Options for Cheap ABX Boxes

[restorer-john]

Sorting immediately came to mind.

That's what I use my comparator for. Sorting and preference. Amplifier differences are obvious. A-B comparisons are boring and way too limiting.

10 pairs of speakers, 5 amplifiers and 12 line sources- any combination- instantly. Just get someone else to move around the 5 amplifier outputs and it is blind. Speakers can never be blind unless I have a huge room, a big black curtain and a loyal helper. Not gonna happen at my place.

The other Yamaha unit I have level matches all the speakers via the tape loop or pre/power via gain pots for each source/speaker and it has a groovy Nixie speaker numbering unit via an umbilical.

A Technics 0510 same as mine on eBay at the moment in mint condition in Germany:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TECHNICS-M...55-0&campid=5337590776&customid=&toolid=10001

Here's some inside shots taken when I replaced the power meter bulbs recently. Hand made by Matsushita back in the day for the dealers. Handwritten S/N on the base plate. That Japanese person back in the 70s had better handwriting than me!

Can do BTL amplifiers (4PDT relays), but no balanced inputs of course.

 

[BrEpBrEpBrEpBrEp]

That's what I use my comparator for. Sorting and preference. Amplifier differences are obvious. A-B comparisons are boring and way too limiting.

10 pairs of speakers, 5 amplifiers and 12 line sources- any combination- instantly. Just get someone else to move around the 5 amplifier outputs and it is blind. Speakers can never be blind unless I have a huge room, a big black curtain and a loyal helper. Not gonna happen at my place.

The other Yamaha unit I have level matches all the speakers via the tape loop or pre/power via gain pots for each source/speaker and it has a groovy Nixie speaker numbering unit via an umbilical.

A Technics 0510 same as mine on eBay at the moment in mint condition in Germany:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/TECHNICS-M...55-0&campid=5337590776&customid=&toolid=10001

Here's some inside shots taken when I replaced the power meter bulbs recently. Hand made by Matsushita back in the day for the dealers. Handwritten S/N on the base plate. That Japanese person back in the 70s had better handwriting than me!

View attachment 133982View attachment 133983View attachment 133984View attachment 133985View attachment 133986View attachment 133987

Can do BTL amplifiers (4PDT relays), but no balanced inputs of course.

Nice... that's one hell of a device.

 

[BrEpBrEpBrEpBrEp]

I found that, especially when trying to buy locally, relay boards without a USB interface are quite a bit cheaper. Therefore, I've ordered one to try, and I want to put together a guide (along with the required code) to use one with an Arduino and a PC in order to conduct blind tests. Hopefully that combination would be available to basically anyone.