Most music, not all, is about frequency range. The hardest part is bass. Our ears are pretty attuned at locality and direction, even of very low tones far away. Our rooms are tricky to get bass to sound right. Personally it took years of fiddling, plus two subwoofers. But when it works it’s hi fi. My cables are just ones used in studios from Amazon for 20 bucks or whatever since the system is balanced. The speaker cables are short and monoblocks keep them that way. With proper bass setup, I tried the top of the line nordost amongst others and they only remove bass. Now that can be a positive if your room or setup doesn’t have accurate bass. But why bother? Fix the bass, it’s worth it.
Are cable “upgrades” just as likely to make your system sound worse?
Many of us with highly resolving systems have found that speakers cables and interconnect cables can improve the sound quality of our systems. But are they also just as likely to do the opposite?
A few months ago, I “upgraded” to a renowned speaker cable, and immediately noticed more detail and resolution. I was so pleased I also “upgraded” the interconnects. But with more time I realized that the trade-off for more detail was a thinner sound with diminished tonal richness. Thus began a maddening series of attempts to fix the problem – different speaker cables, different DAC, different streamer, and now even a 30 trial of a new amplifier to try to overcome the thinness and find a more natural tone. It finally occurred to me to replace the out-of-sight-out-of-mind interconnects (with my original interconnects), and immediately the problem was blessedly solved.
Have others experienced this frustration? What recommendations do you have to avoid such fiascos?