a/b interconnect cable comparison single ended

That's what i thought you meant Jim, but thanks for clarifying it. That would put the cables in series, but as we've discussed, it would be far faster and more convenient to do this than to have to manually connect / disconnect as needed when trying to make this type of comparison. Sean
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Thanks Sean for your comments. They reflected exactly the points I was making here.

The reason I suggested the tape loop methodology was because of Mrtennis' statement, "use the results to help determine which of the two cables alters the sound more than the other." The key word was "alters". I think of this as an objective, i.e., quantitative test. It determines "coloration" and not which cable is to be preferred over another at any link.

Adding another cable to the chain shows up the design of only that one cable. Replacing a cable in the chain is much more tricky as both cables' designs come into play. Here it is not so easy to know which one is more "neutral". They both may be severely colored but in different ways. But one might just "lock in" with the system because this cable is complimenting non-linearities elsewhere in the system.

Because the tape outputs reside somewhat in the middle of the line stage's internal circuit, after the input selector but before the level adjustment, the added cable here would simulate neither the adding of a cable in series from the source NOR in series with the IC to the power amp. But this would quickly show up any cable non-linearities. I can not think of a better way to sonically determine this.

When we insert something in series, we know right away what has been altered. We have added more than a second cable here (connections and switches) but if we repeat this with multiple cable brands/models, we can ultimately determine the differences between each and ignore other alterations that we observed to be common to all. And they could be very insignificant to the cable differences anyway.

Inserting a cable like the Cardas Golden Cross would immediately show how colored this cable truly is. It would score very poorly in a quantitative test. The added connections and tape montior switch here would be moot vs. the changes brought on by this added cable. But such a cable could easily bring on much greater enjoyment if it replaced another in the system....and thus trigger a highly subjective "qualitative" result. A much more linear cable would bring the detriments of the extra connections and monitor switch more to the forefront.

For final cable selection, rather than try to quantify how each cable directly alters the signal, I would listen to one cable at a time in a given link rather than to use the tape-loop approach. This is because I am evaluating one cable to another rather than one cable to "perfection". Each methodology provides a different set of results, quantitative and qualitative, that are valuable to the final choice.

As my system's resolution has improved, I have found that no matter where an IC or PC is used in the system, that cable's effect on the resultant sound is fairly consistent. Only the magnitude of the change is the significant difference. At this point in time, after hearing Purist Dominus affect the system consistently no matter where it was used, and the same for the Kubala-Sosna Emotion, I would deduce that a cable in the tape loop would likely affect the system in a similar manner if used anywhere else.

John

my preamp does not have a tape monitor function. other than my original suggestion or use of the y-connector, is there an idea other than using some kind of passive junction "box"
to compare cable ?

my original question, "which of two cables is more colored" would require a signal to pass through both of them. having two pairs of cable connected to different inputs does not accomplish that.

suppose cable a is somewhat subtractive and cable b is somewhat additive. i would like to find out which of the two is "distorting" the signal more, a or b ?

regardless of the question , "which one does one prefer", is the question, "which one is more accurate", recognizing that both cables are not accurate or perfect. by the way, david salz of wireworld suggested the method i suggested above.

Mrtennis how could you ever 'know' which is more 'accurate' unless you could control (know) the input signal. And, as I am sure you would agree, more accurate on square waves (or other test signal) may not be more accurate with a musical signal. So how can we ever do better than find that which we prefer? Perhaps with a standard cable, we could find another cable 'most like' our standard. Even in this case all we could say is that we could identify a cable close to our standard within the constraints of a given system.

There is only an absolute within the relative. Using the metric of what live music sounds like we seek the best recreation of this event. 'Accuracy of the whole' may well be more than a sum of 'accuracy of the parts'.

Or perhaps I am inaccurate!

cjs