Fucking Physics. How Does It Work?

Hey. Remember me? It’s been a while, I know. But you’re used to it. You know how it is after a release. Lots to do.

Anyhow, I couldn’t let this beauty slip by without a comment. It seems this fellow, using his Naim audiophile rig, can easily hear “greater low-level musical detail and presentational improvements in the soundstage and the ‘air’ around instruments.”

Now, trying to talk sense to an audiophile is a quixotic task at best, but I’ll give it a whirl.

Dear Mr. Steward:

Despite what you may think you heard, speaking as someone that is heavily involved in the technology (and physical act) of music creation, let me state for the record that it is physically impossible for the SATA cable that connects your hard drive to your motherboard to have any bearing whatsoever on the “air” or “soundstage” of the music you listen to, unless that cable has experienced catastrophic failure, in which event, you won’t be hearing any music at all.

Mr. Steward, I’m sure you’re a very nice guy, who is only trying to make a living writing about that which you love. In that, at least, you and I are the same. In this article, however, you’re either lying outright, or you’re demonstrating the old human foible of hearing what you want to hear at the expense of the truth. It is fundamentally the same as a Christian or Muslim professing faith. “It doesn’t have to be true. It is enough that I believe it to be true.”

Since you’re obviously not clear on the technical details, your “music,” which is in fact a data file, is not really “passing through metres of CAT-5.” It’s not a physical thing that has to travel from Point A to Point B, possibly in a tiny dump truck. Networks, hard drives, and data files don’t work like that. It isn’t like speaker wire, where one could conceivably make an argument for quality (when, as you and I both know full well, the only thing that really matters is size and conductivity.)

In short, there are too many variables, up to and including the barometric pressure and relative humidity in your house at the time of your listening, to make any quantifiable statements about “soundstage” and “air.” All of these variables happen AFTER your D/A converter, though. Suffice to say that there is no possible way that an audio file streamed off a hard disk, assuming that everything is working correctly, can be affected by either the SATA or CAT-5 cables. It simply doesn’t work that way. You can consider everything before your D/A converter as a constant in any equation.

In closing, Mr. Steward, I would like to thank you for taking the time to inform us of an exciting new product, but it would be wise to consider that your obviously vivid imagination is playing a role. Either that, or the company gave you either product or money to say that nonsense. In any event, this deeply flawed article has called in to question virtually everything you have published, unfortunately.

Sorry ’bout that.
EDIT: Stretta had something to say on this subject as well. ’Tis here.