porcy62

It's probably a good, heavy gauge shielded Volex. They may be more than $20 now that the price of copper has gone through the roof. This is an interesting question. Here's a link that explains that "acoustic memory" is part of short-term memory, which by definition is 3-20 seconds in most people. However, I think the type of memory Kevin is referring to is technically "sensory memory" (the ability to maintain an exact copy of what is seen or heard), because that is what would be required to detect something as subtle as a difference between power cords or whatever, and it's only about 300ms. The ability of a child to recognize her mother's voice is, I believe, something else entirely. If I'm understanding this correctly, "acoustic memory" is more the ability to remember things you hear, like what your professor just said in a lecture, and we forget all that stuff unless we transfer it to long-term memory by repetition or writing or something. The objective vs. subjective argument in audio has been raging for decades, and I'm convinced at this point that no study or test of any kind, no matter how well designed, will ever end it. If someone hears something, I don't think it's possible (or even worth the time) to try and convince him that he can't. Most of the people doing real research on hearing, perception, and the brain are on to much more important subjects than the things audiophiles geek out about. Claro que si Dude! But this is the audio section of a jazz forum, not a Congress of Neuroscientists about Alzheimer's disease. BTW Thanks for the info and the bad manners. Now I have to go to save some children in Darfur.

Donald Byrd - I Am Tryin' To Get Home - BN NY, mono.

Oliver Nelson - Fantabulous - Argo, mono.

Kevin, power chords a part, may you provide a links for this? I was thinking about it and I found this statement pretty strange. I mean that if human acoustic memory is only ten second, why children know their parents voice? As far I know, medics say that is useful to talk to child within the womb, and, as far I remember, they proved they recognize parents voice after the birth. At the same time, I can recognize human voice of old friends, after years, not 10 second. And why can I recognize the particular sound of Trane in a track I never heard before? In verbal communication I can even spot the nuance of a happy or angry tone. I must have some kind of acoustic memory somewhere that last more then 10 second. Overall acoustic memory should work at some other period then 10 second, otherwise I'd be killed everytime I cross the road if I couldn't remember the sound of a car horn. Or the roar of a lion, otherwise we'd be extinct. edit: On the link posted above http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_11_4...ds-12-2004.html there is a ABX test, that I found interesting, but a little questionable, from a psichological perspective. In the test the best score in matching the different power chords is listening large vocal ensembles, that I found obvious since we are more accustomed at human voices, since our birth, and before, rather then at music or generic sounds. For the same psichologycal reason we note the smallest differences, at any level, acoustic, visual, etc, in our common enviroment. Let's take an inhabitant of Amazonic Rain Forest, put him inthe middle of Times Square and ask him to recognize the different sounds or smells of the city, he'd score low. For the very same reasons we would score low in the Amazonic Rain Forest. In the book 'Smilla's Sense of Snow' is written that in Inuit's language there are many words for 'snow', because the enviromental IS 'snow', so they categorized every slightly differences in 'snow' in order to survive in the 'snow'. Coming back to test I think that, in order to achieve a psychologically correct result, it should be conducted in our 'natural enviromental' aka our hi-fi system in our apartment and listening to our records with someone who switch the power chords for us. It's not a case that most participants of the above test were stressed and tyred after a while, like we'd be trying to know the different sings of birds in the Amazonic Rain Forest.

The 'Columbia Jazz Masterpiece' was the biggest attempt to destroy jazz, since Hitler banned 'negro muzik' in the late thirties. If you won't go for vinyl, (the titles you named are easily available as originals and later reissues at cheap price, I would reccomend the german and dutch pressings of seventies, over here you can get them at cd price or less) any other digital reissues are preferable.

No brainer - LP12 ! Was the 'yes' from bank manager or Mrs-to-be? Enjoy the McCoy. I think I'll be checking him out in Bath in a few weeks' time. I had one and I definitely second that, the new LP 12: fully upgradable from the cheapest to the top equipped.

Yep! Double :party:

A fine album - which I used to own. It was in terrible condition, having been bought as a cheap used copy, so I replaced it with the CD, which is far from satisfactory, as it pairs these New York big band tracks with West Coast alto and tenor groups under the nominal direction of Quincy Jones. The two make an ill-matched album. Do you mean QJ's GO WEST? I've got both, and I agree: great music.

