Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Help with proper speaker comparison test

Thanks Mojo. You're right about the switch not being sufficient for my application. I will have to resort to just switching speaker cables back and forth. I will definitely have my friends over who are in the audio business to have a listen and will let you know what the outcome is.

Unfortunately, that won't give you a really reliable result. Audio memory is incredibly short--when we've done speaker comparisons at my house, I've used the zone 2 outputs on my receiver (and sometimes a secondary receiver) and balanced the levels. That way, switching was almost instant.

I think I would still try the A/B switch, its not very expensive and you shouldn't be pushing that much current. They're not expensive, so if they don't work as well as hoped or not at all, you're not out that much money. Just solidly mounting 2 of them to a board so that one person could switch both would make it near simutaneous.

Wheelz, in addition to the switching matter(and matching the levels precisely)which has been the most discussed, a "proper" comparison would have to be done blind with an acoustically transparent cloth concealing the speakers. As Dr. Toole once commented in a bit of hyperbole to an AES meeting where he was speaking on the necessity of double blind testing of audio equipment: "If you can see what you're listening to, then you can't hear it!".

Or a cheaper alternative would be to blind fold the listeners.

Yeah Randy, but they cheat and steal a peek.

You're not suggesting we gouge their eyes out, are you?

This might work a little better