Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Cable "Snake Oil"

In case anyone is interested, there is a cool little "tit for tat" going on at Audioholics.com between Gene DellaSala and Audio Quest related to his "Top ten signs an audio cable vendor is selling you Snake Oil" article.

I love those guys at Audioholics.com - very honest opinions and facts with excellent writing.

where's the linkage?

Found it (for your convenience):

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/interconnects/Audioquest_DBS.html

A nice read.

Why do you buy audiophile components? Because they're shiny, thick, heavy, or exotic? Because someone tells you they're better? Because scientific measurements show them to be more neutral? Because twenty random people claim they sound better under double blinding testing? To impress your friends?

To me, measurements are valuable only insofar as they can predict my enjoyment of a piece of equipment. If measurements and experience align, then those measurements gain credibility. If measurements contradict experience, than question the measurements. This kind of questioning has led to a better understanding of exactly what charactersitics of tube amps are subjectively pleasing.

Now say I take a Fuji apple and a Gala apple that I want to compare. Food growers swear to me that they're very different fruit: "they taste different and have different textures." So I look at them and they have a very similar appearance. I take one bite from the Gala, then one bite from the Fuji, but I taste no difference and feel no texture variation. I cut them open and observe similar structures and seeds. I put the apple slices under the microscope and note that they have identical-looking cell structures. Finally, I burn both of them and determine that they provide about the same number of calories. With my examination complete, I declare that I can find NO difference between these allegedly different fruit.

What conclusion can I scientifically draw?


-Cooper

You want snake oil? I gottcha snake oil. And plenty more where that came from.

This is an honest to god real thing. someone sent this to us, i dont remember who. According to the label it does everything.

No, Cooper; if measurements contradict "experience", then conduct controlled blind tests to see if the experience is based on more than rumors, hype to influence the gullible, and imagination. When this has been done the tests have failed to show a difference. When the nameplates and pricetags have disappeared, so have the sound differences.

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Food growers swear to me that they're very different fruit

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But what if one of the growers publicly claims (swears) that he has made a "scientific breakthough" in growing technology that causes his apple to taste better than any apple that has gone before it but he can't back up his claim with sound science.

It would be fine if the grower simply asserts that in his "opinion"(mind) the apple taste better. This would be a harmless statement (all the growers say it).

But I don't think his fellow growers would be very happy with the government if this one grower were allowed to make the claim that his tastes better because of a scientific breakthrough without having to show proof.

I'm not saying that his apple doesn't taste better, mind you. In fact I think that his apple is the end all to beat all. But in the interest of fair play and ethics, I would still want him to back up his claim of scientific breakthrough.

cblake wrote:

"To me, measurements are valuable only insofar as they can predict my enjoyment of a piece of equipment. If measurements and experience align, then those measurements gain credibility. If measurements contradict experience, than question the measurements. This kind of questioning has led to a better understanding of exactly what charactersitics of tube amps are subjectively pleasing."

Ah, so experience trumps theory? I agree.

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Ah, so experience trumps theory? I agree.

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And scientifically reproducable data trumps both.

Actually, data without theory, is noise. (or the basis of a new theory which attempts to make sense of the data.)

And if the data conflicts with the theory or some nebulous, subjective experience, both are invalid.

In case anyone is interested, there is a cool little "tit for tat" going on RIGHT HERE!

Settle down, boys...

Yes, you're making baby Jesus cry.

Trust your ears!

That's why I read scientific papers out loud.

Because sensory perception has ever been shown to be reliable?

It's not like a pilot flying in the fog or dark deciding whether to trust his instruments or inner ear. I can tell you the absolutely correct answer to that question.

However, when it comes to trusting theory or your ears as to audio equipment, the answer is equally clear - trust your ears - one of the organs of musical joy. Please your ears (brain/ear thing) because it's the experience which pleases, not some dry, abstract data set based on electrical engineering principals which are not adequate to model what makes reproduced music sound good or not.

For guys, are you going to date a gal based on her stats, or how being with her makes you feel? Only one right answer there as well.

Trust your ears and enjoy the MUSIC, not the stats.

depends how old you are!

