Digitial Coxial or Toslink (1 Viewer)

[Lewis Besze]

Do you have a link?
BTW besides you did anyone else posted there[on that thread] who attended?

 

[matt-f]

MikeSHU,

The problem would exist here.

Well for networks on a computer, they send their information to the other end however there is more than that. During that, the recieving computer needs to send a checksum back at the recieving end see if it's ok. If there are errors, then it would send again. The singal will be going bi-directionally in this case.

For DVD player's and recievers, the singal only goes in one direction only.

 

[MikeSHU]

there's always a delay thats why they have buffers

 

[matt-f]

Right, but I'm not sure how their algorithm goes. It's up to the engineers to see how it can be changed to allow ECC to be implemented.

I'm sure that the DVD player does read ahead or something ahead of time.

 

[Phil A]

Lewis, it is in the tweaks thread - http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...readid=181697. No one who posted on the thread attended. It is not all that important. I avoid posting there because I find if someone asks a question about how a particular cable might sound in their system, and I've been involved in hundred of installs with my friend who worked in the business, anything I post almost always leads to some silly discussion. So if you do a seach of the last yr. you will find very few things I've posted there for that reason. I just was responding to your post that there was never a test conducted. I've learned that some people believe there can be no differences and that is the end of the story and others will believe there are always differences on every system. I've had things make a nice difference on one system and perhaps none to next to none on others. I don't encourage people to go out and buy expensive cables (I don't anymore, I make my own).

They (cables) are not the biggest bang for the buck. I am not looking to change anyone's viewpoint on cabling. I help people all the time, probably a large portion who don't believe there is any difference and I am more than happy to hook it up and set it up how they like it (even if I think it sounds terrible). I've gotten the stuff I make to the point I don't feel the need to buy miles of different wire and connectors to experiment over and over. I've done that. At one point I had miles of wire, and probable $8-10k at retail of components (not to mention store bought cables from $600 speaker wire at retail to you name it) just sitting around for use when I did testing a few times a month. One day when I tripped over the equipment and spools of wire I had in my loft (and literally almost broke my nect) and had done tons of comparison against really expensive stuff, I just sold the excess equipment and decided to just stop being a neurotic audiophile and enjoy the software. If I do make something new on rare occasion now, I give it to one (or more) of my neurotic audiophile friends so they can test it and give me feedback and then I can listen with them on their system and then try it on mine.

 

[Lewis Besze]

Oh yes it is,because now we only have "your side of the story" here.At this pont I can't be sure that this DBT even took place.No I'm not calling you a lier,rather simply stating that any scientific claims must be validated with at least more then one source.In this case who ever conducted the "switcing procedure" should come forward since he's presumambly werent part of the test subject,therefore he should have no bias.

 

[Phil A]

Lewis, I am not at all concerned what anyone believes or what their wire preferences are or are not. As I noted, I am happy to help others who do not believe it makes a difference give away the cheapos that come with equipment. I gave someone a component video cable a couple of weeks back that came with my HD Tuner. It does not matter to me what someone's preferences are. I've been in other tests (where I participated) in a hi-fi shop where perhaps 8 out of 10 people heard differences. What I am my supposed to tell the other 2 people what they can hear? The subject of hearing science is still in its infancy and we're not at the point of being able to build a bionic ear at this point and even if we could, we do know that the brain works to fill in information and everyone's brain is not identical. The notion of the statement that a test was never conducted by anyone anywhere in the world is silly. I'm sure there are test that have been done that came out the other way too.

With a remote I did the A/B switching but since I did not place the cables in the inputs I had no idea what cable was in A or B and there were more than just 2 cables used. So I only knew the population of cables to be used and did not participate in the test (of course I had done switching and listening on my own outside the test many times). I kept the record of responses and the person who swapped the cables kept a record of what was in at different times and had no idea what I was switching on the remote. So the only way to tally stuff was afterwards in plain view of who listened, including those who believed there were no difference. I am also not the least bit concerned with whether it constitutes a DBT, SBT or whatever. Interconnects were done since they could be done easily and hidden from view behind the rack vs. something like speaker wire or power cords running to receptacles that would be more difficult to hide and also would have to be unplugged vs. just hitting a button on the remote to switch between inputs. I've had audio separates for about 25 yrs. so I've been into the hobby a long time and even had surround sound long before there was home theater.

