Interesting post.

[ncarver]

I'm kind of dismayed at your response to all of this. You have taken it as Dan and myself have attacked the very nature of your existence. It's anything but for myself. I know you think you hear a difference between cables and all is good. You have the money to spend and it may well sound better to you. I don't really mind that. I didn't post this to make you feel bad my friend. I posted it to show what cable vendors are willing to do and you don't get it. It's fine. No problem whatsoever if thats a word. I don't think he called you stupid he just said that some are very believing and get sucked into things that they ought not to buy. I don't think you would ever buy anything that you didn't fully check out. I'm not sure why you take such a negative to all of this but really don't take it personal, I really,really never meant it that way. I make fun of audiophiles sometimes but only in jest and wish I could afford to be one so that I could find out the truth. But I know I never would but it would be fun to try.

And I am equally dismayed that you find Dan's response as reasonable and the manufacturer's response as some sort of proof that cables are "snake oil" and he knows it. I went back and reread the linked post to make certain that I hadn't misinterpreted some of it. I did not! The manufacturer offered Dan his cables to test, and his only qualification was he wanted to do this only if Dan felt that cables were "something that has an impact on audio quality." You find that hilarious and proof that the manufacturer is a charlatan interested only in positive reviews. I see nothing of the sort. Just because somebody believes cables can affect sound doesn't mean they are going to like (i.e., positively review) these particular cables. The manufacturer didn't offer them only if Dan agreed upfront to review them positively. Show me one single piece of evidence for that--I challenge you to do this. Dan responds with a long harangue that makes it clear that he has already 100% made up his mind that cables do not and cannot under any circumstances make a perceptible difference in the sound of an audio system, and that anyone that believes this is fooling themselves. So in other words, Dan says right up front to the manufacturer that he is 100% certain to say his cables make no difference. This is the sort of "review" opportunity that Dan is offering? And you think it proves something about the cables that the offer wasn't taken?? Are you serious??? In effect Dan already wrote his review--right in his response--without even needing to have a set of cables to measure or listen to. Hell, why should he bother since he is obviously brilliant and knows the TRUTH about audio equipment. Sorry, but I actually am a practicing scientist, and Dan's position is not AT ALL scientific (and certainly not worthy of being touted as a great article). My response has little to do with me feeling personally attacked--I could care less what you or this Dan guy believe. What annoys me is when people that appear to be closed-minded, (think they) know-it-all jerks are being promoted as good examples of objective, scientific thinking. (Yes I do realize Dan's writing style is intended to be amusing and attract readers, which accounts for what I find the "jerk" style of it.)

I am definitely now done here unless something is posted from Dan's response that shows he was actually willing to give a fair and objective review--as I already asked.

[ncarver]

Leon Festinger's concept of cognitive dissonance is also salient here. When we have commited to something (bought a car, acquired a religious belief, bought a ton of expensive audio gear and become a true-believing audiophile) we tend to pay attention to things that reinforce or support our action or belief. We experience what Festinger called cognitive dissonance when we encounter information that tends to cast our choices in a less than positive light -- we'll read articles praising our swell new car or describing the tenets of our new religion (whether or not it's the Catholic Church or the Church of Sound), but will avoid those that lead us in a different direction.

Which is why audiophiles BORROW equipment to listen to before they purchase it, so they have little/no commitment. Honestly, some of you people mention things like this as though "subjectivist audiophiles" could never possibly have considered these things. We have. I personally know a number of audiophiles that are actually practicing research scientists. Despite being highly skeptical in the beginning, they have come to believe that things like cables can make subtle differences in the sound of some systems. I have actually read most of the original ABX papers by David Clark and associates, which appeared in places like JAES. Have you guys? The tests all have serious methodological flaws that severely limit what conclusions can be drawn from their negative results. Severely! And yet these were the tests that largely established support for the point of view (one might even say meme) that almost nobody can hear the differences they think they hear when subjected to double blind conditions. So when somebody tells me they know for a fact that cables cannot sound different, I am going to demand that they provide citations for the studies that establish this as a "fact" (bet they can't).

