Hi JohnT, sure happy to discuss in a constructive way.
JohnT wrote:Issue #1 The same keyboard, cable length, interface, channel, and DAW. Created a track, set levels, cloned track. No differences anywhere in the signal chain EXCEPT the cables.
So it was "one recording" (midi file played only once and recorded simultaneously in 2 tracks? (the original message said that "then record a second track" which seemed to imply that it was recorded again (?).
The issue that baekgaard raised of MIDI timing affecting two recordings is relevant if the MIDI track was recorded twice as different instances. I also was confused by the "no chorus", etc. observation which would not make any difference if there was only one recording into 2 tracks in the same take.
JohnT wrote:Issue #2 Not looking for a "statistical difference". When comparing the summed phase shifted tracks there is still audio coming through. Although EXTREMELY out of phase. Mostly just overtones/harmonics. Those are the frequencies lost with the inferior cable.
I propose that we do not know whether it is inferior cable. I would also try with two good cables and two inferior cables as well. There could be a phase issue in between the output and the recording (I seem to recall that one of those nice zoom digital recorders had some leakage between channels fixed in a firmware update).
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JohnT wrote:Issue #3 All of us that have been in audio know exactly what is meant by "Expensive/Cheap" cables. You will not get any type of quality cable (not just audio), for less than 60 cents a foot plus ends. Copper is not cheap. Ridiculous HDMI cable prices were a factor of the newness, unbalanced cables have been here for, oh, I don't know 80-90 years now.
But how does price imply quality? We see overpriced items everywhere.
There are all sort of factors in deciding a selling price, from attempting to recoup investment, to actual cost of the manufacturing, exploiting a brand name or just "pulling a fast one" to take the money from the clueless.
In many cases, cost is negligible, yet items are priced around what people are prepared to pay.
JohnT wrote:Issue #4 I made it clear no one could tell the difference in a live performance setting. When I record, I want minimal to no signal loss. I want the best sounding board, that's why I have a Nord and a Kurzweil. Why would I scrimp on the cables?
Sure, there is nothing wrong in buying those, but if the loss is not perceptually significant then the difference in price is not a factor in the kind of sound one gets (and so a bit of a waste of money). I insist the test did not demonstrate that the fault was with the cheap cable, only that those two cables tested are different.
To conclude that the cheap cable is the culprit needs to be validated in a different way. Why? because it could well be that the cheap loses nothing and the expensive does, or equally that both cables deteriorate the signal to some extent and the inverted mix is therefore non-silent. All the three scenarios lead to he same result. That is what I meant with "they just are different".
What one needs is a set of standard signals to compare what happens when they are fed through the cables. That would tell how the two products perform (oscilloscope anyone?).
I concede that it might sound like "overthinking" the whole problem, but testing these scenarios invariably involve statistics.
Cheers
Mr_-G-