Well, that was pointless. I compared my stock 1/4” cable vs a silver cable I got from
Ted Allen for my Auteur from my Hugo2go. The silver cable is 2.5mm TRRS-terminated but I used a 2.5 balanced-to-single-ended 3.5mm adapter, and so plugged both into the Hugo and moved the Hedd from one to the other.
I don’t actually know what ‘defect’ I should have expected to hear. If I had been testing/comparing for relative phase inversion, I would expect to hear diminished bass and a less coherent/precise headstage. Didn’t hear any of that when comparing.
What I did hear was expectation bias confirmed — I definitely preferred the non-stock silver cable to the stock cable. More detail, more open/airy headstage which also seems a bit more precise.
Bottomline the silver vs copper differences masked any artifacts the polarity ‘errors’ I might have heard.
(Channeling M.A.S.H.) That is all!