Pear Cable CEO Calls James Randi's $1 Million Offer a Hoax

Claim: The light from our $7000 lightbulbs will make your paintings look their very best!

Arguement: The human eye cannot tell the difference between light from a high-quality $50 bulb and these crazy $7000 bulbs.

Science: It can be shown that the various wavelengths from the two bulbs do differ.

Counter-claim: These differences are not perceptable to humans.

Test: Have those making the original claim determine which bulb is being used when observing the light from the two.
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Actually, from what I understand the difference in lighting is impossible to perceive at this very moment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/weekinreview/07hamilton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Though this experiment is only for CFLs and incandescent which actually is fairly close to the same experiment we are talking about.
 
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technoextreme said:
Actually, from what I understand the difference in lighting is impossible to perceive at this very moment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/weekinreview/07hamilton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Though this experiment is only for CFLs and incandescent which actually is fairly close to the same experiment we are talking about.
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What scientific basis is there for that conclusion?
Though as Professor Leslie at the Lighting Research Center has demonstrated, people can’t pick out the type of light a lamp is producing without seeing the bulb, seeing skin in its light is a giveaway. Mr. Gordon said: “Just stick your hand under it.
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So people can't tell what kind of light it is, except they can tell by just looking at skin? That makes no sense. "people can’t pick out the type of light a lamp is producing without seeing the bulb". WTF? What are they looking at then? "People can't tell what kind of sound they are hearing, unless they listen to it"??

I used light as an example before, and this article makes it crystal clear what I was trying to illustrate. Let us agree that looking at, say, something, not skin, something illuminated by light, so you can't tell what kind of light it is. (Again, we assume this is the case, to be able to discuss).

If you turn one light on, then turn it off, turn another one on, it might be you can't tell which is which. This is because of how the eye and mind changes light to always look white, (white balance). It really happens, perception changes depending on the light color. It is almost impossible to tell a difference sometimes, because the perception changes. (Except when we look at our skin, ignore that for now.)

If you do the test as I described, rapidly going back and forth from two slightly different light sources, same illumination, same location, what was impossible to see before, due to the automatic and inherent white balance change of perception, now it happens so fast that anybody can easily see the difference between fluorescent and tungsten lighting. The mind can't switch fast enough, you see a flicker.

This isn't theory, I have extensive experience with this, it is a problem with video equipment, a practical issue that has to be dealt with. Mixed or changing light sources become obvious when they change quickly, it becomes obvious and a pain, but I digress.

So using the example of light, after you determine there is a visible difference in two lights, you could, if you desire, test further about perception. But not knowing if it is POSSIBLE to tell, is not the same as trying to determine if a certain person CAN tell a difference.

This may be subtle to some, but it is obvious to people who work with lighting, and the same is true for sound. Subtle things with sound are beyond most people, but people who work with audio systems, and sound engineering, are well aware of things that most people can't even experience.

Trying to make the challenge about being more "danceable" is a good effort, but that isn't what was said by Randi.

He claimed that the difference is not perceptible, that it would be paranormal if that were true. Remember, the topic is about the MDC being a hoax. The Cable issue is the focus, but not the underlying conflict. It is about the Challenge. Is it a real challenge? Or a hoax?

Going back to the light issue, if somebody claimed nobody could tell the difference between light sources, as long as they can't see the bulb, or human skin, that it would be paranormal if they could, I would take that challenge in a heartbeat. Because you know, if you have a keen mind, that my method of rapid switching of the sources, would make that obvious, to even a casual observer.

Based on an understanding of human sight, and much experience with light, I would bet a million bucks that I could show that anyone can see the difference.

Same goes for audio. If the cables actually have better sound, I can set up a test where anyone can tell, just by observing the test, that they have a different sound.

The only way Pear can lose, is if they are telling blatant lies about the frequency response and characteristics of the physical design and materials. In which case, Randi will hand them their ass.

But screwing around with testing on a matter this well known, and easily tested, hints of something other than inquiry. On either side.
 
Let me repeat that.

If the cables actually have better sound, I can set up a test where anyone can tell, just by observing the test, that they have a different sound.

I didn't say you can tell they have a "better" sound, because that is impossible. Better is a value judgment, it can't be determined, except by popular opinion, but even still, that doesn't make it better, it means most people think it is.

