2. cables
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I see the issue with ABX blind testing

I’ve followed many of the cable discussions over the years with interest. I’ve never tested cables & compared the sound other than when I bought an LFD amp & the vendor said that it was best paired with the LFD power cord. That was $450 US and he offered to ship it to me to try & if I didn’t notice a difference I could send it back. I got it, tried it & sent it back. To me there was no difference at all.

Fast forward to today & I have a new system & the issue of cables arises again. I have Mogami cables made by Take Five Audio in Canada. The speaker wire are Mogami 3104, XLRs are Mogami 2549 & the power cords are Powerline 10 with Furutech connectors. All cables are quite well made and I’ve been using them for about 5 years. The vendor that sold me the new equipment insisted that I needed "better" cables and sent along some Transparent Super speaker & XLR cables to try. If I like them I can pay for them.

In every discussion about cables the question is always asked, why don’t you do an ABX blind test? So I was figuring out how I’d do that. I know the reason few do it. It’s not easy to accomplish. I have no problem having a friend come over & swap cables without telling me what he’s done, whether he swapped any at all etc. But from what I can see the benefit, if there is one, will be most noticeable system wide. In other words, just switching one power cable the way I did before won’t be sufficient for you to tell a difference... again, assuming there is one. So I need my friend to swap power cables for my amp/preamp & streamer, XLR cables from my streamer to my preamp, preamp to amp & speakers cables. That takes a good 5-10 minutes. There is no way my brain is retaining what I previously heard and then comparing it to what I currently hear.

The alternative is to connect all of the new cables, listen for a week or so & then switch back & see if you feel you’re missing anything. But then your brain takes over & your biases will have as much impact as any potential change in sound quality.

So I’m stumped as to how to proceed.

A photo of my new setup. McIntosh MC462, C2700, Pure Fidelity Harmony TT, Lumin T3 & Sonus Faber Amati G5 & Gravis V speakers.

dwcda
audphile1's avatar
audphile1
5,131 posts
 

 

roadcykler

76 posts

 

If cables do change the sound (they don't) it would be audible by changing any one of them. Swap out the amp power cable with a different one would make a difference were it true.

Were you a Mel Gibson double in Forever Young and they just thawed you out?

In all my years in this hobby I only ran into a scenario where two different cables sounded almost alike once. I had to really struggle to hear any difference. In was Zavfino Arcadia and some low end neotech. This was an RCA link between Sutherland 20/20 phono amp and Pass XP22 preamp. Both cables were cheap low end stuff that sounded ok - music was played by my system just fine. 
 

Not counting that instance, every time I swapped cables I heard a difference. Further more if I rotate the existing power cords in my set up from amps to digital and from digital to amps I can hear a difference. The result isn’t always good though. No blind test required. 

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,094 posts
 

No blind test required.

 

I just tested three cables put here by a cable maker in few minutes through youtube...

It is not perfect but very easy to spot the diffrences if you own a balanced system even with music through system/room i did not know with youtube ...😉

 

Double blind test is like randomized studies imposed by corporations over clinical observation by doctors often a way to "control" the message in the right direction ...

I used simple blind test in my experiments as routine ...

abx double blind test can be useful but it is in no way a proof of anything... A tool is not a proof...

soix
9,561 posts
 

In all my years in this hobby I only ran into a scenario where two different cables sounded almost alike once.

+1 @audphile1 This has been exactly my experience as well.  After many, many interconnect and cable comparisons there’s only been one instance where I could not discern any difference at all between two.  This begs the question, if cables make no difference in sound did I only hear it correctly that one time and was incorrect in hearing differences every other time?  If cables make no difference then my experience should’ve been exactly the other way ‘round.  If someone thinks all cables sound the same I can only surmise either their hearing and/or system is significantly compromised. 

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wolf_garcia
6,708 posts
 

My issue with having people over for blind testing is all the stumbling around and knocking things over. Otherwise it's great.

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