Do you think I recorded these samples a second time? I just plucked them off of the original and separated them with a dead spot from the original. There was no change in any equipment involved.
I see the issue with ABX blind testing
I’ve followed many of the cable discussions over the years with interest. I’ve never tested cables & compared the sound other than when I bought an LFD amp & the vendor said that it was best paired with the LFD power cord. That was $450 US and he offered to ship it to me to try & if I didn’t notice a difference I could send it back. I got it, tried it & sent it back. To me there was no difference at all.
Fast forward to today & I have a new system & the issue of cables arises again. I have Mogami cables made by Take Five Audio in Canada. The speaker wire are Mogami 3104, XLRs are Mogami 2549 & the power cords are Powerline 10 with Furutech connectors. All cables are quite well made and I’ve been using them for about 5 years. The vendor that sold me the new equipment insisted that I needed "better" cables and sent along some Transparent Super speaker & XLR cables to try. If I like them I can pay for them.
In every discussion about cables the question is always asked, why don’t you do an ABX blind test? So I was figuring out how I’d do that. I know the reason few do it. It’s not easy to accomplish. I have no problem having a friend come over & swap cables without telling me what he’s done, whether he swapped any at all etc. But from what I can see the benefit, if there is one, will be most noticeable system wide. In other words, just switching one power cable the way I did before won’t be sufficient for you to tell a difference... again, assuming there is one. So I need my friend to swap power cables for my amp/preamp & streamer, XLR cables from my streamer to my preamp, preamp to amp & speakers cables. That takes a good 5-10 minutes. There is no way my brain is retaining what I previously heard and then comparing it to what I currently hear.
The alternative is to connect all of the new cables, listen for a week or so & then switch back & see if you feel you’re missing anything. But then your brain takes over & your biases will have as much impact as any potential change in sound quality.
So I’m stumped as to how to proceed.
A photo of my new setup. McIntosh MC462, C2700, Pure Fidelity Harmony TT, Lumin T3 & Sonus Faber Amati G5 & Gravis V speakers.
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I mis-estimated my cond. I listened lots of other people’s violin videos at WBF this morning. My ears are in bad cond. Read few posts from #142. I deleted my words from #142 but you can read my words from a reply. I admit 1 time listen and feedback for 7 sounds (15 sec each) was my mistake. I was too confident with my ears. The sound of your dubbed video is different sound from my video. Editing video damages sound. That’s why I don’t edit my videos. You gave a good lesson. The sound is a hard field. I’ll be careful for future feedback of any sound. That’s why there was no natural sound until now in last 150 years of audio history. Alex/WTA |
If a cable makes your music have a wider soundstage that only means that it is defective, you should have the soundstage the mixer intended you to hear. Soundstage is done by placing the instruments using a pan pot on the mixer one side of the mix will have a louder signal than the other if the cable gives you extra loud images than that is the same as turning up the volume. Recording studios don't use uber expensive audiophile cables anywhere it's Canare or Mogami star quad in some form or another. If you change the imaging of what you are supposed to hear that is distortion. Distortion is bad. |
@soix , understood. Thank you for your clarifications. |
If a recording is played back at a different SPL (Sound Pressure Level) than the original performance, is that not distortion? Yet, recordings do not come with liner notes that specify the playback volume. I tried to convince my wife years ago that I‘m not playing the stereo too loud, I‘m playing it at the original recording level and any less loud would be distortion. She didn‘t buy it but as long as it is a song she likes… The size of the soundstage on my system varies with the recording. Some recordings are small and intimate and some go beyond the walls of my room. How would I know what is right if I have never heard the original performance? Based on my experiences listening to live music I judge what seems right during a listening session at home. There is a Roger Waters recording that puts voices 90 degrees to my left and my right. It is the most extreme that I have heard on my system save for the “laughing voice“ that is right by my head near the end of Dark Side of the Moon. Depending on speaker placement and room treatments the Roger Waters recording that I am referring to will make the imaging move forward towards the front of the room a bit from extreme left and right. So I have used that as a benchmark to ensure I have an optimum setup- assuming the artist intent was to have the sounds to the extreme left and right. |
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