Are we crazy?

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Racks? Don't be a fool, electronic equipment that is based on transistors can't be sensitive to shelves - take a screwdriver and knock on any point you wish in the amp - and you'll see that you can't notice the noise.

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First of all, you do not mention about those things called capacitors. What happens when you vibrate the plates of a capacitor? You vary it's capacitance, hence vary its impedance, hence vary the potential-difference across it, hence modulate the sound.

Also, tapping an amplifier does not entirely simulate those conditions, particularly if you are busy tapping away and not listening to the music.

Andrew

Andrew Randle
Currently in the "Linn Binn"

Andrew,

I'm not an engineer, but those who are, claim that nowadays a capcitor is built in a way that sound waves can't chnge its capacity.

true or false? I don't know.

Arye

It would be surprising if a capacitor was microphonic in a way that vanished as soon as you exposed it to sound and measured the effect on its capacitance.

For example.

There's a lot of bollocks claimed in the hifi world. IMO this doesn't matter at all, if some superficially bizarre action changes the sound for you, then that's great. But it may not actually have changed the sound. If you start selling your expertise or products based on that then I think it is reasonable to ask for proof of the effects.

I'm not hopeful. It's much easier to demonstrate that funny ignition leads don't affect a car, yet people still buy them and swear by the effects.

Paul

These all would have been valid questions 10-15 years ago. Nowadays, I've noticed a general acceptance of the tweakery you've mentioned by the public at large. For example, this month's issue of "Arena" has Britney Spears on the cover, Mana rack within.

As for sceptical engineers, I suspect the only ones who are still clinging to old notions of 1+1=2 are the same who haven't bothered to try it out for themselves.
(A clunky sentence, I know. How would you re-write it? )

Andrew,

Surely the plates in capacitors are fused together with layers of dieletric that would maintain the plate spacing and so the capacitance?

Cant this be tested? SOmeone could strap a cap onto the front of a speaker and measure the capacitance. Then feed the speaker with a sinewave and see if the capacitance changes. I guess you'd have to shield the cap (or put it on the end of a long stick!).

This is not to say a good stand wont help on an
turntable, but I'm not sure about a solid state
device.

Arye,

The answer to your question depends on where you look. One answer is within purview of psychology, the other within the purview of engineering and, more specifically, science.

Many psychology experiments have shown that we can fool ourselves readily enough, so not every perceived difference is, in fact, real. Optical illusions are an obvious example.

Are the sides of the square straight or bent? Look bent to me, but get your ruler out and check.



The parallel with audio is obvious -- it's all too easy to convince yourself that a tweak had made a real difference. But did it really, or has something clouded your perception?

The history of science has shown that we don't necessarily have equipment sensitive or sophisticated enough to measure phenomena and things that do, in fact, exist. To take a completely absurd example, did microbes spontaneously come into being when van Leeuwenhoek first peered through his microscope? Not bloody likely, but once microbes were discovered and people began to study them all sorts of previously unexplained phenomena started to makes sense. Maybe some audio claims will fall into this category.

And even if we have equipment sensitive or sophisticated enough, we don't necessarily measure the right things... or can produce the models that explain how things work under dynamic conditions.

I think the best approach is the one advocated by Carl Sagan: Keep an open mind, but temper all claims with reason and evidence. The crazier the claim, the stronger must be the evidence that supports it.

Over time, the sound will separate from the bogus.

Joe

We're dealing with emotional responses to an art form. Why does the system sound great one day and crap the next?

Because of YOU and not IT.

Console yourself with the fact that it's a lot less daft than discussing astrology or the existence of a divine being.

Spare a thought for the poor insomniac dyslexic phlosopher who lay awake all night, wondering about the existence of Dog.

It's not sound waves which affect the electronics in hifi equipment, it's the vibrations the sound waves produce in the stands, boxes, flooring, walls, etc...

There are throughout history innumerable instances of "experts" giving forth opinion...

The IBM bod who declared that only about 4 companies would ever need a computer.

Bill Gates declaring that 640k would be adequate RAM for a computer (or was that how much '98 leaks in a day?)

Engineers are no better or worse in this respect. Some do however have an annoying tendancy to deny the existance of an observable effect just because they cannot measure it. Does this mean that resistance, capacitance etc. didn't exist 300 years ago, before the invention of the galvanometer, before they could be measured?

I think not.


Willy.

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Surely the plates in capacitors are fused together with layers of dieletric that would maintain the plate spacing and so the capacitance?

Cant this be tested? SOmeone could strap a cap onto the front of a speaker and measure the capacitance. Then feed the speaker with a sinewave and see if the capacitance changes. I guess you'd have to shield the cap (or put it on the end of a long stick!).

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For a start, electrolytics rely on electrolyte fluid to increase the relative permittivity of the gap between the plates (which are wound). Film capacitors still consist of various layers of insulation, conducting film and dielectric that can easily "shake rattle and roll". Inductors suffer similar problems.

Remember also that an electret microphone is only a fancy capacitor (with a vibrating plate).

The we can look at the solder joints. Mechanical vibration affects the impedance at the joint, compenents with leads are doubly prone to this effect.

Andrew

Andrew Randle
Currently in the "Linn Binn"

Good Post.

Is it possible that our understanding of some tweaks and indeed the physical world in general is so bad that we just don't know how to measure these effects?

After all, before the apple fell on that geezers head....

I deal with these argues in two ways.

First, I think that a person who is convinced that there is no way that there will be a sonic difference between two elements - may not hear the difference even if it exists. The psychological effect that those engineers are saying that I'm suffering of, may be their problem! A simple proof for this claim is the many engineers at the world who are buying HI End systems and are using all the "tweaks".