[Nonreality]

And I am equally dismayed that you find Dan's response as reasonable and the manufacturer's response as some sort of proof that cables are "snake oil" and he knows it. I went back and reread the linked post to make certain that I hadn't misinterpreted some of it. I did not! The manufacturer offered Dan his cables to test, and his only qualification was he wanted to do this only if Dan felt that cables were "something that has an impact on audio quality." You find that hilarious and proof that the manufacturer is a charlatan interested only in positive reviews. I see nothing of the sort. Just because somebody believes cables can affect sound doesn't mean they are going to like (i.e., positively review) these particular cables. The manufacturer didn't offer them only if Dan agreed upfront to review them positively. Show me one single piece of evidence for that--I challenge you to do this. Dan responds with a long harangue that makes it clear that he has already 100% made up his mind that cables do not and cannot under any circumstances make a perceptible difference in the sound of an audio system, and that anyone that believes this is fooling themselves. So in other words, Dan says right up front to the manufacturer that he is 100% certain to say his cables make no difference. This is the sort of "review" opportunity that Dan is offering? And you think it proves something about the cables that the offer wasn't taken?? Are you serious??? In effect Dan already wrote his review--right in his response--without even needing to have a set of cables to measure or listen to. Hell, why should he bother since he is obviously brilliant and knows the TRUTH about audio equipment. Sorry, but I actually am a practicing scientist, and Dan's position is not AT ALL scientific (and certainly not worthy of being touted as a great article). My response has little to do with me feeling personally attacked--I could care less what you or this Dan guy believe. What annoys me is when people that appear to be closed-minded, (think they) know-it-all jerks are being promoted as good examples of objective, scientific thinking. (Yes I do realize Dan's writing style is intended to be amusing and attract readers, which accounts for what I find the "jerk" style of it.)

I am definitely now done here unless something is posted from Dan's response that shows he was actually willing to give a fair and objective review--as I already asked.

Really now, I feel bad that I hit such a cord of hurt in you. You are so close to the trees that you forgot there is a forest out there. Everything has such an anger to it and I really didn't mean to bring this out. Sure I make fun of audiophiles just like I make fun of myself for being a golfer that always wants something better to make me good. You can't see the folly or the fun in all of that. You are the school of the perfect audiophile. You have fun with the chip on your shoulder and defending the cause. I can respect that almost. Just to keep your heart pressure down you might not want to click on many of my posts. At least until you can stand my humor.

[earwaxer9]

I make fun of audiophiles sometimes but only in jest and wish I could afford to be one so that I could find out the truth. But I know I never would but it would be fun to try.

This made me sad!

An "audiophile" is a state of mind. Its a passion!

Being an audiophile doesn't require a certain minimal investment of cash. Its relative. Much can be done with very inexpensive equipment. Its HOW those pieces are selected and put together. Through critical listening, research, and often trial and error, these "systems" are created. Each one unique in one way or another, when factors like room dynamics are added to the equation. Its a relationship. Its as much creative as it is analytical. Its like life itself. Its a process. There is no membership card. No initiation rites.

[Nonreality]

This made me sad!

An "audiophile" is a state of mind. Its a passion!

Being an audiophile doesn't require a certain minimal investment of cash. Its relative. Much can be done with very inexpensive equipment. Its HOW those pieces are selected and put together. Through critical listening, research, and often trial and error, these "systems" are created. Each one unique in one way or another, when factors like room dynamics are added to the equation. Its a relationship. Its as much creative as it is analytical. Its like life itself. Its a process. There is no membership card. No initiation rites.

Hey thanks, maybe I really am one. I'll still make fun of myself though if thats ok?

[ncarver]

Really now, I feel bad that I hit such a cord of hurt in you. You are ...You can't...You are....

Ah, you do not know anything at all about me, and from the above statements you obviously still do not understand my motivations in this thread at all. It is really rather incredibly presumptuous for you to even imagine that you would know enough to make all these statements about me. I certainly have never claimed to understand you, because I would never assume I knew even the slightest thing about you from a couple of posts on some web forum. Now you say it is all just joking around; I shouldn't ever take anything you say too seriously. I guess that is what you are suggesting. Fine.

On a more positive note...while your "fiend" Dan is the worst kind of pseudoscientist, I did learn one thing as a (indirect) result of reading his site. He mentions that in blind tests concert violinists cannot tell a Stradivarius from a "regular" violin. Now this struck me as highly suspect given that I know that acoustic instruments each have unique tonal signatures and musicians make their living from being able to understand and manipulate tonal color. Sure enough, with about 15secs of googling I found nice graphs of the harmonic structure and resonances of various violins, and of course each and every violin has a unique acoustic signature. Anyway, suffice it to say that Dan does not exactly have his facts correct, and in any case has drawn the wrong conclusions from what he does know. Of course I wouldn't expect anything less! However in doing some reading of factual information at other sites I did learn a few new things. So reading Dan wasn't a COMPLETE waste of my time after all.

