How are cables directional?

Yes, that’s interesting, isn’t it? I don’t know the answer, but assume it is something to do with either density or fluidity, but exactly how, I don’t know.
Similarly, why the sound of tapping your spoon on the edge of a cup changes when you have stirred the liquid to dissolve, e.g., some sugar in it.

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Hi
He could of made money then if he took up the offer
Who knows🤷🏻‍♂️

Thanks
Mark

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The details of the offer, and exactly what constitutes success, as arbitrated by whom, may have been relevant. Perhaps @Blackbird can give us all the important details?

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Sorry I’m off eating ice cream and enjoying my system. Best of luck solving the mystery with direction of cables :+1: :icecream:

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What direction did you choose, from pear to cream to ice to chocolate or from chocolate to cream to ice to pear ? Existential problem.

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Pear to cream to ice. But found on wiki that a professor claimed it would taste better the other way around so will have to buy another one tomorrow. Problems.

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I think we need to organise a “group testing/tasting” session!

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You may well scoff!

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Hi
The same details as hearsay.
Not valid in court.

Thanks
Mark

I’ve found that my system sounds best if the power cable direction has the male pins at the wall socket.

But, reversing them gives inky black silence :sunglasses:

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What court?

I have been persuaded to a satisfactory level of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ about many hifi cliches by experiments we have done in my house.

The efforts produced a consistent benefit to me. However, I would gain no benefit at all from persuading others to agree with my results.

I would also gain no benefit from other people reallocating the time spent posting here to doing their own experiments if they wish to disbelieve other people’s results.

Doing their own work might be more useful to them than assuming without evidence that anyone who disagrees with their existing views is at last one of deaf, daft or dishonest.

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Strictly speaking, most cables are bidirectional - they can be used either way round. The exception, of course, are ones that are grounded at one end only.

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Hi
This is what I’m saying.
You can say the differences between A & B till you’re blue in the face.
That is your experience of hearing differences.
I’m not saying you’re right or wrong.
I’m the type of person instead of hearsay would like to see someone pick the differences but don’t think that’s ever going to happen realistically.
It’s the same as when some people say something is night & day on some products I’ve heard & to me they’re not.
I don’t think I’m that bad of a listener or maybe I am who knows.
That’s when you take most things with a pinch of salt.

Thanks

Mark

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Hearing is quite an important aspect of musical reproduction.

And saying what it sounds like is a legitimate (and still legal) way to exchange ideas about hi-fi.

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It’s been a long time since I did anything until I was blue in the face, though red is still far from rare.

If you want to see someone pick differences, as you say, you may need to do as we did and set up an experiment. In any event, I’d applaud your effort to try (no matter what results you get) when many with firm views here seem very happy to state that these differences cannot be picked (implying necessarily that the Roy George anecdotes above are literally untrue).

Finally, I certainly wouldn’t let being a bad listener put you off - I am a terrible critical listener, and not just because of the state of my hearing, but it certainly doesn’t make investigation pointless or impossible.

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I’ve tried a A-B tests quite a few times over the years, but now I hardly ever do them because if the difference is not big enough to easily notice then I assume that it’s not big enough to be distinguishable from confirmation bias.

Also, it’s just no fun.

Not in the spirit of enjoying music.

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You do get rather a lot of " you can’t test it like that" remarks.
Also the " you need to let it settle in for a few day’s " remarks.
The simple play the same track into 2 different things and switch between them in real time so you can instantly hear any difference for some reason is no good.
Instead we have to try and remember how something sounded, like that’s going to work.

Simple, try both ways at the same time if you can, in real time. That’s what i have always done, and it’s saved me thousands over the years

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Therein lies the rub!!!

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Indeed - much the same here. Whenever spending anything more than a trivial sum I initially do direct A-B comparisons , and if I can’t hear a clear difference (for any significant sum I expect a distinctly noticeable improvement) then unless there are other reasons for buying I don’t buy. If I hear an improvement, and the item is expensive, I do blind comparisons (I have a son who enjoys trying to catch me out, e.g. sometimes slightly increasing the volume on one relative to the other, sometimes vice versa).

Sometimes there are other contributors to the decision: e.g. with the Dave DAC, my cellist son came with me when I first heard, actually there for something else, and when I took the opportunity to hear Dave he had no idea what it was, or it’s cost, yet a few bars into the first piece of music he uttered a just audible "wow!"m echoing my own reaction. My later testing at home was trying to persuade myself that it wasn’t worth the huge cost and Hugo TT was good enough. My wife, calling from the next room along the lines of: “For goodness sake, buy that one, even I can hear it is so much better!” So ewhat over-rode my blind listening!

Otherwise, much as @Guinnless said, if something doesn’t sound good out of the box then it goes back - yes, some things like speakers might sound even better once “run in”, assuming bought new, but if before that it doesn’t sound better than whatever it is to replace then it isn’t better. Any suggestion that whilst I might not like it now I will in x weeks is, to me, absolute tosh.

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I agree

For the last week i have had a brand new vivaldi clock to try, attached to both my dac, and upsampler. Luckily you can just switch it off to demonstrate what, or not, it’s doing.
So it’s easy to decide if it’s for you or not. But doing a simple side by side test if you can certainly hides nothing, and when the difference can be very slight, it’s the only real way.

There’s so much bull in this hobby that it’s easy to just get sucked in, people claiming this and that, some pretend to have such wonderful ears they can detect if a fly has touch a cable or made it touch that horrible floor, etc, it goes on and on.

So don’t just follow, don’t be lazy, try things for yourself, it’s the only real way.
Plus believe in what you find, rather than a so called expert, or someone trying to make out they are the holy one behind the keyboard.
Yes, we can all have a say, but that’s all it really is at the end off the day.

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