A/B test of interconnects - Will this work???

Unfortunately, the better your system, the more the presence of the Y-connector will affect the sound of both pairs of interconnects, and not necessarily precisely in the same way. Why not?--the cable differences can be heard, can't they?

Well, it'll work in the sense that you'll be able to compare the two, but why not take it a step further? Give the remote to a friend, so that you don't know which I/C is being used. Then try to guess which I/C it is. (Do this after you've listened to both enough that you think you know the "sound" of each.) Be warned: it is very, very hard unless you've got a really terrible I/C or some rather unconventional components.

a better test is to leave one in your system for aw hile then take it out and try another youll either notice a loss or an improvement. ive tried the switching deal and logically you think if you cant choose one over the other their is no difference, but for whatever reason it is difficult like that but when you take out a better component etc you will notice it.

Tieing the two cables together in parallel will alter the total impedance that the source sees regardless of which cable is selected to listen to.

Running the two cables into different inputs may change things slightly. Since i am a confirmed believer in cable break in, it is possible for one input to have more "mileage" or "break in" on the internal conductors than the other input selected. If you must do this, select two line levels that are commonly used so as to minimize the potential differences.

Other than that, i would say that this test might give you some idea of what each cable sounds like, but it would not be an exact duplication as to what you'll get if they were set up individually within the confines of a system. Sean
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I have to respectfully disagree with the positive responses. Impedence matching is so important that to monkey with that in the way that a Y would do will skew the results. I concur with the break-in period as there is in effect a "charging" process. I've spent consideraable time comparing interconnects and haven't really found much ambiguity when the right one was installed. I've had trouble picking second place, but first has been obvious. And don't expect the right one to necessarily be the right one for each of your components.