Re: setting up ABX tests at home

On Sat, 9 Feb 2008 19:43:25 -0800, Greg Wormald wrote
(in article <folrst02p34@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>):

> Steve wrote:
>> I want to set up an ABX test at home on different sources to see if I
>> can hear a difference. I am doing this for my own education and fun -
>> I don't want to start investing in SPL meters, switches gain
>> equalizers of other boxes.
> 
> Steve,
> 
> As long as you are doing it for fun, the set-ups you have specified 
> should work. Education is a different matter.
> 
> While ABX tests have their proponents, they also have detractors, and 
> such tests may not educate you about equipment at all. What both 
> proponents and detractors agree upon is that for short term tests 
> absolute sound level matching is a must. Many tests have shown that the 
> louder source is usually preferred.
> 
> The very set-up of much ABX testing (which is most often short segments 
> of music quickly switched), cannot test for what most music lovers are 
> seeking--long term enjoyment of music listening. A goodly number of 
> years ago I ABX blind tested some interconnects, and then chose the ones

> I preferred. Three months later I realised I was not listening as much 
> or enjoying it at the level I was previously. I found myself turning the

> music down or off. When I went back to my old interconnects my listening

> increased to it's previous levels of enjoyment.

I don't remember ever reading that there is any time limit imposed on 
listening to one or the other DUT during a an ABX test. It's proponents
are 
usually quick to point that out. There is no reason why you can't listen
to 
one component for hours before switching. 

Oh, yes. Cables differences are s****-oil. There is simply no phenomenon
of 
electronics, or music which would make one interconnect sound different
from 
another UNLESS it was purposely designed to have enough inductive and 
capacitive reactance to act as a filter at audio frequencies - and who
would 
want cables that purposely caused frequency response anomalies?

> Good luck with your testing, I hope it is fun.
> 
> Greg