quality in mass production is a real test of understanding what matters and what doesn't. Otherwise you end up with a lot of expensive scrap

BAM

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

It may be that your electronic engineering critics do in fact have "cloth" ears.

Note this does not imply that all electronic engineers have cloth ears, otherwise stuff like Naim electronics would not exist.

Derek

Einstein once said "Imagination is more important than knowledge".

This is along the same lines.

Exploring the artistic side often leads to explainations in science. Science is often behind many things - doesn't make engineering any less difficult, of course.

Anyway - who cares, Arie - these guys on the audio forums are missing the point. They just need to listen to music more and forget about the arguing. Seems very similar to all those engineers I was trained with all those years ago explaining to me how and why the stuff that I was hearing was impossible. I understood their arguments and theories (we were studying the same courses, after all)... yet my 15 year old thorens still sounded better. There were equal parts of art and engineering in that old baby.

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

No, the ear is pretty poor in the range of its frequency response

"which is why it, or they - if you still cling on to stereo like me, are able to make out differences that cannot be measured according to existing criteria."

Don't understand that.

Objective or scientific measurement in hi-fi is irrevelant as far as the listener is concerned.

The only test of any value to the listener is what the listener thinks of what he/she hears.

cheers

Nigel

There is a famous experiment where a cat sits by a metronome and an electrode is connected to it's auditory nerve - each time the metronome clicks, the sensor picks up a pulse. Then the cat is shown a mouse and the pulses disappear.

I guess the moral is: don't listen to your music while concentrating on the next meal.

-John

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

I find that people miss out on the emotion or the emotional impact when listening in this way. It's my view that the playing of music is there to elicit an emotional response, be it blood racing, sadness, or even soporific. Someone listening analytically may miss out on this completely - something to do with the left and right parts of the brain being used to do different things. e.g. on a recent team leading course, we were supplied with simple games and puzzles to keep the left side of the brain occupied while the trainer was bombarding the right side with all the human behavioural stuff.

Music has to hit both sides of the brain for ultimate impact. HiFi reproduces all the facets of the music to a greater or lesser degree. Some equipment, such as Cyrus, focusses on the technical aspects of the performance, depicting accurate pictures, having great tonal accuracy and body. Others, such as Naim, focus on the emotional, portraying 'impressionist' pictures, having great pace, rhythm and timing.

There is an immediate problem for the latter type of equipment. A customer walking into a shop may wish to do a comparative demo between two bits of equipment. This immediately puts them into the analytical frame of mind, since they wish to compare and contrast between the two, weighing up pros and cons. This can immediately have a bearing on the outcome of the demo.

It's often the case that I ask people to listen with their hearts as much as their heads - pointing out the emotional response stuff. This doesn't necessarily change people's minds about equipment, but it may make them appreciate the different equipment for its particular balance.

Now all this may come across as hocus-pocus, but it's something I have struggled with for some years. It's my view that a designer makes compromise decisions in the design of their equipment based on their listening preference. They may specify a better capacitor but they may actually find they prefer an inferior (electrically) item. I've known this to be the case in at least a couple of situations.

There are many things that affect the design of a product. One of the designers at Naim told me recently that much of their design time was spent designing casing since they found that mechanical isolation had at least as much impact on the result as the electronics in it! The casings do not change any electrical properties of the amplifiers and yet it's all important.

As to the wall cable and directionality - it seems odd to me that true engineers would question whether these make a difference. After all, being an engineer is all to do with implementation. If you implement something differently, then it stands to reason that the result would change.

I've recently heard the difference between Townshend's old and new Isolda speaker cable. The difference is that the new stuff is cryogenically cooled for some time. In other words it's the same thing, cooled down to a very cold temperature quickly and then warmed slowly back to normal temperature. There are significant differences in the result, the new cable being a more open and having better pace. Why? it's the same old thing after all, but you can't refute the results.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

"Art will always be several steps ahead of science, and science will, forever be playing catch-up."

Do you mean science as applied to HIFI equipment and musical art or science and art in general?

