Monstrous power cables

If you can’t put a sentence together, or your post is full of typo’s, spelling and/or grammatical errors, I tend to pretty much disregard anything you’re trying to say. Especially when you’ve never even tried the equipment or component in question.

It’s always the same "blow-hards" posting in here with zero experience screaming at the top of their lungs that something doesn’t or cannot work. Usually these people don’t have a system listed. Ever notice that?

If you can’t hear a difference in power cables, great.

Save your money and buy some better equipment.

A power cord can absolutely change the sound of a component. To say otherwise just shows complete ignorance and a lack of experience on the subject.

Winner winner chicken dinner, we have grammatical perfection side stepping his panties in a knot. Honesty prevailing quite likely buying better equipment.

Question:  How many of you have done a blind test to remove confirmation bias in reference to power cables?

The reason I ask is I was comparing DAC/streamers the other day.  In the past, I’d listen to one then swap out to listen to the other.  Doing it this way I heard a difference.  But it wasn’t a swapping back and forth type of a comparison.

I finally connected the two setups I wanted to compare (PS Audio Perfectwave with Bridge II vs Lumin U1 Mini into Benchmark DAC3) at the same time using the same brand of Ethernet cables and XLR cables to my preamp so that I could feed Roon to both streamers and swap back and forth using my preamp.

When I did this, I knew which input was what and, using three tracks from three different artists, I heard a difference.  The Lumin rig offered more distinction around the instruments which made the sound stage appear both deeper and wider.  The PSA rig by comparison softened the images and blended the soundstage more.

I preferred the Lumin rig, but not by as much as I thought I would.  I really thought the newer rig would provide more of an improvement in sound since the PSA unit is probably 10+ years old.  But I did prefer the Lumin setup by a slight margin.

Then I thought I’d get my teen son involved in my testing.  I showed him how to play the tracks and how to swap them back and forth.  BTW, I had previously used a decibel meter to get the output volumes as close as possible.

On the first test track, I clearly heard the same differences.  So I knew which was the PSA rig and which was the Lumin rig.  Except I was wrong.

Surprised by this we went to test track two.  Again, I heard the same differences.  And again I was wrong.  I preferred the PSA rig on the first two blind tested tracks.

The third recording the rig I chose was the Lumin setup.

My son, sitting off to the side while performing his duties, said that on the first two tests the PSA unit offered a cleaner and more distinct sound in the higher frequencies.  I’m guessing he heard more of a difference with his 16 year old ears vs my 57 year old ones.  I didn’t ask him what he heard on the third test track.

So I’m a bit dumfounded by my experiment.  I came away from that brief test with the idea that the better sounding rig was recording dependent.  This now knocks my desire to upgrade my streaming device into a loop.  

The power cables used were different, however, and I might try this again using PC from the same manufacture.  

I've actually stopped even trying doing A/B comparisons and instead rely on my reaction to the music over time. My system is also not at the same level as many on this forum and I'm not a quest to continually be unhappy and wanting something more.

Everyone has a limited ability to remember exactly how something sounded.

I've read that cables always require time to settle/burn-in to sound their best so a quick comparison isn't possible.

With the level of "everything matters" that people experience on this forum doing an A/B comparison is virtually impossible.  Even with parallel setups using the same equipment, do we really believe that they are truly identical?  Are they plugged into the exact same plug?  They are using different inputs with slightly different signal paths.  The sources are not in exactly the same location, so their relative positions to acoustic fairy dust is different.

Then there's the fact that different doesn't always mean better or work, sometimes its just personal preference.

If you've ever seen an interview with Jason from Schiit Audio, you may be familiar with his comment that after a couple of beers it's really hard to tell a difference.

Some of what I'm saying is intended with humor, but if you take everything you read on this forum it's not that far off from what should be expected.

Your son's presence could have literally changed the acoustics in your room resulting in a change in preference for you.

I think anyone willing to be open to confirmation bias and placebo effect will come to a point where it's impossible to truly know which is better.  My standard is if I have to repeatedly A/B to form an opinion it must not matter that much.

OP,

Learning to listen takes time. It is a big challenge. Music is constantly changing… instruments, notes, timing, etc. one’s mind focus workes by concentrating on one thing at a time… but with music, that is constantly changing and our memories for sounds are not that good. So, this creates a difficult problem when comparing equipment. If the difference is big… not a problem, but if subtle it is much harder.

With experience, one learns the nomenclature of describing sound, and as you perceive and understand sound you can then be able to discern greater and greater subtlety.

Professional reviewers take notes because they are able to discriminate among dozens of variables. It’s like the number of terms Eskimo have for kinds of snow (true or not). Novices have a hard time discriminating and describing sound. What ever it takes to get your arms around different equipment is part of the learning experience. This relentless pursuit to understand sound reproduction is what allows you to master it. Keep at it, you are doing great.

For me. After a brief listen, which helps me identify any major different characteristics, I just listen to whatever it is for a week. Then switch, for a week. I know what my system sounds like. I listen to it 3 1/2 hours a day… every day. The more subtle characteristics come out over time.. they are processed by my subconscious… the more powerful side of your brain. A good way to look at your mind is the elephant and the rider… the elephant is your subconscious and the rider is you conscious mind (the dialog in your head).

Anyway, I know a number of very experienced audiophiles. We can very quickly identify differences between components with complete accuracy in minutes… blindfolded or not, since most of us close our eyes when we listen anyway. There are people that can hear, identify, and characterize I will never hear or understand. The more you try the better you get.