"Andy Evans" wrote in
message
ups.com
I'm afraid it doesn't surprise me. Journalist for the
likes of What Hi-Fi
rarely seem to want to conduct any form of even vaguely
scientific testing.
The 'ears are all you need' brigade.

No, it's worse than that. It's possible to create a
reasonable environment even for subjective listening
tests - careful AB comparisons with equal volumes,
switching between A and B at the discretion of the
listener, warm up period before critical listening,
comparable parts (bell wire - what a joke) etc etc.

Switching at the discretion of the listener turns out to be a sticky point.
It is really only practical to do with relays, which is not a practical
problem since suitable high-quality relays are readily obtained.

Well, suitable relays can be readily obtained in the eyes of a knowlegable
technical person.

In the eyes of a wild-eyed "cables uber alles" advocates of magical
conductors, insulators, and geometries; there is no such thing as relays
that can switch cables *well enough*. Neither can any known connector or
even mere soldered connections.

It seems that the demonstration went out of its way to
police the listening tests so that none of the above were
possible, therefore worthless even in terms of subjective
listening, which was no doubt the intention.

The outcome of any *interesting* cable listening test is very likely to be
null. Thus, any knowlegable cable bigot will simply stand his ground,
demanding that additional perfectly ludicrous variables be controlled.

I'm not suggesting that this is what is going on here and now on UKRA, but
that's where it all leads, and has lead in the past.