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Audio Lessons Learned - post your best advice for the newer members!

Hi,
I thought it would be great to have our longtime audiophiles post their "lessons learned" along the way.

This is not a thread to start arguments, so please do not do that.
Just a repository where newer members can go to get a few good tidbits of knowledge.

I'll start - I have been an audiophile for 50 years now.

1. Learn about how humans hear sound, and what frequencies SHOULD NOT be flat in their response.. This should be the basis for your system. "Neutral" sounding systems DO NOT sound good to the human ear. You will be unsatified for years (like I was) until you realize this.

2. I do not "chase" DACS anymore.. (I went up to 30K Dacs before realizing the newest Dac chips are now within a few % of the high end Dacs.) Do your research and get yourself a good Dac using the best new dac chips. (about 1000.00 will get you a good one) and save yourself a fortune. - This was one of the best lessons I learned (and just recently) . It allowed me to put more of the budget into room treatment, clean power, and cables which are much more important.

3. Do you want a pleasant or unpleasant sounding system?
I had many very high end systems with NO real satisfaction, until I realized
why a certain company aimed for a particular sound..

4. McIntosh:
As a high end audiophile, I regarded McIntosh as just a little above Bose for about 40 years.-- (not good)
I thought I was an elite audiophile who knew way too much about our hobby to buy equipment that was well made, but never state of the art and colored in its own way.

This was TOTALLY WRONG, as I realize now.
McIntosh goes for a beautiful sound for HUMAN ears, not for specification charts. This is not a flat response, and uses autoformers to get this gorgeous sound. If you know enough about all the other things in our hobby, such as room treatments, very clean power, and very good cables, you can bring a gorgeous sounding McIntosh system to unheard of levels. I have done this now, and I have never enjoyed my music more!

Joe55ag


joe55ag
joey54
434 posts
 
My advice would be to find a good dealer and listen to his/her advice. A good dealer will be motivated to help you achieve good sound within your budget and will help you with your upgrade path when you want to and can afford to. 

Also, don't buy anything you haven't listened to personally. No review or advice from someone else will let you know if you are making a good buying decision based on your preferences.
bikerbw
108 posts
 
1.) Buy from a dealer in your own country, so if you have issues, it will be easier to get them resolved.
2.) Make sure you have the money to pay for it - just don't make it another charge you put on an overextended credit card.
3.) Don't be conditioned into thinking you have to spend large amounts of money when putting together your system to be completely satisfied.
4.) Always deal with sellers who will take a unit back for free, or at least make you pony up the shipping costs one way (that's fair).
5.) Don't ever ask a person who wants to sell you a product whether it's a great product or if you should buy it - similar to the universal advice of never asking the person who might buy your goods how much they're worth. 
6.) Once you get a component, live with it for a while; don't listen to it for a couple of hours and decide it's not what you want.  I didn't have an opinion on whether break-in was real or not for components; I just played them and paid attention to whether their sound or my feelings changed about them after a time.  Some things did seem to change (and some took 50 or so hours), others not.  I've found that certain amps sounded better after being played for a couple/few hours, my phono cartridge sounded better after quite a few hours (and still needs to play a bit every time I start playing records), and there was a time that I noticed my speaker changed after a lot of time played.
johnrandi
8 posts
 
My number one takeaway is... only you know what you like, so filter out the hype.  Most importantly, whenever possible, listen to whatever component you're considering at home connected to your system.  I auditioned 5 integrated amps at home before deciding.  It was worth it.  
16f4's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
16f4
1,062 posts
 
1- Don’t sweat debates over definitions of  “audiophile “ or “music lover”.  Just listen to the music.
2- Know what sounds good to you, because everyone hears differently.   And expect it to change over the years because your hearing will change.
3- Stick to your budget.  There are ALWAYS more expensive items to buy.  But you have other things to spend money on also.
4- Wife/Spouse/ Partner Acceptability Factor (WAF/SAF/PAF) is more important than you think. Any limiting criteria may actually encourage you to research stuff you wouldn’t normally consider.  My wife working from home has opened up the wide world of headphones.
5- Find a few reviewers that match your tastes.  I like Steve Guttenberg (similar music tastes) and John Darko (reviews streamers and headphones really well), but your preferences may vary.  
williewonka
3,075 posts
 
