AudioNervosa
Systemic Development => Bipolar System Disorders => Topic started by: rollo on October 23, 2015, 06:42:43 AM
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What product for you has changed the game the most ? Power ? ? Cable ? Cart ? Tweak ? Caps ? Parts ? What ??
For me the BSG QOL Power conditioning and a dedicated circuit.
charles
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Getting Black Sand Silver Reference power cords and a great external power supply for my SB 2. A real eye-opener and that was after being in audio for at least 15 years
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Beethoven Symphony box set on BIS. That has driven my audio quest.
The recession has also been a big game changer for me, sold all my branded gear and went 100% DIY in 2010.
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Well this has varied from year to year. My BPT BP2.5 balanced power conditioner is what started it all for me, drawing my interest from being a videophile to an audiophile (I'm boh actually)
But now today, with my only audio source being PC audio, hands down it's the Uptone Audio USB Regen. This little gem is placed between your computer and your Dac. It takes the USB data signal and regenerates a completely new data signal for your Dac. The Regen also completely blocks the 5v USB current (for Dacs that need it) and provides it own clean 5v. The Regen comes with a MeanWell SMPS, mainly to keep the price down to only $175. But for me, even with the SMPS, the Regen was a game changer. The PC audio when played loud as always caused listeners fatigue and that has sucked even though I don't hit the volumes I use to 10 years ago. The Regen has greatly improved my audio quality, most notably the bass and I'm seeing volume increases a good 6-10 db over what I'd normally listen to comfortably.
I'm currently waiting for a Paul Hynes SR3-7 linear power supply to replace the MeanWell even though I'm perfectly happy with the SMPS (while many others are not as their systems are SMPS sensitive).
(http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0660/6121/products/P1080656_large.JPG?v=1438874262)
Cheers,
Robin
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My modwright kwa 100se power amp
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Jim your at 666 on your post ct
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Jim your at 666 on your post ct
He should have hit that on Halloween. :twisted:
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ha ha :rofl: :p
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This is kind of a post combining a reply to where has your system gone since 2011 and game changers. My system has evolved some since 2011, over time I have upgraded my ICs and speaker cables. This year I have added power cords from Waveform Fidelity. These changes markedly increased the resolution, focus and three dimensionality of the system.
A game changer this year for me has been adding subs to the system with digital delay. By operating them 180 degrees out of phase with the front speakers and delaying their output until the bass sound waves from front of the room are just about to hit the rear wall, I am partially canceling out the zones of standing waves in the room. This has made as big an improvement in the three dimensionality of the system as putting in a new preamp or power amp with intrinsically superior imaging and sound staging. Basically it uncorks your systems fundamental performance capabilities in this area. Better bass, of course, comes along for the ride.
I heard another game changer at this years CAF and that was the open baffle servo subwoofers in Rollo's room. This was some of the very best reproduction of bass I have ever heard. Particularly remarkable considering the size of the room involved. The other cool thing is that if your room is much larger and you are concerned about having adequate bass headroom, the system would easily scale up, without having a larger footprint in the room. It would just be enough taller to accommodate another woofer or two in addition to the three 12inchers already in the pair of subs.
Bass heads take note. One word describes this setup, BADASS!
Scotty
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Scotty. I have a Velo HGS12 sub. But I also have a digital time delay unit which I haven't used in ages. Do you think I should run the LF feed through the delay first? Seems like you can tune it to the room.
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Sound waves travels at rough 1ft./msec.. My main speakers are about 8ft. in front of me and the rear wall is about 10ft. behind me. I want a chance to hear the bass before I try to cancel it out, so I set the rear subs with a delay of 15msec. or 15ft., that way the sound from the front gets canceled out about 3ft. from the rear wall. Fairly simple math when you think about it. I set the crossover for 125hz at 24dB/oct with a Bessel filter function.
You should at least give it a try, this might get you better bass quality, less boom and help the sound staging at the same time.
What are the main speakers and is their bass extension similar to the sub?
