My tip:
Start with the best gear you can possibly afford and go from there.
More expensive doesn't always mean better, but inexpensive usually means junk.
Tip#2:
Trust your ears, not what some fool on the internet with a multimeter says.
Happy Holidays and Your Favorite Tips?
Yes, I'm being inclusive.
What's your favorite tip to audiophiles? Here is mine:
If you are using a subwoofer with ported main speakers, consider plugging the ports and raising the sub crossover. Even if you don't have a subwoofer, sometimes plugging one or the other can really reduce bloat. It's worth listening to it since it's cheap and non destructive (assuming you don't lose your sock in the port).
72 responses Add your response
Listen to live acoustic music as often as possible.
Sometimes when you do, listen critically… to the relation of detail to core instruments, how bass arrives, the sound stage, venue reflections. Micro details of cymbles, leading edge of the saxophone, tone of the violin, cello… decay of the piano… decay of the orchestra. Is that what you hear in your system? Season tickets to the symphony for ten years in 7th row center changed my goals and resultant system for the better more than all the high end audio system auditions I have been to. |
--Adress acoustics basic concept and try some experiments...( acoustics is not mere room acoustic, i modified my speakers because they are Helmholtz resonators too i say this as an exemple of an acoustics concept ) -- adress the electrical noise floor level of the gear and the room and of the house... Also EMI pollution ... -- Adress the vibrations/resonance mechanical problems huge on turntable and on speakers... -- Never upgrade if your system is basically already synergetical BEFORE adressing the three points above ... Because you probably will not need to and if you need you will probably decide in another component for the upgrade because these three point together exceed most single gear upgrade when your system is basically good and already synergetical... -- a relative audiophile experience at the minimal acoustical threshold of satisfaction is possible and as much rewarding than with a top maximal acoustical satisfaction threshold in spite of the huge difference between a good 1000 bucks system and a 50,000 bucks one ... Why ? Because all acoustics factors defining sound can be optimally balanced relative to the gear design at any price levels...In clear you dont put a 2,000 bucks preamplifier on a 150 bucks active speakers system , i just put a tube preamplifier costing 50 bucks with amazing result ... all gear level must be complementary and relatively on the same level of price because you will need such balance to optimize the acoustics factors implied in the sound perception... We live with a system for a long time... Only obsessed people go in upgrading instead of learning the basic ... -- Simple blind test is enough if you experiment with unorthodox devices ... -- Go on your own road and trust your ears because you will train them not by listening music of any type only but because you will try acoustics simple experiments ... -- read and study articles of acoustician not of mere reviewers ... -- Buying the gear, nevermind the price is the easy part...Learning how from the first three points above to embed any pieces of gear in his three working dimensions is the hard part but the most fun part, not buying upgrade so fun it could be ... -- The most important factor and satisfying one is creativity not price tags or high end design purchasing ... -- Good sound is not defined by gear design first but first by acoustics concepts in the head of the listener or in the head of the designer ...
Merry christmas to all fellows audiogon members ...🎄 |
I will recommend mathematics and poetry instead but physics is a good choice ...😉 I am not a practical mind i confess ...( save in my audio journey because without music i would have died) Merry christmas carlsbad 2...
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I know that my friend... It is because you are of good faith and truthfull that i take it freely for me... And because i like truth and goodfaith people , i say it as it seems to fit me like a coat... You are respectul and too me it is gold... thanks again .... I cannot promise absolute loyalty in all cases about you very good advice though ... i am perhaps in less self control than many ...Then i even apologize in advance ... Stay as you are and i wish you the best luck and health possible ...😊
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I really liked tip of @viridian even if it's not directed to you. |
@knotscott that's serious punishment. Knowing myself I would mix up the empties with the real ones. |
@mahgister , what/who is your picture of? For some reason it always makes me think of the Lou Reed "Rock And Roll Animal" CD cover. |
I choose an image which is a part of myself ... I am greatly interested by music, poetry and singing... I am also interested by mathematics... the image represent alexander Vertinsky , a mythic figure of Russian popular scene as poet, singer and actor ...The "pierrot" figure acting and singing made him a myth , "the russian pierrot"... I admired the Russian mathematical school and the Russian piano school... And the greatest novel written for me is "the dream of a ridiculous man " by Dostoievsky who explore reality in a more metaphysical way than in his others more existential works... Read it , it is short, and it is a changing life stunning book in the last life period of the writer... The only writer able to teach Freud something he missed about man ...Jung guess it though and go on over Freud ...The soul....
