I never do A/B test, only long term. I have only one very simple test for myself.
When I have the tendency to constantly skip songs while listening I know there is something wrong with the playback chain. I allways follow my own nr.1 rule, never blame the recording. When the system is right it forces me to listen, it makes every music, nomatter if it is my style of music and nomatter how it was recorded, at least interesting to listen to. That’s my reference, nothing else really. I can’t explain in words what it is that makes or breaks it but I just know it when I hear it. I’m totally not interested in the tiny differences in power cables or ethernet cabling for instance. Yes, there are differences but these kind of differences are not worth the endless restless chasing for me. Biggest differences are loudspeaker/room integration and loudspeaker/amplifier/crossover interaction… The rest falls in the 10% or less category, cables all fall in the 1% or less category to me, yes stepping up from garbage to something decent has a pretty big impact but above that differences are becoming so tiny and absoluty not in any relation to the prices asked.
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