If I have 1 foot of speaker cable X, and 11 feet of cable Y, will I essentially hear the quality of Y or will the one foot of X have a major effect on the sum? What if I reduce the 1 foot of X to 6"? Specifically, if I have one foot of Anticable, then connect 11 feet of Audioquest Rocket 33 to it, then I switch the Audioquest for 11 feet of Mapleshade Clearview, will the 1 foot of Anticable interfere with comparing the Audioquest to the Mapleshade? It's worth noting that the Anticable is a constant, so I suppose the worry is about interactions which it seems would be unlikely to invalidate the comparison.
My reason for doing this is below, but no need to read it to address the question unless weird ideas are of interest. It could help in understanding what I'm after.
I am going to make an impromptu randomized A-B cable tester. This is odd I know.
I'm going to fashion a Y from my amp that ends in two connectors for each channel, with the ends attached to a little piece of 2x4. Then I am going to make a Y cable at the speaker with two connections per channel.
I'll run brand A and brand B cables from the speaker Y to another little piece of 2x4 such that the first (speaker) 2x4 can slide along the second (amp) 2x4, thus making brand A or brand B the connected speaker wire. This means 4 connections are switched at once. The arrangement will allow easy movement between the cable options.
A-B testing only works if it's blind. I will take advantage of the breeze that blows through my listening room if I open up various doors. I will make a little seesaw with a metal ball on top, that rolls to the "down" end of the seesaw, and an arm extending up from the seesaw's center with a light flexible vane oriented parallel to the flow of air with a long flexible extension into the flow. When the air velocity is sufficient it will randomly push the vane and attached seesaw and 2x4 to one side. The heavier the ball the stronger the breeze needed for a switch, as the ball will roll to one end of the seesaw and keep it stationary until the assembly is blown to the other extreme (or, almost blown to the other extreme but failing and returning to the existing position). I won't know which cable is connected as it will be out of my view. Surely there are better ideas for randomization but this was the first that occurred to me. There may even be commercially available devices. Also I think I can accomplish the same thing with a fan with a smaller and more delicate version of the assembly.
Of course this is all pointless if the short little cable will negatively impact the sound of the long cable. Given how much people are willing to pay for 6" biwire connectors I fear this may be the case. Hopefully replies will be directed to the first objective, not my weird contraption, though that's fine too. Especially if you think of a way to avoid the negative impact of the short cable.
Thanks very much for your indulgence,
Jim
Edits: 07/14/12 07/14/12
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