Fuse and Cable Directionality

[Analog Scott]

Well you know what, I purchased the Lampizator Poseidon without really understanding why it sounds great. I couldn't find a schematic, don't know what DAC chip(s) are used (my friends seem very concerned with the chip-I take it as a totality of design), if it's R2R or Delta-Sigma, or other. I trust the dealer who sold it to me as he knows what type of sound I prefer, found my speaker, recommended the CD transport (ample information on it's design parameters) and let me hear his amp which I will be purchasing (my first 100% solid state amp in 50 years) which replaces my 25 year old fragile pair of big tube amps (the output tubes tend to have runaway voltages and tank the voltage regulation circuitry). So, yes, it's nice to know as much as possible but I can still make choices based on people I trust and my own hearing.

You CAN make choices on whatever criteria you want. If you trust dealers that's your choice as well. I don't share your trust in dealers.

 

[Geoffkait]

That is an interesting and significant question with a complicated answer. Auditory memory is not what it seems to be.
Here is a fantastic video of a lecture given by one of the top research scientists in the field of audio. The entire video is worth watching but you can jump to 12:20 if you like. Your actual question is directly addressed at the 13:50 mark. here is the link

You are making sense. The fact is we start losing aural memory within less than a second and lose a substantial amount within a few seconds. If you take the time to physically change a cable you have already lost most of the aural memory. This is why time synchronized quick switching is critical to making comparisons.

It's also very very very important to understand that from the very get go the brain can not process the entirety of what the ears hear. And as such we have to steer our focus. Just steering our focus quite literally changes what we hear. It's a phenomenon known as the "cocktail party effect" It's one that most of us have had direct experience with. You are at a large cocktail party, there are dozens of conversations going on. You hear the one you focus on while the other conversations are filtered out. Two people at the same party hearing the same actual sound can hear two entirely different things based on their steered focus.

So all aural memories are affected by our initial steered focus. If you watch the video I linked you will see that it gets much worse. And it should become quite clear why you can not reliably compare real time sound to an aural memory of sound.

There is no getting around it. It's a result of millions of years of evolution. Our ear/brain mechanism is hard wired that way. And it's a good thing too! Without that filtering sound would be a perceptual cacophony of ever changing barely recognizable noise. Just take a look at an unsmoothed in room frequency response measurement. It's scary.

Hey, isn’t that the guy who invented mp3? Are there two JJ Johnstons? My favorite JJ Johnston “character” on audio forums was when he assumed an online persona of a hillbilly, presumably to escape detection by inmates. This is just a simple case of Scott’s “Prover” attempting to prove his Thinker was right all,along. So transparent. Appeal to authority, etc., etc. Same pew, different church.

 

[ssfas]

IMO discussion and even debate of these issues on audiophile forums can be enlightening. But misrepresentations of opposing arguments need to be called out for such debates to be informative. I think there is a substantial anti-scientific bias among many, maybe most audiophiles that is largely predicated on misunderstandings of the science and even worse blatant misrepresentations of the science of human aural perception.

There’s often a problem with people who are obsessed with something, whether baseball, football or audio technology, which is that they cannot understand why other people have no interest in their particular obsession. I very much enjoy music. I’ve been to many thousands of concerts, although my main interest is ballet and contemporary dance. I really have no interest in the science relating to audio at all. Circuit boards, resistors and all that stuff leaves me numb with ennui. I have to use the French word because English words like boredom don’t do it justice. It’s not anti-scientific bias, I know as well as anyone else that you need some engineering skills to make the hi-fi that I enjoy. I have worked out ways of deciding what hi-fi I do like and what I don’t, and as far as I’m aware science doesn’t come into it.

There are lots of camps in hi-fi, the tubes camp, the cables camp, the fuses camp. Most of these are live and let live type of arguments, but the ASR science camp very much seems to be a case of you’re either with us or against us. Being completely indifferent is not an option.

 

[Analog Scott]

Hey, isn’t that the guy who invented mp3? Are there two JJ Johnstons? My favorite JJ Johnston “character” on audio forums was when he assumed an online persona of a hillbilly, presumably to escape detection by inmates. This is just a simple case of Scott’s “Prover” attempting to prove his Thinker was right all,along. So transparent. Appeal to authority, etc., etc. Same pew, different church.