For me, cables have provided the greatest challenges, but over a 6 year period here are the things I have learned that have made significant improvements in my DIY cables and as a consequence - improved sound quality to levels I could not have believed when I started all this DIY stuff

WIRE QUALITY - improves dynamics clarity and imaging
  • UP-OCC copper is the best copper for signal transfer
  • UP-OCC copper is probably better than the copper, but 5 times the price it becomes cost prohibitive
  • any other grade of metal or alloy WILL NOT not as conductive and impact sound quality
  • plated.coated wires should be avoided - they cause distortion

INSULATION - acts like the dielectric in a capacitor and as such will cause distortion. Each insulation type has a different Dialectric Constant (Dk). The higher the value the more noise is created in the cable
  • Teflon is rapidly becomes the standard from PVC. It has a Dk = 2.2
  • Foamed Teflon (like AirLok) is much better. It has a Dk = 1.4 to 1.5
  • Cotton/Sil has a Dk = 1.3
  • Air has a Dk - 1.1
  • Vacuum is the baseline Dk = 1.0
You might think that air cannot be easily achieved, however, if you insert a bare wire into a slightly larger diameter Tefflon tube, then the point of contact of the wire is only ever on one side and very small in area, and the the rest of the dielectric is in fact air - mission accomplished :-)

CABLE GEOMETRY - is the most significant method of reducing noise generated within cables.
  • Lamp cord is an exceptionally bad cable geometry
  • braiding improves on the Lamp cord significantly
  • more complex geometries, such as the Helix, results in cablea that will amaze you
WIRE GAUGE
  • many people have some misguided beliefs about wire gauge - e.g. 10 gauge "lamp cord" sounds better than 16 gauge lamp cord.
  • it does, but mainly because the thicker gauge wire has thicker insulation, which spaces the two conductors further apart resulting in less noise
  • Basically - the geometry of the 10 gauge wire is different
  • However using a thicker neutral wire will improve sound quality
  • I use a neutral wire that is approximately twice the gauge of the signal wire
  • My Power cables use a 12 gauge live with a 2 x 12 gauge neutral and a 12 gauge ground wire
  • I have conducted several tests and found no difference between a 16 gauge signal wire and a 12 gauge signal wire on my speaker cables

CONNECTORS - I use silver plated copper connectors on every cable
  • it provides the best dynamics for a reasonable price
  • RCA’s - KLE Innovations Absolute Harmony
  • XLR - Neutric Silver plated bronze is a very good connector
  • unfortunately there are not many reasonable prices silver plated copper XLR’s, but bronze is mush better than brass
  • there are some extremely good XLR’s out there if oyu want TOTL and $$$
  • MAINS/IEC - I use Sonarquest Silver plated Copper - other types of plating (gold, platinum, rhodium) are less conductive and require an intermediate substrate which is also less conductive
  • BANANAS - KLE Innovations bananas
  • SPADES - Furez silver plated copper

How can you ensure all of these are in place on your cables? Build your own - see this link
"The HELIX IMAGE" - With a little help from my friends | My Audio Alchemy (image99.net)

  • BUT if you want to make a simple speaker cable having two leads of the same length
  • space the two wires wires 2" apart
  • Use a 10 or 12 gauge silver plated stranded wire with Teflon insulation for the neutral
  • Use a bare 14 gauge UP-OCC copper wire for the signal conductor - inside Teflon tube - seal the end of the tube with either hot glue OR adhesive lines heat shrink
The two wires do not need to be the same size/material/insulation...
- UNLESS your amp is one of the newer and very expensive reference style Symmetrical Balanced Designs
- These amps are a bit like a Balanced power supply
- one speaker output binding post carries the signal
- the other Binding post is the same signal but 180 degrees out of phase

For this type of amp both wires must be identical to achieve the best sound

For commercially available products = I consider Nordst and Inakustik to be among the very best available - no snake oil - just great science

AND - trust YOUR ears - not someone else’s :-)

Regards - Steve

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