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How you know your system is improving?

Fellow Audio Junkies - 

Over the last few years, I've invested in my first high end system. It's been a far costlier affair than I'd initially conceived. I started off simply wanting to listen to music in my home. At this stage of my life, I was fortunate to have some resources to invest which led me down the path of reading forums and reviews, while also having the opportunity to visit a few audio stores to demo equipment.

And down the rabbit hole I went... Once I realized all the nuances of equipment and their impact on the listening experience, I became fascinated with creating the most satisfying musical experience in my house. I ended up purchasing several amps, three sets of speakers, NOS power tubes, and a myriad combination of power cords.

With each investment, I would often remark to myself "yes - I hear an improvement..." But sometimes a doubt would cross my mind. Is this some sort of confirmation bias I've got going? Am I just throwing money away? Do I need to see a shrink? 

Admittedly, I was largely convinced things were improving, but a small part of my brain recognized I might be have been chasing windmills... 

Which brings me to this question: "How do you know your system is improving after you've made a system change or hopeful upgrade?" 

For me, a moment came last night when I put on a piece of music - Beth Orton - and played a track that a year ago sounded muddy or poorly recorded. There have been several system changes since I last played that Beth Orton track. As I began streaming over Quboz, I could hear details in the music which had been previously fuzzy and hidden. The tone of her voice was more real. Guitar strings came out of the fog... 

I guess the concept I often read about here, "using a test track" had become my new litmus test on whether my system was improving. It was inadvertent, but I think I'll default to this approach more consistently moving forward, going back to a few tracks that have proven to be challenging with the current system and giving them a go when a new component gets added. 

Yes, I know... nothing radical here. But would welcome how many of you benchmark improvements in your own systems! 

128x128bluethinker
mihorn
470 posts
 

One way to find if your system is improving is live-recording. I have >200 live-recordings of my systems over last 10 years in my YT channel. I can watch/hear the history (10 years) of my systems in YT.

Human ears are easily biased and get tired with different sounds. Also, human ears trick us too. But microphones are never tired and recordings always let me hear consistent sounds. I compare a recording of my speaker sound and the original music after the each fine tune of my speakers. And I adjust my speaker’s balance, tone, brightness, sound depth, forwardness, pressure of vocal, image height, musicality, openness, details of woofer and tweeter, naturalness, clarity, cleanness, etc. One can’t remember all these information by aural memory. Live-recording is only way to perform fine-tune of sounds in reproduction audio.

The ability to hear those delicate information can be acquired with experience and training. The capability (adjustability) of speaker and ability to fine-tune the speaker according to those information are a different topic. Alex/WTA

toddalin's avatar
toddalin
175 posts
 

Things can sound "changed" without sounding either better or worse and sometimes it just comes down to preference. And preference can change.

The caveat is that sometimes you just prefer something a bit different because it’s different. Regardless of how good a perfectly prepared steak tastes, would you want to eat it every day?

The problem is that if you set your system up so that some cuts sound "perfect," others will not, but could sound better under slightly different parameters.

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,743 posts
 

I learned one thing : the way we learn how to install any system together in a room matter way more than the separate piece of gear and their price tags... ( basic synergy for sure matter it is a starting point )

The second thing , there is no way for me to understand with my ears how to improve my system by buying pieces of gear for a so called "upgrade" ...For sure the soundfield may improve with any upgrade but it is not enough at all ...

Acoustics experiments, vibrations-resonance controls and electrical noise floor decreased are the three goals...Nevermind what is the cost of your system...😊

Once this is understood you can be happy even with a relatively  low cost system...

But probably a costlier system than mine will be needed ... Why ?  Because my speakers shine once modified and my headphone shine once modified... Then without modifications the cost for the same S.Q. will be much higher .,..But at a relatively low cost anyway if you learn the basic you will cure upgraditis ... ...

 

czarivey
5,710 posts
 

when it gets more music to listen most of the time.

mihorn
470 posts
 
toddalin

Things can sound "changed" without sounding either better or worse and sometimes it just comes down to preference. And preference can change.

I know what you mean by preference. But I’m not talking preference. One is actually better than another. You can compare the voice of below 2 videos. I can clearly hear one is more real human voice. Once you hear the better one, you won’t want to hear another by preference. It took me 4 months for improvement between below 2 videos. Alex/WTA

1)

2)

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