myturn":16f6a9z4 said:
When you say "You cannot" you should really be using the first person and saying "I cannot". Some people can hear the difference between some of the components and setups you mention in your list although I am inclined to agree about the cables.
Statistically, they can't. Not in double-blind tests, anyway. But the caveat is that the components in question should work correctly. Cables with, for example, high capacitance, or poor screening, will probably sound significantly different to others. But even then people can't tell which one is
right.
Many years ago (15+) I did a blind test between several high-end CD players with a view to purchasing one and could definitely hear a difference and one in particular stood out which was the one I ended up buying. I still have it now and it wasn't until earlier this year that the laser started playing up so it's off to the manufacturer for repair.
Even further back in the mists of time, before the digital revolution really took off, I auditioned more speaker setups than I can remember and tried a number out at home but one set stood out from all the others like night and day. As you can't beat litres for effortless grunt in an engine, the same applies to loudspeakers and my taste in music requires both grunt and subtlety which is not easy to achieve. But achieve it I did and still have those speakers and will probably be buried in them.
My hearing is not as acute as it was 20 years ago but I can still tell the difference between an LP and a CD.
Speakers and amps together interact, quite audibly in some cases. I had a hard lesson about this when I thought I'd try to find some new bookshelf speakers years ago.
I owned Monitor Audio MA7s (still do although they've been extensively rebuilt since), and used 3/5As a lot at work. I got a local HiFi shop to set up a listening test between three pairs of speakers - 3/5A and two now forgotten others. They had the same CD player as me, and I brought the music: some rock and jazz, some Telemann, and Saint Saens' symphony #3, which is evil on the wrong system. I didn't choose the amp though - it was a Mission Cyrus something-or-other.
I thought I'd start with the 3/5As as I "knew" them. 16 bars (I think - might be 32) into the last movement of the SS there is a loud entry of the 1st violins, with the signature crashing organ chord about the same amount later on. We never got to the organ: to my surprise the violin entry 'cracked' in other words it clipped, quite nastily. I was quite surprised by this, especially as the system wasn't very loud. Trying different speakers, it was clean. The golden-ears from the shop couldn't actually hear the effect!
I spent my lunch hour going over the same section with all three sets of speakers. He got a bit frustrated with me as he really couldn't hear what I was trying to point out! Two pairs were fine, but the 3/5As weren't. Back at work, it was fine on the 3/5As there, which were far more abused (regularly blown tweeters because of tape spooling past the heads). Assuming the shop's speakers were OK, and they were pretty much new, that left the amp. It turned out that the Mission amp couldn't drive 15 Ohm speakers properly! The other two pairs were 8 Ohms, and at work the 3/5As were driven by HH AM8/12s (which I still use today).
That amp had had rave reviews in the hi-fi press, but it wasn't properly designed. There were more than a few like that out there too.
But don't get me started on Bose
E.
PS: Having read Chas' post above, in recent years I've looked at the waveform of that CD sample-by sample using a direct digital copy. Insofar as I'm able to tell, it's clean.
