Propose a cable test off (1 Viewer)

[terry deto]

Many thanks to the Guy's testing DVD'S and posting results
for the rest of us.

Now, I ask myself , I wish they could test cables and put to rest the question of whats better.

I read on another site, that "One piece of test equipment can test both freq response and return loss. A RF network analyzer." can actually do this

anyone with this unit who would like to test a sample of maybe the ten top cable sugestions and report back?

or would this really work?

 

[Chu Gai]

and then comes the question of correlating it all to audibility.

 

[Lynn Johnson]

I still say blind A/B testing is the best way to do this sort of test, regardless of whether or not it is measurable using some mechanical/electrical device.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Here is a problem.

Sure, you can do a frequency analysis, impedence measurement, etc., on several cables.

But you have several big problems:

- All the cables will test out with different response curves. So how do you know which set of responses makes the best cable? Kind of like selecting the best tasting ice-cream by simply reading the ingredents. Sure it's factual/quantitive, but does not tell you how it tastes.

- Cables are actually sensitive to placement. Sensitive equipment will show this. How are you going to minimize this variation? And if you clamped every cable into a straight line, would your test results really be applicable to the real-world jumble behind our racks?

- You can do a slow, frequency response (kind of like they do for some speaker tests). But ... how often do you listen/watch a slowly changing frequency? Real-world signals change both frequency and intensity suddenly. And cables will react differently to sudden changes. It's how a cable response to real-world signals that may truly seperate good from bad.

Look, I'm an engineer and I'd love it if we could come up with some way to put a 1-10 grade on a cable. But when you start looking at the issues involved you realize that it's really hard to create a test criteria that mimics the complexity of real-world audio/video signals.

I still say blind A/B testing is the best way to do this sort of test, regardless of whether or not it is measurable using some mechanical/electrical device.

He may be right, but not because we cannot measure things. It's because there are truly MILLIONS of different things we could measure/test, but we cannot find a subset of ... 10 things that dominate to show that one cable is 'better' than the other.

Better minds than mine have tried and still no answer.

 

[terry deto]

I was only thinking Video Cables when I proposed this idea.
because I saw some cables that were THX certified.
Monster cable & Liberty cable


Can't these test be duplicated on a smaller scale?

 

[Chu Gai]

there are no published thx specs for video or speaker cable. the way it works is you contact them, send them a sample, pay them money, if all is well it's certified. whether the actual people paying for the certification in turn get specs or performance criteria is unknown.