How would you explain the results of the following (completely non-scientific) "test": On one occasion I was trying a new cable that I borrowed from my ML dealer (no money had exchanged hands), and while I was listening to a piece of music, my non-audiophile wife went by my music room, stopped, and asked me "what did you change?"; she had no idea that I was trying something new. When I asked her why she was asking, she said that the system sounded much better. Isn't that better than any DBT?
A phenomenon I have experienced is that sometimes on trying a new cable I hear a new instrument in the mix, one I had not heard before with the old cable. On returning to the old cable I found that I could hear that instrument after all, but it was not so prominent; BTW these are cables without any inline boxes containing active or passive components. Bob Stuart of Meridian also commented on it, in the context of DBT, but I can't remember his exact comment. How would you explain that?
BTW, I appreciate your being civil in this discussion. I normally stay out of these discussions as I have encountered some very insulting individuals here.
First off, thanks for your comment about civility. My whole purpose in posting at all was simply to try and persuade the original poster to investigate other avenues before jumping immediately to expensive cables. BTW, I notice you're in Ottawa...my brother and his wife live there (or just outside in Orleans).
Anyway, without actually being there I can't explain your wife's reaction without having actually been there. However, I can guess a few scenarios that could possibly apply:
-you opened or closed some curtains changing the acoustics of the room
-you moved the aiming and positioning of the speakers slightly when installing the new cables
-at an extreme case, you corrected an out of phase cable when installing the new ones
-your wife was in a good mood...things always sound better when you're mood is good (so my psychologist wife tells me!)
...and so on. It's things like this that make true blind testing so important. I'll stress that this isn't aimed just at you or other audiophiles--the same ability of the mind to make things up applies even to "golden ear" professionals. Show me a person who's been mixing for a few years and I'll show you somebody who tweaked the EQ on a mic channel, was happy with the improvement, and only found an hour later that the EQ was in bypass and he'd done nothing. Yeah, I've been there and done that.
(Horrible admission time...it's quite common, particularly with live sound, to keep a spare channel on the mixer so when a diva band member or obnoxious audience member asks for a change you can obviously push a fader or twist a knob without changing a thing. Never once have I failed to be told "that sounds much better, thanks" for doing nothing.)
Anyhow, whatever makes you happy with your system is great. All I'm suggesting is that checking more obvious culprits is worthwhile before spending money--and blind testing is the only way to stop pedants like me questioning your results!
