can i use my headphones to judge IC neutrality?

I don't get it. You want to test two interconnects, and you do this by listening to your headphones that is connected to the cd player? Unless the inteconnects connect the grados to the cd player, I don't see how this can be done.

At least, you need a preamp/receiver with headphone out.

i agree Zaikesman- and from my chair and in my system, the sub-$50 signal cable is doing about all of what you say a bit better than the $170 LAT's- interesting- the lay's sounded impressive and dynamic at first, with a plump fullness to the sound, which, after extended listening seems to be a distortion rather than the truth (again, in my system which has a CJ cav 50)- the signal cable just seems to exceed the LAT's in transparency and imaging- it's truly more holographic than i've ever heard in my system- both the treble and bass seem more extended as well- pretty impressive for 50 bucks- thanks

Viggen, what I interpreted the poster to be saying was that they wanted some sort of benchmark to judge "neutrality" by. I assumed the way such a test would work (although it wouldn't actually succeed), would be to listen to the disk through the phones attached to the CDP, then compare that to the sound of the same disk played back through the system first with one IC, then with the other. The objective would be to determine which IC, in the system, sounded most like the supposed "neutral" benchmark set by the headphone reproduction. So the IC's would not be listened to at all through the headphones.

that is correct- as an update, i spoke to Stan Warren who lives here in town, and i'm going to audition his homemade cables- now this is going to get interesting- he charges $50 as well but he cryos his cables- anyone had experience with this?

I did this very type of test when I was trying to decide on some Taralabs RCS Air 3's. The cable ran from my Meridian 508-24 to the Sonic Frontiers Line 2, which then fed my headphones: Grado RS-1. I was quickly able to differentiate between cabling. The previous writers have made some excellent points: 1) that the results via headphones may not exactly match a full system response 2) that this type of test is of dubious value if the headphones are run out of the CD player directly. Having said that, I felt that this stripped down sonic system got to the heart of the detail of the cable a bit more directly than a full system test, which has more layers of gear. I'll say again that I was comparing cables, not trying to ascertain some mythical benchmark of "neutrality". I also discovered that this combination sounded so good as to make me weep. I'd have to spend a lot of money on better power amps and speakers to match certain qualities that the RS-1 can deliver with a good front end.