I've got a set of the Galileo UEFs speaker cables coming in Friday, luckily ex-demo so broken in -- hopefully a simple switch up from my existing Galileo LEs, and got them at a very good price ...
Synergistic Research HFT's
I acquired a ten-pack of SR's HFT room treatments and installed them according to directions just prior to last night's listening session. Easy to install using the blue-tack type of material that was included in the package.
http://highend-electronics.com/products/sr-hft-high-frequency-transformer
The listening room already sported two pairs of Shataki Holograms ... one pair in the front corners of the room and a second pair in the rear corners of the room. In addition to the Holograms, there are tube traps along the rear of the listening position. I thought I had my room problems solved with the existing treatments and I was satisfied with those results.
Enter the SR HFT's ...
I had my friend Robert over last night to help evaluate the changes, if any. I was looking forward to maybe a small improvement at best. I mean, what can one expect from little metal devises that stick to your walls ... little devises so small that one wouldn't even notice them unless they were called attention to?
Long story short ... we were hit over the head with astounding disbelief at the ... I don't want to use the word "improvement," because that would be an understatement. I'll use the word trans-formative instead. Because, that's exactly what this tweak has done; its transformed my listening environment, and consequently my entire system, into an unbelievable music machine.
The first CD I played was a private recording of Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto, with the L.A. Philharmonic orchestra during a Rachmaninoff piano competition. The disc features the winner of the contest on piano. This has always been one of the favorite recordings in my collection. It transports the listener into the venue in a very natural way. This CD was burned right from the master tape with no artificial reverb or compression. A good test for any changes to the system.
Uhhh .... what I thought was a great recording transported us into the live event. Astounding to say the least. How can such a simple tweak as ten little dots spread around the room have such a huge effect? My theory is ... the sound energy coming from the speakers causes certain resonances at certain frequencies, and those resonances excite certain areas of the room and smears the sound. The HFT's take those resonances out of the equation. That's my theory, anyway.
Here's the noted improvements:
1. A much more solid presentation at higher volume levels. Everything just seems to hang together better.
2. Bass control: The best bass from my system yet. Very defined. The lower registers of the piano are a delight.
3. Size of the presentation: What I thought was a big sound stage before has been expanded in a very focused way.
4. Transparency: I can "see" much further into the presentation now. The audience noises,coughs & sneezes, the orchestra tuning up, the members turning the pages of the music, the conductor walking on the platform ... all there where a lot of it wasn't before.
5. Musicality: The correct tones of the instruments, which I've paid particular attention to in the system, were much improved. Strings, timpani's and the presence of the piano were all dead-nutz on. Amazing.
6. 3-D: A much more holographic presentation. Good Lord, how much better can this get? So much more "air" around the performers. It really adds to the suspension of disbelief in a big way.
I could go on and on with our positive impressions last night, but I will echo what Robert said: "This is your greatest tweak ever!" "It sounds like you've improved your entire system."
After playing a number of CD's featuring piano, we switched to the analog rig and played a whole variety of music ... from straight ahead jazz to Hawaiian music. The expansion of the sound space, and the realism from analog and tubes with the new room treatment? Unbelievable.
The ten pack of HFT's gets you to "level two" ... one more pack of five would get it to "level three." Based upon last nights results, there is another five pack in my near future.
Are any of you other A'goners using SR HFT's in your room? If so, please post your results here. I'd like to know if your experiences with these devises are similar to mine.
Happy listening, guys.
http://highend-electronics.com/products/sr-hft-high-frequency-transformer
The listening room already sported two pairs of Shataki Holograms ... one pair in the front corners of the room and a second pair in the rear corners of the room. In addition to the Holograms, there are tube traps along the rear of the listening position. I thought I had my room problems solved with the existing treatments and I was satisfied with those results.
Enter the SR HFT's ...
