How's This Sound ? - Cable Testing

Goroi, That #7. Don't stay up late -- Thats kind of hard not to do!

1. Burn in is a must for consistency
2. start with non complex music, piano ,female vocals
3. Do an elimination by a/b. note the dominant strenght on each, as this may be used for further testing in later stage
4. Do it by yourself...another person may influence you on your prejudices or biases
5. repeat the a/b when in doubt, look at using various types of good quality recording.
6. The final result is not always what is best for everyone...since everything will have been system dependent as to room acoustics/ speakers/equipments used.....your taste.
7. don't stay up late

Good ideas Nighthawk ! Once again you guys come up with excellent ideas >> THANKS !! If anyone else can add to this it would be appreciated ! I will be auditioning till Sunday 7/20/03.

I think switching rapidly from one set to the other is the WRONG way to do it. Hook up one set and listen to it for a few hours with lots of different types of music. As someone else said, take lots of notes. Use mostly acoustic instruments and male and female vocals. Ask yourself does it sound natural, i.e. like real life? Are the dynamics lifelike? Can you listen for hours without fatigue? Listen to solo guitar. You should be able to hear the sharp attack of the pick on the string as well as the note. Strings should sound resonant and non-screechy. Trumpets and trombones should sound warm and full sounding, not pinched and small. You should be able to hear lots of overtones on sustained piano.

Listen to bad as well as good recordings. Can you still stand to listen to the bad ones?

There are some cables (and components) that sound smooth on the first listen, but after extended listening you realize something is missing. On the other hand, some sound very exciting but ultimately are fatiguing. After you've made a first pass through each of the cables, try to rank them. Then concentrate on the top two, and listen to each for several hours. You should have an intuitive feel for which cable sounds the best.

I don't know what price range you are looking at, but, if you can arrange it, try to get some really good neutral cables to use as a reference.

Another method is to put an RCA splitter block at the output of the CDP. This allows you to hook up 2 sets of interconnects. These are then plugged into 2 different sets of inputs in the preamp, and you can switch between inputs to compare two sets of cables. (Sorry, I just noticed that you are not planning to use a preamp.)

jd

Thanks! All cable have been broken in a while ago.Running six different IC's , taking lots of notes using total of 3 cds , 2 songs from each.

Unclejeff is right on the money. Try them in conjuction with a good cabernet and it won't make much difference. I suggest Caymus, expensive but oh so nice.

I think this is a very good way to start. The problem you will encounter is that after running cables long enough to break them in you will have to remember how the previous cable sounded. I suggest taking lots of notes. More than you think neccesary. Each cable added makes the test exponentially more difficult, not additively.

Have fun, I hope you got some good cables.

Well, don't neglect burn-in time. this is bizarre but is very valid. One kinda unusual thing to do is to run one set of cables on the left speaker and another on the right.

Have your 'better half' change out cables and see if you can guess.

If it does not work the first time, try a good Cabernet. Recommendations are forth-coming.

Cables do make a differance. I do somewhat question differances between mid-to-higher end cables. the big jump is from Radshack/circuit City stock stuff to the designer good-stuff.