I cannot even fathom the stupidity..

[GloriousPain]

Even linus says some premium cables are worth it... specially if the signal is analog which most sound cables are...

[Sauron]

I can be willing to pay up to 50$ for a 5m cable, but ONLY based on build quality and toughness of the sleeving and connectors, most certainly not on the base of "better soud" that I wouldn't get anyway.

[h264]

"A" forum board? I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that a forum can be a place for disseminating good information FIRST and facilitating people's consumerism second.

It's not unreasonable it just doesn't pay the bills.

[Phillyphries]

@GloriousPain Yes, but he was speaking of DURABILITY and build quality, not that the cables even make a noticeable difference.

 

Obviously, the $500 cable in question was a USB cable. But not only was that stupid, he spend HUNDREDS of dollars on other useless analog cables. One of them even had batteries in them, and all of them are only a meter long. Seriously? That's cooking yourself in snakeoil

[Sauron]

So he owns a 600$ battery powered (WUT LOL) cable and he doesn't know what the battery even does? (not that it would do anything, but he didn't even ask himself that. and he was wondering why the battery's still alive after years... lol of course it's alive, the cable isn't actually using it...)

 

The worst thing is that all that money could have been used for ultra high end headphones which ACTUALLY make a difference instead...

[Sauron]

Even linus says some premium cables are worth it... specially if the signal is analog which most sound cables are...

 

There is a limit... over the 50$ roof for a 3m cable it's just snake oil... and anyway at that point you might as well go for optical and be done with it.

[mr moose]

???

Are you saying that the people on Headfi sometimes believe in scientific testing but don't when it comes to cables? My observation is the people who buy into cables typically don't care for blind listening tests to begin with.

Or are you saying it from the advice giver's point of view? That deciding not to challenge the cable section because it's a DBT free zone is picking and choosing? Deciding which forum to visit and help is also picking and choosing. What about the people who go to Headfi for advice, are they screwed?   One can always shoot the person a PM.

 

Maybe you can reply that you only have so much time though and it's better spent outside of Headfi, I suppose.

 

I am saying that the people go their for advice do so because they don't know any better,  and if they ban DBT (assuredly because it interferes with their beliefs) then no one who goes into that thread will be able to disseminate for themselves the best advice. 

 

Or you stop being a zealot and let people believe what they want to?

 

People get bad advice on this forum all the time when it comes to headphone recommendations. I bite my tongue as there is no point getting into a war on every tiny point.

 

If someone goes to the cable forum and asks opinion on which cable to buy - they are a cable believer - they are there to ask other cable believers which cable they should buy. They can also go into sound science and talk about whether or not there is any difference between cables or not if they chose to and discuss it to their hearts content there. 

 

Going into a cable forum with a mandate to force everyone to agree with you is like a democrat going to a republican forum to stir up arguments, or an atheist going into a christian forum. What's the point? It's just trolling, it's just going to start a huge argument. 

 

Besides, we don't know everything so there's no point pretending we do. I don't believe there is any difference between cables based on my own listening tests, but I can never know for sure there isn't a difference that someone with better trained hearing can't. Saying "science is science" ignores what science is - constantly evolving with new things discovered every time. 

 

I find arrogant zealotry every bit as annoying as ignorance.  

 

You seem to have trouble separating the importance of fact and general human decency from this ideal that anyone should be able to give what ever misguided advice they want and have a place where any checks and balances are banned.  Thus ensuring that when someone with little to no knowledge comes along looking for advice, they get told to spend $$$$$ more than they need to.

 

I personally don't care if anybody wants to believe that cables make a difference, whether you think your audio becomes musical because you have a $2000 USB cable or not is moot to me, but if anyone wants to start advising the naive to spend their hard earned cash on snake oil because they have a superiority complex then that is basically indecent.   If that makes me a zealot then what in the world does it make them?

[creatip123]

I am saying that the people go their for advice do so because they don't know any better,  and if they ban DBT (assuredly because it interferes with their beliefs) then no one who goes into that thread will be able to disseminate for themselves the best advice. 

 

 

You seem to have trouble separating the importance of fact and general human decency from this ideal that anyone should be able to give what ever misguided advice they want and have a place where any checks and balances are banned.  Thus ensuring that when someone with little to no knowledge comes along looking for advice, they get told to spend $$$$$ more than they need to.

 

I personally don't care if anybody wants to believe that cables make a difference, whether you think your audio becomes musical because you have a $2000 USB cable or not is moot to me, but if anyone wants to start advising the naive to spend their hard earned cash on snake oil because they have a superiority complex then that is basically indecent.   If that makes me a zealot then what in the world does it make them?

