Happy Holidays and Your Favorite Tips?

Thanks for the topic, erik_squires

Find a true mentor-s, even if you are extremely experienced and knowledgeable.  When you go deep, one discovers deeper levels bringing you closer to the real thing.  Seeking out experienced, trusted advisors can save you in so many ways, especially around room tuning, suitable gear, and yes, modern DSP, including BACCH, if you are explorative.  Any harm done is vastly outweighed.  For the naysayers, yes, you can do damage.  However, wizened, skillful Techs who understand sound, harmonics, layering...how tube distortions work vs the low noise of great solid state can take you to amazing levels of gratification.  

The journey is often one of not knowing what was missing until attained.  This from an ever impassioned, ever reaching, old fart. 

More Peace, plus Joy          Pin              (bold pring for old eyes)  

@erik_squires wrote:

Raising the cut-off frequency AND sealing the box greatly reduces woofer distortion by controlling excursion, another benefit. Of course, at the end of the day what matters is whether the listener likes it or not.

I don’t block the dual ports of my subs-augmented main speakers (haven’t tried either), but the dual 15" woofers are high-passed just below 85Hz, 36dB/octave L-R, and with 100dB sensitivity here I’ve never seen the cones visibly move, even at bonkers SPL’s, so in that regard blocking the ports should see no real advantage. Question is whether there’s unintentional port contribution seeping through from the upper range, but at least listening impressions don’t point to this. Interesting tip though..

My tip(s): be critical; challenge audiophile conventions; keep/have an open mind; read, listen and observe all you can; experiment; listen to live acoustic music; let sound be the determinant - not price (or looks, brand or other); go DIY and 2nd hand; include pro as well as hi-fi segment (whatever works, works); go active configuration; physics rule with speakers (i.e.: let form follow function, not the other way ’round); implementation is king; a lot matters, but not all equally; forest for the trees. And, at the end of the day: make up your own mind.