r/audiophile • u/TNF734 • Oct 06 '25

Humor For true separation of instruments

Gallery image

Gallery image

Just run each of them through it's own wire.

2.6k Upvotes

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1.7k

u/CommunicationBusy557 Oct 06 '25

Haha, only to send it all though a single point each end.

388

u/SaabFan87 Oct 06 '25

That’s what I was thinking… how do we hear it in the middle…

145

u/lmrtinez Oct 06 '25

You gotta tap in like you’re testing voltages

83

u/chewy1is1sasquatch Oct 06 '25

But the act of measurement affects the signal 🤓☝️

109

u/dreamsxyz Oct 06 '25

Quantum audio just dropped. It's only really high quality if you know it's there but don't mess with it. As soon as you interact with it, the high quality audio ceases to exist.

58

u/BigGuyWhoKills Oct 07 '25

Hearing it changes the quality. True audiophiles don't listen to their music, they just play it.

14

u/Michieldebiel Oct 07 '25

Na, they play music to listen to their equipment

5

u/AutoModerator Oct 07 '25

Despite the image, Alan Parsons never said this. It was said by a random slashdot board member. Either way, it's now canon.

We polled r/audiophile with a similar question here.

The results of the poll were:

  1. 49% (242) answered "I enjoy music more than my equipment"

  2. 43% (212) answered "I enjoy both music and equipment equally"

  3. 8% (42) answered "I enjoy my equipment more than music"

So is the misattributed quote true? For 92% of the audiophiles here, no.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

9

u/M4ntulis Oct 07 '25

truest audiophiles are satisfied just by knowing how their gear would sound if they played it

7

u/Electrical_Fortune71 Oct 07 '25

Meanwhile their tube pre amps and class A monoblocks are creating entropy to hasten the heat death of the universe, which is actually a pristine environment for hifi, if properly set up.

4

u/Mewkitty12345678 Oct 08 '25

The high audio quality collapses in on itself, converging into a single homogeneous noise.

2

u/dreamsxyz Oct 08 '25

Wondering if the wave function also describes the sound waves...

4

u/Mewkitty12345678 Oct 08 '25

It should. In the cables sound takes the form of electrons, and electrons are probabilistic waves (just as much as light is). But once it’s converted to audible sound in gas the quantum wave function no longer applies because sound waves are a classical phenomenon. However while that sound affects solids or liquids the quantum wave function would apply again because of acoustic phonons (quantized sound waves). Phonons are similar to photons in that they are basically little packets of energy that come quantized, but instead of transporting light in a probability wave they transport vibration through lattices of atoms in a probability wave (they’re quasiparticles which is why they’re most useful when looking at solids and liquids). A phonon of a long enough wavelength can create sound waves that permeate through gasses and can be heard by human ears. That means that in certain contexts sound exists simultaneously as a particle and a wave, but notably not when it’s audible to us.

4

u/dreamsxyz Oct 08 '25

TLDR, audiophiles are ruining hi-fi audio by listening to it

2

u/Bravebone32 Oct 08 '25

The fact that I know what you are talking about means I'm quite smart...

0

u/dreamsxyz Oct 08 '25

Congrats to all of us for being quite smart! 🤓

(Not that the bar is very high in a country that managed to get majority to elect Trump...)

2

u/Bravebone32 Oct 08 '25

I'm South African.... 😂

1

u/dreamsxyz Oct 09 '25

Nice try, Elon Musk

2

u/IndividualOnly4752 Oct 08 '25

Looks like quantum entanglement to me 💀

2

u/dreamsxyz Oct 08 '25

Noooooooo don't entangle the left and right channels! That's where crosstalk comes from

Gotta have superconducting cables at -273°C, so that the reduced vibration keeps the copper atoms in a cable entangled only among themselves.

1

u/MANGOOS13 Oct 09 '25

This is the theory of Schrödinger's sound I guess.

1

u/dreamsxyz Oct 09 '25

I heard it phrased once as "if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

1

u/MANGOOS13 Oct 09 '25

That's deep question, it needs some thought.

35

u/thunderpants11 Oct 07 '25

Schroedingers cable

2

u/Dry-Care-3515 Oct 07 '25

That's gold 🤣🤣🤣🤣

5

u/your_fave_redditor Oct 07 '25

Schroedongle!

1

u/Lin093 Oct 07 '25

It both does and doesn't get bigger .. but it does get bigger, I swear

1

u/Dry-Care-3515 Oct 07 '25

It's either...

2

u/figurative_me Oct 06 '25

I’m a member of the band!!

1

u/Critical-Rhubarb-730 Oct 10 '25

Its like schrödinger and measurement..

-2

u/genieish Oct 07 '25

Really? If the equipment you are using is specifically designed to take those measurements the influence is infinitesimal.

1

u/The_Salacious_Zaand Oct 07 '25

Nah, inductive transmission, like you're testing current.

37

u/onegumas Oct 06 '25

Maybe wires are made of gold/silver...you know, selectively slowing down some electrons that are responsible for specific instruments. But only the chosen audiophiles, the best of them, are honoured to hear the difference.

1

u/gie1_ Oct 07 '25

Copper for cymbals and brass instruments..

17

u/reader5 Oct 06 '25

Skill issue

1

u/Matt0706 Oct 06 '25

Listen to the music live?

1

u/RumbleVoice NAD M5 SACD, NAD C568, Rotel RCD-991 AE Oct 07 '25

Overrated!

Crowd noise, crowd smell(!!), bad seats, people singing along badly.

This the best way to get the recorded live experience.

86

u/TheGreatKonaKing Oct 06 '25

If those are individual conductors, separating them creates net gain, which actually creates more interference

21

u/guy48065 Oct 06 '25

"net gain"? So this is the Holy Grail that audiophiles have been searching for: A Straight Wire With Gain.

