To Blind Test, or Not To Blind Test, That Is The Question

Long term evaluation is still the gold standard. Lots of hours with lots of different music. Short term testing or A/B blind testing is prone to error. You can't evaluate a car by just pulling out of the driveway, you need to speed some time with it. 

I've not done much with blind testing partly because my interest (including time or budget) isn't at a level where I feel the need to seek upgrades that are not easily discernible.

I did a lot of A/B testing (not blind) with a set of Nordost Sort Kones under my SACD player in years past and thought that there may be some improvement, but never to a point that I considered that I've know if they were in or out in any type of blind test.  My system is more resolving now, but none of my equipment or current cabinet was a good fit for the Sort Kones, so I finally sold them.

I've dabbled with some affordable cable upgrades (most expensive was about $250ish) and felt that the improvement was immediate and obvious when I heard a difference.  I heard a clear improvement with two interconnect upgrades, but can really only say that there was an improvement from power cords on one of three components.  I consider that the upgraded power cords should be better than what they replaced even though I didn't hear a difference, so I kept them on the outside chance that they might benefit from burn-in.

I've found that differences are often small when compared A/B, but with some extended listening there's a different level of enjoyment.  My first "hifi" gear was an Integra receiver that I still have, so can compare to my current Pathos amplifier.  In an A/B there's a clear difference, but the receiver does not sound bad to my ears, but if I use it for background listening can start to grate on my nerves over time.

No, don't blind test, but ask yourself repeatedly these two questions:

• Am I hearing something better or different?
• If it's better, is it worth the asking price better?  How much am I willing to pay for this difference in sound quality?

To often too many of us will fork out any amount of money for the slightest of differences, to the point where more audiophiles than I can mention have ended up with horrible sounding systems because they kept chasing "different."

russ69 said it well and I agree.

Wire has become a religion. You’ve got to believe it to hear it! All of this is, like religion, faith-based. The wire believers read the spiels from ad copy men masquerading as physicists! Expectation bias leads to the ever more costly cable as somehow being more "musical". Add mythical concepts like " burn-in" and "directionality" and the cable hucksters are eyeing dollar signs! I welcome a blind shootout between some cheap and some expensive power cords.