System synergies: Chaotic or predictable?

Troy, Yes, sometimes great results are by mixing manufacturers. Still, I’m surprised at how many don’t even try the matching gear, which at least the designer thinks are good together.

BTW, I heard the BP26 and 4BSST2 combination you didn’t like, and in local demo with BDA and Aerial 7t, it sounded great to my ears. Room? Speakers? Ears? Wires? Taste? Who knows?

Mike look at the high frequency graph of the Aeriel 7T and you will see it dips at many freqencies above 10k the speaker is shelved in the top end the Bryston/Bryston combo therefore would sound pleasing. 

On a brighter speaker the Brystons can sound a bit too sterile hence the use of a tube preamplifier.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

I'm not really interested in debating this here, because everyone is sick of it.  I just think the burden of proof is on proponents to show that they *sound* different when you don't know which cable is in the system - and I'm all ears for that. The opposite has been demonstrated enough times tp be a reasonable baseline expectation.  Therefore my prior is that expensive cables are the emperors without clothes (and a very high-margin emperor for dealers).  A null-test can easily show that two cables of vastly different price typically present exactly the same electrical signal at the input posts of the speaker.  Presented with exactly the same signal, Speakers should exhibit identical behavior or...we have a speaker problem.

I can say my system synergy is in part because of my years long reading, then my years long using the components I've owned and after listening...then listening again, trying to get the best out of those components. ( instead of trading) Of coarse the room must be referred to as a component.

Mhofer, this debate has been going on for a long time on these forums, you are free to believe whatever you wish to believe.

We have done many, many, live cable demos where just swapping a cable has made sometimes an enourmous sonic difference. 

The fact that the electrical difference between two cables is very slight, there are things going in in transmission that are not really quantified by just measurements.

We cite a very good example on the validity of emprical data.

Buy a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild  for $900 
Buy a bottle of Ripple $3 dollars 

Pour both one at a time into a gas Chromatigraph, get the results on a molecular level both wines are made out of exaclty the same organic compounds so why do they taste differently?

The computer shows scientifically they are the same, so how come taste doesn't work the same way?

Why the specimen of grapes, the age of the vines, the care in manufacturer. 

The real anwear is that cable designer start with ideas on what causes audible changes and then comes out with  a design.

If you think cables all sound the same listen to a pair of Nordot Vallhalas, and then listen to a set of Kubala Sosnas boy will you hear a difference.
Same system same components.

Now are cables worth their high prices different equation.

A 355/40/20 inch high performance tire costs $800 for a Pirelli P Zero what is the cost to make such a tire, probably around $100.00 basic ingredients in a tire some woven steel belts and rubber hadly expensive items. 

When we go on a tuning session we bring inteconnects, and power cables, power conditioning, footers, and other such devices, we took a gentleman's poor sounding pair of Kef Ref 5 sound better than a local audio stores $300k system all by the application of these principles and techniques. 

One power conditioner company years ago said that if power was like water your components would be drinking from a Toilet.

Is there a difference between ice cold, properly filtered mineral water and toilet water served at room temperature?  Same glass,  way different experience.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