What can be known for a fact, is if the cables have a DIFFERENT sound. Even if the cables are judged to be worse sounding, it only shows that the difference can be perceived. It is not possible, for the purpose of a challenge, to determine "better".

Back to the lights, it doesn't matter if somebody considers tungsten better if they can't see a difference, If a difference is possibler, that can be tested. (Ignore the skin problem once more). You can't do a test to determine that tungsten is "better". You probably can't even determine which lighting "performs" better. What does that mean? Cheaper? Last longer? Makes people feel better? Looks better? Less heat? What?

Light is a good example, because like sound, it depends on the observer for a subjective perception.

For example, if you very slowly change the lighting in a room, either color, or brightness, most people can't tell. Really, it just doesn't register on the senses. On the other hand, if you tell them the lighting is changing, but it isn't, they might perceive a change. Perception is very easy to fool.

Audio is even easier to mess with. Which is why I focus on reality, things that can be measured, facts and stuff, not opinions and tricky tests. A slow violin solo would be an excellent test piece for sound perception. It is single tones, with rich harmonics and overtones. It uses frequencies claimed to be better. A rapid switching of sources would immediately be obvious to someone with good hearing.

If there ACTUALLY IS any difference, then you can start mucking around with "Is it better", and "can you tell?", and all that jazz. But not knowing if there is a perceptible difference first, is just not scientific, it isn't a valid experiment. You are assuming stuff, and testing for something without showing it is there to test for. That is woo.
 
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If there ACTUALLY IS any difference, then you can start mucking around with "Is it better", and "can you tell?", and all that jazz. But not knowing if there is a perceptible difference first, is just not scientific, it isn't a valid experiment. You are assuming stuff, and testing for something without showing it is there to test for. That is woo.
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Ahhh... I get what you are trying to say. I agree and I think I said the same thing in one of my previous posts.:) Based off of my rudimentary knowledge of electromangetics the inductance and capacitance of the cable doesn't matter. The general rule of thumb for engineers is that the problems induced by a transmission line only really start to matter if the length of the wire is fairly long compared to the wavelength of the signal.
PS. Where are the people who actually know more than I do? I know your out there. I've seen your topics.
If you do the test as I described, rapidly going back and forth from two slightly different light sources, same illumination, same location, what was impossible to see before, due to the automatic and inherent white balance change of perception, now it happens so fast that anybody can easily see the difference between fluorescent and tungsten lighting. The mind can't switch fast enough, you see a flicker.

This isn't theory, I have extensive experience with this, it is a problem with video equipment, a practical issue that has to be dealt with. Mixed or changing light sources become obvious when they change quickly, it becomes obvious and a pain, but I digress.
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Yeah yeah. I knew that before when I said I could make you see people's head shrink/grow.
 
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Of course I was adding more stuff, so it is understandable. Now my response to your response has a quote of something you edited out.

Should I change it?
 
circuit_bent said:
Interesting, but surely the right question to ask is "Does this sound better than the previous trial?" or "Can you discern a difference?", rather than asking about the uniqueness of the sound.
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Of course that's the question to ask, though it should probably be a little less loaded. Like having the listener arrange four audio samples according to the perceived quality.

I'd be interested to know exactly how audio cables can add uniqueness to a sound if you've got some ideas there? In a positive sense at least?
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I certainly wouldn't deem any filtering positive, but I haven't just bought cables for $1000 either. :) I could imagine that a cable which acts as a bandpass could resemble the functionality of a loudness button, if one adjusts the volume accordingly. Of course it is silly to call the result "better" since such effects shouldn't be the purpose of wiring. But that's why we do a test in the first place -- proving that it is silly!

You mention filtering, but any kind of attenuation of the signal's frequencies will never be construed as making the sound better unless the original mix is very bad.
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I hope so, but it is still an assumption I wouldn't be willing to assert without further evidence. It is better to design the test in a way that takes this possibility into account, or we might be sorry later.

If it's actually enhancing frequencies and delivering harmonic content that's not present in the original recording, then it's no longer a cable. More like a cable/mix enhancer.
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Exactly! That's my point. Imagine the look on people's faces when they get told that the sound of their $1000 cables could be reproduced with some amateurishly soldered circuitry made from some old spare parts. The more sloppily done it looks, the better! :D

Also, such a cable would make a well mixed track sound obviously very bad to even a common person.
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That's how things should be, ideally. But it's a bad assumption to make in the design of the kind of test we're speaking of. It is very easy to fool oneself. Besides, I could imagine the difference to be so subtle that, although it's noticeable to the human ear, it might not be possible to say for sure which signal is the better reproduction of the original. Especially since any reproduction of the original requires some means of signal transmission.
 