Here an example of Vertinsky singing : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL1AAnLayIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E63d_JGrGIs&list=RDEM2qsdh-1g-UgOI3XtQeQKGw&index=2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJlISXZw3fM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNY9n9BdC5o here a contemporary homage to Vertinsky : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TZV6buPrvk A complete recital here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiYg_9GYs64 wikipedia describe him as russian even if born in Kiev...His parents were orthodox... This describe well the war between two brothers , a civil war which go on know ...But it is another story too complex for an audio thread ... 😊
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@immatthewj I think it’s Alexander Nikolayevich Vertinsky Edit: Ha! I see @mahgister posted while I was trying to remember who it was from previous research on the "pierrot clown." What a lovely voice he had. I believe I have one of his records. |
For sure... But many people had a lovely voice too...😊 His performance were expressive mastery dancing around an emotion ... It is the same expressive force over technical formal perfection that dominate piano school for me the greatest ... Or Dostoievsky works... Even mathematical Russian style which is expressive and didactic never formal or just pragmatic ... It is why also i love Portuguese fado saudade and music , a particular form of sadness , and Russian soul sadness another form... Two very expressive art ... From Portugal ascension at the height of the world as a powerful navigating nation and heroic to a smaller country... It seems to me in the saudade there is sadness and irony about the greatness love and his lost... Richard Burton the incredible explorator and genius in linguitic and in antho-pology before anthropology even existed, admired so much Camoens the greatest portuguese poet he take years to translate his main work... if you want to read the life of a real superman read the life of Richard Burton ... Totally incredible... A genius in the body of superman ...And a love story ...He beat 7 times the best swordman of France and spoke 50 languages...He discovered the Nile source and went alone at the Mecca speaking so well arabic no one suspected him... At this era an englishman at the Mecca would have been killed on the spot ... Try to imagine the iron will , the total self control and the absolute mastery of a speech in the minute details with no accent...He did it another time in the forbbiden city of Timbuktu where nobody from europe never came back alive ...I read 3 biographies so much incredible was his life ...I did no no other man that was at the same time an intellectual genius and a pure warrior...He wrote the first modern treatise on the use of the bayonnet and write about escrime ...He was able to master a language in a record time ...he live without the prejudices of his time and his relation with his wife by itself is a love movie of the first order ... I go into too much direction now.... From Vertinsky to Burton ...😁
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I've always been very suspicious of the wisdom of placing foam bungs in the ports of ported speakers. If they were designed to be ported, am I supposed to believe that suddenly it's ok to turn them into a sealed box design? I don't buy it, and knowing the experienced DIY'er that you are, I'm surprised that you do. |
@roxy54 Being a speaker builder, I can say that while no speaker is 100% ideal as both ported and sealed, it does let you tune the bass in very important ways, especially if you are using a sub. You don't have 100% the control that a speaker builder does, who would know that an optimally flat ported speaker has more volume than an optimally flat sealed speaker, but given room boundary reinforcements, the ultimate judge of which is best can be you. |
Fav tips? *S*.... - (On a personal note: Having GF @mahgister infer to another poster that @yoursunruly can create knots in ones' brain with my ragged references, inferences, and general grammatic garble sets a high bar that may be too far...but, on the other plan...it allows to perhaps loosen the ones' that I have in the process... Hey....a challenge by any other name....and I'd rather be infamous than famous, anyway....*L* ;).... ) Pre-Toast to '24, y'all, J |
...I liked @knotscott s' 'empty gift behavior mod' scenario, But... ...don't be surprised if the kids retaliate in some fashion; 'scars' of that sort can run really deep.... Just sayin' |
It is exactly what i had done with the rear porthole of my speakers knowing that each speakers is a potential and an actual Helmholtz resonators... I redesigned the cross ratio ratio from now a bundle of various necks lenght and volume/ versus the interior bottle volume , the result was spectacular in bass recuperation but on all counts too ... I redesigned the wave guide of the tweeter in a specific geometry and dimensions to accomodate my listening position ... Generally the designer had three choices : an internal costlier labyrinth or an external unesthetical one, or only a tube inside straight or bent ... They almost all exclude the internal labyrinth because of the cost to design it properly and built , and they exclude an external one for evident esthetical and practical reason and cost too... This is why our speakers are perfect rectangular boxes... Cost and esthetic and pragmatism not sound qualities ... My 150 bucks active speakers are so good i bought a tube preamplifier and now imagine a top speakers sound , miniaturize it , and it is my balanced sound on all acoustic counts, instead of being jealous of top costlier speakers, i almost pity them , those boxes now answer to my needs but with no spectacular defects at all ... I dont even need a sub with a 4 inches woofer ... Acoustic principles rules the gear first as just said erik_squires not the reverse ... Merry christmas to him and his family ...🎄
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Some syntax awake the reader as your, some syntax with poor mastery put the reader to sleep as mine ...i only hope that my content can sometimnes awake some ...I am not sure ... But reading you put at least a smile on any face ... Facts are facts ...😊
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I, too, thought it an odd tweak to plug the ports on a speaker designed to be ported. But one evening I decided to give it a try so I jammed two crew socks into the port of my left speaker to do a scientific comparison analysis. As men my age have a tendency to do, I soon forgot all about it until few day later when tightening my speaker lugs I remembered the socks and reached in to remove them. But as socks always do, one of them went missing. Strange as that seemed, it became even more eerie when I tossed the used sock into the washer, there was its partner clinging to the inside wall. I don’t even want to imagine how it got there and have since given up on tweaks and have learned to just enjoy the music. |
If your posts typically run to more than 20 lines, experiment with brevity this year. I personally skip long-winded posts and try not to write them myself, though it is my natural tendency to be verbose. Your readership will increase in inverse proportion to the length of your post. Merry Christmas to all, Tommy |