Second, I don't think that most of the people like to "waste" their money for nothing. No doubt in my heart, that if somebody will show me tomorrow a mini JVC that sounds as good as my expensive gear, with all the respect I have to Naim, I'll sell my gear to the first crazy person who'll buy it and I'll take the cheap one.

Arye

Jason,

I'm told that a good DAC can eliminate all the jitter problems.

An interesting argument I heard once - a stereo manufacturer's engineers are finding by experiments how to better the sound.
The manufacturer doesn't have the will or the money to investigate the reasons that are causing the improvements. Stereo manufacturers don't see themselves as scientific organizations - they have no reason to put money in order to know "why". That's may be a reason why there are phenomenon in the stereo area that no one can explain their scientific base.

Arye

I find all of this fascinating since I am an engineer whose thought processes (usually) are based on logic and the the knowledge I have available to me.

I'm also a music fanatic, who runs what to the general population would be deemed an exhorbitably expensive system with some very strange apparent sensitivities to the world around it.

First let's start with some simple facts: -

1. Capacitors along with other components are microphonic, to varying degrees. This is easily measurable to me as an engineer, and affects the circuits in which they are used. I can show you noise induced on regulated power supply rails, instabilities in phase locked loops and all manner of real world, undeniably measurable effects that cannot be argued with. That some choose to do so just shows the limits of their knowledge and experience, nothing else.

2. The electrical characteristics of a cable have easily measurable effects on the signals that pass through it. It's a component, with capacitance, inductance and resistance. I can even demonstrate a cable, at microwave frequencies that has different measured characteristics dependant upon which way around it is connected. Nothing to do with the cable itself, but all to do with the non-ideal impedance of the terminations at each end.

3. Dedicated spur - there is more than one benefit to this, not just the lowering of the supply impedance (the one that meakes least sense to those that forward the '100's of m' argument) but also the lowering of noise from removal of shared current paths along ring mains. Again anyone who argues that this effect is not measurable does not understand their subject very well - it's basic electronics, star-wiring etc.

4. Transport issues - on this one I'm with BAM, the primary reason it matters is due to non-ideal performance of subsequent circuitry, IMO.

The argument that logically follows from the above undeniable facts is does it matter, i.e. can you hear it?

This is where the argument should lie and where it is most open to debate. For my own part I can always accept that soemthing that isn't measurable (to me) but which I apparently can hear just shows the limitations of my ability to measure, nothing else. I can also accept that the brain is easily fooled, the ears are a very sensitive measuring device, but as Alex S said to me once, the brain is crap at analysing it. I also feel that 'training' and particular listening methodology can remove some of the variation (e.g. Linn tune dem).

From my own experience, very subtle measured differences do appear to have an inordinately large effect sometimes.

What irritates me is when companies promote their wares using either pseudo science or misleading descriptions to describe things in a way that makes them sound much more technical or advanced than they are in reality.

Even Naim have been mildly responsible for this in the past.

Andy.

>>there simply cannot be any differences between cables, or between power chords <<

As even the most cursory familiarity with your average 15 year-olds collection of Slipknot, Limp Bizkit and Korn CDs will show there is indeed no difference betweeen power chords.

Matthew

Nu-metal Snappy for Matthew me thinks!

Steve

Is the Pope a Catholic?

regards,

Mark

does Dolly Parton sleep on her back?

I wonder if there is a statistically way to say that differences are objective phenomena.

I mean that if x people of y people are saying that there is a difference, isn't it a proof?

Arye

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I mean that if x people of y people are saying that there is a difference, isn't it a proof?

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Does 'god' exist?

Paul

Paul,

It is not the same.
You can arrange a test of stereo equipment whenever you wish and can repeat the test each time you want.

There is nothing about GOD that you can test or retest in such a way.
Because of the same reason, I don't believe that UFOs exist.

Arye

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It is not the same.

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I think it is exactly the same, it's down to personal experience and belief.

A large number of people believing something for which there is no external objective evidence is not in itself evidence for the validity of the belief.

However in audio matters we have the possibility to get that objective evidence.

Paul

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Originally posted by Andrew L. Weekes:
The argument that logically follows from the above undeniable facts is does it matter, i.e. can you hear it?
This is where the argument should lie.......
Andy.

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Andy has summed it up. Nothing else really matters from a hifi users point of view. For example we all know that NACA5 makes a difference. As an electronic engineer I was a sceptic until I bought NACA5 and tried it.

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Originally posted by Andrew L. Weekes:
I can always accept that something that isn't measurable (to me) but which I apparently can hear just shows the limitations of my ability to measure, nothing else.
Andy.

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Again Andy has it spot on - that there is a difference but perhaps we cannot/don't know how to measure it.

Terry

Some things in the hi-fi world can easily be measured objectively – power output, THD etc.

Musicality, however cannot be defined to everyone’s satisfaction. All you will have is the statistically derived verdict of a statistically representative proportion of the population.

So what if 50 million people think NAD is the most musical system? I don’t and that is what is important to me.

You might as well ask whether a rose is a better flower than a daffodil.

Majority view, however statistically valid, is not, in matters of personal taste, any measure at all.

cheers

Nigel

ROSS.. I agree wholeheatedly with your sentiments. I am a scientist and engineer and get peed off by others of similar standing stating that phenomena can`t exist because we can`t measure them.
These same people resolutely refuse to carry out the experments to obtain first hand evidence, yet remain adamant that these experiments would be pointless because they already know the outcome beforehand. I too was sceptical about the benefits of optimising mains supplies and cable"sound" until I tried them and trusted my ears rather than my textbook.The charge that these phenomena are imaginary or due to some psychological aberration, does not stand up. I have blind tested A/B with volunteers who thought I was crazy and who also correctly identified "blind" changes. All I can say to the non-believers is: try for yourself and see and then decide what to do. Other`s opinions are simply speculation

Cheers