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Re: Perhaps A Different Idea On DBT's?

I considered this idea a long time ago but never got around to building one. I considered using make-before-break relays to avoid momentarily unloading and then reloading the amplifier. It occurred to me that one drawback of this test is that it compares two potentially flawed pieces of hardware. A better test IMO would be testin each set of wires individually against a shunt. The shunt is the idealized substitute for one of the A/B test elements. In the real world, the shunt can be just a bypass relay or a switch. You already have something very close (close enough) to a shunt for testing interconnect cables in your preamplifier if you have a tape monitor switch and a tape monitor output which is not buffered by an isolation amplifier stage. By connecting the interconnects between the tape output and monitor input and switching the monitor switch between source and monitor, you can alternately compare the interconnect to the shunt. I have yet to test an inexpensive interconnect which did not pass this test flawlessly, it being impossible to tell under any circumstance whether or not the interconnect is in or out of the circuit. This is entirely consistant with both theoretical and measured performance for these wires. IMO, if for any reason, an interconnect were to produce an audible loss of signal such that it was below the level of the shunt, it is automatically so flawed as to be unacceptable. Jon Risch has a problem with this test. Probably his real objection is that it makes sense, works, is easy to perform, and results in the correct answer, the answer he doesn't want to hear.

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