Here is a little bit about him

James Johnston​

Job Title: Chief Scientist
Company: Immersion Networks

Status: Life Fellow
Member since: 1978
AES Committee: Journal Reviewers
Technical Committees: Audio for Games, Broadcast and Online Delivery, Coding of Audio Signals, Guidelines For Working With Metadata in Broadcast and Streaming, Semantic Audio Analysis, Signal Processing, Spatial Audio
Standards Committees: SC-02-01 (Digital Audio Measurement Techniques), SC-02-12-Q (Streaming Loudness), SC-04-09 (Assessment of Acoustic Annoyance)
Primary Section: Pacific Northwest

Company Website: https://immersion.net
Facebook Address: https://www.facebook.com/james.d.johnston.50

Audio Fields:​

• Acoustics, Psychoacoustics, Hearing - Architectural Acoustics
• Other: Basic Research - Acoustics, Psychoacoustics and DSP

Job Duty:​

• Chief Researcher

And here is a little bit about Immersion Networks.

https://immersion.net/

"Immersion Networks creates software and hardware to reframe the human listening experience."
"We offer a complete ecosystem for the creation and delivery of audio far beyond anything you’ve ever experienced."


"Anything in the world of audio that JJ Johnston puts his name on needs to be taken very seriously."

George MassenburgMulti Grammy-winning Producer


"Immersion Audio Physics Engine
Immersion’s Audio Physics Engine is the core of our audio experience – Using the engine, we can generate immersive content from any audio source type from mono through multitrack, remapping it to any output format that can be defined by the user. It allows us to capture the actual locations and movements of the input sources like multitrack stems, mono masters, stereo masters, live recordings, traditional spot mics, Unreal Engine, or AI generated audio inputs and present them in any output format. We capture or create a perceptual model of any physical space, take in motion information from the listener, and encode them within the platform. The Audio Physics Engine handles all computational tasks for you, rendering content in a single workflow to any needed output format – from 2-channel virtualized motion tracked headphones to multichannel rendering or other live output formats."

 

[ssfas]

Spreading factual information for those interested in it is worth the price of a few bruised egos.

What do you mean by this? Whose egos are being bruised, and why?

 

[SeagoatLeo]

You CAN make choices on whatever criteria you want. If you trust dealers that's your choice as well. I don't share your trust in dealers.

Right, you don't know who my dealer is and is now a prominent member on WBF and friends with many manufacturers, reviewers and members of WBF. I trust him more than reviewers (I'm partial to some, beginning with J. Gordon Holt). I'm 68 and only trusted one other dealer as much who relocated 400 miles away 35+ years ago. He knew acoustic sound and was early in on cabling quality over cheap RCA ICs and lamp cord speaker wire. I also trusted Brooks Berdan on analog.

 

[Geoffkait]

Here is a little bit about him

James Johnston​

Job Title: Chief Scientist
Company: Immersion Networks

Status: Life Fellow
Member since: 1978
AES Committee: Journal Reviewers
Technical Committees: Audio for Games, Broadcast and Online Delivery, Coding of Audio Signals, Guidelines For Working With Metadata in Broadcast and Streaming, Semantic Audio Analysis, Signal Processing, Spatial Audio
Standards Committees: SC-02-01 (Digital Audio Measurement Techniques), SC-02-12-Q (Streaming Loudness), SC-04-09 (Assessment of Acoustic Annoyance)
Primary Section: Pacific Northwest

Company Website: https://immersion.net
Facebook Address: https://www.facebook.com/james.d.johnston.50

Audio Fields:​

• Acoustics, Psychoacoustics, Hearing - Architectural Acoustics
• Other: Basic Research - Acoustics, Psychoacoustics and DSP

Job Duty:​

• Chief Researcher

And here is a little bit about Immersion Networks.

https://immersion.net/

"Immersion Networks creates software and hardware to reframe the human listening experience."
"We offer a complete ecosystem for the creation and delivery of audio far beyond anything you’ve ever experienced."


"Anything in the world of audio that JJ Johnston puts his name on needs to be taken very seriously."

George MassenburgMulti Grammy-winning Producer


"Immersion Audio Physics Engine
Immersion’s Audio Physics Engine is the core of our audio experience – Using the engine, we can generate immersive content from any audio source type from mono through multitrack, remapping it to any output format that can be defined by the user. It allows us to capture the actual locations and movements of the input sources like multitrack stems, mono masters, stereo masters, live recordings, traditional spot mics, Unreal Engine, or AI generated audio inputs and present them in any output format. We capture or create a perceptual model of any physical space, take in motion information from the listener, and encode them within the platform. The Audio Physics Engine handles all computational tasks for you, rendering content in a single workflow to any needed output format – from 2-channel virtualized motion tracked headphones to multichannel rendering or other live output formats."

