Cryogenically frozen plugs, hundred quid HDMI cables and now...

prowla

I am a hi-fi enthusiast, and I can hear the differences with mains cables and interconnect leads in my hi-fi.
But there is NO WAY a SATA cable can make a difference to the audio.

googler

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Cheap Cable
Data at start of cable: 0101010101010101
Data at end of cable: 0101010101010101

Expensive Cable
Data at start of cable: 0101010101010101
Data at end of cable: 0101010101010101

Which would you buy?

Either it works perfectly or not at all. It is only when you are genuinely clueless about how it works that you can see any scope for a difference in performance between a cheap digital cable and an expensive one. Mr Steward has thrown away his reputation on this one.

I'd buy either

1. The one that I could afford, or if I could afford either of them;

2. The one that sounded the best, given that I had the opportunity to compare them.

It's not an issue of whether or not I understand digital transmission media, the mechanics (or science) of such transmission, etc - I'm merely suggesting that those posting here and in response to Mr Steward's review are arguing from the basis of the 'science' that they accept as current, whereas there's always the possibility that science moves on, and unearths new truths.

We may find that there's more to it than the 1s and 0s.

Maybe, just maybe, the perceived differences that Mr Steward and other Hi Fi Reviewers write about and claim to hear are due to some physical or electrical phenomenon that isn't in the physics books yet. I don't know. But by the same token, I don't see any mileage in terming Mr Steward of limited intelligence because of what he hears (and what no-one in this forum has actually heard yet....)

Hammyman

googler wrote: »

Again, WHY?

For the love of god...DOES NOBODY ACTUALLY THINK FOR THEMSELVES ANYMORE?

What does a SATA cable connect? A hard drive or optical drive to a mainboard. What is that transmitting? Data. Is it transmitting audio? No.

It ranks up there with gold plated HDMI and optical cable connectors.

Hammyman

prowla wrote: »

I am a hi-fi enthusiast, and I can hear the differences with mains cables and interconnect leads in my hi-fi.

I'd flipping well hope not. You hear the difference because of the improved screening which is preventing signals being transferred to the amplifier stages. A decent designed amplifier shouldn't have this issue to the point its audible.

Hammyman

googler wrote: »

No, still don't get why this unsupported assertion that it's 'physically impossible' for the cable to affect the sound disproves the reviewers assertion that it does (for him, at least). I don't see why this automatically tags him as being of reduced intelligence, and worthy of insult, either.

.

Are you the village idiot in question?

A SATA cable conveys 1 and 0. That's all it does. It doesn't convey an amplitude waveform which is subject to alteration by external influences. Its either on or off.

So if at one end of the SATA cable 110001100011000 is being sent and 110001100011000 is received at the other end, how can it be made any different? You would have to transform it in order to improve or degrade it and you'd have to have it done in such a way that it was notable which is basically impossible with digital just by using a different cable without making it totally broken.

Richie-from-the-Boro

"" It ranks up there with gold plated HDMI and optical cable connector ""

Yep ! - that's where I put it even after the assertion below:

“It might be 0s and 1s at either end of the cable but between the connectors it is effectively an analogue signal – albeit a square wave at a very high frequency.” Effectively, one software engineer argued.

- name the software engineer / name the company’s MD, two R&D engineers

DVardysShadow

googler wrote: »

I'd buy either

1. The one that I could afford, or if I could afford either of them;

2. The one that sounded the best, given that I had the opportunity to compare them.

It's not an issue of whether or not I understand digital transmission media, the mechanics (or science) of such transmission, etc - I'm merely suggesting that those posting here and in response to Mr Steward's review are arguing from the basis of the 'science' that they accept as current, whereas there's always the possibility that science moves on, and unearths new truths.

We may find that there's more to it than the 1s and 0s.

Maybe, just maybe, the perceived differences that Mr Steward and other Hi Fi Reviewers write about and claim to hear are due to some physical or electrical phenomenon that isn't in the physics books yet. I don't know. But by the same token, I don't see any mileage in terming Mr Steward of limited intelligence because of what he hears (and what no-one in this forum has actually heard yet....)

