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
soix
9,791 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
6,734 posts
 

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

benanders's avatar
benanders
234 posts
 

soix

8,549 posts

04-11-2024 at 08:24pm

 

“And this has been demonstrated to take less time than many audio gurus assume. If comparisons are not a literal flip-switch, subjects can be quick to lose, alter or invent, context. A “trust your ears” stance is necessarily deaf to this ubiquitous limitation, and I think that’s fine so long as the choice is not professed to be useful for everyone’s case.”

 

@benanders Lots of things have been “demonstrated” one way or another but doesn’t make something “ubiquitous.” I’ve heard consistent differences manually switching between many cables and did not need instantaneous switching to hear it, and these difference were consistent, clear, and repeatable. Some people, apparently like yourself, don’t possess the ability to do this so can’t trust their own ears, but it’s a very useful method for those of us who can.


Heyya @soix certain biological “limitations” in human hearing x associated cognitive functions certainly have demonstrated ubiquity. Despite that, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with you or anyone else trusting your respective perceptions in music kit. Professing those perceptions to be “consistent, clear, and repeatable” for others is, however, either in honest error or purposefully misleading. You need a proper assessment to claim broad applicability of perception(s), and typing disparaging speculation about someone’s hearing and/or audio kit doesn’t supplant that need, no matter how many times you do the latter. 😉

 

audphile1

4,068 posts

04-11-2024 at 09:19pm

 

@soix your arguments are falling on deaf ears.

 

@audphile1 WHAT??

audphile1's avatar
audphile1
5,397 posts
 

Lol

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