"Robert Morein" said:

I mean it in a more general sense, that ABX itself is worthy of
investigation. Ludovic has compiled a substantial list of comparisons, some
of which involve ancient, cheap, and lousy amplifiers against decent ones;
ABX failed to allow the listeners to distinguish what should have been
easily distinguishable.


Recently, someone wrote (Paul Packer?) that he felt it was like some
kind of osmosis. Listening for a longer period of time revealed the
true character of an audio component.
I tend to agree with that view, while the EE in me says that it can't
work like that (on a technical level that is).

FWIW, I accept things like bias and state of mind when hearing
differences, but I don't discard them, or, even worse, try to take
them away during listening.
That's why I think DBTs (or ABX or whatever version) are of little use
to the consumer, he or she will always listen sighted, with all
possible biases in action.


Perhaps. But I don't mean to imply anything remarkable about cables either.
It could be that the preamp had an unusually high output impedance. OTOH, it
could be that Macolm Hawksford is right after all. The distinguished cables
are an unshielded twisted pair. My point is, it is an observation of an
audiophile, that like so many others, is contradicted by the exponents of
ABX.


Hawksford's views are underestimated, IMO.
He's ridiculed by the audio establishment for trying to think
differently.


Well, the cable "tweakos" and "freakos" would probably be attracted to the
visible innovation in construction, as opposed to what worthy things can be
done under a PVC jacket. The other argument would be, there's less
capacitance to drive without the braid. That is the closest I can come to
explaining the sound, which sounded markedly uptilted compared to the
conventional coax cables.


The cable capacity of my RG58U homebrew interconnects is 67 pF/meter.
Even a common cathode circuit with a ECC83/12AX7 and Ra=100kohm should
be able to drive that without problems.
That's about as bad as one can get concerning output impedance.

--

"Audio as a serious hobby is going down the tubes."
- Howard Ferstler, 25/4/2005