Yes, I completely get it why you use JJ as an appeal to authority. More on topic one wonders where JJ stands on directionality.

 

[Analog Scott]

There’s often a problem with people who are obsessed with something, whether baseball, football or audio technology, which is that they cannot understand why other people have no interest in their particular obsession. I very much enjoy music. I’ve been to many thousands of concerts, although my main interest is ballet and contemporary dance. I really have no interest in the science relating to audio at all. Circuit boards, resistors and all that stuff leaves me numb with ennui. I have to use the French word because English words like boredom don’t do it justice. It’s not anti-scientific bias, I know as well as anyone else that you need some engineering skills to make the hi-fi that I enjoy. I have worked out ways of deciding what hi-fi I do like and what I don’t, and as far as I’m aware science doesn’t come into it.

There are lots of camps in hi-fi, the tubes camp, the cables camp, the fuses camp. Most of these are live and let live type of arguments, but the ASR science camp very much seems to be a case of you’re either with us or against us. Being completely indifferent is not an option.

One does not have to be obsessed with science to respect it's veracity or find it a useful tool in weeding out purchasing choices in audio some of which are quite substantial.

I'm not a car person. But every time I have bought a car I have done careful objective research on the cars I am considering buying.

As for ASR there are quite a few different members there with a wide range of knowledge and attitudes. I'm not so sure they are any more aggressive against opposing points of view than any other flavor of audiophile.

Emotional investment and self identity as an audiophile with a strong sense of status can lead down that road. I can point to many examples of it here on these forums in opposition to my perspective.

Ad Hominem and big egos are not limited to any one camp.

 

[SeagoatLeo]

That is an interesting and significant question with a complicated answer. Auditory memory is not what it seems to be.
Here is a fantastic video of a lecture given by one of the top research scientists in the field of audio. The entire video is worth watching but you can jump to 12:20 if you like. Your actual question is directly addressed at the 13:50 mark. here is the link

You are making sense. The fact is we start losing aural memory within less than a second and lose a substantial amount within a few seconds. If you take the time to physically change a cable you have already lost most of the aural memory. This is why time synchronized quick switching is critical to making comparisons.

It's also very very very important to understand that from the very get go the brain can not process the entirety of what the ears hear. And as such we have to steer our focus. Just steering our focus quite literally changes what we hear. It's a phenomenon known as the "cocktail party effect" It's one that most of us have had direct experience with. You are at a large cocktail party, there are dozens of conversations going on. You hear the one you focus on while the other conversations are filtered out. Two people at the same party hearing the same actual sound can hear two entirely different things based on their steered focus.

So all aural memories are affected by our initial steered focus. If you watch the video I linked you will see that it gets much worse. And it should become quite clear why you can not reliably compare real time sound to an aural memory of sound.

There is no getting around it. It's a result of millions of years of evolution. Our ear/brain mechanism is hard wired that way. And it's a good thing too! Without that filtering sound would be a perceptual cacophony of ever changing barely recognizable noise. Just take a look at an unsmoothed in room frequency response measurement. It's scary.

The problem with you is that you fit everything into the same category without exemptions. In my testing of fuse preferences with my audio friends, we used the SAME recordings and mostly the identical CDs and LPs to test brought from house to house. So, we eliminated what we thought we heard to what was obvious and it was obvious. Often the direction of a fuse made a significant and worse/not liked sound. Tried again and again with the same results-not the way it should be in a particular piece of equipment. Not only that, but it was consistent for the same model equipment in another friend's system.

 

[Analog Scott]

Yes, I completely get it why you use JJ as an appeal to authority.

It's an appeal to science not an appeal to authority. I'm guessing you didn't bother to watch the actual video and expose yourself to the science he is sharing

 

[DonH50]

what a great thread this has become truly eye opening and thought provoking
I have a question for everyone
how long do we need to hear something that has changed before it changes to what it is now permanent in an audio memory ?
an example is we change a cable and there is the immediate impact, then over a short time period say 30 mins or so maybe a bit longer depending on the person. We then make a decision is this still better or what has happened?,
this is not a trick question please Ask for clarification if I am not making sense

Auditory memory is very short, something like six seconds per the AES (or IHF, or somebody). But there is also plenty of evidence for long-term awareness of subtle changes... Which may or may not survive a DBT. But psychoacoustics is NOT my area of expertise!

