Pat, the level of stress felt by a subject under such conditions usually depends on circumstances. It’s a factor that cannot be removed from any such test involving thinking, feeling human beings.
But I agree, it can be fun and something I always enjoyed when I was at Naim or out visiting distributors and dealers and comparing one thing from another.
Anyway, apologies for taking the thread slightly off tangent for a moment.
As a non native speaker of English, here is a new word that I have learnt today.
Soi-disant
Usage example:
Franzen is railing against is not mere tech obsession but, rather, the intellectual and spiritual poverty, the weakness and the obedience, of soi-disant “creatives” who buy what they’re told rather than rage against the machine, who are too infatuated with their wonderful little toys even to look up from them while the world burns. Maria Bustillos, “Jonathan Franzen, Come Join Us!” The New Yorker , September 18, 2013
Yes Richard, your post was no where close to be manic enough to be on here…
Could members also please refain from having rows about golden ears as it has upset my girlfriend a bit overnight.
Last year we were on a boating trip in the Amazon and my girlfriend had an unfortuate accident as she fell off the boat into a shoal of piranha. Luckily her ears were so beautiful and tasty looking the piranha went for them first and we managed to get her out the water before any further damage was done.
Sadly we could not save her ears so she has had to wear prosthetics ever since and is a bit touchy about the subject although she’s still beautiful to me…
Way back when, Mike Stewart at Studio99 used to play around with blind demos. I’ll never forget the Panasonic Direct Drive with SME3 and Sure V15III vs Linn Sondek with KMAL arm and Decca London. We also used to have fun trying to detect concert halls from recordings, not to mention orchestras etc, pianos and so on. Sometimes he would have the mastertapes and we’d do blind comparisons of them with LPs
I’m sure most of you know this, but it’s important when comparing switches and cables to pick a track that has lots of contrast, pick an instrument, and hear what that single instrument does when swapping. My own test track was/is Ahmad Jamal’s “Ahmad’s Blues,” in particular the early piano roll he does. Does it sound like a piano or just a bunch of tinkling? Does it mush together, or how easily can you discern the individual keys? Then move onto the bass. I never really concerned myself with the drums as they are more background on this track than the piano and bass.
Because the changes can be so subtle, it might be hard to discern sometimes in A/B if one just listens to a busy track as a whole. Then, I leave my choice in and see how it works in the long run, over all kinds of music, and whether it’s more fatiguing or not, depending on the state of my ears/mind, which can change day to day, even hour to hour.
Hi Peder,
I added a catalyst 2960 SI to an already in use caralyst 2960 . I’m keen to kwown what PSU you use for both Cisco’s. Didn’t open up the switch yet to check how to bypass the internal PS.
I have tried a number of different cables for interconnects and for ethernet - because I’m intrigued. I did not do blind testing - I don’t have the facilities to do that. However, as I have said in previous posts, I could not say, hand on heart, that I heard a difference. I’m slightly surprised that the interconnects did not seem noticeably different (I think there was a slight difference, but can’t be sure that it was real rather than expectation - but in any case it was not always different and not by much even when it was different). The ethernet cable changes made no difference whatsoever.
But, all that (as far as you are/should be concerned) is just anecdote. As are your thousands and thousands (did you count them?) - and we know nothing of their systems, mood, how they tested etc. I thought that you had some sort of science training - in psychology, wasn’t it? You should be very familiar with all this - but perhaps you simply reject it. But consider examples such as the counting horse Clever Hans (I’m sure, with your college/university masters degree in psychology you are familiar with that). And you know, of course, of all those optical illusions which convince us that we see something that is not there. And there are many audio illusions that are also very convincing (continuously ascending notes, for instance). The ear/brain is not a precise instrument - far from it.
As for anecdotes - I remember when I was a marine biologist working in the Orkney Islands on some research. There was a local farmer who regularly shot black backed gulls. He swore blind that he had seen a black-backed gull carry one of his lambs away in its feet. This is quite impossible. But he was sure that he had seen it.
I am proposing that the discussion of audiophile ethernet cables and switches be banned on this forum because it divides opinion and often becomes too polarised.
I had actually written a long post to you a few days ago,.with a slightly different focus.
But it disappeared when I should post it.
I’ll see if I have time to write it again…
It takes time to write,.so you get annoyed when it just disappears.
• Innocent_Bystander,.we’ll never get this relationship below😉,but I appreciate your response.
And yes, I know what it’s like to type something out carefully and then lose it. Usually now if I know it is going to be long I draft using the Notes app on my iPad - but that is also not the best software and can lose things, too! Ideally I should do on a proper computer, but that doesn’t usually fit with when I can grab the time…
My studies of psychology were 25 years before and are absolutely nothing in common with my ability to hear differences.
I could have been a butcher with good ears, and my experience could be the same.
Ok Beachcomber, it’s not a problem. I hear, you don’t. However my vision is weak, so you probably can see more easily details in a picture and differences between different cameras than me.
As OP,.Can members Respect,.that we do Not use the word Boutique in this thread.
This has been repeated many times now,.so everyone knows this.
• Ethernet/streaming-cable are a better proposition,.that everyone can accept and understand.