John

It's always a nice day for it, have a good one
Steve

quote:

---

An amplifier's ability to time music has very
little to do with the time it takes for signals to pass through it. If an amplifier can correctly reveal the attack and decay time of all notes in a complex music mix to the listener this is what gives it good timing. This depends on such things as good power supply design, correct earthing techniques, pcb layout considerations, circuit topologies and thermal and vibration management. If any one of these is overlooked it can severely effect the subjective timing of an amplifier and so, basically, an amplifier that times correctly has been designed correctly.

---

Arye

It's often the case that people will listen in an analytical frame of mind. i.e. can I hear the trumpet clearly? Can I hear the Cellos properly? or Wow - I can hear the nature of the bow-ing on the basses.
I find that people miss out on the emotion or the emotional impact when listening in this way.

IMHO, Hifi should enable people to listen BOTH ways SIMULTANEOUSLY. ie experience the emotion and (without having to put too much conscious effort into it) hear each and every instrument, voice or what ever, clearly and acurately.

IMHO Naim, and a few others, get pretty close with their top of the range kit.

Cheers

Don

quote:

---

Originally posted by Frank Abela:

I've recently heard the difference between Townshend's old and new Isolda speaker cable. The difference is that the new stuff is cryogenically cooled for some time. In other words it's the same thing, cooled down to a very cold temperature quickly and then warmed slowly back to normal temperature. There are significant differences in the result, the new cable being a more open and having better pace. Why? it's the same old thing after all, but you can't refute the results.

---

Frank,

the last time I heard this discussed it was in the context of CDs.

When the disc was cryogenically cooled it induced a phase change in one of the materials, by changing the crystaline structure. Since this was a stable change the new structure was retained after heating back to room temperature.

I'm not sure if this relates to annealing, which is discussed at thecorning museum of glass in relation to cooling of glass. Of course, in your example, the gentle temperature change is during the re-heating phase, but there may be parallels?

cheers, Martin

Very possibly the case. The point I should have been clearer about is that the cable remains unchanged electrically (i.e the impedance, inductance, resistance and capacitance values remain unchanged) and yet there's a difference with not much to explain it.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

You raise an interesting point, which I have wondered about once or twice. I don't know how flex is made or whether the strands are same direction or alternate direction. Perhaps someone can help out.

Remember, I only set out a possible reason for directionality in the sound of cables. I'm sure cables have directional properties but whether these are fundamental reasons for their directional sounds, I don't know.

Not very helpful, i'm afraid.

Cheers

Don

Paul Stephenson describes technical subjects and he says that paying attention and care to all of them makes an amplifier a good one.

I guess the same goes with cables and all the other stuff - only we don't know what are the technical approaches to each.

This clarifies to me again how great to me (as a castomer) is the advantage of Naim planing all the system from edge to edge and leaves for me nothing to worry about.

As someone told me in this forum several month ago, there is no "philosophy" in stereo systems manufacturing. Someone else told me that the manufacturers are not thinking about the philosophy of music while planing a stereo system, they are trying to manufacture the best they can following the electricity and physics knowledge knowing that acheaving the best in these areas gives the best "musical" equipment.

Arye

Arye

quote:

---

Originally posted by Frank Abela:
Very possibly the case. The point I should have been clearer about is that the cable remains unchanged _electrically_ (i.e the impedance, inductance, resistance and capacitance values remain unchanged) and yet there's a difference with not much to explain it.

---

Frank,

I'm getting well out of my depth, here, but I wonder if there is a difference in the noise performance of the wire?

If I understand correctly, the boundaries between the tiny individual crystals which constitute the metal of the wire provide a much less effective conductor than the crystals themselves.

I wonder if the signals pick up noise traversing the boundaries, or maybe these are somewhere for RF to be rectified into the wire?

Whilst these may not be easy effects to measure, they at least provide possible mechanisms for audible effects.

Ten years ago I would have laughed out loud at anyone suggesting that ferrous metal near to my Naim gear might affect it. Now I'm sure it is a genuine effect.

Science and technology are all about contninuously improving our understanding.

cheers, Martin