I heard the Box

If everyone would limit themselves to rock music, there’d be no realism issue.

Au contrere, mon frere. Just look how important acoustical instruments are to rock.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s

Now I know what to listen to tonight, Boxy Music, The Space Between, filled with batting. While My Port Is Still Beating is pretty good too.

tomc6-
Chuck, one thing has always cast doubt on your superior hearing abilities for me. It’s your claim that there is no difference between the sound of different tubes. I can’t understand how someone who can hear the difference between his cable elevators with and without rubber bands can’t hear the difference between a current production Russian made Mullard, a vintage Telefunken and a vintage Amperex. Maybe you’ve changed your mind about that. Have you?

First, that "I've always dreamed" line was teasing.

But as for tubes, Whoa, whoa, whoa! No way I ever said that!

Not even. What I said is tube rolling is a crapshoot - IF that is all you are doing. I stand by that comment. If all you are doing is trying tubes hoping to find ones that will sound better, well they are out there but your chances of finding "the one" are so low you are much better off to put your time and money and effort into things with a lot higher chance of actually making a positive improvement. There are a lot of such things, and for a lot less money. Tube prices are all over the place, but a guy could easily spend $500 tube rolling and in the end have nothing to show for it but some nice backups. While that same $500 could buy a Fuse, some ECT or HFT, some Cable Elevators- or a power cord, any number of things, each of which will be a lot better than the tubes.

But, and this is an important but, this all depends on what you mean by tube rolling. I'm assuming the normal, "Hey guys what do you think?" approach. Waste of time and money. Which is in total contrast to what I am doing now, talking with Dave Thomas of Raven, a guy who totally knows his tubes. Whole different ball game.

I think you will agree this is a lot more refined and sophisticated view than saying there's no difference between tubes. I've said all along there definitely are differences. Heck, I recommend JJ for their great sound quality and reliability at a good price. So I know there are differences in sound quality, because I have heard them. 

So I have no problem hearing differences between tubes. No problem picking the best ones either. Only problem I have is the shotgun approach. Rifle and scope, I am all over it. Why I'm calling Dave Thomas. Literally. Left him another message just before writing this.

Once you go Tekton Design, you are wrecked for all time.

After listening to Townshend F1 speaker cables and interconnects I now am aware a lot of the sound of other wire is resonance coloring the sound of those wires. Pretty much all of them. After listening to Townshend Pods and Podiums it is now clear a lot of what we near from speakers and components is actually the stuff they are sitting on. It rings and this resonance gets back into the signal coloring the music. Immediately upon upgrading my crossovers it was apparent a huge amount of what I have heard from every other speaker anywhere ever was flattened, dulled, and distorted by the cheap crossover components everyone uses. When my panel was redone it was mind-blowing how much grunge is everywhere.

I never really got what people meant by cable elevators, until I tried them and now can never unheard that either. One time I left my system on all day, everything even the tubes, then listened late at night when everything sounds better, and now I can never unhear that.

Just thought I would share all this since we are like brothers, being able to remember what we hear. So many audiophiles claim not to be able to hear anything, or remember anything, they need instantaneously scientifically verified double-blind random interweb doubt rectification validation to even begin to consider maybe something could be different and just maybe possibly not just snake-oiltation bias. I always dreamed of meeting another who can actually hear these things. Even though it means you are like me doomed forevermore to the hell of hearing and remembering.

How will we ever cope with this horrible affliction? Guess we will just have to muddle along somehow. Just please, for now, give me a few more weeks of blissful ignorance before Rick comes and makes me acutely painfully aware of how horribly boxy my boxes sound.