Cable discussions as I've noted get quite silly. I would bet the way a majority of people here have their home theater set-up and listen to music that differences between a decent cable of quality construction vs. other stuff would not be greatly noticed if noticed at all. Differences won't be as apparent on every system. I've found stuff that made a difference in one system barely make a difference or none at all in others. Yes, the system used in the test did consist of $13.5k speakers too. When my friend worked at the high end shop and I did delivery/installs with him for many years you get to see lots of different stuff from $85k speakers (in a stereo only system) to you name it. Most of the people here have ltd. experience and exposure to high end audio and the thrust of the board is home theater. Components/speakers, etc. all have different electrical properties and differenes in impedence, capacitance, etc., with various pieces of equipment in the chain are hard to predict. As everyone hears differently, I can't claim to say what someone can or cannot hear and it is a silly exercise to do that. I've been around the hobby long enough and have installed and owned so many things that I've learned to help others in the manner in which they wish to helped, not in the manner I wish to help them.

 

[Lewis Besze]

Phil, as long as you reckognise the fact that your recommendations are based on subjective evaluations then it's all good,and I applaud you to trying to help others,based on your experiences.I agree nobody should use the generic cables their equipment comes with.I also caution anyone to buy those "butique" brand cables that carries ridiculous price tag and pseudo scientific claims.
Regarding DBTs. It is designed not to "hear difference" but to actually identify the product. If cables or any other products have a sound of their own then a participant should be able to reckognise that correctly each time and identify the product. Say a Denon cd player has a warmer sound then say a Sony then a participant[one who actually claims that he could]should be able to name them by without knowing[seeing]the correct player.

 

[Phil A]

Lewis, I always encourage people to listen with their own ears on either their own equipment or a similar set-up with a money back guarantee. I could identify virtually all of the products I used and I just wanted everything from complete skeptics to the other end of the spectrum to see if they heard a difference as an interesting experiment. Most were not familiar with the products, especially since there were home made ones. Sales people at stores don't necessarily look out for your wallet and expensive high end stores often carry ltd. amts. of wire for the simple reason they want you to focus on what components you want and then don't want to go through endless comparisons after you make that choice (just want some gravy for the profit margin).

A customer of the high end shop whose system I help deliver learned the hard way. I met him from the delivery (with my friend) and since he lived near where I do he would usually ask me questions. We became friendly. He did not have a ton of CDs (perhaps 40) when he bought his system. He went in asking about CD/SACD players. They didn't carry any at time. They sold him an almost $4k CD player along with about $1,800 of speaker cables for the left and right channel only, about $600 (single ended) interconnects between his CD player and pre/pro and a $1k balanced pair of interconnects between his left and right preamp out and amp. The rest of the cables were the same brand and cheaper but not cheap. After I talked my friend who worked at the store to order a Marantz 8260 (CD/SACD) for himself, the store ended up carrying it. He was not happy to see a $1k player in the store about which he asked for initially and was danced around since the owner did not want to carry it at the time and hurt more expensive sales. Well he took it home to audition, and while he ultimately liked his more expensive player better on CDs, he called me to ask if he could borrow identical pairs of RCAs for multi-channel SACD listening. All I had in multiples was the stuff I made and knowing he was annoyed at my friend already (and he would be more annoyed if he had to ride an hour back an forth to the store to get cables), I took them off my SACD player and lent it to him. Well his CD player had 2 sets of RCA outs and he did the comparison w/o me knowing. He was blown away by how bad the $600 cables sounded since they sounded better than anything else in the store and even more so by how it also was better than the $1k pair of balanced interconnects. He now has my stuff in his system which I just charged mat'ls for.

I don't make recommendations unless someone specifically asks and I also know what their tastes are. If they don't believe there are differnces I try to point them in the direction that is best for them. If they believe there are differences I try to listen with them to their system and may let them try some store bought stuff I have laying around or stuff I make to get an idea of their preferences in the contest of what they feel comfortable spending as part of what they have already invested. While marketing claims on some tweaks and cables may be a bit on way-out side (if you don't toot your own horn no one will), listening differences heard by someone are not psuedo. Everyone has their own tastes when it comes to speakers or electronics and cables are no different. Some boutique cables are quite good but they are not cheap and more than likely to most won't be worth the incremental improvement vs. something like room treatments which often gets overlooked. Expensive cables are usually not the best bang for the buck. They're not necessarily more expensive in the way of material costs, but for the R&D of have someone buy lots of stuff and listen and test. I've done that and can listen for myself and don't need to pay for someone's marketing campaign, rent, taxes, utilities, payroll, etc. and then the mark-up by the time it reaches the retail level.