Thanks for the considered reply Keith.
As I said I’m absolutely not trying to declare, or convince you, that you heard no real sonic difference with your burned in cable. I was only raising points to consider if you are really trying to get careful perusing the truth of the matter. It seems you are in the “If I thought I heard an obvious difference I couldn’t have been mistaken” camp. That is of course your prerogative. But that conclusion really does rely on ignoring the power of bias.
I’ve been there. I had a very high end ac cable that I was positive changed the sound of my system when hooked up to my DAC or CD player. Everything sounded smoother, more lush, less hash, less bright, more transparent in to the recording. It was just....OBVIOUS! It was so obvious that I noticed a darkened rolled off character that started to make me question if I even liked my system with this power cable. When something makes you go from “I love the sound of my system” to “this is so different I don’t think I actually like it,” that’s so obvious why even question it, right? If I were in the camp of “my ears are always right” I wouldn’t question for a moment that the cable altered my system. Like you have not.
But....in the quest to put my finger on what was happening I had someone help me do a blind shoot out between this high end cable and my regular cheap stock AC cable. It turned out that once I couldn’t see or know which cable was in the system
I couldn’t hear any difference at all! There was just nothing of those obvious sonic traits I attributed to the cable there to cue me vs the sound of the stock cable.
It was absolutely head-spinning to experience this encounter with the power of sighted bias. A learning experience.
And unless someone has ever done it, or is inclined to test his perception this way, he will usually take the view “well that all may be interesting and apply to YOU but it doesn’t apply to ME. I KNOW what I heard.”
btw, blind tests don’t always fail to support audible differences. Often enough they support them. In my case I’ve correctly distinguished DACs and CD players, for instance.
Anyway, again, peace be to whatever way you wish to go about testing gear. No one needs to turn their high end hobby in to a science lab.
Cheers.
As I said I’m absolutely not trying to declare, or convince you, that you heard no real sonic difference with your burned in cable. I was only raising points to consider if you are really trying to get careful perusing the truth of the matter. It seems you are in the “If I thought I heard an obvious difference I couldn’t have been mistaken” camp. That is of course your prerogative. But that conclusion really does rely on ignoring the power of bias.
I’ve been there. I had a very high end ac cable that I was positive changed the sound of my system when hooked up to my DAC or CD player. Everything sounded smoother, more lush, less hash, less bright, more transparent in to the recording. It was just....OBVIOUS! It was so obvious that I noticed a darkened rolled off character that started to make me question if I even liked my system with this power cable. When something makes you go from “I love the sound of my system” to “this is so different I don’t think I actually like it,” that’s so obvious why even question it, right? If I were in the camp of “my ears are always right” I wouldn’t question for a moment that the cable altered my system. Like you have not.
But....in the quest to put my finger on what was happening I had someone help me do a blind shoot out between this high end cable and my regular cheap stock AC cable. It turned out that once I couldn’t see or know which cable was in the system
I couldn’t hear any difference at all! There was just nothing of those obvious sonic traits I attributed to the cable there to cue me vs the sound of the stock cable.
It was absolutely head-spinning to experience this encounter with the power of sighted bias. A learning experience.
And unless someone has ever done it, or is inclined to test his perception this way, he will usually take the view “well that all may be interesting and apply to YOU but it doesn’t apply to ME. I KNOW what I heard.”
btw, blind tests don’t always fail to support audible differences. Often enough they support them. In my case I’ve correctly distinguished DACs and CD players, for instance.
Anyway, again, peace be to whatever way you wish to go about testing gear. No one needs to turn their high end hobby in to a science lab.
Cheers.