Testing Speakers ..Pics... Friend Gave Away $300 cables & more to me ... Fair Test???

[Pianist718]

Hi guys,

So, yesterday a friend of my who "retired" from this great hobby gave away some of his stuff that he had in a basement for some years now.

He gave me his expensive cables that are 4 times thicker than my previous ones (even though I had decent ones). He also gave away his

Sony C222ES player
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-vGArMhMkU00/p_158SCDC222/Sony-SCD-C222ES.html


Monster HTS 5100 power
http://www.amazon.com/Monster-10-Outlet-Power-Center-Stage/dp/B000AZJ268

Question ,.,...... when I A/B test speakers and my old ones did not have these EXTRAS ... is it still a fair test between speakers? receivers?

thank you.

788

789
center channel cable

790
Subwoofer cable

791
Cables for the new Sony C222ES CD player (will my CDs really sound better than my when I play them through Samsung BluRay via HDMI???)

792
Left and Right speaker cables.


Thank you for any info you can provide.

[GirgleMirt]

Question ,.,...... when I A/B test speakers and my old ones did not have these EXTRAS ... is it still a fair test between speakers? receivers?
Not sure what you mean...

It depends what your end goal is. If you really want to find out if the cables make a difference or not, the best way would be to do a blind test. Have someone plug cable X (without you knowing which is which), listen a bit take notes on how you think it sounds, which cable you think it is, then have them change or not change the cable to cable Y, again without you knowing what cable is being used, listen for a while, take notes, do this swapparoo (or not) a couple of times, say ten times, then check how many times you were right/wrong, and that should tell you whether you can hear differences, or not. (my bet is not...)

But the first test should just be to swap out the components by yourself and see if you can hear a difference. The problem with that is that you might think you're hearing a difference when there's not... And the blind test is how you make sure you're not getting fooled by your senses... Placebo is a bitch...

But anyhow, back to the original question. As much as possible, if you want to test cables, the cables should be used in the same test system. If you have say two amps, unless you're absolutely sure both amps are exactly the same and play exactly at the same volume, using different amps might skew the results as you might mistake hearing a difference in cables where the amps were different... Same for speakers, receivers, etc...

And a rant to conclude: It's funny how many people do error prone tests and then don't bother to test their results... Seems like the norm in audio, which is kinda sad, because then you have people raving about magic stickers on CDs, magic rocks, snake oil cables and all sort of nonsense... If only these people bothered to test their results, the audio world would be much better than it is...

[FirstReflect]

Well, very nice of your friend to give you a bunch of stuff for free!

Nothing particularly wrong with Monster brand cables - except for their RCA plug cables (component video, composite video, analogue audio, subwoofer, digital coax, etc.), which they flat out construct wrong with the shield layer only connected on one end of the cable, and RCA plugs that do not conform to the industry standard. But the speaker wires should be fine :)

If you're expecting the cables and "power conditioner" to make any improvements though, you're barking up the wrong tree, I'm afraid. The only thing any cable or wire can do is make things worse. Either the signal makes it from one end of the cable to the other with no degradation or it doesn't. The signal can't get any stronger, better or "cleaner" from a cable. Monster brand RCA plug cables can certainly make the signal going through them worse, though, since they have faulty shield construction on purpose, and non-standard sized plugs.

Everything that seems and appears impressive about Monster brand products is purely cosmetic. The "thickness" has nothing to do with the metal conductors inside. It's just the outer plastic that's thicker. Inside, it's the same, cheap 28 gauge wire out of china. And the "power conditioners" are misnomers. They're just surge protectors with very basic passive filters in a heavy case. There are no rectifiers, voltage regulators or active filters inside that would make them actual power conditioners.

Again, there's nothing particularly wrong with that. But it's not doing anything that a $20 surge protector from Home Depot wouldn't do exactly the same. The Monster brand version just has a much prettier case, and an insanely higher price tag for no good reason other than pure profit. To me, that gets into the territory of being misleading, and for THAT reason, I don't like Monster as a brand. People are throwing their money away on looks and branding, and not getting any actual performance benefits in return. But they aren't outright bad products. Just massively over-priced. And people are free to spend their money as they wish. I just think that if they were better informed, they'd chose to spend their money elsewhere ;)

As for whether it's "fair" to A/B test other equipment using your new Monster brand cables and such - sure, it's fine. The only rule with A/B testing is to only ever change one variable at a time. If you're talking about comparing some new speakers to your memory of some old speakers that you only every heard using your old cables and such, then that's a completely invalid comparison. You've changed too many variables, and using your memory as a comparator is completely useless for audio.

But having your new cables and whatnot in your system now, and doing comparisons no is no biggie. But just be aware that all you've got are prettier cables, not better cables. And if it's the RCA plug cables, you had better cables before! The Monster brand ones are purposely defective in the way they are constructed, and they belong in the recycling plant.