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However, when it comes to trusting theory or your ears as to audio equipment, the answer is equally clear - trust your ears - one of the organs of musical joy. Please your ears (brain/ear thing) because it's the experience which pleases, not some dry, abstract data set based on electrical engineering principals which are not adequate to model what makes reproduced music sound good or not.

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And whind up with 10k speaker wire while spouting off stupidity about shielding.

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For guys, are you going to date a gal based on her stats, or how being with her makes you feel? Only one right answer there as well.

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Analogies != arguments largely because they're usually idiotic and easily discarded as invalid. Using the example of something already known to be a subjective situation presumes the outcome.

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Trust your ears and enjoy the MUSIC, not the stats.

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And spend money on worthless things because you're expecting an outcome and convincing yourself that its true in order to justify your idiotic purchase.

She canna take no more of this, cap'n! Aye, if she hear one more ear vs. science argument, she's likely ta blow!

Regardless of your chosen path. It's the ends that matter, not the means.

Now SHUT IT!

In reply to:

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In reply to:

For guys, are you going to date a gal based on her stats, or how being with her makes you feel? Only one right answer there as well.

Analogies != arguments largely because they're usually idiotic and easily discarded as invalid. Using the example of something already known to be a subjective situation presumes the outcome.

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I think it's a great analogy because both instances have more to do with emotion and the heart than with quantitative analysis.

Some of you seem to have missed the apples-to-apples comparison. I provided an example where we have two factually-different types of apples. But it is possible to conduct experiments and find no difference. Maybe what's more important is the answer to the last question I posed: what can the experimenter conclude? The answer is "nothing."

-Cooper

Semi On says in response to "trust your ears not theory":

"And whind up with 10k speaker wire while spouting off stupidity about shielding."

"Analogies != arguments largely because they're usually idiotic and easily discarded as invalid. Using the example of something already known to be a subjective situation presumes the outcome."

"And spend money on worthless things because you're expecting an outcome and convincing yourself that its true in order to justify your idiotic purchase."

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Let's see, boil Semi On's comments down to "idiotic," "stupidity," and "idiotic." By the way, semi on, most of the English speaking world spells "winding," like that, not "whinding."

Saying trust your ears and enjoy the music instead of trusting in an inadequate theory does not mean that you have to spend a lot of money. On the contrary, you may well find that trusting your ears saves you a lot of money and gets you fine sounding equipment.

For instance, Axiom speakers sound great, but are not expensive. If, on the other hand, you believe all amps sound the same, you can really save yourself some money! You should get a nice radio shack PA amp for $50 to drive your nice Axioms. If you believe all CD players sound alike, then you can buy yourself a nice $19 unit in a clear plastic wrapper from your local drug store.

I don't think you'd be getting a real bargain that way. But I suppose if you're stuck with your restrictive theories, and if you don't trust your ears, you can listen to crap confident that by your theories it should sound just as good as the good stuff.

Enjoy your music.

I think the reason the girlfriend analogy is ridiculous isn't that most people use their hearts to choose, but the counterpoint (or is it contrapositive?) -- What man in his right mind would scientifically measure a prospective mate? Or for that matter to a double-blind A-B comparison? Ooh, that sounds like bad porn...

Arguing on the internet is like being in the Special Olympics; even if you win, you are still a retard.*


*Before anyone cries about this being low, I didn't make it up, just repeated it, and god damn if it is not true.

Dude. Retard is not the preferred nomenclature. Mentally disabled, dude.


(10 points to those who know where this mangled quote comes from. 50 points to those who laugh, too. )

I can only guess "Dude, where's my car" because it has "dude" in the quote twice.

No no no no NO!

Dude is the main clue, however. Also, the movie was set in LA.

Big Lebowski(spelling).

Correct. (spelling, too.)

If you all haven't seen the movie, please do. And have some cream, vodka, and kahlua on hand. Trust me.

It's a good movie by very good directors. My favorite by them is still Raising Arizona.

Raising Arizona? I'm sorry, the answer we're looking for is Fargo, Fargo, doncha know.

Aye?

"O Brother Where Art Thou?" was excellent as well.

Miller's Crossing

So... who won the article about scientific method vs. human perception?

Ever heard of the Hatfield's and the McCoy's?

here is an interesting perception article:
http://www.gedlee.com/distortion_perception.htm