I had my friend Robert over last night to help evaluate the changes, if any. I was looking forward to maybe a small improvement at best. I mean, what can one expect from little metal devises that stick to your walls ... little devises so small that one wouldn't even notice them unless they were called attention to?
Long story short ... we were hit over the head with astounding disbelief at the ... I don't want to use the word "improvement," because that would be an understatement. I'll use the word trans-formative instead. Because, that's exactly what this tweak has done; its transformed my listening environment, and consequently my entire system, into an unbelievable music machine.
The first CD I played was a private recording of Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto, with the L.A. Philharmonic orchestra during a Rachmaninoff piano competition. The disc features the winner of the contest on piano. This has always been one of the favorite recordings in my collection. It transports the listener into the venue in a very natural way. This CD was burned right from the master tape with no artificial reverb or compression. A good test for any changes to the system.
Uhhh .... what I thought was a great recording transported us into the live event. Astounding to say the least. How can such a simple tweak as ten little dots spread around the room have such a huge effect? My theory is ... the sound energy coming from the speakers causes certain resonances at certain frequencies, and those resonances excite certain areas of the room and smears the sound. The HFT's take those resonances out of the equation. That's my theory, anyway.
Here's the noted improvements:
1. A much more solid presentation at higher volume levels. Everything just seems to hang together better.
2. Bass control: The best bass from my system yet. Very defined. The lower registers of the piano are a delight.
3. Size of the presentation: What I thought was a big sound stage before has been expanded in a very focused way.
4. Transparency: I can "see" much further into the presentation now. The audience noises,coughs & sneezes, the orchestra tuning up, the members turning the pages of the music, the conductor walking on the platform ... all there where a lot of it wasn't before.
5. Musicality: The correct tones of the instruments, which I've paid particular attention to in the system, were much improved. Strings, timpani's and the presence of the piano were all dead-nutz on. Amazing.
6. 3-D: A much more holographic presentation. Good Lord, how much better can this get? So much more "air" around the performers. It really adds to the suspension of disbelief in a big way.
I could go on and on with our positive impressions last night, but I will echo what Robert said: "This is your greatest tweak ever!" "It sounds like you've improved your entire system."
After playing a number of CD's featuring piano, we switched to the analog rig and played a whole variety of music ... from straight ahead jazz to Hawaiian music. The expansion of the sound space, and the realism from analog and tubes with the new room treatment? Unbelievable.
The ten pack of HFT's gets you to "level two" ... one more pack of five would get it to "level three." Based upon last nights results, there is another five pack in my near future.
Are any of you other A'goners using SR HFT's in your room? If so, please post your results here. I'd like to know if your experiences with these devises are similar to mine.
Happy listening, guys.
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I have around 70 hours on the blue duplex outlet now. Sound is somewhat muddled a bit of reverb and a bit of dullness. It's difficult to find the best words to describe, lacks focus? The depth of soundstage is clearly deeper as is the hight and width. In fact the depth is deeper at the outer fringes almost like a slight surround sound effect. Four or five hours on the black. The Oppo power supply is connected to the black. I'm sure those Galileo LE's will be amazing Folkfreak. |
Still cooking the Blue outlet but for those that are interested in the difference between the Galileo LE and newer UEF it's an interesting comparison Firstly they're clearly cut from the same cloth tonally and changing one for the other does not alter the fundamental tonal balance. I'd also recommend that you definitely use the grounding connection as without it the noise floor is noticeably higher. I have the full active ground block and made up a connection using the stock SR wire -- upgrading to the HD links or a custom pair from Verastarr will no doubt be a nice tick up. Once grounded and with the gold bullets (I've yet to try the silver) the UEF has noticeably less pronounced bass than the LE but more detail and a major step change in clarity and information retrieval in the upper mids and highs. This