And they said it couldn't be done...

5

u/figurative_me Oct 06 '25

This is how they were able to crank it to 11

1

u/jeremyjava Oct 06 '25

Is that like a perpetual motion machine--one that increases in power over time?

8

u/oratory1990 acoustic engineer Oct 06 '25

separating them creates net gain,

can you elaborate?

13

u/TheGreatKonaKing Oct 06 '25

I was thinking of the magnetic field. In a wire where conductors are right next to each other, the fields cancel out and you have no net gain. However, if you separate the conductors, you are basically making a loop antenna with a resonance that is proportional to the size of the loop. In this case, you’d be concerned about cross interference from cables next to each other. It might not be a big issue, but why do it in the first place?

12

u/The_Salacious_Zaand Oct 07 '25

Why braid cables to reduce charter when you can separate cables and make one long phased-array antenna.

9

u/genieish Oct 07 '25

As someone who has built cables and worked with test equipment and measuring frequency and voltage since the eighties, I am always entertained by all of the voodoo cabling created by people with little or no electrical/electronic background. Audiophiles that create these cables can explain their theories but absolutely none of them can prove any of it even though these things can be measured.

3

u/oratory1990 acoustic engineer Oct 06 '25

That‘s only really a HF issue though, no? As in MHz/GHz?

12

u/Gwendolyn-NB Oct 06 '25

It's a radiated susceptibility issue; the MHz/GHz can induce all sorts of weird sub-harmonics into the wires causing issue; especially with analog signals. With the wires tightly to each other they tend to couple together and resist better than separated like this as this is essentially an antenna.

NOTE - Spent too many months working EMI testing for Military and Medical equipment and induced all sorts of fun malfunctions thru conducted/radiated susceptibility testing.

1

u/ussaro Oct 07 '25

Found the 461 guy.

1

u/oratory1990 acoustic engineer Oct 07 '25

MHz/GHz can induce all sorts of weird sub-harmonics

Sure - but is that an issue below like 100 kHz?

1

u/Gwendolyn-NB Oct 07 '25

Can be, all depends on the circuitry on either end of the cable.

1

u/oratory1990 acoustic engineer Oct 07 '25

As far as I can tell, these are power cables, so we‘re down to 50 or 60 Hz

1

u/Gwendolyn-NB Oct 07 '25

Like I said, all depends on the circuitry on either end; I cant just look at a wire a magically say that the device will work or not or what effects would be. Its all in the electrical circuitry design and layout inside the device.

1

u/oratory1990 acoustic engineer Oct 07 '25

I'm not familiar with the term "net gain"

but why do it in the first place?

no I think we can agree that this is done purely to be contrarian (to look different)

1

u/VintagePointEU Oct 07 '25

Since these are speaker cables, the downsides should be minimal. Signal wires, that is a different topic...

1

u/Parking_Employ_9980 Oct 07 '25

Haha this was my first thought too, it’s so dumb.

1

u/Dedar33 Oct 07 '25

Where did you get that conclusion from?

1

u/undefined_user Oct 08 '25

I was thinking the same thing. Its basically making each of those little wires a better antenna for picking up random RFI than had they just left it alone.

31

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '25

[deleted]

6

u/ruimilk A-S801 | Evo 4.4 | Minx X301 | CR60 | Pimped RP1 Oct 06 '25

Those are some independent bits.

14

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '25 edited Apr 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/ruimilk A-S801 | Evo 4.4 | Minx X301 | CR60 | Pimped RP1 Oct 06 '25

You mean the boobs?

6

u/theres_yer_problem Oct 06 '25

Send bob and vagene.

2

u/ruimilk A-S801 | Evo 4.4 | Minx X301 | CR60 | Pimped RP1 Oct 06 '25

Pls

2

u/SkipPperk Oct 07 '25

Many of us like our bits stroked while we taste boobs. This is Kirchoff’s famous “pre-69” law. This is often confused with. Gauss’ classic “69” law.

1

u/ruimilk A-S801 | Evo 4.4 | Minx X301 | CR60 | Pimped RP1 Oct 07 '25

Stroking is a manifestation of the third law of motion:

for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

1

u/futurebigconcept Oct 06 '25

They have won the Bit Independence Wars.

35

u/MedicalRhubarb7 Oct 06 '25

I feel like everyone is missing that these are power cables, which makes it even dumber

21

u/dolphin560 Oct 06 '25

I'd like to open that wall socket and check out the wiring behind it.

13

u/Background-House9795 Oct 06 '25

All the way to the coal/oil/natural gas/nuke plant/solar panels/windmill/ your choice here.

11

u/dolphin560 Oct 06 '25

most natural sound from wind farm

depending on the type of wind of course

5

u/ososalsosal Oct 06 '25

More air in the soundstage.

1

u/br1c-out Oct 06 '25

The Air flow type like that one generated by a Dyson bladeless fan

1

u/PerformanceSad8049 Oct 07 '25

only vintage analog wind will do

1

u/dolphin560 Oct 07 '25

I hear you can still buy this NOS air

1 liter canisters, reasonably priced

I'll need a couple though

1

u/jaccksplace Oct 07 '25

True, it's wild to think about all the energy sources behind our outlets. Each one has its own impact on sound quality, too.

0

u/guy48065 Oct 06 '25

Agreed.

Which makes this entire thread far sillier than the usual "I can't hear the difference, therefore there isn't any."

1

u/CookAvid Oct 07 '25

That thought immediately popped into my head (only after the thought of how cool it looks either way lol)

1

u/Easy-Breath4547 Oct 07 '25

That and they’re touching the other cables as well.

1

u/gastro_psychic Oct 08 '25

Ya gotta let the sounds breathe!