AUDIO SCIENCE REVIEW and $50 to spend.........

@prof 

I have complimented your writing, you ability to convey listening impressions, and even your taste in components many times. 

In my very humble view, ASR caters to objectivists. ASR is the audio equivalent of populist politics. Beguiling to certain inherent prejudices and pre-ordained schools of thought. Saying that you borrowed a friend's pair of $4,500 cables is not the same as saying you sampled ten pair of cables on loan from a certain PA-based retailer that loans out high-end cables for a pittance. I have done that four or five times. 

There is no "absolute sound" and there is no objective measure of a subjective experience. 

To many, to VERY many in fact, the sound character of Benchmark gear is sterile and non-engaging. Only one reviewer (say what you will, Stereophile's reviewers have broad perspective and good cred) at S'Phile uses Benchmark gear and that would be Kalman Rubinson, my least favorite and respected reviewer employed by said magazine, a man that is way past his prime and his prime was not very high. 

At least Benchmark gear is well-built. What about the badly assembled drek that ASR claims measures well but has little in the way of reliability? My highly modded Thorens TD124 and Garrard 301 don't stand up to the state of the art current era competitors' best but guess what? They will still be reproducing great music for my grandchildren. 

If ASR were to be believed, hell, even if Stereophile's measurements were to be believed, tube amps would be reconciled to the dust bins of the universe and the garbage dump on Staten Island. Who has (had) better taste in home audio-John Atkinson or Art Dudley? 

The argument about cables is too tired to be tolerated by anyone other than fools. You might as well argue about religion and it's bastard cousin-reproductive rights. 

You're a good guy Prof. I by the way have no conviction that my view is correct. It is only a viewpoint. I actually no longer believe that tube amps are superior to solid state, only different. I also have come to believe that vinyl is objectively 
AND subjectively inferior to digital in MY system. As to cables, I wish you could hear the impact that different S/PDIF cables between my Aurender W20 and SW1X DAC III B have on the sound. The differences are stark. Not quite as obvious but close is the difference in sound quality between various XLR cables between my ARC Ref 6 and two true-balanced ARC amps, a Ref 150 SE and Ref 80S. 

Something you mention that is a conceptual non-starter for me is blind testing. As subjective as this hobby is, there is no escaping human behavior and human limitations. Listening impressions take time. Time is anathema to blind testing. We humans can remember a particular feeling or impression but it is not reliably repeatable. With the benefit of time we can gain an average perception and that is all. This is the other side of the coin for so-called blind testing. "Sure you don't appreciate a difference-you did not have enough time to perceive it". 

It is certainly ironic that certain cable manufacturers insist on doing ABX testing to prove their wares. More times than not the "test" is rigged.