Does your McIntosh benefit from fancy power cables?

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Poppyhome

Correct...........but what about our listening rooms base noise level. Who's room is completely silent of extraneous sounds?

Mine. I am wearing headphones. There is so much more going on than just noise. Our ears are acutely aware of the timbre/tonal deviations. You would recognize a loved one's voice out of a million other voices with ease. If you spend years upon years deep listening to a system like many of us have, you are acutely aware of any and all deviations of timbre. That is not to mention all other aspects of acute awareness of timing, wave front sensitivity, some people can hear absolute phase and others can not. Too much to get into here. Cables do vary in capacitance, resistance, conductor materials which may very well affect some of the timing and how we perceive the sound with precision that is beyond any artificial intelligence/computers as the article states.

We just don't know enough how all of this interacts but I do hear a difference in cables rather easily and that's not to say I can accurately say which is one is "better" because perhaps none of the audio playback is perfect and we are merely striving to reach a level of satisfaction or some balance for the type of sound/tonal balance we prefer. Even live music and same musical instruments sound different in various acoustical spaces. It is our ears that can clearly tell us so not any other parameter. Certainly Vienna Philharmonic sounds different than Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

[Poppyhome]

Very good......and I bet our perceived sense of hearing changes from day to day. Some days our systems sound better than other days.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by Poppyhome

Very good......and I bet our perceived sense of hearing changes from day to day. Some days our systems sound better than other days.

Dirty AC power. Some of it may be mood as well.

[PHC1]

It always puzzled me that no one ever questions "why" the same type of musical instrument from same material (wood) sounds different? We just accept that they do. Why is it that science can never explain the real difference of a Stradivarius violin? Certainly it is not for the lack of trying either.

"People have long puzzled over Stradivari’s secret. Not only the later generations of instrument makers who tirelessly copied his works in the hope of achieving similar levels of perfection in tone and resonance. Or the modern-day scientists who employ everything from infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (to analyse the chemical properties of a Strad’s resonant components) to particle accelerators similar to the Large Hadron Collider to examine the secrets of a Strad’s atomic particles. But his green-eyed contemporaries too, who even at the time were raising the question about how he did it. Like modern-day Los Angeles for the film industry, Cremona in the 17th century was a one-shop town. And Stradivari was king: wealthy and admired and in huge demand. Apparently the saying “as rich as Stradivarius” was common currency on Cremonese streets.
What set him apart? After all, he was using the same materials as everyone else: the same wood maple and spruce from the nearby South Tyrol), the same water and the same basic tools (which have also barely changed from the ones that master violin makers use today). Was it something in the copper, iron and chromium salts he may have unwittingly used to preserve his wood? Was it deep-embedded ash from unknown volcanic eruptions? Was it in fact dragon’s blood in his special varnish? Or was it, counter-intuitively, the tiny imperfections in his method that created such unfathomable perfection? People have been tormenting themselves with the possibilities behind these questions for centuries, and nobody will ever know the answer."


Yet we often question why a cable can sound different when science can not explain it.... There is still much we simply do not have the answers to.

[j3brow]

Originally Posted by PHC1

It always puzzled me that no one ever questions "why" the same type of musical instrument from same material (wood) sounds different? We just accept that they do. Why is it that science can never explain the real difference of a Stradivarius violin? Certainly it is not for the lack of trying either.

"People have long puzzled over Stradivari’s secret. Not only the later generations of instrument makers who tirelessly copied his works in the hope of achieving similar levels of perfection in tone and resonance. Or the modern-day scientists who employ everything from infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (to analyse the chemical properties of a Strad’s resonant components) to particle accelerators similar to the Large Hadron Collider to examine the secrets of a Strad’s atomic particles. But his green-eyed contemporaries too, who even at the time were raising the question about how he did it. Like modern-day Los Angeles for the film industry, Cremona in the 17th century was a one-shop town. And Stradivari was king: wealthy and admired and in huge demand. Apparently the saying “as rich as Stradivarius” was common currency on Cremonese streets.
What set him apart? After all, he was using the same materials as everyone else: the same wood maple and spruce from the nearby South Tyrol), the same water and the same basic tools (which have also barely changed from the ones that master violin makers use today). Was it something in the copper, iron and chromium salts he may have unwittingly used to preserve his wood? Was it deep-embedded ash from unknown volcanic eruptions? Was it in fact dragon’s blood in his special varnish? Or was it, counter-intuitively, the tiny imperfections in his method that created such unfathomable perfection? People have been tormenting themselves with the possibilities behind these questions for centuries, and nobody will ever know the answer."


Yet we often question why a cable can sound different when science can not explain it.... There is still much we simply do not have the answers to.

Excellent post!

[62caddy]

Originally Posted by PHC1

It always puzzled me that no one ever questions "why" the same type of musical instrument from same material (wood) sounds different? We just accept that they do. Why is it that science can never explain the real difference of a Stradivarius violin? Certainly it is not for the lack of trying either.

"People have long puzzled over Stradivari’s secret. Not only the later generations of instrument makers who tirelessly copied his works in the hope of achieving similar levels of perfection in tone and resonance. Or the modern-day scientists who employ everything from infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (to analyse the chemical properties of a Strad’s resonant components) to particle accelerators similar to the Large Hadron Collider to examine the secrets of a Strad’s atomic particles. But his green-eyed contemporaries too, who even at the time were raising the question about how he did it. Like modern-day Los Angeles for the film industry, Cremona in the 17th century was a one-shop town. And Stradivari was king: wealthy and admired and in huge demand. Apparently the saying “as rich as Stradivarius” was common currency on Cremonese streets.
What set him apart? After all, he was using the same materials as everyone else: the same wood maple and spruce from the nearby South Tyrol), the same water and the same basic tools (which have also barely changed from the ones that master violin makers use today). Was it something in the copper, iron and chromium salts he may have unwittingly used to preserve his wood? Was it deep-embedded ash from unknown volcanic eruptions? Was it in fact dragon’s blood in his special varnish? Or was it, counter-intuitively, the tiny imperfections in his method that created such unfathomable perfection? People have been tormenting themselves with the possibilities behind these questions for centuries, and nobody will ever know the answer."


Yet we often question why a cable can sound different when science can not explain it.... There is still much we simply do not have the answers to.

May find this interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/scie...rn-violin.html

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by 62caddy

May find this interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/scie...rn-violin.html

Results are not surprising. Personal preference comes into play. Also the Stradivari are extremely rare and valuable so not often experienced by the masses. Not many musicians can afford a $3-$5M violin and of course play with modern instruments and are used to such tone/timbre. My example was in reference to science not being able to explain why the Stradivari sounds different.

[BuffaloBill]

Some people like to make up differences, even when they don't exist, just to satisfy a buying decision or to project a magical hearing ability.

[SuperD]

Originally Posted by BuffaloBill

Some people like to make up differences, even when they don't exist, just to satisfy a buying decision or to project a magical hearing ability.

I like to listen before I buy. I'm not going to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars for cables unless "I" hear a benefit. I don't know if I have good or bad ears but I know what I like and where I want to take my listening experience. Science can't prove I love my family and I don't need it to...I just do.

Dave

[leftside]

Science can explain cables though through measurement. What science cannot explain is why some people hear differences with different cables.