This is crazy. The functional requirement of a SATA cable is that Data Out = Data In. There is nothing more to it.

Either it does that or it does not. If the hard drive is the same and the computer and audio reproduction card are the same and the only thing that changes is the SATA cable, then there is no functional change. It is all functionally identical.

But then, everyone bought into the idea of the Emperor's new clothes. He was starkbol lock naked.

weegie.geek

I'm hoping googler is pretending to be a fool for comedic effect.

In case he's not...

There is no electrical or physical phenomenon at play here, googler. The data stream is 1s and 0s. If they're changed in any way, checksums won't match and they'll have to be retransmitted, and the corrupted packets will be discarded.

I won't argue that there are crappy analogue cable and decent analogue cables, to a point. Super high-end analogue cables are pure snake oil, as are cryoplugs and all that nonsense. These are electrical signals we're talking about. If these things made a difference it'd be provable using an oscilloscope. Instead, people who believe in this (more often, people who have a vested financial interest in having YOU believe it) say it's better because they can hear it. Scientific quantifiable proof vs subjective opinion? I know which I'd take every time.

But when we're talking about digital streams of data transmitted over SATA cables, the data either gets to the other end of the cable intact or it doesn't. There's no harmonics, SNR doesn't come into play, none of that hocus pocus the "audiophiles" will blether on about matters.

RobTang

googler wrote: »

It's not an issue of whether or not I understand digital transmission media, the mechanics (or science) of such transmission, etc - I'm merely suggesting that those posting here and in response to Mr Steward's review are arguing from the basis of the 'science' that they accept as current, whereas there's always the possibility that science moves on, and unearths new truths.

We may find that there's more to it than the 1s and 0s.

The thing is ... its not science, you're the one who brought it up, there is nothing more to find because we invented it in the first place.

Newton did NOT invent gravity it was around well before he was born.
SATA was invented did not exist untill we made it.
Please see the differences

Hammyman wrote: »

Are you the village idiot in question?

A SATA cable conveys 1 and 0. That's all it does. It doesn't convey an amplitude waveform which is subject to alteration by external influences. Its either on or off.

So if at one end of the SATA cable 110001100011000 is being sent and 110001100011000 is received at the other end, how can it be made any different? You would have to transform it in order to improve or degrade it and you'd have to have it done in such a way that it was notable which is basically impossible with digital just by using a different cable without making it totally broken.

You can get corruption of the waveform in transit, theres no guarantee (however unlikley) that if you send 010101, you will get 010101 in the end, unless the cable is cut you dont get "nothing" either you may get 00000 or say a single bit corruption 110101, the receiver has data which it has to deal with in someway, extra bits are added for error checking and somtimes error correction, but these do have limits themselves.

Assuming theres no error checking / correction then the quality of your transit medium is quite important.

NB im think more really really long cables and wireless tranmissions rather then say a 20cm long sata cable.

However I am not aware of any system that doesn't use a lot of error checking. We go to quite long lengths to ensure we dont have bad data, so much so that people are starting to play with systems that handle errors in a more analogue fashsion rather then spend time error checking.

rrf494g

I don't know, or care, about HDMI cables, but I do know about digital transfers into/out of/ around computers.

It is not all or nothing.

There are extensive error checking and correction systems in play that vary with the connection, the component and the software in use. There are hardware methods, such as parity checking/correction which invove adding extra information into the data stream so that incorrect combinations of bits can be detected and, in some cases, corrected, or methods that detect errors and request a re-send. There are software checking/correction methods that have "reasonableness" logic around the stream of data being sent/received ( eg rates of change at an aggregated level).

So

poor data connections can "survive" and produce "distorted" results where the error corrections carried out, do not exactly re-create the original data stream. Good data connections can then produce a more true reproduction.

This is not to say that high priced connection cables are better - it is to suggest that it is not all or nothing.
regards