Also, two component that always increased pace in any system I've used or worked with are the Meridian 518 and the Velodyne ULD series subwoofers. In short, the 518 reshapes the sound coming out of a dac, and I've had great results with it. I am going to buy one after I can afford one. The ULD is a downward firing sub, and an extremely musical sub. As Subaruguru explained in his post, allowing frequency to roll off instead of cut off by a cross over will sound more natural. And ULD uses a crossover with 12db separation while most modern subs uses 36dbs, perhaps for home theater purposes. Anyways, I won't get into jitter or such, for I am not sure how these components affect psychodynamics that allowed me to arrive at more "pace", but they sure did!! |
hey, i would like to add my two cents worth. what is high end audio all about? coming from an epistimological stand point, we are only happy when we live with harmony in our universe, both tangible and intangible. we strive to live in harmony, so we make sense of the world, making tangibles understandable emperically and intangibles understandable abstractly. What does this all mean? We, audiophiles, strive to reproduce sounds as faithful to the original as possible, for, we believe, purest reproduction of sound is the only way to enjoy music, one thing that brings harmony to our lives. In our quest, we try to understand the factors that allow us to faithfully reproduce sound, such as physics and electrical engineering, all of which I am ignorant of. But, if your like me, we strive to come to a faithful reproduction of sound through experimentation between different hardware and cables, hoping to find that magical synergy. And what is that magical synergy? Is it bloated bass? sibilant highs? these are all different, to each our own, according to our personal bias. But, if your transcendental, like me, I do believe there is a rhythm, a beat, that strings all organisms in our harmonic universe, and perhaps, this "pace", is this rhythm that the lucky few audiophiles are able to reproduce. |
A friend of mine just asked me waht "pace" is. I tried to explain that its subjective, but its universally agreeable. When audiophiles listen to a correctly set up system, we first notice a "pace" presence, and then we get analytical about other factors such as soundstage and detail. But before we get analytical, subjective about the sound, we will concur with the pace. My friend then asked me how pace comes about. I believe it was easier to explain to her house pace is interupted: frequencies of current are not transmitted "harmoniously". Somehow, different frequencies might be disrupted by emi, rfi, vibration, static, different material of inductions, etc so on, tainting the faithful reproduction of sound. She didn't really understand me, so I made up an analogy. If there were ten flutist, and one flutist was out of tune with the others, then the music being produced would be ruined by that one bad flutist. She answered that this is a perception of harmony, rather than pace, which is really true, but, I explained, not in term of stereos. When we talk about pace, we're talking about this snap of things being in place, more than just accurate an tempo or melody. Ok, I am going to invest in some asc tubetraps, sonex room treatments, and those ceramic cable elevators. No emi, echo or rfi is going to get in the way between me and my pace. |
Maybe to some extent, Redkiwi is correct, that all components effects pace or prat.. blah. However, I do believe pace is more of an issue when it comes to digital front ends. When a turn table is out of tune, or our LPs are warped, or our tape head isn't clean, it doesn't alter the sound as much as when digital front ends are interfered. Sure the sound is warbled, but the bass doesn't become punchy or muddy and the treble doesn't become sibilant.. etc. According to my experience, my nak and luxman tape players on dolby C with a tdk metal tape sounds more dynamic and smoother than any CD player I've heard up until a few years ago. My stereo system doesn't nearly need as much tweaking when usng analog front ends, like my LP player. I still enjoy playing LPs, although I stopped buying LPs back in '89. But, there is something about it that just sounds right. I never had to worry about pace when using analog front ends: I just have to make sure my tape head and needle are clean. Like Sean, I prefer analog sounding systems, so I purchased a tube dac. Sure, the sound is closer to what I get from my LP, but I still prefer the sound coming out of my analog sources, even my tuner, compared to my transport/dac.
On a side note, my first introduction to digital sound were sony discmans. I purchased the second generation discman and a few there after. The first one I got sounded the best, the sweetest, and newer ones sucked cuz of lower build quality. I even had a Luxman first generation CD player. Despite those CD players using old technology, I never had to worry about pace or anything other than keeping my discs clean. Why are newer digital systems harder to use properly? |
Red Kiwi, Yupz, you are right that I do associate prat with musicality. I do believe reproduction of "music" manifests only when sound waves arriving at your ears are as close to exactness as compared to live sound, highs and lows arriving at the same time,etc. This might be semantics, but I believe pace is a resulting effect of properly reproduced sound in manners I've just described. I wouldn't go as far to say that analogue sources don't have problem with prat, and I haven't. But, according to my experience, more tweaking of the listening room, speaker positioning, component vibration and isolation/placement is necessary when using digital sources to combat foes of pace. I am listening to my Luxman tuner at the moment, and I have never had cognition of the component, for it's a "turn on and forget" device. But, my CAL dac/trans and my previous digital sources were never "turn on and forget" (except for my first generation Luxman which was a 16bit 4xOS i believe). With newer digital sources, I always try to find errors in the cd, always fidgeting with speaker placement etc. and so forth because, somehow, I am never satisfied with the sound. As I described, I experienced more "musicality" with my analogue sources, what I meant to say is they are probably less susceptible to "pace busters" (for lack of a better word = X). |
