A-B testing of cables

Always a very emotive subject...

In my experience highly resolving systems yield better results.

Another approach is to consume alcohol or drugs or both.

"Another approach is to consume alcohol or drugs or both."

Sometimes that does more harm than good. Like the time when I cooked an egg on top of my Class A Pass amp. I didn't let it warm up enough, and I forgot to melt some butter on it first, like I normally do. I don't know how many hours I spent cleaning those heat sinks out.

"Like the time when I cooked an egg on top of my Class A Pass amp. I didn't let it warm up enough, and I forgot to melt some butter on it first, like I normally do. I don't know how many hours I spent cleaning those heat sinks out."

Manufacturer manuals could be more comprehensive regarding cooking instructions.

Several thoughts on this discussion.

I have no problems with A-B cable comparisons but I do have some questions about the Y-Adapters.
What are they made of and are they of good quality or are they cheapies? In my experience most adapters aren't made very well, I'll admit there are exceptions. Could the adapters be a bottleneck?

Maybe the cables you've compared actually do sound similar. I had this happen when I compared 3 different cables brands recently. They all sounded very good but very similar.

Cable questions of the profound "what is the meaning of cable" are always entertaining by right of how many clueless people are going to give you their profoundly ignorant and useless advice. Unfortunately far too many dealers and "experts" will give you advice that is almost as useless.

The advice you got about starting from the source to preamp had an element of validity due to the fact that this is the key interconnect. The catch 22 here is that unless the rest of the cable in the system is neutral regardless of how transparent it is, each colored cable adds another layer of coloration or veils detail in the case of inferior cable resolution. So you are in theory revealing more detail at the front but it won't be heard because other cables are acting as a filter.

So... while the first i/c is the one that will reveal the most detail, your other cables have to be able to allow you to hear both the detail and a lack of added coloration or distortion.

The price of cables means nothing, what is important is that you pick a company that knows what neutrality is and the importance of it. When a cable is neutral their $150 cable does what their $450, $800, and $3000 models do, just with extra levels of detail resolution. The entry level neutral cables are better than many manufacturers mid grade $3500 cables because those have coloration that cause the tonal balance to be out of kilter.

Once every cable in your system is neutral you can start doing single cable upgrades from the front back and you will see staggering differences.

In closing the reason you didn't hear differences is likely because the other cables in your system aren't letting you hear them.

I was a dealer several years ago and have tried the majority of big name cables, and by that I mean the manufacturer would send me full sets of every cable in their lines, I spent months properly breaking them in before doing tedious comparisons.

One last thing, most cables have break in periods of at least three weeks of nearly full time running. During that break in time they can sound so bad it's hard to listen to them, then they start coming around and the magic starts coming around. My guess is that many people have given up on great cables due to that.

Good luck