earwaxer9;631313 Wrote: > Brings me back to the days when audio kit used to be compared in the A-B > type fashion. Sales people had the time and the inclination to go > through the stuff they had and try to find a match that fit your > pleasure. > > Looking back, I'm not sure I would trust the A-B comparison now even if > it was still available. I need more time. I can tell "differences" with > quick comparisons but it would be hard to choose between good high end > kit using that method. With lower end stuff it works pretty well > because you are choosing based on what flaws you are willing to > tolerate the most.
You are quite right to be a little suspicious about A-B switching. In my experience it makes some types of difference between the speakers very easy to spot, for example changes in frequency response become very obvious - as do dispersion changes (given the right track and room). However, it encourages the listener to evaluate the speakers in small chunks of 5 to 10 seconds and this can be misleading. If I listen to a new loudspeaker on a familiar track of 3 or so minutes then I will slowly form an opinion over the whole track. For example, at the first chorus I might think the vocal sounded a bit shrill when it got loud - when the second chorus is reached I can listen out for this again and try and confirm that suspicion. Perhaps I will decide this time that it was not a problem. Perhaps after the track is ended I will pick another track which I have more confidence that the vocal is cleanly recorded to double check. If I had done the same test with an A-B switcher I may have switched to loudspeaker B and repeated the part of the track - it is conceivable that loudspeaker B is a bit sucked out in the mid and gives a much less forward presentation, in this case I may come to a completely different conclusion about loudspeaker A. There is certainly a place for the A-B switcher but it is only to be used with caution! Jack. -- jackocleebrown ------------------------------------------------------------------------ jackocleebrown's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10623 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=87592 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
