Five little thoughts and an update. (Skeptimania).

[Editor's Note: In Issue 89's "Skeptimania' column the statement was made that Better Cables' Silver Serpent cable "appears to have a characteristic impedance of 150 ohms, which is meaningless for audio frequencies. However, I would not recommend it for long 75-ohm video applications, although in short lengths it may be OK." We hereby retract that statement, and apologize both to Better Cables, LLC =and to our readers for any confusion or misunderstanding it may have caused. Silver Serpent cable is a 75-ohm cable that is manufactured within a tolerance level of plus or minus 1.5 ohms. -KWN]

First, the update. The "Comparing: Round 2" column I did in Issue 88 had a couple of statistical-analysis errors that several people have pointed out to me. The most blatant one occurred on page 14, where, after doing a comparison of a Yamaha integrated amp (hooked up through its aux inputs, and connected with 12-foot sections of 16 AWG lamp cord to the QSC ABX Comparator) and a Bryston power amp (connected via 1.5 foot wire sections), I managed to score 68% correct. I mistakenly reported that as still being a 95% chance that the items sounded the same, whereas it should have been 5%. So much for my statistical-analysis skills.

Yep, during that particular part of the test I actually probably heard differences between the amps. However, let's forget about my goofy statistical conclusion for a moment and reflect upon just what was going on during that comparison.

First, the test involved pink noise, which is notoriously good at revealing frequency-response anomalies. And as I indicated, the Yamaha unit was connected via its aux inputs, which means that its tone-control circuits were in the link. Those circuits could certainly have caused a slight shift in response linearity at both high and low frequencies. In other words, the subtle contrasts I heard were probably attributable to simple frequency-response differences and not something mysterious happening in amplifier land. As I also noted, the wire lengths were different. However, given what I discovered while comparing wires during other comparison sessions, I doubt that had much to do with anything I heard during the Yamaha/Bryston session.

Second, and this is what really counts, when I shifted to musical source material, the average I got when doing several more sessions dropped back down to the 50-52% range, and that, ladies and gentlemen, really does amount to a chance score. With music, the units sounded the same, even with the different wire lengths.

Third, when I did similar pink-noise and musical comparisons between Bryston, Carver, and AudioSource amps, as well as an Onkyo receiver, the results were no better than chance. The Onkyo has a "direct" mode that minimizes the influence of tone-control and processing circuitry, which explains its freedom from miniaturized frequency-response glitches.

So, while I apologize for not being good at statistics, I do not apologize for what I discovered while comparing amplifiers and wires. Amps are appliances that are mainly going to be differentiated by their maximum-power outputs, and in some cases by their ability to deal with extremely demanding speaker loads (meaning very low impedances at some frequencies) that are anything but typical. With most speakers, played at volume levels below clipping levels, amps are indeed "amps," and are anything but the romanticized items that some enthusiasts wax poetic about. And wires (be they shielded interconnects or speaker wire that is not outrageously long or skinny) are also wires.

Anyway, temporarily shifting into my best, crude philosophical mode (triggered by, among other things, the comparisons that led up to that article in Issue 88 and my column in Issue 82), I have come to the following definitive (for me, at least) conclusions about audio gear and audiophiles who take this hobby more seriously than they probably should. I may change my mind in the future, but for now I am sticking to my guns regarding the five following themes:

(1) Measurement equipment is potentially much more able to pinpoint differences between electronic components than the human hearing mechanism. You can often have seemingly blatant measured differences between components (wires, amps, and CD players, in particular), and still will not be able to pinpoint musical-performance differences, even with careful double-blind comparisons. With single-presentation comparisons (where one listens to an item solo, and does not immediately compare it to anything else), or non-blind comparisons, particularly if quick switching and level matching are not involved, so-called audible differences are at best the result of speculation.