 

Come on now, both of you are 2 of the brightest mind in this forum. Surely you know by now that this argument, or debate, or whatever, is going nowhere, because you're talking about the same thing but on a different context. You're not even disagreeing one another. Just a little miscomm, I think.

 

Here's what I see:

 

Both of you actually believe in the same thing (that expensive cables thingies are snake oils), it's just the way of showing it that's different.

 

Moose got a good heart, trying to avoid the 'naive' from what's supposed to be a 'pseudo-science baloney' in that forum, in that specific sub-forum.

 

Stefky thinks the same, but looking at the more realistic context, he sees the whole cables sub-forum there as a whole belief system. Belief systems always have a defensive tendencies against something that will endanger them, it's only natural, it's their survival instinct. Of course we can't just barge in a church or something, calling their beliefs baloney, even if it's for a (subjectively) good cause, maybe to avoid them from the annual 10% donations. Doing so will just create open conflicts, or even wars. It may be no problem for someone like Cortez, annihilating human sacrifices in ancient Aztec religion, by the use of sheer force. He's a warlord, he's ready for that, and got the resources to back him up. 

 

Back in this case, if we view that thing as a belief system, then it's only natural that they're banning everyone opposing them. It's their defensive tendencies. The way I see it, Stefky wasn't saying that we shouldn't oppose them, just not in that particular way (barging in their forum, calling their belief as baloney). That's just radical. It's okay only if you're ready to fight all the way. Like James Randi, actually offering 1 million dollar as the stake, or Michael Shermer (maybe related to Shearme? ) who go around the states debunking false belief systems in scientifically valid ways, and publishing them in his 'skeptic' magazine. They're ready to go all the way, and got the resources to back them up. 

 

That's the funny part of the miscomm, it's like as if Stefky said 'don't fight them', and you just couldn't accept his opinion. While the way I see it, Stefky said 'if you wanna fight them, don't go with that method, you'll just ending up creating conflicts. Find other methods...'

 

There are plenty of other 'peaceful' way, if you wanna 'fight' this belief. Maybe fight it indirectly. Of course one of them would be what's been happening until now, giving valuable opinions and insights in this forum to the 'naive' and 'noobs', slowly debunking what you believe as something that's eating away people's hard earned cash. Perhaps write an article, or a blog, or even a journal of your hard earned experiences and knowledges in the audio world. I'm sure that would be awesome to read and give lots of insights to other people. 

 

Heh, amazing what 3 bottles of beer and a sleep deprivation could make you type. Well, I'd be better off to bed now, before I type more silly stuffs.....

[SSL]

Come on now, both of you are 2 of the brightest mind in this forum. Surely you know by now that this argument, or debate, or whatever, is going nowhere, because you're talking about the same thing but on a different context. You're not even disagreeing one another. Just a little miscomm, I think.

 

Here's what I see:

 

Both of you actually believe in the same thing (that expensive cables thingies are snake oils), it's just the way of showing it that's different.

 

Moose got a good heart, trying to avoid the 'naive' from what's supposed to be a 'pseudo-science baloney' in that forum, in that specific sub-forum.

 

Stefky thinks the same, but looking at the more realistic context, he sees the whole cables sub-forum there as a whole belief system. Belief systems always have a defensive tendencies against something that will endanger them, it's only natural, it's their survival instinct. Of course we can't just barge in a church or something, calling their beliefs baloney, even if it's for a (subjectively) good cause, maybe to avoid them from the annual 10% donations. Doing so will just create open conflicts, or even wars. It may be no problem for someone like Cortez, annihilating human sacrifices in ancient Aztec religion, by the use of sheer force. He's a warlord, he's ready for that, and got the resources to back him up. 

 

Back in this case, if we view that thing as a belief system, then it's only natural that they're banning everyone opposing them. It's their defensive tendencies. The way I see it, Stefky wasn't saying that we shouldn't oppose them, just not in that particular way (barging in their forum, calling their belief as baloney). That's just radical. It's okay only if you're ready to fight all the way. Like James Randi, actually offering 1 million dollar as the stake, or Michael Shermer (maybe related to Shearme? ) who go around the states debunking false belief systems in scientifically valid ways, and publishing them in his 'skeptic' magazine. They're ready to go all the way, and got the resources to back them up. 