Scotty
Sidebar,
The processor I use is a QSC DSP 30, which is kind of a prosound Swiss army knife although useless above the bass frequencies as the A/D processor operates at 24/48. When the processor was designed over 15 years ago 24/48 was good stuff for pro equipment.
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I think the major game changer for me were power changes. I changed the wall outlets to really quality ones. I even sprayed the copper wire that attaches to the outlets with DeOxit. After changing the power outlets I added Isolation Transformers between outlets and my gear. With the various Isolation transformers I changed the outlets to Porter Port outlets. Last but not least were thicker power cord changes to all my gear. Before installing them I cleaned the blades with DeOxit too.
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Scotty. I have a Velo HGS12 sub. But I also have a digital time delay unit which I haven't used in ages. Do you think I should run the LF feed through the delay first? Seems like you can tune it to the room.
Jim, let me know if you want to try this. I have a 25ft Monster 1000 sub cable you can borrow.
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Thanks Tom. I have a 15 footer should be long enough. This will be interesting.
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Thanks Tom. I have a 15 footer should be long enough. This will be interesting.
Yes it will, Scotty knows from what he speaks. Les and I heard His results. Very impressive for sealed subs.
charles
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What was the game changer for me, a loan.
Right after I got married in 1984 I found a really righteous deal on a set of used DQ-10s at Audio Exchange in Roosevelt Field. The 40 watt Yamaha integrated amp I had at the time was simply not enough to drive them, so I ended up buying Hafler 110 pre and 220 power amp kits and building them myself. Having never owned anything better than a pair of $80 Lafayette speakers before, I was in hog heaven. I had a Thorens 105 , had just discovered MoFi records and was thinking to myself, it doesn't get much better than this. At the time my friend Jimmy (who you now know here as jimbones) was into high end audio and kept telling me, it doesn't sound bad, but you could really use another preamp. I though he was crazy. The engineering part of my brain said its only a volume control, what could a more expensive preamp possibly do? And so I just kind of blew off his suggestions.
Well Jim wasn't about to give up that easily. Not too long after that Jim got married and right before the wedding packed up all of his audio gear to move it out of his mother's house with the intention setting it up of in their new apartment when he returned from his honeymoon. The day before his wedding Jimmy showed up at my door with an Audio Research box in his hands. He said I need someone to babysit this for a week or so. Why don't you put it in your system and listen to it while I'm away. Again I thought he was crazy, but we had had the preamp discussion so many times that I figured I would plug it in just to shut him up. I wired it in, let it warm up for a while and then put on a record to listen to. I didn't get 10 seconds into the first cut before I was saying to myself, Son of a bitch, I really do need a new preamp....... :duh
And the rest is history. 8)
But the story does not end there, as Karma has a way of evening things out. We both bought houses, had kids and fell away from the audio to some extent as parental duties demanded more of our time. Jimmy more so than me. About ten years or so ago Jimmy pretty much washed his a hands of the hobby. He would listen from time to time, but decided that his system was what it was and there was no need to touch it anymore. Then in the fall of 2009 I found a deal I could not pass up on a pair of Theil CS-6s. So my son Bobby and myself drove from Long Island up to Framingham Mass brought them home to set up in the Man Cave. I was thrilled with them and one of the first people I invited over for a listening session was Jim. After listening to these speakers and not too long later the ARC VT-200 tube amp Jimmy was once again bitten by the Nervosa bug... big time. :D And since then, I think he has upgraded everything in his audio room with the exception of the carpet.
Payback's a bitch. :rofl:
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Ha ha thanks Tom. Yea, along with our families, our system grew up together in a way. Just a reminder Tom, I DID change the carpet in the listening room! :rofl:
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Mono cartridges added a completely new dimension to well mono. Never before has mono sounded so good.
A $99 Grado started it now looking for a Myabi oh my !
charles
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Game changer for me was meeting and listening to Michael Green on AC. He showed how to release tension off my system by releasing the chassis from the sound stage by an easy twist of the screw. He did more than that though. It taught me conventional wisdom should always be challenged. From there I was able to pull drivers out of mains to sit and listen. See what it does and how it sounds. It showed me where the tweeter was in my sound stage. From there I was able to hear better at adjusting highs. I would never have led myself to do that before then.