Which doesn't help me at all. Can't see a thing.
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Hmmm... It's just an abstract for a paper about the same topic we are discussing. Unforunatly, the link contains the URL to the university and it won't work for most people unless your sitting in Northeastern University's library. I forgot you have to pay to look at the abstracts or even the actual journal.:( The name of the paper is:
AUDIO ANALYSIS VI: TESTING AUDIO CABLES.
Located in this Journal:
http://www.jstor.org/journals/01489267.html
Im just trying to help by providing prior research. Aparently the paper and experiment was written by Philip Greenspun and Leigh Klotz. Philip Greenspun aparently has a wikipedia article and he is from MIT but I have no idea if it's the same person.
 
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In my own experience with audio, I find it is easy to measure small differences but difficult to hear them. Measured differences need to be 'large' in order to be audible. Audio engineers use 3 decibels (dB) as the limit at which the human ear is going to be able to pick up on a change in signal level. As long as the frequency response plot is within 3dB of 'ideal', it will not be audibly different than the 'ideal' response.

Now look at Pear's frequency response plot:

http://www.pearcable.com/sub_products_comice_frequencyresponse.htm

The midband response is about 1.25V so the -3dB point is at 0.88V. The 'bad' cable reaches this value at about 10kHz, which means it does not significantly affect the response below this frequency.

So far it seems credible that the Pear cable might be better, but since we are trying to determine which is better, we should be interested in the difference between the two plots. Since the Pear cable is also down at 10kHz, this indicates that the actual difference between the two cables is less than 3dB.

At some frequency above 10kHz, the Pear cable appears to gain a 3dB advantage. However, there really isn't very much 'music' at these frequencies so human ears are going to have a difficult time detecting a change in the music at these high frequencies. This is why Randi believes that a measurable difference may exist but the difference will not audible in music listening tests.
 
Do you guys want to overcomplicate this any more?

You're all nuts. I can't believe I had to wade through all that tripe.
The Pear company claim that their cables provide a better listening experience compared to other cables.
Therefore a suitable, simple test is to have them listen to a piece of music with the Pear cables and then perform a virtual coin flip. 50/50 the cables are switched or the Pear cables are left in place.
If they don't consistently manage to detect when the less expensive cables are substituted for the second run then Pear have a problem.

What could be more straightforward than this?

Yes, the test is subjective because Pear's claim is that the consumer will personally find music to be enhanced with their cables.

And Robinson, I believe you rubbished the idea because of the greatly unscientific nature of having to perform a cable switch. Do you think this could give something away? That's why I came up with a wondrous, unbelievable idea....a partition obscuring the view!! Maybe the switch is performed in a different room! Also an idea that eliminates the cable switch idea (which is a bit unseemly) is a hub + mixer arrangement.

With a hot-swap of the cables, noise would be produced. I may well be wrong about this. I'm trying to find problems. This could be avoided by turning the gear off but this could add bias or at least could be claimed to be affecting the outcome (temperature variation). A workaround would be to remove the Pear cables each time and then either re-insert them or substitute the non-Pear cables. The person taking the test could be subjected to some music via enclosed headphones. This may add bias to the second listen via fatigue, so perhaps just fully enclosed headphones would do the trick to leave the subject no way listening for any clues during switching.

I don't know, maybe its only my dodgy cables that make a racket when you take them out of powered speakers?

The speakers could be turned off, the cables exchanged or not, and then turned on and allowed to rise up to its standard operating temperature. No possible clues for the listener and now conditions are uniform in every respect except the 50/50 chance of switching cables.

A hub is another option isn't it? Having essentially two inputs to the speakers, one for each cable routed from a mixer. A flip of a switch sends the signal down one or the other. That makes life easier doesn't it?

Anyway, the first paragraph where I claim that you're all nuts is the real meat of this post. I hope anyway.
 
There was some mention about simulating different cables by using 'filters' with the speaker cable. The problem with this is that more expensive cables are supposed to have less inductance, capacitance, and resistance, not more. It is not possible to use filters to simulate *less* impedance because adding a filter always increases it!