 

That's the funny part of the miscomm, it's like as if Stefky said 'don't fight them', and you just couldn't accept his opinion. While the way I see it, Stefky said 'if you wanna fight them, don't go with that method, you'll just ending up creating conflicts. Find other methods...'

 

There are plenty of other 'peaceful' way, if you wanna 'fight' this belief. Maybe fight it indirectly. Of course one of them would be what's been happening until now, giving valuable opinions and insights in this forum to the 'naive' and 'noobs', slowly debunking what you believe as something that's eating away people's hard earned cash. Perhaps write an article, or a blog, or even a journal of your hard earned experiences and knowledges in the audio world. I'm sure that would be awesome to read and give lots of insights to other peop

le. 

 

Heh, amazing what 3 bottles of beer and a sleep deprivation could make you type. Well, I'd be better off to bed now, before I type more silly stuffs.....

 

Ha, no.

[mr moose]

...sniparonny...

 

 

I appreciate the effort but no.

 

To try and put this in perspective, how would you guys feel about LTT if Linus opened up an AMD specific subforum with a specific ban on any type of legitimate benchmarking/testing?

 

Or what if he created an Apple sub forum where no one was allowed to mention price/performance?

 

LTT would become the laughing stock of internet.  Let alone the poor advice some people would be getting like "I own the 8320 and it feels faster than the last intel owned so get that".

[ShearMe]

I think it's extremely ignorant to judge people on what they enjoy, just because you don't.

Do I even need to point out how wrong that sounds out of context?

[SSL]

Do I even need to point out how wrong that sounds out of context?

 

Sounds good to me.

[EmoRarity]

Do I even need to point out how wrong that sounds out of context?

Like neckbeards?

[ShearMe]

Sounds good to me.

Need I invoke Godwin's Law?

[mr moose]

Need I invoke Godwin's Law?

Apparently there's a youtube video on making cupcakes that has essentially proved godwins law, It went from discussing frozen baking dough to a communist rant within 2 pages.

[creatip123]

I appreciate the effort but no.

 

To try and put this in perspective, how would you guys feel about LTT if Linus opened up an AMD specific subforum with a specific ban on any type of legitimate benchmarking/testing?

 

Or what if he created an Apple sub forum where no one was allowed to mention price/performance?

 

LTT would become the laughing stock of internet.  Let alone the poor advice some people would be getting like "I own the 8320 and it feels faster than the last intel owned so get that".

 

For every action there's always a following reaction. In your example, LTT opening up that specific subforum and banning people would be the action, and LTT becomes the laughing stock is the reaction. Much like that HF forum has became a laughing stock here in this forum. It's their action vs others' reaction.

 

To be clear, I'm not saying that you're not allowed to go to that subforum and challenge their supposedly baloney beliefs, who am I to judge what's allowed and not for other people? I'm saying to go and call someone's belief as baloney right to their face and not expecting a resistance reaction is just pure naive. 'I call that guy a douche right in his face, and I got punched, can you believe that?!?!' To assume you could do that and not getting a defensive reaction, that's naive. 

 

If you want to go to that subforum, and post any or everything against their beliefs, please, by all means, do. That's the action. You gotta expect a following reaction, in this case most likely a defensive reaction, the banning of your ID there, that's to be expected. Not saying that they're right to do that, just saying that it's to be expected. Like calling a guy a douche right in his face. Not saying that he's not a douche, but if you wanna do that, better get ready for his reaction, which include a punch in the face, among other things. 

[mr moose]

For every action there's always a following reaction. In your example, LTT opening up that specific subforum and banning people would be the action, and LTT becomes the laughing stock is the reaction. Much like that HF forum has became a laughing stock here in this forum. It's their action vs others' reaction.

 

To be clear, I'm not saying that you're not allowed to go to that subforum and challenge their supposedly baloney beliefs, who am I to judge what's allowed and not for other people? I'm saying to go and call someone's belief as baloney right to their face and not expecting a resistance reaction is just pure naive. 'I call that guy a douche right in his face, and I got punched, can you believe that?!?!' To assume you could do that and not getting a defensive reaction, that's naive. 

 

If you want to go to that subforum, and post any or everything against their beliefs, please, by all means, do. That's the action. You gotta expect a following reaction, in this case most likely a defensive reaction, the banning of your ID there, that's to be expected. Not saying that they're right to do that, just saying that it's to be expected. Like calling a guy a douche right in his face. Not saying that he's not a douche, but if you wanna do that, better get ready for his reaction, which include a punch in the face, among other things. 

