AB Testing Experiences

It’s hard to do truly blind listening.  I have two SACD players in my system, and Oppo 105 and a Sony 5400 ES.  I have a Bryston DAC3 with 4 HDMI inputs, and both players output DSD over HDMI.  I have several SACDs where I have wound up with multiple copies, and recently spent some time comparing the two players, switching between HDMI inputs on the DAC.  Not truly a blind test, and the HDMI hand off isn’t instantaneous either.  I have also switched between one of the HDMI inputs and the Coax input that I use for the streamer and the usb for the PC, comparing rips of CDs, and again it isn’t blind.  I enlisted my wife to change inputs at one point, and she was nice enough to cooperate, but she was clearly bored, and it also led to the question on her part “Since they all sound the same to me,why do you need all of these different boxes?”  so heed my experience and don’t go there

cd318
Surprised that you can’t hear much of a difference between SACD and mp3.  I listen primarily to Classical and the differences between mp3 and Redbook are pretty overwhelming, let alone mp3 and SACD.  I do notice that when I play pop mp3 sounds pretty decent.  In fact I don’t own any pop recordings, I just Bluetooth them from my phone via Qobuz.

Simply putting a tube buffer with a pot in a tape monitor circuit is revealing how little most of this stuff matters to "sound.."  In the end it's not "listening" so much as toe tapping. Like Darren Myers sez. Involvement with the music is the only objective.

Our whole concept of tone balance is tied to volume. Change the volume, our perceived tone balance changes and no amount of listening experience will ever change that.

You seem to be trying to reference Fletcher-Munson equal loudness curves and not quite getting it right. So let me help you understand- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour
That's not tone. Tone is quality, not just volume. Two violins playing the same note at exactly the same volume can have completely different tone. You have confused and conflated these two different concepts. 

Increasing volume also brings out detail that can be lost at lower volumes again changing our perception and appreciation of the music.

No, volume alone can do nothing to "bring out details". Its true we can't hear anything at all if the volume is too low. But its also true high volume actually hampers hearing and obscures detail. You made a blanket statement that sounds superficially satisfying but has no support in reality. 

Nothing in listening experience will change that either.

Actually the more aware you are of these things the better position you are in to evaluate what you are hearing. In other words it makes you a better listener. Also if nothing in listening experience can change anything then what is the point? There's nothing to learn, and no reason to bother with experience. Another statement it probably felt good to write until its shown to be total malarkey. 

That post was ignorant level 1.

Pretty much. Only you realize too late we are talking about yours, not mine.

My first question of the OP's post is : What do you want to get out of your testing experience, and do you think A/B testing is suitable for those goals?