Blind Power Cord Test & results

...not even taking into effect what powering off does to solid state and tube gear for the first few minutes...

That *could* be a major compromise in a cord testing situation... unless one listened for a while to each sample under test.

One has to be intimitaly familiar with all of the gear being used and the recording in order to identify if there has been a change made. Picking specific parts of a song to use as a cue tends to work well, but if one wasn't quite familiar with the song or how it was specifically reproduced on the system to begin with, they would be guessing just like anybody else.

As such, short term listening tests when one is not familiar with the system and / or the recording is next to useless, especially when the differences may be quite subtle. Expecting someone to familiarize themselves with both a song and potentially different types of presentations at the same time is too much to ask simultaneously.

As such, these types of tests are basically set up to produce a negative right from the beginning. The one exception is when you get a highly trained listener with excellent hearing acuity. Even then, they are swimming against the current for the above mentioned reasons. Sean
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Been down this audio road before. The best you can do with an ab power cord test is decide which you prefer, with that particular system, at that time, with that recording. After deciding which cord is preferred, does that mean it will perform similarly with a different system? I don't think so. Excellent hearing acuity is a quantifiable thing like vision acuity. We may both view the same Monet, but see different things, have different impressions, though we pocess the the same visual acuity. The same goes for hearing, as well. I have golden ears. You have golden ears. I'll bet our listening experiences will be disparate enough to make us wonder enough....who ears are more golden?

Warren, what are you talking about? I think you're not paying attention.

Sean, I think you are incorrect to dismiss the process as completely as you appear to be doing, and I'm surprised to read your post. I'll bet that every one of us has heard differences aplenty on other peoples' systems with music they are not familiar with. The panel spent quite a bit of time up front listening to the system, the musical selections, and the two different sets of cords. We could all hear the differences, no problem, until the screens were put up and the test started. (By the way, most of us thought we identified the choices correctly.) The system's owner, who has a great ear and knows his system intimately, fared no better than many of us as far as I know.

We're not talking about Electraglide vs. Elrod here. This was $3 stock vs. Valhalla. I'm still hoping someone can offer a solid, rational explanation for how and why the testing procedure obscures differences.

Is everyone familiar with the old Stereophile Test CD where Gordon Holt reads his essay "Why Hi-Fi experts disagree"? As he reads through his piece he uses 14 different microphones. The differences in the sonic characteristics are huge. If the sound characteristics are so greatly affected by which microphone was used, I wonder why we get so worked up about differences with power cords, and the like, which, if they really exist, are so small that most people can't hear them.

And about Albertporter's postings...of course I always read them with care. He obviously has the time and money to experiment with equipment that I could not justify buying, and, most important, he (usually) does not resort to name-calling. However, on some issues I feel free to disagree. No problem.