{"id":4997,"date":"2015-08-05T18:13:15","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T01:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/?p=4997"},"modified":"2015-08-05T18:13:15","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T01:13:15","slug":"cable-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/?p=4997","title":{"rendered":"Cable Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

I happened to be cruising through the Netflix documentary section a couple of weeks ago and happened on a film called “An Honest Liar”. It’s a 2014 feature documentary about the world-famous magician, escape artist, and skeptical educator James Randi. I had heard of “The Amazing Randi” and admired his work in exposing psychics, faith healer, and outright con-artists. Knowing that the audiophile world is full of charlatans and purveyors of snake oil type products, I was intrigued to discover that an IT guy turned writer named Lee Hutchinson had set up a challenge between an expensive AudioQuest “Vodka” Ethernet cable costing $350 for a meter and a half and a $2.50 ‘Cable Matters’ cable ordered from Amazon. You can read the results at the Ars Technica website (click here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) agreed to host the actual “event”, which was held in Las Vegas in front of about 200 hundreds audience members. You can read about the test and the procedures and the objections to the test methodology at the Ars Technica site but the conclusion should come as no surprise to readers of this site, “…the overwhelming majority of subjects could not tell the difference between a $350 AudioQuest Vodka Ethernet cable and a $2.50 ‘Cable Matters’ cable from Amazon under our specific testing conditions”. OK, the debate should be over…at least for digital cables. It is a “digital bits out and digital bit in” world. I’ve done these sorts of test any number of times, except I don’t even bother doing the listening part…that way too subjective. If the bits that arrive from the expensive cable are identical to the bits that arrive from the inexpensive cable, then the resulting DAC converter will reproduced exactly the same fidelity. <\/p>\n

The claim that an Ethernet cable (or a USB) cable that meets the specifications for a certain grade of transmission can produce audible (or numerical) changes to the fidelity of a music selection is a myth, pure and simple. And what happens when a believer is presented with evidence that their claims are exaggerated or non-existent? Their faith continues and they attack the person that challenged their belief. This is what happened when I challenged the gentleman in Australia that has a business “vivifying” the fidelity of CD by duplicating them bit for bit to recordable media. His final exchange with me was that either I was lying, my ears are shot, or my equipment was incapable of demonstrating the “dramatic” improvements that his process imparted to one of my recordings.<\/p>\n

The people involved in this episode will continue believing as they had prior to the test and nothing will have been accomplished. It seems there is no way to change an audiophile’s beliefs, which is great news for AudioQuest, Synergistic Research, Shakti Systems, and Machina Dynamics (at least this guy admits that his products are snake oil…but he continues to sell things like his “teleportation tweak” process to unwitting audiophiles).<\/p>\n

You might want to read an article from a few weeks ago by Tom Morgan that demonstrated that expensive HDMI cables make no difference in the delivery of digital video signals. Here’s the link to the piece titled, “Expensive HDMI cables make no difference – the absolute proof \/ Comprehensive, proper testing answers the question once and for all<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Rather than reviewing and pushing audiophile tweaks of dubious merit, audio websites and magazines might better serve their readers by focusing on the things that really do make a difference…like securing great quality recordings.<\/p>\n

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<\/p>\n

I’m in the initial stages of launching my first KickStarter crowdsourcing campaign. It will be for a book titled, “Music & Audio: A Guide to Better Sound”<\/strong> and include a disc with some new high-res tracks from the AIX catalog. The launch date will be in the early fall and last for 30 days. It’s time I collected some of my posts (there are almost 1000 of them now) and organized some new thoughts into an easy to understand book filled with lots of illustrations. My good friend and Grammy-winning engineer Robert Margouleff has agreed to write the introduction and others have agreed to be interviewed for the book. <\/p>\n

Here’s where I could use a little help from you. In telling the story of “Music and Audio” for the KS campaign, I think it would be helpful to have a few reader comments or testimonials to provide non-readers some assurance that I’m worthy of their support. If anyone would like to write a few lines, please send them to me. I really appreciate the support.<\/p>\n

I’m working on the “rewards” but they will include studio visits, attendance at a one of my upcoming sessions, and access to the book for less than the retail price. More information when I get the website up. Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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