I am very happy for you! Happiness with your system is all that matters! Congrats!
I am so happy.....
That my upgradeitis is over before it even started.
I am so happy with the system I have, I want to share with everyone the fact that that even a very modest and cheap system can produce great sound for me and makes me happy to the point where I no longer have to search for improvements.
Call me ignorant if you want. Does not bother me even an iota. I will go the grave happier than everyone who is condescending.
I am using my own home made Neurochrome 686 stereo amp with 1000 VA medical grade toroidal, 160 amp rectifier (very little fwvd hence virtually no heat generated) and 200,000uF filter capacitors producing approx 220 watts rms/channel. It sounds just absolutely FANTASTIC.
My preamp is a Freya S. Speakers are B&W.
I have a Linn LP12 with SME 3009R and Nagaoka 500 and a Mani which I find that I listen to less and less in favor of the convenience and the dynamics and quietness of digital.
For my music server, wait for it......... I use an LG V60 phone, which has a great in built DAC, which I bought for $300 brand new on ebay ($1200 retail but no longer made) using the lossless Apple Music and Qobuz apps. I use an AuidoEngine B1 as my bluetooth receiver to which the LG phone can send aptX-HD which I can actually also connect directly to the Freya S on occasion.
The combination sounds simply fantastic to my ears and I listen to it for hours grateful that this technology available today provides this gift to me.
Just as I am writing this, I am listening to smooth jazz "Euge Groove Slow jam" and it is just sublime.
SNS expressed some of what I think about regarding this: Each of us hears differently and have different preferences. While I like bass, some of my younger friends go overboard, in my opinion. They think my systems lack Ooomp! that their systems provide with thundering bass (I think we have all been beside the car in stopped traffic that literally vibrates body panels from the thud of large subwoofers and big amps — what a headache!). I prefer more delicacy in the music, so I can hear nuances and not just bang, bang, bang! I think it’s true when people say, “Some distortion people like”. And we are all different. I have questioned if I ever could hear as well as some other people — not just now when I’m older, but even when I was young. It was not my ability to hear but my ability to discern. Someone would say, “Do you hear that? I can’t hear that on those other speakers, but I can hear it through these speakers.” And I often wasn’t sure what they meant or were hearing, though I just nodded and smiled, “Yeah, man!” I could go to a high-fi showroom and the salesperson would play something and stand there with that satisfied grin, reciting all the statistics and accolades, and Im thinking, “I wonder if these would sound good in my less-than-optimal room, or if I could even tell how they really sound.” I so envy the people that have supreme confidence in their abilities to perceive better-than from lesser-than. |
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Why are happy?
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I am happy not because i enjoy music and declare to myself that the sound is so good...It is yes, but... We all think , most of us that our sound is good... Especially people with costly piece of gear.... I am happy because i know, i dont believe, i know, HOW i has prepared acoustically and psyco-acoustically my speakers/room to reach my actual sound quality... I dont boast about my gear and his " marvellous" sound like some , i only know what my sound experience was BEFORE acoustic treatment and acoustic mechanical control, and AFTER it... I have no way to compare my sound experience to your sound experience... But i know what most people will never know: the DIFFERENCE between acoustic tuning optimization before and after... Then i am happy with my soundefield, but what make me more happy is that i know HOW we can replace upgrade obsession by acoustic and WHY i will never upgrade and throwing any more money... Basic experiments in acoustic science will make you free of pseudo science: measurements of gear pieces to justify upgrade... Measurements are useful for designers not so much for customers....Most customers have no idea how to control the acoustic cues and experience in their room anyway...
Then be happy with what you have yes, if not, try acoustic... Dont upgrade save if some basic piece of gear is not on the same quality level than the others... This is my advice.... |
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Harry says -do you feel lucky punk? and the punk isn't feeling so lucky... and he backs down but then the punk says- I got's to know... and then he was lucky, but not the luck he was looking for Call me a punk- I got's to know - maybe I'll get lucky too For me, there's more to this hobby than just listening to music - its finding the silver linings
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I agree. Different but not necessarily better is something I’ve found frequently. Recently I changed my TV to a big 75" flat screen, which is located smack between the speakers. I was very concerned about how it might change the sound. It did change the sound, but in a way that seems as natural as before. The bass response needed to be adjusted. More recently I experimented with putting absorption behind my tweeter horns as I suspected that sound was diffracting from the horn mouth and going around behind them. This created a much stronger measured effect than I expected at the listening position, with the lower end response of the horn dropping off, and early delay times in that range also coming down quite a bit. The spectrogram analysis looks very clean. I didn’t realize how much of the later reflections were emerging from the surfaces directly behind the horn. Now that I’ve re-equalized it the effect is obviously not as noticeable. It’s a bit more refined but as I get used to it the improvement seems less important. It’s just business as usual. So that’s another issue with upgradeitits - the improvement is more exciting when it’s new. If it’s getting rid of something really bothersome than that’s definitely going to improve long term satisfaction. But if it’s something more subtle that wasn’t bothering you before but is noticeable, the satisfaction of the improvement itself fades over time. Whatever this absorption did is something nice that I really didn’t need to enjoy the music. Am I enjoying it more now, or is this again just something different? In a way it’s just something different. Some early reflections don’t always sound unnatural. They add a little vibrant effect at the expense of some fine details. This sort of thing happens in real life with real acoustic instruments in real spaces all the time so it doesn’t come across as wrong sounding, at least to me. |
I've had some first hand experience with how powerful room acoustics can be, verifying your approach to good sound. I got to listen to Revel Ultima Salon II, JBL 4367, some Golden Ear towers (don't know which model), and a few other speakers going down to $2000 a pair in a room that isn't sounding good yet. They were fed with Big McIntosh and Mark Levinson amps and high end digital sources - don't know which. In that room the choice of speaker/electronics couldn't overcome the situation. I could hear some differences but the overall effect of the space swamped whatever the speakers and electronics could do. It just plain sounds bad in there right now and it makes all those speakers sound bad in pretty much the same way. There's no doing anything about it other than fixing that room. Well, there was one thing - turn them down and sit really close. That helped a bit. |
Thanks it is an interesting experience...
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Why? |
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