@zyac39 Having performed several auditions, mainly of cables/connectors, the one thing that makes A-B ing very difficult is the fact that the connectors on cables need to "seat" (or settle) before providing their best perofrmance-
The settle time is different form cable to cable, but can be as much as 24 hours.
I do not know if this is the same for components (assuming the components are both burned-in), but he fact that you have to connect them with cables would seem to imply this should at least be considered.
How did I approach this...
- first, find suitable audition tracks and listen intently for "cues" in the music that can be easily recognised.
- a cue might be a cymbal strike, or a particular bass phrase or the dynamics of percussion instruments.
- I document each "cue" with my existing cable/connector
- listen to the second cable/connector and note differences in each of the cues
- I then go back to the first cable/connector to see if you can identify any further differences.
Most of my auditions of new cables/connectors were conducted over many days and after long periods of listening to the "existing cable" in my system.
In the early days I just listened for easily identifiable metrics - like brightness, bass depth and control, image etc... but as the auditions progressed onto higher end cables I ffound myself listening to extremely finer details like the subtleties of the acsoustics of the venue (live recordings) like the reflections of sounds within the venue and the noises generated by the musicians - even the sounds sometime captured of noises outside the venue.
I have around 60 audition tracks containing all genres of music and I listen to them frequently just to keep the cues at the forefront of my memory
Hope that makes some sense - Steve
The settle time is different form cable to cable, but can be as much as 24 hours.
I do not know if this is the same for components (assuming the components are both burned-in), but he fact that you have to connect them with cables would seem to imply this should at least be considered.
How did I approach this...
- first, find suitable audition tracks and listen intently for "cues" in the music that can be easily recognised.
- a cue might be a cymbal strike, or a particular bass phrase or the dynamics of percussion instruments.
- I document each "cue" with my existing cable/connector
- listen to the second cable/connector and note differences in each of the cues
- I then go back to the first cable/connector to see if you can identify any further differences.
Most of my auditions of new cables/connectors were conducted over many days and after long periods of listening to the "existing cable" in my system.
In the early days I just listened for easily identifiable metrics - like brightness, bass depth and control, image etc... but as the auditions progressed onto higher end cables I ffound myself listening to extremely finer details like the subtleties of the acsoustics of the venue (live recordings) like the reflections of sounds within the venue and the noises generated by the musicians - even the sounds sometime captured of noises outside the venue.
I have around 60 audition tracks containing all genres of music and I listen to them frequently just to keep the cues at the forefront of my memory
Hope that makes some sense - Steve