Hi Judit and welcome to A'gon. Good thread. I've made maybe five pretty important audio discoveries, but maybe THE most important has been AUDIOGON. That said:
1. I discovered tubed pre-amps, and the fact that a high quality front-end really is essential to producing good excellent music, ie it's more important than expensive speakers.
2. I installed a complete dedicated AC system that of necessity required high quality power cords on components. This lowered noise floor dramatically. With dedicated AC, I also found I had to get rid of power conditioners.
3. The Levinson 360S DAC makes well recorded digital music sonically excellent.
4. I discovered Synergistic Research's Active Shield interconnects. In my case their use produced a profound improvement in especially soundstaging in my system, but also greater clarity. Syn. Res. is just now releasing active shielded speaker cables and power cords-- haven't tried them yet.
5. And finally, I recently acquired Vandersteen 5 speakers (replaced Vand. 3Asigs), and with their built in 400 wpc amps and subwoofers (to 22 HZ), discovered what a revealing speaker could do, and that HQ subs really are important. These speakers have incredible mid-range clarity and "center of the earth" bass. But make no mistake, revealing speakers also reveal flaws in recordings. Cheers. Craig
1. I discovered tubed pre-amps, and the fact that a high quality front-end really is essential to producing good excellent music, ie it's more important than expensive speakers.
2. I installed a complete dedicated AC system that of necessity required high quality power cords on components. This lowered noise floor dramatically. With dedicated AC, I also found I had to get rid of power conditioners.
3. The Levinson 360S DAC makes well recorded digital music sonically excellent.
4. I discovered Synergistic Research's Active Shield interconnects. In my case their use produced a profound improvement in especially soundstaging in my system, but also greater clarity. Syn. Res. is just now releasing active shielded speaker cables and power cords-- haven't tried them yet.
5. And finally, I recently acquired Vandersteen 5 speakers (replaced Vand. 3Asigs), and with their built in 400 wpc amps and subwoofers (to 22 HZ), discovered what a revealing speaker could do, and that HQ subs really are important. These speakers have incredible mid-range clarity and "center of the earth" bass. But make no mistake, revealing speakers also reveal flaws in recordings. Cheers. Craig