And we still managed 50+ posts. Fun, eh? We will solve this apocalyptic dilemma within few years, unless the Poles' ice will melt before.

I don't think anyone believes jazz1's test was naïve. It was obviously done with the purpose of being objective, and if it wasn't extensive enough to draw conclusions with any certainty, jazz1 himself did not claim it to be "scientific". Jim has suggested how the test could be performed to get more accurate test results. It's up to anyone with enough time and money on their hands to conduct this test. In the meantime, all we can do is present known facts for those interested in the question if and how power chords affect sound quality in home stereo equipment. So far, some claim that they can hear the difference, but no tests have been made to back up their claim. Those with insight in electronics say that there's not likely to be any difference. Fair, no definitive answer at the end.

Quincy Jones - This is how I feel about jazz - ABC Paramount, mono.

Why not on you? You stated that a power chord is just a power chord, jazz1 made his 'naive' blind test, you stated his test as unreliable. Fine. I didn't see any reliable blind test on your posts. Nor jazz1 want to sell to anybody fancy power chords, so where is the TRUTH? OUT THERE?

Indeed. It would seem that it was only after the horrors of Stalingrad and the Eastern Front into 1943 that the Wehrmacht officer corps could see that the situation was irretrievable and that the only solution would be to take Hitler out and do a deal. Before then it would seem that they were more than happy to go along with his plans. The last major 'victory' on the Eastern Front was at Kharkov in March '43 when Manstein counter-attacked hard and stopped the Soviets dead in their tracks. At that point Manstein wanted to maintain the momentum and continue to 'pile on' the Soviets who were reeling from Kharkov. He wanted to launch a May offensive but Hitler held things up until July. That was the last real opportunity to make headway in the east and Manstein & Co, knew that it was all over. Had either of the March '43 bomb plots (von Tresckow (in Ukraine) or von Gertsdorff) been successful, Manstein likely would have prevailed upon Hitler's successor to stick to a May deadline, thus leaving the Russians little time to prepare defensive operations in the area around Kursk. Had that happened (Kursk operation taking place in May rather than July '43), I'm guessing that the Russians would have been hammered senseless....and who knows what would have happened after that? We know for certain that the Russians had contacted German diplomats earlier in Sweden and indicated a willingness to go some sort of negotiated settlement route and that Mussolini had made a similar appeal to Hitler when they met in April. Had the outcome at Kursk been different and temporarily given them the upper hand, perhaps Hitler's replacement would have decided to go that route? This type of war of total conquest/occupation was not the norm in Europe and you'd have to think that a large segment of the officer corps would have been happy to do a deal of sorts and come out of this with some sizeable chunk of real estate. Interesting, thanks!

FWIW, a true blind test could be useful for both; if there isn't any difference of statistical significance, there wouldn't be anything that needed to be explained. Correct, though jazz1 reported his personal blind test, and the scientifists cutted his throat. That was hardly a true blind test. Too many variables. Again, it would be really easy to do this the right way, since as Kevin explained, our audio memory is extremely short. If you're tesing the power cord on a CD player, the test would be set up like this: -- Get two identical CD players. -- Hook them up to your preamp/amp with the same cable at the same length. Hopefully your preamp/amp has separate inputs that are switchable (CD, Aux1, Aux2, etc.) Use two of the same or check the specs to make sure each of the inputs has the same specs (impedence, frequency response, etc. They should be, but you never know. Just don't use the turntable preamp input! ) -- Start with the stock power cords. -- Take two identical CDs and load them in the players. -- Press play on both at the same time. -- Listen and switch back and forth between the two, make sure they sound the same (they should if the manufacturer is worth anything). -- Put the expensive power cable on one and restart the identical CDs. Switch between the two. Is there a difference? Better yet, try the test on one person at a time, not telling the person that you're switching between an expensive cord and a regular cord. Just ask the if they hear any difference. Nice, for being 'scientifically' relevant, it should sample a fair number of people, with a good hearing and some knowledge about music: music lovers, musicians, etc. And did you do it this way?

That sounds a bit radical ! Don't worry I cut myself chopping the bacon for Carbonara. Nice dish carbonara - we make it at home - though we can't get the proper bacon here. Yep, you should use Guanciale (gwahn-TCHAH-leh), the meat from the cheek of a pig, (from guancia, meaning cheek) rubbed lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper or chili pepper, then cured for three months. Grazie! You're welcome.

