AB Testing Experiences

I’ve tried it with a Sony MP3 player and a Marantz CD player. I could hear no practical difference and felt a little unwell afterwards. Everything I knew told me there should be a difference, but I didn’t hear one. End result was that I moved largely into the digital is digital camp.

There may be differences but they are from obvious.

I’ve also tried it with different masterings of the same tracks and albums.

Most of the initial differences tend to vanish once the levels are adjusted to match (Mp3Gain etc).

Sometimes though, it’s worth the effort as one track will demonstrate clear differences in dynamics and zest.

Recently I have been comparing different masterings of Adam Faith’s EMI recordings (orchestra/ strings) from that wonderful but often neglected period of musical history - after early Elvis and pre Beatles. I found some significant differences which suggest that slightly different generation tapes may have been used to compile different CDs.

I’ve noticed that, rather bizarrely, as well as volume levels, even differences in CD art can make you decide in favour of one over the other.

In fact it can be so disconcerting that it’s better to use the same art or just turn off the monitor.

So I usually let the tracks play randomly via Windows Media Player without knowing which is which. If there is a meaningful difference it will become soon become apparent.

About 12 years ago I tried it with different brands of CDRs against the original disc. I did find that some brands were a touch closer to the original (the ASDA/ Walmart seemed to be an exact copy) than others but it wasn’t an exhaustive test.

I did something similar with burn speeds and thought that the 4/8 times copy was superior to the 48x copy until I forgot which one I was playing and then realised once again, there was no practical difference.

I would have thought that the slower speed copies would have less errors and they would be audible, but without a way of checking, who knows which copy has less errors? Or at which burn speed.

Blind a/b would be great way to level the playing field if dealers would let you compare speakers, amps etc in this way. Might be embarrassing too.

Can you imagine if you ended up preferring a Rega Planar 3 over a Planar 10?

@mahler123,

It wasn’t MP3 v SACD, just CD v 320kbps.
Maybe I should have tried classical.

We did try a few high-res discs (Dylan’s 2001 Love and Theft was one) but the results were not convincing. It sounded a little soft (analogue?) and we weren’t too sure about the legitimacy of the mastering, or even which layer the Pioneer deck that we used was actually playing.


’I enlisted my wife to change inputs at one point, and she was nice enough to cooperate, but she was clearly bored, and it also led to the question on her part “Since they all sound the same to me,why do you need all of these different boxes?” so heed my experience and don’t go there’


Yes sadly, enlisting help is very difficult, not to mention opening yourself up to further ridicule.

I used to put the comparison discs label up and try to load the CD player with my eyes shut!

I know, this is certifiable stuff.
Luckily there were no witnesses.

A better method was to record them onto Minidisc and set the machine to random.

I still miss Minidisc, it was a fabulous format. Especially for all us Nick Hornby types who love compiling top 10 lists and rearranging them at will.

Once again I suspect those reviewers who kept kicking it without actually comparing it unsighted to CD had hidden agendas to do so.

Oh well, maybe Minidisc will eventually be replaced by some form of Network player which offers equivalent on the spot editing versatility and sound quality.