(2) Measurement equipment simply cannot pinpoint every reason why speakers sound the way they do, or why some of them sound "good" or "bad." This is because speakers sound so different in different rooms (at different placement locations in relation to room boundaries and in relation to the location of the listener), and because they react so differently to different recordings. And those recording differences do not necessarily just involve differences in musical styles.

For example, one finely designed speaker pair that sounds superior to another finely designed pair when listening to an excellently recorded Baroque music recording made by one ensemble may sound inferior to that other pair when listening to an equally excellently recorded, but differently produced Baroque music recording made by another ensemble. Recording hall or studio spatial characteristics, microphone choice and placement, mixing decisions, and the overall frequency-response balance of a given recording may favor one pair of speakers over another, even though both speakers are equally accurate. The deviations of each pair from perfection may be similar in scope but not located at the same points in the spectrum.

To be blunt, the human hearing mechanism is often unable to actually determine which of two speaker pairs is superior -- provided the comparison is done blind. At times, particularly with certain recordings, surprisingly small and low-priced speakers, although certainly different sounding from often much bigger and much more expensive models, simply cannot be judged as inferior to those bigger, more expensive models. This is particularly true if those smaller and lower-priced models are assisted by a good subwoofer. A bigger pair may sound better in a bigger room, by virtue of its higher-output ability, but in normal rooms this may not be the case at all. In addition, some bigger speakers do not have a significant edge over smaller ones (subwoofer assisted) in bigger rooms, at least if the midrange and tweeter driver counts are the same.

Note that I am talking about blind comparisons, where the person doing the comparing is not overwhelmed by the size of the super systems, or their cost, or their high-end mystique.

(3) Upgrading to surround sound makes an already tedious job of evaluating speakers and rooms even more complex. Because of this, in the future it will be harder than ever to judge a full package of components as to its accuracy. Recordings themselves will also become much more complex, which adds in still another, more wild than ever, card. This situation may be one reason why some enthusiasts shudder at the very thought of surround-sound audio.

(4) Because differences are often inaudible (with wires, amps, and CD/DVD players) or inconsistent (with speakers/rooms and surround processors), many enthusiasts feel that they simply HAVE to use sighted comparisons in order to make sense of their hobby. For them, the essence of audio involves (I) the need to be able to spot differences by any and every means available, (II) the thrill of discovering those differences, and (III) the satisfaction of being able to go beyond the thrill of discovery and declare one product as truly superior to another.

(5) Audio is the most peculiar "legal" indoor hobby that I know of. One reason is that some enthusiasts may be totally subjective in their outlooks and spend much of their hobby-related time fantasizing about their equipment or the equipment they would like to own. Other enthusiasts may be ultra-brass-tacks oriented, and not about to speculate about much of anything. For one group, audio is intimately tied up with music, with the audio system itself being a complex musical instrument that interacts with other (recorded) musical instruments. For the other group, audio is separate from music and exists only as a medium of transmission.

At one extreme we have high-end customers, opinionated store clerks, and journalists who wax enthusiastic about soundstaging, depth, imaging, and focus when auditioning a set of wires or a power amp. At the other extreme we have designers and academics who either crank out killer-grade products that do the job or else work for universities and crank out esoteric papers on digital audio and/ or acoustics for the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. It is hard to believe that both groups lay claim to being interested in the same hobby or are able to interact with each other in any way, shape, or form.

When they do interact, as anyone who has experienced some of the "debates" that occur on assorted Usenet chat groups will attest, sparks will fly. The objectivists and subjectivists will often flail away at each other, with one side pointing out that preference is supreme, and the other side pointing out that while preference is supreme, science still rules in the realm of absolute performance.

The latter may indeed be the case, and I tend to line up with the objectivists much of the time. However, although audio may involve science, it is still a hobby at best (and simply unstructured, casual entertainment for most people), and it therefore is unlikely that those with a scientific bent will ever be able to happily coexist with those for whom armchair speculation about sound is an end in itself. It is fun to watch people try to synthesize treaties, however.