CABLE SURVEY

[GuillaumeB]

I recently found that a hifi enthusiast acquaintance of mine had a similar, but more rigorous, experience to my own.
I told him that after about 20 years of cable updates I decided to do a blind comparison at home myself and found that all the non-filtered cables I owned sounded the same. This was about 20 years ago now, and whilst I still use some of the expensive cables I had bought that is because I own them and they are nicely made, not for SQ.

His experience was not based on scepticism, as mine was. He was absolutely sure that there was a big improvement to be had from cables and had spent a fortune on his own. So sure was he of the benefit of these expensive cables, and so sure there would be a sound explanation and being an academic with PhD he sponsored a  student research project to investigate audio cables in every aspect, including blind listening tests with 40 (I think he said) young listeners all of whom had their hearing tested beforehand.
The student found no electrical reason for any of the cables evaluated to be different at audio frequencies but to his shock and amazement he himself also could not hear any difference in level matched comparison between his multi thousand pound cables the others.
Up to this point he was absolutely positive he heard an improvement worth spending thousands on.
He doesn't any more, so he sold the cables and used the proceeds more effectively.

I'm not sure I'd be able to reliably tell the differences between cables in a randomised blind test. Or between a 120 and 800 for that matter.

I'll still carry on buying audiophile cables though since they enhance my enjoyment of hifi. As long as I can believe I can hear a difference it doesn't really matter what anyone thinks. Sometimes opinions converge on specific products but that is hardly proof of anything, you just need to do what's right for you!

Guillaume