Warm vs Revealing—the struggle for balance


For me my upgrade path has been finding balance between warmth and dynamics/detail.

It’s looks something like this: find satisfaction (Raven Nighthawk + Tekton), get upgrade bug seeking more dynamics, get more revealing gear (Ma 352), feel fatigued, buy new tubes (Telefunken) and speakers (SF Olympica); want more dynamics (Mc 601 + c50), I immediately get tube pre because of fatigue (c2300), still too sharp (new tubes and DAC); excellent balance, but of course sell speakers, new speakers too revealing, buy Cardas cables to replace Wireworld (ahh just right for now, but may be a little more revealing might be nice).

And oh yeah, working on fixing the damn room problems!

Chasing the unicorn. 

Anyone else doing this back and forth?

w123ale

Showing 2 responses by jjss49

I just don't agree that you can have too much resolution.  What causes harshness isn't too much detail.

i agree with this

it isn't a tradeoff in a well built system

Whenever you have increased detail that is also fatiguing (bright and harsh), the fatigue is often the result of distortion.

You know you’re making progress when the presentation is detailed and relaxed at the same time.

words of wisdom from ralph, well worth remembering as we tinker to improve our rigs