@mahgister Sorry - it is not 'Pop-psychology' it is based on what has been learned from studying animals and humans. If you think that, sorry.
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 apologize to you because i was perhaps rude saying this...😁 I apologise sincerely ... But hearing is perhaps easy to trick in artificial condition but in natural one it is more reliable if not we would have less survival successes in tracking animals without being a prey ... And social decoding of language content, intonation , direction and conditions ask for a very refine tool not a tool easy to deceive ... i reacted to this common place and cliche about the fact that any senses cannot be trusted... ... Thats was my point among others in my posts ...
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Technology has been developing for almost two centuries now finding ways to fool our senses. We hear a human voice from a speaker- a diaphragm powered by an electromagnet that is nothing like vocal cords in an articulated throat. We watch movies that are not real motion. They are a stack of still images flashing at us. We internalize these false sounds and images to make them seem realistic- not real, realistic. Why do we see black on a white projection screen? Because our senses are comparative. Dim the room lights and project an image onto a white screen and the darkest areas appear as black to us while the brightest areas still appear as white. We have become so accustomed to technology that we rarely ever notice the difference between real and realistic. I’m looking at this screen and it looks like the page of a book but in reality it is flickering at 60 Hz, or 120 Hz in some cases. But it looks so realistic. |
Dwcda: I just went back to the beginning of your post. We have wandered a bit from your original posting. First of all, you have assembled what looks to be a fabulous system. Very nice indeed. Congratulations. Putting aside the blind testing for a moment, when it comes to cables its easy to get lost in the weeds. The first rule of cables is that they should not get in the way of the music. That‘s heard a lot on these forums. My rule, if I do not hear an immediate difference, or improvement in a cable or power cord change, I go back a step and try again. I‘ve been involved in blind subjective testing in automotive but it was always done with a jury of four people. Test conditions have to be stable and at a minimal level. Testing was always done either in an open field or a hemianechoic chamber. I have a question. Having integrated subs into my stereo one time in the past, I struggled with getting the phasing right- or at least how I liked it. I see your sub in the middle rather than placed at a node. It is also forward of the plane of your speakers. Are you able to adjust the phasing of your sub? Ie, does your sub have a phaser adjustment? The sub could also be confusing your listening results with different cables. Did you try listening to different cables with the sub unpowered?
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