[RonM]

I did learn one thing as a (indirect) result of reading his site. He mentions that in blind tests concert violinists cannot tell a Stradivarius from a "regular" violin. Now this struck me as highly suspect given that I know that acoustic instruments each have unique tonal signatures and musicians make their living from being able to understand and manipulate tonal color.

Actually, anyone who has passing familiarity with concert violins knows that Dan is quite right. There have been innumerable blind tests involving Stradivari, and fine instruments from Stradivarius and other makers up to the 20th C have been shown to be indistinguishable to the ears of masters. Nicely summarized in the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius.

It's not to say that the Stradivari aren't beautiful instruments, worth owning and even worth the premium they command; it's rather that the belief, the mythology, can be more than a bit much. Not unlike audiophilia.

R.

[Nonreality]

Actually, anyone who has passing familiarity with concert violins knows that Dan is quite right. There have been innumerable blind tests involving Stradivari, and fine instruments from Stradivarius and other makers up to the 20th C have been shown to be indistinguishable to the ears of masters. Nicely summarized in the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius.

It's not to say that the Stradivari aren't beautiful instruments, worth owning and even worth the premium they command; it's rather that the belief, the mythology, can be more than a bit much. Not unlike audiophilia.

R.

Oh, stop bringing up that pseudoscience stuff like testing. Just stop it.

[ncarver]

Actually, anyone who has passing familiarity with concert violins knows that Dan is quite right. There have been innumerable blind tests involving Stradivari, and fine instruments from Stradivarius and other makers up to the 20th C have been shown to be indistinguishable to the ears of masters. Nicely summarized in the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius.

This is a fairly long post and I did not have time to get it up until now, but I had spent several hours researching this issue before RonM posted and feel I came across some pretty interesting information. So, for anyone on here with an iota of intellectual curiosity, I thought I would bother to post it. Obviously this is not aimed at RonM. Just quit reading now if you are reading Ron, and go back to believing you already know everything. Honestly, though, starting your posting by saying anyone with "passing knowledge" knows something? What's that old saying? Oh, yeah: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Pretty apt here in my opinion.

First off, the notion that all "good quality" violins are so close in sound quality (timbre) that it is reasonable believe that they would be indistinguishable is easy to disprove with objective measurements. While I will certainly grant that audible differences due to cables care slight, this is not the case with acoustic instruments. Sure you can find pairs of instruments that are very close in tone color, but in general if you randomly pick two "good quality" violins they are going to have distinct sonic signatures. The single best site that I found on this subject is:
http://www.schleske.de/en/our-resear...acoustics.html

The site is somewhat difficult to navigate, but not only does it explain the basis for sound differences in great detail, it provides a significant number of examples of actual measurements showing sound differences between high quality violins. For example:
http://www.schleske.de/en/our-resear...-analysis.html

I also recommend reading these two papers:
http://www.schleske.de/fileadmin/use...mpirical_I.pdf
http://www.schleske.de/fileadmin/use...pirical_II.pdf

RonM provides a link to a single Wikipedia article to "back up" his beliefs. He claims it is a good summary, but when I had read it I judged it one of the weaker Wiki articles that I had ever consulted. RonM claims there have been "innumerable" blind tests but doesn't cite a single one. What about Wiki? It claims that there have been "many:"

However, the many blind tests from 1817 to the present (as of 2000) have never found any difference in sound between Stradivari's violins and high-quality violins in comparable style of other makers and periods, nor has acoustic analysis.

So, "many" blind tests. Just how many of these many/innumerable tests are listed? Two! And here I thought that innumerable meant so many that it is not possible to list them ALL--not that you don't actually know any and so cannot cite anything. Wiki cites some book on violins for the above line, but it obviously isn't possible to make any judgments about the veracity of the book's claims since it is not available online, and it is certainly not possible to make any judgments about the reliability of any of these supposed many tests. (I note the book's author has no science credentials, being a composer, so is not in a position to be evaluating listening test validity anyway.)

