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ABX testing with AQ Dragon power cords

I was talking to my dealer about how good the system sounds that he sold me. I mentioned that I had tried some new speaker/interconnect cables from a local amp/cable manufacturer & both I and the company boss agreed that there was little discernible sound difference between his cables & mine. He couldn’t understand why. He also told me that my room acoustics were amazing, top notch. He’d like me to bring my cables (& his) to his listening room & we’ll compare there. That’s for next week.

My dealer said that in his 40 years this has never happened & he was ready to rise to the challenge. He said he would send me a couple of AQ Hurricane power cords to try on my amp/pre and I’d be amazed. I said why bother, send some Dragons. He told me to connect them to my amp & preamp & I should be amazed within 10 seconds of comparing. Today I received a Dragon HC & Source power cord. I listened to some music I’m very familiar with through my Lumin T3 playing FLAC files from the attached USB. Then I swapped the amp & pre to the Dragons and listened to the same songs. No difference that I could tell. So I redid the test, one song at a time, switching back & forth. Still no difference.

I invited two neighbors over (separately) and asked them to look at my FLAC library & choose a song that they knew well. I played that for them with both sets of power cords. One said he couldn’t hear any difference between the two. The other said that one (mine) sounded like it had slightly more treble, the other (Dragon) sounded like more bass. I played a third version (turned out it was mine but he didn’t know) and he said that was the bass version. He was wrong & admitted that the differences were so small that he really couldn’t choose between the two.

I called my dealer & he asked if the difference was earth shattering. I told him no & he asked how that was possible when he just sent similar cables to another customer last week with a similarly priced system as mine & that guy said that the SQ improved 50% and was ecstatic. I said that that guy must have decided already that he was going to buy them and determined that for that money they must improve the sound. My dealer said that either my ears are those a near dead 95 year old or his last 40 years experience have been a sham. I suggested that he was selling & demoing a product to people that had a propensity to believe it worked & therefore it worked for them. I offered to have him drive here (4 hour drive) and listen for himself & I’ll swap cables while his mind is blown. We may get there yet.

I hesitate to post a photo of my listening room as experience tells me that those that are strong proponents of cables will pick it apart and blame a myriad of other crap  rather than recognizing that the 3 of us heard no difference on a high resolving system situated in a room would good acoustics... but here goes.

 

McIntosh MC462/C2700, Pure Fidelity Harmony TT, Gold Note PH-10/PSU-10 phono stage, Lumin T3/Sbooster, Sonus Faber Amati G5 speakers, Sonus Faber Gravis V sub.

dwcda
skeptikal's avatar
skeptikal
33 posts
 

The electricity came from a long way off, how is the last couple of feet going to matter?  In any case, the first thing an electronic unit does is convert the AC to DC, so it doesn't matter how pure the AC signal is.  But such arguments are pointless with these people, because you can't use logic and evidence to convince someone who never used logic and evidence to begin with.

roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,007 posts
 

@skeptikal 

So you don't think that what a person experiences through their hearing can be considered evidence?

skeptikal's avatar
skeptikal
33 posts
 

@roxy54 

Only if you do a blind A/B test.  Confirmation bias is huge and proportional to how much money you just spent.

csmgolf
892 posts
 

 

Confirmation bias is huge and proportional to how much money you just spent.

It is interesting that those that bring up confirmation bias believe it only applies to those that buy things that they don't find value in. Your confirmation bias is that science has everything completely understood. You are biased to never hear a difference, so you won't. There is a clear lack of understanding of what confirmation bias is and when it does or could apply. 

soix
9,538 posts
 

Although confirmation bias is a thing, that doesn’t mean it always overrides listening or that listening is not evidence.  Many of us here have spent years listening to and comparing different equipment and have come to trust our ears, but there are those who just can’t accept that and feel the need to continually chime in that we can’t possibly be objective.  Whatever.  There are many examples here where people (me included) have preferred cheaper products over more expensive competitors in non-blind comparisons, which would not be the case if confirmation bias ruled all and listening wasn’t valid evidence.  Is it infallible?  No, but it can still be useful evidence. 

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