Quote:
Originally posted by Brad Blackwood
Being able to consistently and accurately discern the difference...
Nope, I'll let someone else do the legwork on this one. When somebody has proven they can hear the diff, I'll look into it. i've been there, already.
The point I always bring up here is this - how many times as an engineer have you tweaked that 10kHz til it sounded just right only to realize the EQ was in bypass?
You have to remove expectation from the equation, have to. |
I'm with you, Brad. I've been through at least a dozen demos of everything from silver cable to those 99.999% pure oxygen free copper ones to thick speaker cables - almost 3" in diameter - that can't be dropped or even touched otherwise "the ions will become totally misaligned." (true quote) The comparison in the test has always, WITHOUT FAIL, been some beat up, poorly constructed proco or radio shack brand interconnect/ speaker cable/ power cable (yes, have demoed 2 of these expensive AC cords). In a couple of tests, I was able to isolate what I thought the audible difference was: the length of a cable. For a 10 foot mic cable, made of pure silver, will produce more sound output than a trampled 50 foot proco (which likely isn't even of a proper gauge to pass microphone signal). But with the length being equal, and the comparison being between a reasonable component (mogami or canare wiring for interconnects, what we use in our studio) and a fancy one, I have never "heard a difference."
AC cables that cost $2000? To power a device flex-soldered on a printed circuit board? WTF? Find me an electrical engineer who doesn't have a vested interest in making a profit out of AC interconnects who can explain what more expensive AC cables actually do.
Funny thing - I did a hearing comparison test with one of the audiophiles who was striving hard to convince me of the superior merit of his several hundred dollar RCA interconnects. His hearing capped out at about 13.5k, whereas mine is up to around 18.5k in one ear and 17k in the other, nullifying his hypothesis that his greater perception of frequency range accounted for his acuity of perceiving cable differences.
But I have good friends/ colleages that claim to hear a difference - and I can't deny that. I can only assert that at Radical House studios, we very proudly use $.99 AC cords and they appear to provide ample power to our high quality mixing and mastering gear.
And the 10k EQ bypass trick - do it
all the time with pesky clients that want to offer input on a mix (I'm kinda, but not totally, joking). And people
always hear a difference, since they
want to hear a difference.