Power Cord Revelation

i hear difference among all my cables - both ICs and PCs. i think for some i would have no problem telling the two apart, whether in a blind test or otherwise. for example, for a while i used a pair of signal cable silver resolution XLRs. they were fast but had an unmistakable lean sound to them which, although may be beneficial on some systems, was not entirely to my liking. i then purchased and now use a pair of audio quest jaguars. the sound of these cables could not be more different - very warm and full sounding. i think in a blind A/B i would have little difficulty telling the two apart. but that in my experience is not the norm. generally differences are more subtle than that - although still important in terms of overall sound quality, and doing an A/B, as mentioned, often does not show anything other than this - that differences in audio are not and generally never night and day. although i doubt i would be able to pass most blind tests with my cables, i still believe that i can pick out differences - meaningful ones - among and between them.

to further my point. imagine a blind test between two drinks. in the first test, one is milk and the other is water. i guarantee that 100 times out of 100, people will be able to correctly identify which is which, because the differences between the two are so stark. but this is not audio. audio is a blind test between coke and pepsi. although there are clear differences between the two, if a person does many A/Bs back and forth and back and forth, the traits that made each stand out individually start to blur because the two although different are also by their very nature similar.

this is my take on cables and most audio equipment in general.