How are you hearing no difference?
Everything I've switched up in my systems has sounded different in some way, the exception perhaps being cables. Sources, amps, preamps, turntables, cartridges, DACs, etc. have all sounded different in some way. Speakers of course have the most obvious effect on sound. I'm not saying cables don't make a difference, because I have sat while someone swapped out cables in rapid succession and also switched between identical systems with different cables and heard differences. I've noticed differences in sound with some of the cables in my system, but mostly when I've replaced really cheap cables. I have spent a fair amount of money on power cords and interconnects, but have not bought any megabucks cables. If there are differences in sound quality for the most part they have been to subtle to notice. Maybe the rest of my system isn't resolving enough for it to matter or my hearing isn't that sensitive. |
Listening with just your ears does eliminate the effect of psychoacoustics quite plenty if you are totally blind, and you ask the in-store consultant not to tell you which one of the several amps, or preamps, or players, or cables, etc... in the lineup you are listening to... Particularly if the evaluation and results are repeated with consistency. I found there can be significant differences in performance between components of same price ranging from freeby earpieces given out by airlines in flight or 50C RCA wires supplied with old boomboxes and cassette recorders, all the way upto multi thousand $$$ wiring and high end speakers... Same thing for other components in the audio chain. While this has usually been the case, it has not been universally so... There have been some less than common cases where I have perceived little or no difference. G. |
guidocorona Listening with just your ears does eliminate the effect of psychoacoustics quite plenty if you are totally blind ... This is mistaken and a common misnomer. It is impossible to listen "with just your ears." Just as with vision, what we perceive is determined as much by our brain as it is by the physical hearing mechanism. There is simply no way to completely eliminate psychoacoustic phenomenona from a listening test. Those who completely reject scientific blind listening tests - and I’m not one of them - often cite that as a flaw in blind testing. It’s a valid point, but doesn’t completely discredit the value of such testing, imo.
... ask the in-store consultant not to tell you which one of the several amps, or preamps, or players, or cables, etc... in the lineup you are listening to ... If you want a meaningful blind test, it has to be double-blind. And there’s more to it than that; to be scientific, you need to match levels, and you need to provide quick switching while also allowing the subject to listen for as long as he likes to each DUT, such as is provided in the abx protocol. Conducting a valid, double-blind, scientific listening test is a tricky business. And even when properly conducted, it’s easy to misinterpret the results. For those reasons and others, I believe that audiophiles have very little practical use for blind listening tests. |