 

I really don't understand why you are talking about reactions and such. I don't want to go there, I have not spoken about challenging anyone, In my experience you can't educate idiots. My point has always been quite the opposite, that is to recommend people not go there.  I don't send people with depression to a narcissist for counseling, I don't recommend people go to westborough baptist for advice on being gay and I won't recommend people go to headfi for advice on cables,  amps and even sometimes headphones (some of the member headphone reviews are good, some are just atrocious).  

 

That's it, it's not about changing them, it's about us being responsible and looking after people who don't know better. 

 

[creatip123]

I really don't understand why you are talking about reactions and such. I don't want to go there, I have not spoken about challenging anyone, In my experience you can't educate idiots. My point has always been quite the opposite, that is to recommend people not go there.  I don't send people with depression to a narcissist for counseling, I don't recommend people go to westborough baptist for advice on being gay and I won't recommend people go to headfi for advice on cables,  amps and even sometimes headphones (some of the member headphone reviews are good, some are just atrocious).  

 

That's it, it's not about changing them, it's about us being responsible and looking after people who don't know better. 

 

 

I got there based on this one:

 

 

I am saying that the people go their for advice do so because they don't know any better,  and if they ban DBT (assuredly because it interferes with their beliefs) then no one who goes into that thread will be able to disseminate for themselves the best advice. 

 

 

You seem to have trouble separating the importance of fact and general human decency from this ideal that anyone should be able to give what ever misguided advice they want and have a place where any checks and balances are banned.  Thus ensuring that when someone with little to no knowledge comes along looking for advice, they get told to spend $$$$$ more than they need to.

 

I personally don't care if anybody wants to believe that cables make a difference, whether you think your audio becomes musical because you have a $2000 USB cable or not is moot to me, but if anyone wants to start advising the naive to spend their hard earned cash on snake oil because they have a superiority complex then that is basically indecent.   If that makes me a zealot then what in the world does it make them?

 

I thought the whole problem is because 'why all the people questioning their beliefs in their place got banned? They shouldn't got banned', to which my post above, it's just action vs reaction. Questioning (in their place, or their 'turf') is the action, banning is their reaction. I may have misinterpreted, and if so, then I'm sorry.

 

The way you put it in your last post, got my full support. Yeah I agree, there are right places to go for specific/particular problems/questions. McDonald or something like that is perfect for a place to hang out and get a decent fast meal, but not the right place to go if looking for a high class tasty meal or a romantic candle light dinner. 

[mr moose]

 

McDonald or something like that is perfect for a place to hang out and get a decent fast meal, but not the right place to go if looking for a high class tasty meal or a romantic candle light dinner

 

Speak for yourself, It turns out that taking the wife to macdonalds for dinner is not legal grounds for a divorce,  So I take her there for anniversaries, birthdays etc. With the money I save I can buy more headphones.

[Andy Rooney]

I remember being curious about the boutique cable market.  I bought one set ages ago that would have been retail >$300.  The sound was weird.  Treble sounded fancy, but there was inadequate bass and 'size' of the sound.  I guess that is to say, these cables sounded unnatural, and were noisy.  They were dissatisfying to listen to, but they looked great.  That got me wondering about the style over substance problem and pseudoscience in audio.  Ever since then, I've bought cables that were about $30-50 based on a solid connector and cable robustness.  Canare connectors provide a good tight fit - important for my car audio stuff where reseating cables is a PITA (and where flimsy connectors can cause buzzing - I'm looking at you, Audison).  Belden cables provide low noise without all the markup or jazz hands packaging.  That's the approach at bluejeanscable.com, where I get mine.  My friends are happy with monoprice.com.

 

What I've learned about cables:

Most stuff that I see at home theatre shops are made by the likes of Monster - these are poor value in my experience.

Cables are the last item that I'd consider upgrading (diminishing returns vs hardware upgrade)

Speaker cables don't need fancy shielding.

A particular cable's hype will last a few weeks, then die down after punters realize it's overblown

digital cable upgrades are fruitless if my dac sucks.  Now that my dac is nice, I don't even care which cable feeds it.

HDMI cables - ignorance is bliss.  Startech cheapies ftmfw.

USB cables.  I think Linus had a rant on a Wan show about fancy versions of these.

 

 

[JR1911]

Just got a new cable for my Sennheiser IE80 today, gonna test it once I get back home from work. My HD650s benefited greatly from an upgrade cable so I thought to test would the IE80s also improve.