Richard Holmes and Gene Ammons - Groovin' With Jug - PJ, mono

FWIW, a true blind test could be useful for both; if there isn't any difference of statistical significance, there wouldn't be anything that needed to be explained. jazz1 reported his personal blind test, and the scientists cutted his throat.

That sounds a bit radical ! Don't worry I cut myself chopping the bacon for Carbonara. Nice dish carbonara - we make it at home - though we can't get the proper bacon here. Yep, you should use Guanciale (gwahn-TCHAH-leh), the meat from the cheek of a pig, (from guancia, meaning cheek) rubbed lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper or chili pepper, then cured for three months.

Put this on the tt. She'll beg you to go back to the Dave Bailey.

I'm impressed. Preparing Spaghetti Carbonara whilst changing LPs ! Now spinning: Lou Donaldson 'Sweet Slumber' (King GXF, stereo) after that - Music Matters 'LD+3' (45rpm stereo) Yep, those damn hi-end TT without the automatic stop!

No needs to change the subject. It's an old issue, measuremnt vs subjectivism. A useless discussion at this point. As Jim said: People believe what they want to believe. One side believe in strictly scientific explanation, the other side in what they hear. The first side believe the other side are cheated by its own mind and expectations (psychoacoustic, another scientific explanation). I tried to shift the issue towards a broad point of view, a philosophical discussion about science (epistemology), without success. I am out at this point. Maybe I'll open a new thread about Wittgenstein, Popper and Fayerabend in 'Classical Music', or in Allen's 'Coherence' thread. As far for water, tap water is excellent in Rome, actually I spared enough money on bottled water that I bought those fancy power chords from jazz1.

That sounds a bit radical ! Don't worry I cut myself chopping the bacon for Carbonara.

Exactly. The science up to Galileo Galilei said the sun was turning around the earth and, just to be more modern, told us that feeding vegetarian animals like cows with meat derived food was safe and we have 'mad cow disease'. Scientifically there is no difference between a Stradivari and a Yamaha. Scientifically there is no difference between a good steak and a McDonald hamburger. You're really stretching. This cable obsession reminds me of religion. Despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, there are still people in this world that believe the earth is only 6,000 years old. What can you do? Quite the contrary, I see your points, but I see a dogmatic position too. There isn't a "science", but "sciences", not a big coherent system who explain everything with maths and experiments. Often scientific theories clashed in their fundaments, but they still lives along togheter for long times since a new better one (usually simpler and more elegant, rather then more "truthful") replaced them. Personally I tend to trust "sciences", and scientists, because they assured to me and to humanity a comfortable and longer life, at the same time I am aware that "science" is just a "word" (and a huge lobby of interests): "science" is what people consider "science" in a specific period of time, everything else is "religion", "superstition" "pseudoscience". In the western world scientists looked, and most of them still look, at traditional non western medicines with disregard. The enlighten scientists who investigated without prejudice discovered lots of interesting and helpful things. I found it funny and paradoxical that we strongly support buddhist monks in their fight for freedom without understanding their "un-scientific" (from our point of view) system of life. Because if we assume that "our science" is always correct, probably chinese invasion is a good thing. At the end they broght " scientific progress". And what about Native Americans? Back then science, religion and economic interests were strictly allied in the name of "progress" and "liberty". What does all these philosophical issues has to do with a fancy power chord? Probably nothing, but the history of audio industry is full of unortodoxical engineers (and scientists) that achieve great results only because they went against the mainstream scientific theories. And it's full of scammers too.

Exactly. The science up to Galileo Galilei said the sun was turning around the earth and, just to be more modern, told us that feeding vegetarian animals like cows with meat derived food was safe and we have 'mad cow disease'. Scientifically there is no difference between a Stradivari and a Yamaha. Scientifically there is no difference between a good steak and a McDonald hamburger. Yes, we believe what we want to believe, or in what scientific paradigmas are pushing us to believe. I suggest you a couple of books about science: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), by Thomas Kuhn Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (1975) by Paul Fayerabend Seriously, science is more complex then wikipedia, a bunch of scientists on internet and the marketing office of high end cables manufacturers.

David Bailey - Getting Into Something - Epic, mono BTW Does blood damage vinyl?