So what about the TWO tests that are listed? One was done for a BBC Radio program in 1974 (some sources say 1977!). Wiki describes it as particularly famous," so one must assume that it had a big impact on this "conventional wisdom" that particular violins cannot be distinguished from other good violins. Also this is the SOLE test that I could find any reference to that involved actual concert violinists, despite this being a key element of Dan's claims about these tests (plural). Most online descriptions of the BBC test are very sketchy. The best description I could find is here:
http://www.thestrad.com/Article.asp?ArticleID=1647

Another example of a listening test (again, single-blind) was arranged
and broadcast in the mid-1970s by the BBC (see Fiddle Faddle). In this
case the quality of the judging panel was high - Charles Beare, Isaac
Stern and Pinchas Zukerman. The instruments played were a Stradivari,
a Guarneri del Gèsu, a Vuillaume and a Ronald Praill that was barely a
year old. Two excerpts were played by Manoug Parikian: the start of
the Bruch G minor Concerto and a segment of the Bach Chaconne.

Before giving their answers, the judging panel spent some time
pointing out many of the deficiencies in the testing procedure. The
two excerpts played were too short and limited in tonal possibilities,
there was no chance to revisit each instrument for extended
comparisons, the studio represented only one of many possible
listening environments, and so on; all very valid comments as the test
was undoubtedly far too limited. However, the good-natured panel
proceeded to give out their judgements, many of which proved to be
incorrect - the Praill was mistaken for both the Strad and the
Guarneri (Beare and Stern did the best with two out of four correct).

So this is the particularly famous test? (In fact Science Daily, in the article linked from Wiki, refers to it as "the most serious of all" such tests!) Three subjects, given one chance to correctly identify four violins, under less than optimal and certainly not reproducible listening conditions. Wow, I guess that sure proves that no concert violinist can ever ID a particular violin. What an absolute joke! Of course it should be plainly obvious to anyone with half a brain that this test is far too limited to establish any result with any useful level of confidence. Yet this is a "particularly famous and serious" example of these kinds of tests? Yeah, boy, real science at its best. NOT! Of course it was never billed as a scientifically valid listening test. It is people like Dan that make that sort of totally bogus claim.

Now Dan also claims that the results of these kind of tests is "always at the level of pure chance." Is that true here? If I did my caluclations correctly, choosing totally randomly (unable to distinguish instruments at all), the probability of correctly identifying <2/4 violins is nearly 3/4. Yet here 2/3 of the judges correctly identified 2/4. So while the sample size is way too small to draw reliable conclusions, it hardly supports Dan's contention about chance.

Now on to the next of the many, er, yes really only two tests. Wiki refers to it as the Biotech violin blind test. It was conducted just last year. Unfortunately, the descriptions of this testing are again rather sketchy, but it definitely did not involve famous concert violinists (it was held at a forestry conference). The one result that is clearly spelled out in all accounts is that in a blind test of five different violins (including one Strad), 90/180 listeners all rated the same violin as "the best" (it was not the Strad but a new instrument treated with wood fungus!). Now hopefully the Wiki article was written/edited by multiple people because this description of 90/180 people selecting the same 1/5 violin comes almost immediately after the above sentence claiming that "the many blind tests...have never found any difference in sound between Stradivari's violins and high-quality violins." A bunch of us had quite a good laugh at that contradiction. Never found any difference in sound, yet 90/180 selected 1/5 violins. Right! Sorry again, Dan, not even close to "always at the level of pure chance."

The other problem with the "fungus violin" test is that it was not a test to try to see if listeners could DISTINGUISH different violins, it was designed to determine which violin's sound was PREFERRED. In fact, that is what virtually all of tests that I was able to find described on the web involved (I was able to find descriptions of only about three other tests). I would have no problem if Dan had claimed that people didn't always PREFER Strads under blind conditions, but that is not the claim he made. He claimed they could not distinguish them ("tell the difference") under blind conditions.

So that is a "quick" summary of what I found when actually bothering to look into the subject of violin listening tests instead of just taking Dan's word. Until somebody can present some significant additional evidence about other tests, I will consider Dan's claims about violin testing extremely misleading and inaccurate.

[Nonreality]

Wow, I'm really glad I gave you a hobby. Plus the bitterness I spoke about in an earlier post "Just quit reading now if you are reading Ron, and go back to believing you already know everything." Really man you are losing it. Maybe you should post on Dan's site and really get to the person that you are so pissed about. I just thought it was interesting, you find it so damaging. BTW your strawman type posts are interesting but not good. I'd lose that technique if I was you.