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I disagree with Roger Sanders' claim

Posted by robertopisa (A) on January 1, 2007 at 02:07:13

I disagree with authorative Roger Sanders' claim that "WELL-DESIGNED interconnects sound identical"
- http://www.sanderssoundsystems.com/Cable White Paper.htm
- http://sound.westhost.com/cablewhitepaper.htm

This claim is misleading and apparently supported by citing an AB-testing Web site
- http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx.htm
in which no difference has been detected among tested cables.

I do not know the details of the experiment behind this AB testing. However, I'm sure that the majority of people in this forum can tell that there is a difference in a blind testing experiment.

I could also claim that all "WELL-MADE beers taste identical". My wife cannot tell the difference for cables as well as for beers. Simply put, she does not appreciate both and so cannot distinguish.

In general, a randomly chosen person is not a high-end supporter (we are a very small number of people in the world indeed) and so it's natural to expect that he/she cannot distinguish two cables in AB testing.

I think it's more correct to make such a testing with people having trained ears. They are the target of more refined cables and can distinguish in AB testing. I did this in my case:
- I used two kinds of cables, two pairs per kind
- All cables were built by the same person
- Shielding was 100% in all cables (suitable also for digital transmission)
- Connectors, soldering and cooking were the same
- The only difference between the two kinds was the wire: silver-coated copper vs tin-coated copper.

My Quad CDP2 player has two pairs RCA outputs, connected to the Quad preamp: one of them is variable-output, but a max level has the same sound as the fixed-output one. I also used a Musical Fidelity CDP and a laptop connected to an Edirol DAC, along with Grado SR225 headphone attached to the DAC. I switched the two cables and blind testing was made with the help of my daughter. I recognized the two kinds of cables 100% times during the blind testing. I was initially skeptic about IC cables but, since then, I recognized their importance. I also recognized the importance of tweaking and room treatment, since I could hear the difference. I live in Pisa and I'm available for any blind testing experiments using my ears :-)

Cheers
Roberto

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