is especially apparent in the clarity around breathing and vibrato on vocal and in the more high pitched percussion. The drop in perceived bass is something I've found often happens on my analog rig when I improve things, at first it seems you're missing something but then you realize that a bass hump has been smoothed over and all the detail and extension is still there but now in better proportion to the rest of the frequency range. Overall the gestalt of the UEF is more natural and open, greater information retrieval but with no edge or harshness. In fact with the UEF some vocals that had been shrill became more natural and even toned. The main benefit of the UEF is a much lower noise floor -- it seems the old cliche of hearing into the recording holds true in spades with this one and you may find yourselves turning the volume up a notch or too (it tends to be the case that it is low level distortion that limits where you place the volume control -- more of this tends to make the same absolute level seem louder) So if you're system can handle natural bass and doesn't need the bit of bass bump the LE provides I'd say the switch to UEF is a no brainer |
Just wanted to relay first impressions on the Blue duplex. It's had 120 hours burn in on a cable cooker which should be plenty. I installed it this morning -- other than having the ground on the opposite corner to the red installation was a cinch. By the way I have found a lot of reds strip the cover mounting screw, hopefully no such problem with the blue. Anyway how does it sound? I swapped my power amps (and FEQs, Atmosphere and SR Active Ground) from the Black to the Blue and they do sound very different. The Black is the king of delicacy and detail while in the Blue there's almost an extra half octave of bass, a greater sense of pace and immediacy and the potential for more openness and extension. However there is a big caveat to all of this - unlike any power outlet I've ever tested the Blue is very sensitive to setup and ancillaries. If there's any noise in your system the Blue seems to pick it up and magnify it. Cable dressing needs to be immaculate -- for example I had a couple of interconnects running too close to power cords - never been an issue with the Blacks but with the Blue getting these better dressed made an immediate and profound impact on the soundstage. I still need to run down a level of amp hiss and even some odd ultrasonics that are apparent with the Blue that I never heard with the Black. Overall I suspect the Blue is such a wide open window it is exposing problems I didn't know I had. The bass while deep is still a bit uncontrolled but I suspect this will settle down over time. Net net I think the Blue is a good complement to the Black -- ideal for power amps and situations where you want to prioritize slam and openness over finesse -- I'll probably stick with the Black for my sources as exposing noise issues here would be even more of a bear to track down but for my amps I suspect I'll be sticking with the Blue. |
OK, so one more skeptic converted. The acoustics in my living room was so bad we couldn't understand each other half the time. TV/video was a never ending exercise in hitting the back button several times and lip reading. Not infrequently, we just gave up on segments of dialogue. Forget about any critical music listening. SR had a June special, order a Black Box and get 2 10 packs of HFTs for free. Since there is a 30 day return policy, I took a shot and placed an order with the Cable Company. Peter handled my order and offered some of the best customer service I have ever had. I sent him photos and a floor plan of my living room, and he guided me on placement. Oh my, the Black Box made a huge and immediate difference. The black box alone was enough to render dialogue intelligible. I waited for 3 weeks to place the HFTs. Even my wife, who is totally skeptical about such things, volunteered that the Black Box had very significantly improved the acoustics. Yesterday, I did a video conference with Peter and he helped me place 10 of the HFTs. Again, the room acoustics took a big step forward. I was absolutely sure these HFTs were nothing but snake oil, but the difference was really amazing. I've still got 10 of these left, and I am going to do some playing around with these in my two channel room to see what they will do. Both the Black box and the HFTs are so unobtrusive that WAF considerations are irrelevant. I wish I had run this experiment a long time ago. |
You might consider the new Wide Angle HFTs. These can be the foundation of improving the sound... use them first? The HFTs you have can be used to "fine tune" the room, and you may not want to use all of them. Over time, I have removed many HFTs from my room. It was as if they were competing and diminishing the FOCUS of the sound. For example, I went from four on the ceiling to a single piece, over the "sweet spot" chair. Yes, I believe you will hear a big difference with the Wide Angle versions. (Remember the 30 day return policy.) |
