Monstrous power cables

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. 

Pfffttt, listen to the music not your gear, period.

@audiodwebe , the power cords on your dacs are supposed to be different, meaning if you have already choosen the ones that are best sounding for the gear you are using.

More often than not, the ’wrong’ power cord will change the way some piece of gear sounds and even more if  that piece of gear is new to you, it may lead you to ’wrong’ conclusion.

I guess the best advice how to try something new, is to leave it in your system for some time and than after some period to change it with piece of gear you wish to compare it with (cord, or dac, or whatever)

It happened to me more than once, A-B changes,sometimes I could not tell the difference, or it was very subtle.Lets say, after a week (or two weeks for both things I wished to try) of listening, I could decide without a doubt which piece of gear fits more to my perceived reference of sound reproduction.

If you are honest with yourself (and why you should not be) the blind is not important, imho.

Recently read a good thought about blind testing written by Mike Lavigne, as he challenged anyone to assemble great sounding system by picking components by blind listening, vs his way with ’open eyes’....it was a joke, but he has a point

Thanks for all your suggestions.  I do appreciate them all.

Normally (like 95% of the time), when I compare a new component I’ll put it into my system for an extended period of time.  The only times it’ll come out quickly is if it bothers me and makes listening to music not enjoyable.  Those instances are pretty rare, however.  
 

With the recent comparisons, I wanted to be able to do a quick side by side test.  The reason:  I’d recently picked up three different streamers and DACs to test out and, as I don’t want to keep them all, wanted to figure out which one to let go.

First, I listened to the Stack streamer with the Denafrips Aries II combo for many weeks.  I thought the rig sounded great.

I then swapped to the Lumin U1 Mini with Benchmark DAC3.  I was, and still am, having trouble getting the Lumin to play nicely with Roon.  It keeps either stopping or getting jammed to the point I have to restart it.  Kind of a PITA.  It plays fine with the Lumin app but I haven’t figured out how to inport my ripped library which is also a pain.

The sound, though, has been quite impressive.  I enjoy this combo better than the previous one, though not by much.  This rig seems to extract a bit more info from the recordings.  And I had been listening to this rig for a couple of weeks, as well.

The reason I put the PSA back into my setup to directly compare the two was because I had finished taking fotos of the PSA unit, got the box from the crawl space, and was going to list it for sale.  But just for fun, and before bidding adieu, I thought I do the direct comparison.

And now I’m not so sure which I prefer.  Since I’m in no hurry I’ll probably listen to the two for a while.