[Phillyphries]

I remember being curious about the boutique cable market.  I bought one set ages ago that would have been retail >$300.  The sound was weird.  Treble sounded fancy, but there was inadequate bass and 'size' of the sound.  I guess that is to say, these cables sounded unnatural, and were noisy.  They were dissatisfying to listen to, but they looked great.  That got me wondering about the style over substance problem and pseudoscience in audio.  Ever since then, I've bought cables that were about $30-50 based on a solid connector and cable robustness.  Canare connectors provide a good tight fit - important for my car audio stuff where reseating cables is a PITA (and where flimsy connectors can cause buzzing - I'm looking at you, Audison).  Belden cables provide low noise without all the markup or jazz hands packaging.  That's the approach at bluejeanscable.com, where I get mine.  My friends are happy with monoprice.com.

 

What I've learned about cables:

Most stuff that I see at home theatre shops are made by the likes of Monster - these are poor value in my experience.

Cables are the last item that I'd consider upgrading (diminishing returns vs hardware upgrade)

Speaker cables don't need fancy shielding.

A particular cable's hype will last a few weeks, then die down after punters realize it's overblown

digital cable upgrades are fruitless if my dac sucks.  Now that my dac is nice, I don't even care which cable feeds it.

HDMI cables - ignorance is bliss.  Startech cheapies ftmfw.

USB cables.  I think Linus had a rant on a Wan show about fancy versions of these.

 

In my experience, Monster cables are nice just as some well-made heavy duty cables that will last you a long time, but other than that they are a huge waste of money LOL as you said

 

Most cables that I've bought maybe YEARS back still work 100% perfectly. Upgrading cables, especially spending more than $50 (Really that should be the limit anyone should ever pay for a cable EVER and even that is seriously pushing it) is a ridiculous idea when that money could have been spent on hardware upgrades. Imagine if he spent that $500 on a new set of speakers/headphones and bought a higher quality DAC. He'd actually probably notice a tangible difference instead of listening to himself try and justify his poor investments.

 

I think digital signals are the way to go when transmitting music signals from hardware to hardware until it goes to the headphones. Music device (digital) --> DAC (analog) --> Headphones. Since digital cables make no difference in sound whatsoever, buying a good quality DAC should be enough to help you tell the difference in headphones lol. Then you would know if you have some shitty headphones or not

[BoredErica]

I'm actually with Mr Moose. Head-fi's policies on no DBT for cables only is wrong. You can't say that posting different opinions on a forum makes people mad, therefore we outlaw it, lol. That's not a forum conversation, that's called circlejerking so other people in the forum can validate your beliefs.

But I still feel Head-fi can be used for info if you don't take everything everybody says as fact.

[EmoRarity]

I'm actually with Mr Moose. Head-fi's policies on no DBT for cables only is wrong. You can't say that posting different opinions on a forum makes people mad, therefore we outlaw it, lol. That's not a forum conversation, that's called circlejerking so other people in the forum can validate your beliefs.

But I still feel Head-fi can be used for info if you don't take everything everybody says as fact.

Same goes for here, or anywhere else. Its common sense to not believe anything ever till you personally verify it.

[BoredErica]

Same goes for here, or anywhere else. Its common sense to not believe anything ever till you personally verify it.

Yes but most people take what people say and by default assume some level of validity is present. Imagine if you're new to audio and you know Headfi is a HUGE audio forum. I think most people would be inclined to give Headfi a lot of credit for information it comes out. I've seen this firsthand... and when there is an entire forum section devoted to it and everybody seems to love cables, that is actually a lot of different people vouching for the validity of cables. And who the hell goes into sound science anyways? By default it sounds like uber nerdy, sciencey, number and equation stuff. That's the way I think some people will see it. It's got very little posts too relative to the other forums. And of course with audio it's hard to get the chance to test cables yourself and when we do, placebo, etc etc. Other people say they hear a difference, we can easily call it bullshit, we think we hear a difference, all of a sudden we think our ears and experiences are way more valid. And boom, there goes the cable purchase.

 

 

 

 

---

EDIT

And with audio another thing happens is, people want to say they can hear a difference... It's how you be in the cool clubs and prove you have good ears. I think there's quite a bit of bias for hearing a difference. When I blind tested equipment I realized some "differences" I hear are not differences at all, we all think we are somehow uniquely resistant to bias and placebo. And another, is that if you can't hear a difference, some will just blame the headphone, the amp, the dac, the whatever. It never ends. So now you take a forum post member with 20000 posts on faith that what's needed is TWO upgrades instead of zero.