02-Nov-2014, 16:49
I did a cable experiment this weekend. I had a friend over who knows nothing much about hifi, but does have a very good ear, something I know from hifi demos we have been to.
I have been thinking about if I should try an alternative to the "free with slave" Chrystal cable. Well, I have a couple of digital able lying around, so today we tried a true "ABX" test of three cables, the Chyrstal, a fifteen year old Ixos 105 with WBT connectors, and a Ecosse The Producer Digital Cable. (just over £2o new and normally used to connect a mid priced surround amp to a similar Bluray player)
I was doing the cable swapping, so I knew that two of the cables were relatively cheap (and one relatively old!), and one was maybe £500 to £600 retail.....
My friend had no idea, the cables were referred to as 1, 2 & 3, taken in a random order. Without going into too much detail here, after much swapping there was a debate over which was best, cable 3 having best impact and detail, cable 1 perhaps being a "nicer listen", marginally toned down in the mids with fractionally better bass, cable 2 was deemed worst of the bunch. To restate, I said nothing during the test, my listener eventually chose cable 3 top, 1 second, cable 2 last SQ wise, this was before we started discussing our respective observations. I think maybe I preferred cable 1 overall, but preferred the imagery and impact of cable 3. Which was which? Cable 1 the 15 year old Ixos 105 (there's one on ebay at the moment for £20 second hand), cable 2 the Chrystal, cable 3 the £22 Ecosse.
I have been thinking about if I should try an alternative to the "free with slave" Chrystal cable. Well, I have a couple of digital able lying around, so today we tried a true "ABX" test of three cables, the Chyrstal, a fifteen year old Ixos 105 with WBT connectors, and a Ecosse The Producer Digital Cable. (just over £2o new and normally used to connect a mid priced surround amp to a similar Bluray player)
I was doing the cable swapping, so I knew that two of the cables were relatively cheap (and one relatively old!), and one was maybe £500 to £600 retail.....
My friend had no idea, the cables were referred to as 1, 2 & 3, taken in a random order. Without going into too much detail here, after much swapping there was a debate over which was best, cable 3 having best impact and detail, cable 1 perhaps being a "nicer listen", marginally toned down in the mids with fractionally better bass, cable 2 was deemed worst of the bunch. To restate, I said nothing during the test, my listener eventually chose cable 3 top, 1 second, cable 2 last SQ wise, this was before we started discussing our respective observations. I think maybe I preferred cable 1 overall, but preferred the imagery and impact of cable 3. Which was which? Cable 1 the 15 year old Ixos 105 (there's one on ebay at the moment for £20 second hand), cable 2 the Chrystal, cable 3 the £22 Ecosse.