 

[SeagoatLeo]

human memory is profoundly faulty. The problem is that it doesn't seem like it is nearly as faulty as it actually is. If one wants to test this for giggles. Take a good hard look at one of your interior walls. Memorize that color. A color you should be EXTREMELY familiar with to begin with. Go to Home Depot and based on memory alone find the matching color from the samples they have there. Bring that sample home and see how good your memory actually is.

Well that it something I have a knack at, memorizing structures and colors. You are so certain of yourself. Not just my interior walls (previously dirty mauve, now salmon pink) but my walkway in front and my 22 rental properties (well that's too easy as they are all interior painted swiss coffee-I'd know if the color was swiss coffee or not in any properly lit room). The problem is the ambient light of viewing for me, what the color temperature is. I also did photography and video color correction prior to and during my younger years. As to sound, no, there's where retention of sound long term basis is faulty. I can describe what I heard, what I liked or disliked about the sound but absolute sonic character, no.

 

[Analog Scott]

The problem with you

Straight to ad hominem. sad.

is that you fit everything into the same category without exemptions.

Meaningless generalization.

In my testing of fuse preferences with my audio friends, we used the SAME recordings and mostly the identical CDs and LPs to test brought from house to house. So, we eliminated what we thought we heard to what was obvious and it was obvious. Often the direction of a fuse made a significant and worse/not liked sound. Tried again and again with the same results-not the way it should be in a particular piece of equipment. Not only that, but it was consistent for the same model equipment in another friend's system.

All of which was done without any meaningful test controls. If YOU are happy with that so be it. But your protocols are very problematic. And as such utterly untestable and unverifiable. There is a really good reason science demands strict protocols in testing. Verifiability and repeatability. Humans are inherently unreliable. You are no exception.

 

[Geoffkait]

It's an appeal to science not an appeal to authority. I'm guessing you didn't bother to watch the actual video and expose yourself to the science he is sharing

I debated a lot with JJ back in the day. Most likely residing in an archive of some audio forum somewhere frozen in time.

Appeal to science is an obvious kind of appeal to/from authority. And that’s why you use the word science so much. It’s a ruse, pretending have the full force of science and the truth behind you.

Argument from authority - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DonH50]

Yes, I completely get it why you use JJ as an appeal to authority. More on topic one wonders where JJ stands on directionality.

He's a member of ASR, still with the AES, has presented a few talks at the PNW Audio Society, and is quite approachable. He's still giving lectures now and then, and we've corresponded a bit online and on the phone. At some point all of us appeal to some sort of authority, unless we claim to be an original genius with new and heretofore unknown insight. "Appeal to authority" is often used as an Internet put-down but it often provides a more credible basis for a concept. One could argue your posting links to the reports and marketing for directional fuses was an appeal to authority, but aren't such "appeals" really providing additional background and support? I freely acknowledge there are folk like JJ with far more knowledge of things audio than I, just as he has conceded aspects of transmission line theory and GHz IC design to me.

 

[DonH50]

This thread appears to have wandered back to just everyone attacking everyone else, and I need to go practice then enjoy the rest of my Sunday after church and then dealing with on-going tax questions (blah). Y'all have fun...

On topic: I still do not think fuses are audibly directional, but I know durn well my trumpet is!

 

[Analog Scott]

Well that it something I have a knack at, memorizing structures and colors.

yeah...

You are so certain of yourself.

No. It isn't *me* I am certain of. It's the science that I believe is the most reliable source of objective information.

I am an artist. I guarantee you my working understanding of color and color theory blows you knack for memorizing colors out of the water. I can also guarantee you that you would not come close to matching any color from memory. It can't be done. And I have spent thousands of hours matching colors. It can't be done without direct comparisons for reference.

Not just my interior walls (previously dirty mauve, now salmon pink) but my walkway in front and my 22 rental properties (well that's too easy as they are all interior painted swiss coffee-I'd know if the color was swiss coffee or not in any properly lit room).

You are talking about basic name brand identification. I have spent plenty of time color correcting production variations from the same brand name colors out of different production runs. Getting the name right is a joke. Yeah most people can tell blue from yellow too. Your idea of matching colors is on a very different page than my idea of matching colors.

Again, nobody does it from memory.

Anyone who disagrees and wants to put it to a test, I'd bet serious money on this one.

