New white paper on audibility of conductors

[Curly Woods]

http://aetheraudio.com/Sub-Debye%20P...Distortion.pdf

[Johnloudb]

I haven't read the whole thing yet, just parts. Interesting paper. There is technical information out there that supports the possibility of cable audibility but still no published blind test has supported it, that I know of.

I've never had a problem telling a difference in cables, and I think they can make some difference. Though given how our hearing works, I won't be totally convinced without blind testing evidence.

[littlesaint]

There's some interesting (and contested) science there, but it's a bit hard to take a "white paper" seriously when it's littered with emphasis quotes everywhere.

It's also a little suspect when an "audiophile" retailer produces white papers reinforcing their goods and services. That doesn't make it wrong, but some peer review would be nice.

[Alaric]

some peer review would be nice.

OK. My shielded , silver ICs from CATCables sound a double $h!tload better that the crappy WireWorld copper ICs I bought. :B Mogami wire ICs also sounded better. The POS phone-wire ICs that came with my CD player sounded worst of all. Coat hangers actually didn't sound bad for speaker wire (kudos , Victor!) , but my CAT cables are a tad better and infinitely easier to use. Just sayin'...
I would definitely be sceptical when a maufacturer touts proof of their product's superiority , but I think way too many people support the idea of improvement-by-cable to dismiss it as snake oil. Someone with a $20K set of Nordost didn't acquire that kind of disposable income from being susceptible to hucksters (generally). If your hobby leads you to that level of involvement , you may be paying attention to details ignored by most. I think "reverse snobbery" plays a big part in the nay-sayer aspect of the debate. "If I can't afford it , it must not be good".

[littlesaint]

OK. My shielded , silver ICs from CATCables sound a double $h!tload better that the crappy WireWorld copper ICs I bought. :B Mogami wire ICs also sounded better. The POS phone-wire ICs that came with my CD player sounded worst of all. Coat hangers actually didn't sound bad for speaker wire (kudos , Vincent!) , but my CAT cables are a tad better and infinitely easier to use. Just sayin'...
I would definitely be sceptical when a maufacturer touts proof of their product's superiority , but I think way too many people support the idea of improvement-by-cable to dismiss it as snake oil. Someone with a $20K set of Nordost didn't acquire that kind of disposable income from being susceptible to hucksters (generally). If your hobby leads you to that level of involvement , you may be paying attention to details ignored by most. I think "reverse snobbery" plays a big part in the nay-sayer aspect of the debate. "If I can't afford it , it must not be good".

...and just as many people of equal or better reputation (even some with money to lose) disagree with you completely. Peer review is not a subjective, "Yeah, I think my uber-expensive cables sound better" but a "yes, the science behind that argument is valid and reproducible, and it would affect the audible sonic quality of the signal.

Of course, it also leaves out the fact that you would still have to account for the amplifier wiring, crossover wiring, and the all important voice coils in your speakers which changes temperature more than all the other stuff put together several times over. So, even if "Sub-Debye Phase-Distortion" exists how relevant is it going to be among all the other distortion sources by the time that signal reaches your ears?

[Victor]

I must say that it was not easy to read this White Paper. One can describe this paper in a single word, - a contradiction. The theory section is well described and rather solid. All the information presented there is credible as far as I can tell, although I must say that I never thought much of phonons before. Anyway the theory is fine.

It is the conclusions that I find rather strange. While the author readily admits that no experimental evidence exist to support his theoretical findings, still he persists in suggesting that those findings must be given a light of day and taken as truth. This is the contradiction. Clearly, the conclusions of the paper do not follow from the theory part or observation part. If this was a scientific document, I would venture to say, that it cannot be taken seriously in its present form.

The phenomena that paper describes although very real, simply does not have any merit at audio frequencies. This is why no data exists to support the conclusion of the paper, as nobody ever tried to measure the various noise mechanisms affecting common wire materials to a degree necessary to be noticed at frequencies less then 20 kHz. Do those noise mechanisms exist? Absolutely they do, as the papers clearly states, but the effects of those mechanisms are truly non-existent as far as audio measurements are concerned, subjective evaluations notwithstanding.

Perhaps an analogy might be helpful here, - if one imagines a degree to which an electron is affected by gravitational forces, one might say that such effect is real, but its magnitude is infinitesimally small, - in fact so small that no mechanism exists to experimentally measure it. Still we do not deny the interaction in theory, but we do deny it in practice. This White Paper kind of falls into this category, hence it would illogical to base a purchasing decision on it.

[Johnloudb]

On the this DIY audio page member "rdf" did some sims showing the effect of speaker cable inductance on the frequency response of three different tweeters. Interesting, although I don't know how valid this sim is. It does ignore any crossover components also as he mentioned.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi...input-659.html

[dknightd]

http://aetheraudio.com/Sub-Debye%20P...Distortion.pdf

Are you affiliated with the author? I kept expecting them to try and sell me on "amorphous" metal cables. Does this person make cables to sell, or was this their attempt to try and figure out why some people think cables can effect the sound you hear? Maybe Tin would be a good choice for cables? I've never tried it, but apparently resistance does not matter much, and tin might be less expensive than gold or silver, and has a "Debye temperature" in between the two.