Quote Originally Posted by mtrycraft
But, how you did the comparison of th eplayers do matter a lot. If you didn't control for your biase, your results are rather unreliable. Bias is something you cannot control on your own, that is why a DBT is a must if audible differences is the only important issue for you. So, most likely no one knows, including you, what was heard between the players.
We all know on this board that it is really futile to debate the whole qualitative / quantitative sound comparison issue, but here is my two cents on this matter:

There are times when the difference between the sound of 2 components are relatively easy to tell, while others are next to impossible. In the listerning tests, the Arcam / Rotel were plugged into the rest of the system one at a time - even the interconnects were the same, and their sound were so different that it is a no brainer.

BTW, what I listerned to in all these sessions is the same song, in this case "Precious Things" by Tori Amos, from her new album "Tales of a Librarian". I found that it is a great song to do critical listening: Tori dosen't have a silky smooth voice like many other female vocalists, but she has wonderful singing techniques and her voice has amazing range and emotion that IMHO is quite challanging for any audio equipment. So for the Cambridge tests I paid a lot of attention on her voice, often focusing on the same passage over and over again. This time, like the Rotel / Arcam session, the difference became quite obvious when you narrow your focus on her voice.

To contrast these tests, I spended an entire afternoon last saturday doing another listening test with the new Cambridge at home. I took home a (loaner) heavy duty power cord from the dealer and I was curious on whether it makes any difference at all. Well, I used the same technique as above, using the same song from Tori Amos. I had the Cambridge on the floor, next to the power bar with 2 power cords plugged in, one is the $90 cord from the shop, the other is a freebie cord I borrowed from my computer. This way I was able to do rapid switch over between the 2 cords and resume listerning quickly.

Well, it took me 3 HOURS of listening to the same song over and over and over again before I narrowed down a passage that did sound different... about 2:05 into the song there is a passge where Tori sang the chorus of the song with the strings and guitar blasting in the background: At the end of the word "Theeeeessssseeeee" I was able to hear her throat's vibe in her "eeeeee" when I use the $90 cord, and with the freebie cord it simply sounded smooth. Towards the end of the 3rd hour I found myself swapping the cords, mute the volumn on my amp, fast forward to the passage, and listen to the exact phase over and over again.

My "subjective" conclusion: For that little difference in sound it's not worth $90 for the cord, BUT I do confess that I did hear a difference.... after I tried real hard. Now most of you can dismiss my observation outright, its all in my head, etc, etc. But what I have done here is that I have a repeatable method of comparing the qualitative difference of 2 components.... you can try it yourself at home with your own gears and make your own judgement. It works for me (for now) anyway.