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Morrow SP3 Review (Speaker Cable)

Chrispy

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Paul McGowan also seems to be a pretty savvy businessman, but that doesn't mean he believes PS Audio "innovations" like the "Noise Harvester" and the "Analog Cell" power amp front end have any real benefit other than to his bottom line.

Meh more salesman IMO, which doesn't necessarily cover the whole nut.
 

BluesDaddy

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Paul McGowan also seems to be a pretty savvy businessman, but that doesn't mean he believes PS Audio "innovations" like the "Noise Harvester" and the "Analog Cell" power amp front end have any real benefit other than to his bottom line.
The impression I got from PS Audio's responses to Gene was that he certainly does NOT believe it and worked very hard to obscure the fact without Audioquest getting offended. A "savvy businessman" doesn't shoot highly profitable partnerships in the foot.
 

BluesDaddy

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"ABX' tests are for determining if there are 'Just Noticeable Difference' (JND) between components. For larger differences, there are other ears only tests to determine preferences.
Now you've confused me. First, how is ABX using anything but ears to determine "JND"? And, second, what is a "ears only test" and what methodology would be used to control for confirmation bias, placebo effect, and other psychoacoustic issues?
 

BluesDaddy

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What???????
I take you statement as some sort of incredulity that I don't read assumptions into your original assertion. I'm now going to assume you mean ABX uses a switching device which somehow would then not be "ears only". Is that correct?
 

BluesDaddy

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Ears only is ears only, no other clues whatsoever -- aka double blind test, any variant.

If by "clues" you mean something along the order of "now were switching" I would say that ABX actually controls for that with the "X". Please give a practical example of a "double blind" test that is "ears only, no other clues whatsoever". That would probably help clarify.
 

BluesDaddy

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Why is it so difficult to get a straight answer out of some people here? Sheesh. YOU are the one making the assertions, it's a pretty simple ask - describe what such a "double blind" test would look like that doesn't use an ABX switcher. I'm not going to wade through an article to find what should take you all of five minutes (really less) to describe.
 

KSTR

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I'm not going to wade through an article[...]
If that is really a problem then you are in the wrong place here. Finding answers requires some mental and practical effort by the one who is asking. If you are too lazy to read an article of measily 14 pages then I cannot help you, Sir. Have you ever managed to read (and not only read, I mean, actually work through) a whole book, say, a classic engineering or scientific text book, to find answers for something?
 
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amirm

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If by "clues" you mean something along the order of "now were switching" I would say that ABX actually controls for that with the "X". Please give a practical example of a "double blind" test that is "ears only, no other clues whatsoever". That would probably help clarify.
It is OK to know when there is switching. Indeed it is required for testing.

What has to happen is that you don't know what it is being switched to. Harman speaker listening tests for example puts the speakers behind an acoustically transparent black screen. You know speakers are being switched because there is a 4 to 5 second pause while it shuffles speakers. But you don't know which speaker is what. You hear the sound of the speaker and that is all that you have to judge. Here, you give a preference score of say, 1 to 10 as to whether you like or don't like the sound.

Tests are repeated to assure that random guesses don't get in the way. So if you vote speaker A is a 9 in one instance, and then a 2 in another, then your vote may get thrown out completely due to inconsistency.

The tests are double blind because the sequence is randomized by a computer so the person running the experiment can't control what comes next.
 

BluesDaddy

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It is OK to know when there is switching. Indeed it is required for testing.

What has to happen is that you don't know what it is being switched to. Harman speaker listening tests for example puts the speakers behind an acoustically transparent black screen. You know speakers are being switched because there is a 4 to 5 second pause while it shuffles speakers. But you don't know which speaker is what. You hear the sound of the speaker and that is all that you have to judge. Here, you give a preference score of say, 1 to 10 as to whether you like or don't like the sound.

Tests are repeated to assure that random guesses don't get in the way. So if you vote speaker A is a 9 in one instance, and then a 2 in another, then your vote may get thrown out completely due to inconsistency.

The tests are double blind because the sequence is randomized by a computer so the person running the experiment can't control what comes next.

Thanks Amir, that's a perfectly reasonable and understandable explanation. In this example, how is the switching performed?
 

Frgirard

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Why is it so difficult to get a straight answer out of some people here? Sheesh. YOU are the one making the assertions, it's a pretty simple ask - describe what such a "double blind" test would look like that doesn't use an ABX switcher. I'm not going to wade through an article to find what should take you all of five minutes (really less) to describe.
Why an abx switcher? You can make one try per day if you want.
The prerequisite you don't know a, b and you don't know the sequence of a and b:x
 

BluesDaddy

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Why an abx switcher? You can make one try per day if you want.
The prerequisite you don't know a, b and you don't know the sequence of a and b:x
I was asking, not asserting. I suppose if you somehow don't know what you're comparing you could do a DB by yourself, but I'm not sure how a single person could inject a randomized X into it by himself.
 

SIY

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I like the "Bastard Box" :D

So did I, but the people who are convinced of night-and-day differences between coupling caps did not. At all. Lots of grumbling about how I must have rigged it.
 
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amirm

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Thanks Amir, that's a perfectly reasonable and understandable explanation. In this example, how is the switching performed?
Physical? If so, it is a pneumatic system that moves the speakers. Here is a picture of it when I took the test:

harman speaker test blind.jpg


Each speaker in turn is moved into center position where the Martin Logan speaker is.

If you mean the decision on what to play next, it is part of a simple computer program running on a Windows PC.
 

BluesDaddy

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Thanks again, Amir. My thought was more electronic - what is directing the signal to the speaker selected by the computer. The physical process is cool, though.
 
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