Cable auditions - Hard Work?

Oldpet, I find doing amp and speaker auditions much harder work for obvious reasons. My process for audtioning cables is a threefold process: 1) Put one cable at a time in my system and do no serious listening untill the amount of time for burn-in that the company suggests is reached. 2) Use the same 6 to 8 recordings that I have been using for the last 30 years to measure differences/changes such as timbres, soundstage, imaging, air around players, liquidity, bass/prat, high end extentsion, and details. Normally, anything new in your system will sound striking at first, but no necessarly an improvement. 3) Finally, and I think it might be the most important step, after about three days of serious listening, go back to your reference and decide if new cable really is an improvement over your older cable. I have auditioned some cables that were so unpleasant I did not wait for the three days because I knew that I did not like them, so why bother. Other times, some cables were so right that I knew that they were superior to my reference, which turned out to be valid, but I always go back and put the original cable back in, just to validate my first impression.

Save yourself. Make a choice then never, ever go back and do it again. Comparing cables truly sucks and should only be done with one goal in mind ... to pick one then enjoy it forever.

Bob

It is so hard, I don't even do it. I choose a quality cable based on reccomendations and price and hope for the best.

Pardales pretty much summed it up for me as well.

would suggest you upgrade to after market power cords throughout the system.. they make a big difference.. it is really hard to audtition cables without going through the powercord upgrade thing (also forgot to metion suspending the cables)

assuming the cable is broken in.... i let it "settle in" after installing it for at least one hour..the changes become much more pronounced..

its not to a bad idea to listen to a broken in cable with really familiar material.. the changes become may be subtle at first, but the longer you listen and go back to the old one, they become evident pretty quick (what can be bad, is when you hear something 2-3 weeks after you bought it that you dont like)... the more "tuned" your ear becomes and the higher the resolution of your system, it becomes pretty obvious very quickly ( not always but generally speaking)

you also might have to make small speaker placement adjustments to compensate for the cable depending on your speaker...

hope that helps,

mike