The Synergistic Research HFT system is fabulous and solved my significant room acoustic problems. Previously I had tried the old school approach of absorbtion and diffraction with much less sonic success and visually the room was then unappealing. I give the SR approach the highest satisfaction rating one can give. Synergistic Research now has a family of HFT's as Sgordon1 alluded to. The original HFT, HFT 2.0 (more warmth and texture to sound), HFT-X( more air and space), and two wide angle versions. A combination of these products allows one to really dial in a room sonically. These small resonators are easily placed and can be repositioned quickly. If you sell your house or change apartments you take your acoustic treatments with you. For 99.9% of us audiophiles, we will never have a custom built perfect dimentioned dedicated listening room.For real rooms with real acoustic challenges, the Synergistic Research HFT system does a great job of improving listening pleasure. Peter Hansen at the Cable Company is an expert on installing the HFT's as is Scott Walker and his staff at Scott Walker Audio. Brownsfan's approach of sending videos of his room for HFT installation advice is a great approach .Another great use of the smart phone. You can watch Peter Hansen placing HFT's in a room by going to YouTube and searching for Synergistic Research videos. The HFT's do come with a good suggested approach diagram on where to place them in a room. And best of all if you do not like them you send them back and get your money refunded. 30 days to try them. And if you return them or change their placement - no nail holes in the wall. A great product that has improved my listening pleasure. David Pritchard |
Although I appreciate @oregonpapa 's passion, I'd tone down the positive effects somewhat.Unfortunately, the gentlemen is overexciting about Synergistic products everywhere on internet.The magnitude of improvements of tweaks is.. rather subtle. Transformation, jaw dropping is abuse, is exaggeration. I read his description of red fuses... superior etc, then blacks were so much superior, now blue even more superior. I don't know where he ended up with his superiors. He must be affiliated...
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jkuc ... I’m curious. Exactly what was your intent in making your above post? Is this type of review more to your liking: SR Red fuse = Good. SR Black fuse = Better. SR Blue fuse = Best. SR HFT’s = Really good. SR Level III Power cords = Better than the ones they replaced. ARC REF-75se = Better than the REF-75 it replaced. Herbie's tube dampeners = Better than nothing. Please enlighten us ... what were your results when you placed the SR fuses and the SR HFT’s into your system and room? Oh, wait ... Frank |
Well, I started my HFT journey with two speaker kits ( combination of standard HFTs, 2.0s and HFT X ). I did like what I heard. Sound was more pronounced, articulate, vivid. So I decided to pull the trigger and ordered more : HFT 10 pack and HFT Wide Angle. I put them all at once as I felt pretty antsy. The result was stunning . I expected more air, better HF extension, clearer mids. But what I got was full transformation of the sound. I had invested hundreds of labor hours in treating my listening room so it already had great acoustics. That's why I expected only minor improvements. Boy, was I wrong ! The most unexpected part was the bass. The sheer energy and drive, how clean and articulate it got. Powerful, fast, aggressive ( where it needs to be ). The room definitely got bigger, especially in depth. It was like the front wall was just removed. Then there was this liquidity of the piano and some indescribable....magic, I guess. For lack of a better word. Something elusive, hard to place...but so precious. I am definitely hooked. Want to add more HFT 2.0s and standard ones. Then maybe try an Atmosphere. We'll see how it goes. |
^^^ When I first installed the ten-pack of HFT in my room, I had my friend Robert over for a listen. I didn't tell him what I had done and asked him what he thought. Robert hears like a bat, and upon initial listening, he about fell over. The improvement was significant to the point that Robert was guessing all sorts of things from tube rolling to an upgraded preamp. Everything was improved, including, as you said ... the bass. Frank |
I then installed the first 5 SR HFTs and couldn’t hear any or little difference. I proceeded by adding the next 5 and again nothing. Maybe my 59 year old ears are going No not going, but hearing nothing that these could possibly do. Just more SR HRT expensive voodoo snake oil to suck the gullible in, and look who's at the helm. |