I kept moving forward. It occurred to me a speaker should sound like an instrument. Pulled out dampening to mimic an upright bass. Why would I listen to an Upright bass with a heavily damped speaker when an Upright bass uses no dampening at all? It didn't make sense. Stuff like that :thumb:
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I met Michael in person on two occasions. Once at a store demo and one night he was the featured guest speaker at one of our AudioSyndrome meetings. At the time he had just recently come out with the RoomTunes line of acoustic treatments. Five minutes was all it took to convince me of the importance of room treatments. Great products at a very reasonable price. And in addition to being very goods at what he does, Michael is just a hell of a nice guy.
Maybe not "the" game changer in my time in the hobby but definitely a major turning point in my journey.
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I have never met him in person. He moves you away from conventional thought. What a room should sound like, basically the entire room tune philosophy made me look at it differently. It isnt so much that he is correct, but it made me realize conventional hi fi wisdom can be boring. I do think his idea behind room treatments is correct or works at least.
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This may be one of my pet peeves, but if a product works the idea is correct. What is often not correct it the way a company (or it's marketing folks) try to explain how something works. It really winds me up when somebody either doesn't understand the engineering and/or science behind a problem, or doesn't think the public could understand it, so the just make up some pseudo science BS to explain it away. (as soon a somebody tries to explain away a change in sound by claiming some kind of sub molecular Quantum effect my BS detector starts to go off and my eyes start to roll. I would much rather have somebody just honestly say "I have no idea why this works, but I have tried it in over x# of systems and it always improved the sound."
In Michael Greene's case his RoomTunes rely and simple physics and geometry. He locates areas in a room where a number of reflected wavefronts intersect creating a situation where they either reinforce one another or cancel each other out. His devices either absorb some reflections or simply redirect them to another part of the room so these intersections to not occur to the point where they have a detrimental effect on the sound. Simple product, simple plausible physics based explanation and a product that just does what it claims it will do. Win - Win - Win
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3 changers that I can claim
1) realizing that anything can be improved, especially after going inside and upgrading caps and such. A DIY mod can be great, but it does take time to make mistakes and back them out, and some knowledge of what you are doing, or you could make things worse.
2) getting my own dedicated space, in the basement. Best of all is it is not a common living space so I don't have to keep it immaculate :-)
3) getting Apogee's. This showed me what can be accomplished with the right equipment and the right space.
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Adding some game changers. Digibuss and Madscientist black discus and magic tubes.
These devices used separately or together have given me added dimension and more of a 3D sound stage. The Digibuss [ when fully broken in ] brings out the body that CD are MIA.
charles
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Working my real estate business has been a game changer... I never get to listen to my main system anymore! :roll:
Even though there's a lot of truth to the above statement, there are a number of things that made big differences for me.
1) Dedicated circuit for audio only
2) N.Y.A.L. Moscode 600 Amp (Hybrid vs. my old SS)
3) 2012 Mod.Upgrade to my Von Schweikert VR-4 Gen.III speakers
4) VPI Prime/Soundsmith MMP3/DV20x2H (vs. my Linn LP12)
5) TWL power cords
Overall, the biggest thing was my change from all solid-state to tubes. (Yes, it took 26 years but I finally made that leap!)
SN
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Overall, the biggest thing was my change from all solid-state to tubes. (Yes, it took 26 years but I finally made that leap!)
'Bout time. :roll:
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My biggest game changers was upgrading all the cabling (IC, Power). Replaced all the old Audioquest stuff with Nordost. The Nordost cables seem to work real well with my system and the sound stage is very smooth.
I am toying with the idea of vibration isolation on the equipment and speakers. I have seen a variety of devices demonstrated and most of them seem to make a difference, if very slight in my opinion.
I am looking at an intergraded stand/vibration control system like the Harmonic Resolution Systems audio racks. Maybe a bit overkill, but the racks look nice and do double duty as vibration isolators.