Had a weird exchange on a forum about ABX testing cables. I commented how hard it is to do in practice because of the time it takes to exchange all speaker & XLR cables, your mind can't retain what you heard. A poster said to record the sound from the various cables & compare. He gave a link to a YT video with 4 power cables that he tested saying the differences were obvious. Of course he felt the cable that he was selling sounded the best. Another poster watched the video & rated the 4 cables, knowing which cable was which as they were detailed in the video. He chose the video producer's cable as the one that sounded best. I found they all sounded identical. I took the audio from the video, snipped the same 15 seconds of audio for each cable plus a 5 second dead space & assembled a new audio tape with the 4 cables separated by dead space. But I made it with 7 cables represented, so some were duplicated plus the order was random. I posted it & asked for an opinion of the cables without knowing which was which. The second poster who had previously rated them said they all sounded the same. The owner of the original video rated them & said which were his 1st, 2nd & worst choice. He chose the previously worst rated cable as both the best & worst cable. His chosen top end cable was not in his rating.
After I revealed the results both posters said that it was unfair to include some cables duplicated as they felt they were being tricked. Then they said that the equipment was awful in my link & the room treatment was subpar. They seemed to think that I'd rerecorded the audio rather than just cutting it from the original. The original poster then said that he'd had a bad "listening day" and that by copying his video I'd distorted the sound. Both continue to believe that they are able to distinguish the difference in cables but apparently only when they know which cables they are listening to.
I've never encountered a situation where pro-cable dudes are directly faced with their inability to discern differences in their own data. I had legitimately been asking for advice as I was testing cables offered to me for trial by my dealer. I sent those cables back yesterday & will continue to use my Mogami cables. My dealer said that in 45 years no one had ever returned cables. Now he says that I didn't hear a difference because I didn't choose a high enough level of cable. He wants to come by with better cables & listen for himself.