This does bring up an interesting detail: the crossover within the speaker enclosure itself. The Pear frequency response measurements were taken at the terminals of the speaker instead of at the terminals of the drivers (woofer and tweeter). The effect of the crossover is even mentioned on the Pear webpage as being responsible for the 'data anomalies below 150Hz". This is very significant because Pear themselves have proven that their cable will not improve the low-frequency response!

The lack of a change is the expected result. The speaker crossover is a filter placed in-between the speaker wire and the drivers. The crossover will place a large inductor in series with the woofer and this inductor will have a significant amount of resistance to it. For example, a resistance of 0.20 ohms is typical for a crossover inductor but a 12-foot 12 gauge speaker wire has only 0.02 ohms of resistance. Since the crossover is responsible for most of the resistance, tiny improvements in speaker wire resistance will have no audible effect. Even if a magic speaker cable with no resistance were used, that 0.20 ohms from the crossover would still be in the way and the magic wire would not have helped the low end in any way. Pear's own data shows their cable works just as well as their competition's cable, at least at low frequencies.

It is possible that cable inductance is limiting the high-frequency response. What's interesting is that a tweeter is going to need an L-pad in series with it to cut the signal:

http://www.usspeaker.com/L-Pad 100-8-1.htm

Tweeters are more efficient that woofers so the signal needs to be reduced to obtain a balanced sound. Obviously, the L-pad places resistance in series with the tweeter, so all of the money you spent on cables with less resistance was wasted. Hopefully, expensive cables will result in less inductance and improved high end, but as you can see, an L-pad can be adjusted to make up for whatever losses were caused by your less expensive speaker cables.
 
bjb said:
There was some mention about simulating different cables by using 'filters' with the speaker cable. The problem with this is that more expensive cables are supposed to have less inductance, capacitance, and resistance, not more. It is not possible to use filters to simulate *less* impedance because adding a filter always increases it!
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Indeed! I was just trying to come up with a listening test to prove exactly that, since audio woowoo's usually dismiss measurements out of hand. My idea was to show that if there's indeed an audible difference, it is probably because the woo cables are actually worse.
 
http://www.randi.org/joom/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=97&Itemid=27

Sir, I assure you that I’m quite familiar with such things as inductance, resistance, and capacitance as possible factors in performance. Well, let’s leave out the designation “paranormal,” then, since it seems that it intrudes on your sensitivity standards. Likewise with “golden ears.” As for the “interconnects” you mention, it would be my intention to simply mechanically – by hand – connect or disconnect the speaker leads, as dictated by the randomizer means we employ…
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Well, it looks like it is on. Let the games begin.
 
this could actually be an easy test for Randi to lose. The test has to be very sensibly thought out.

All theapplicant would have to do is make some awful cables with tons of capacitance and the resultant hi end loss..

He could then go saying "see how "warm" this cable is compared to the "brittle" ones?

This test could end up being pretty tricky to actually pull off
 
pipelineaudio said:
All theapplicant would have to do is make some awful cables with tons of capacitance and the resultant hi end loss..

He could then go saying "see how "warm" this cable is compared to the "brittle" ones?
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Ack. That's what I'm trying to get at, too.
 
robinson said:
The first issue, and most important, would be about the hardware. Do the super duper Pear cables transmit a different signal to the speakers? The obvious way to find out would be to test them. If in fact the claim holds up, and there is a different frequency of energy transmitted, as determined by test equipment, then there are grounds for the next step.

If not, end of story. Randi wins right there. Unless you can determine that one cable sends a different signal, what is the point of going any further? This ruins all the fun, so let us assume the manufacturer isn't simply committing fraud, and the scientific test, with real science type equipment and stuff, shows the signal is flatter, at certain frequencies.
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I disagree. In all fairness, it is possible that frequency response isn't necessarily the only measurable thing that could differentiate the cables, even audibly. Frequency smearing could be different: even under same frequency response patterns for both cables. So there might be other technical differences besides frequency response. Now, it would need to be determined whether any of those other differences are possibly humanly detectable though.

So I go back to my point. The actual interesting test, imho, isn't really so much about the cables but about humans, whether we can consistently perceive audible differences between cables in general, whatever their measured technical differences or similarities.
 
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