 

[SeagoatLeo]

Here is a little bit about him

James Johnston​

Job Title: Chief Scientist
Company: Immersion Networks

Status: Life Fellow
Member since: 1978
AES Committee: Journal Reviewers
Technical Committees: Audio for Games, Broadcast and Online Delivery, Coding of Audio Signals, Guidelines For Working With Metadata in Broadcast and Streaming, Semantic Audio Analysis, Signal Processing, Spatial Audio
Standards Committees: SC-02-01 (Digital Audio Measurement Techniques), SC-02-12-Q (Streaming Loudness), SC-04-09 (Assessment of Acoustic Annoyance)
Primary Section: Pacific Northwest

Company Website: https://immersion.net
Facebook Address: https://www.facebook.com/james.d.johnston.50

Audio Fields:​

• Acoustics, Psychoacoustics, Hearing - Architectural Acoustics
• Other: Basic Research - Acoustics, Psychoacoustics and DSP

Job Duty:​

• Chief Researcher

And here is a little bit about Immersion Networks.

https://immersion.net/

"Immersion Networks creates software and hardware to reframe the human listening experience."
"We offer a complete ecosystem for the creation and delivery of audio far beyond anything you’ve ever experienced."


"Anything in the world of audio that JJ Johnston puts his name on needs to be taken very seriously."

George MassenburgMulti Grammy-winning Producer


"Immersion Audio Physics Engine
Immersion’s Audio Physics Engine is the core of our audio experience – Using the engine, we can generate immersive content from any audio source type from mono through multitrack, remapping it to any output format that can be defined by the user. It allows us to capture the actual locations and movements of the input sources like multitrack stems, mono masters, stereo masters, live recordings, traditional spot mics, Unreal Engine, or AI generated audio inputs and present them in any output format. We capture or create a perceptual model of any physical space, take in motion information from the listener, and encode them within the platform. The Audio Physics Engine handles all computational tasks for you, rendering content in a single workflow to any needed output format – from 2-channel virtualized motion tracked headphones to multichannel rendering or other live output formats."

George Massenburg is best known for his recordings of Earth, Wind and Fire but that group was headed by Maurice White, who’s back up band was Ramsey Lewis In the 60’s on ARGO (great sonics). I appraised his recording studio on Corinth in W.LA. years ago. He is a techo-geek. Jennifer Warnes loves him for his promotion of her/recordings. Otherwise, my friends and I do NOT consider him a top recording engineer of sonic merit. So, his wild enthusiasm for James Johnston means nothing to me. Plus, anyone who states they produce the greatest music reproduction ever-don't believe them. There are many ways to build a great music reproduction system and they are not EXCLUSIVELY the best ever.

 

[Geoffkait]

He's a member of ASR, still with the AES, has presented a few talks at the PNW Audio Society, and is quite approachable. He's still giving lectures now and then, and we've corresponded a bit online and on the phone. At some point all of us appeal to some sort of authority, unless we claim to be an original genius with new and heretofore unknown insight. "Appeal to authority" is often used as an Internet put-down but it often provides a more credible basis for a concept. One could argue your posting links to the reports and marketing for directional fuses was an appeal to authority, but aren't such "appeals" really providing additional background and support? I freely acknowledge there are folk like JJ with far more knowledge of things audio than I, just as he has conceded aspects of transmission line theory and GHz IC design to me.

Ah, yes, the we all do it defense. I repeat my question from earlier, what is JJ’s stand on fuse and cable directionality?

 

[SeagoatLeo]

yeah...

No. It isn't *me* I am certain of. It's the science that I believe is the most reliable source of objective information.

I am an artist. I guarantee you my working understanding of color and color theory blows you knack for memorizing colors out of the water. I can also guarantee you that you would not come close to matching any color from memory. It can't be done. And I have spent thousands of hours matching colors. It can't be done without direct comparisons for reference.

You are talking about basic name brand identification. I have spent plenty of time color correcting production variations from the same brand name colors out of different production runs. Getting the name right is a joke. Yeah most people can tell blue from yellow too. Your idea of matching colors is on a very different page than my idea of matching colors.

Again, nobody does it from memory.

Anyone who disagrees and wants to put it to a test, I'd bet serious money on this one.

I always bring samples for other than swiss coffee. Lighting is almost never consistent. Again, I made color correction choices based on my abilities and preferences. I didn't have a "blind" test to find a matching or choice of color (that certainly is ridiculous). Hey, I bet your eyes have changed color shade determination ability over time as well. The best color test is scientific determination of wavelength under controlled lighting conditions using a spectrometer for example. I didn't say I have the ability to perfectly match color, but approximate. I hope you bring something to check the wavelength of every color you want before you make a decision because you apparently are indecisive without "proof."