"Wylie Williams" wrote in message
news:3rd3b.276870$o%2.127182@sccrnsc02
"Arny Krueger" wrote

However, I think it needs to be said that long term listening has
been thoroughly investigated under DBT conditions, and found to be
very insensitive when it comes to reliably perceiving small audible
differences.

I am not looking for small differences; as I certainly can't reliably
perceive them.

I wouldn't give up that easily.

I want to discover if there are any obvious
differences, and to identify them so I can, as someone once phrased
it to me, "specify my colorations".

That's generally pretty easy to do, if the differences in coloration
actually exist in large enough amounts to be heard.

And I may have an Audio
Authority amplifier switcher in my treasure trove of unsold store
leftovers in the chaos of my basement storage. Fresh question - Does
a switcher in the signal path degrade the sound?

It may or it may not. It's not just the switcher that matters, it's the
whole comparison system, cables, switcher, level matching, equipment
providing the signal, speakers, etc. We spent years developing this
switching hardware http://www.pcavtech.com/abx/abx_hdwr.htm to deal with
these issues.

I can find no online documentation about audio authority
loudspeaker/amplifier switchers, so they are unknown to me.

I always assumed
that a switcher would not be as good as hard wired, but I can't quite
figure how anyone would test except by subjective listening..

Switching well-done can be totally sonically transparent. However, setup and
verification can be challenging. The comparisons aren't valid unless there
is excellent level matching.

I eliminated switchers from audio equipment listening tests by means of the
procedures demonstrated at my PCABX web site.