opaqueice;198730 Wrote: > Certainly many people share your views, but that just hasn't been my > experience. I get tired of poor speakers as I start to notice their > weak points, which jump out at me more and more on certain tracks. On > the other hand I appreciate the qualities of speakers I like again and > again - that sudden bass slam you can feel in your stomach, sparkling > clarity on highs, warm mids, seamless crossovers, incredibly real > soundstage. And yet I usually can't distinguish at all between > sources, even over lots of time. > > I used to think that was just me, and it's still a possibility - but > I've learned that just about everyone else also has great difficulty > distinguishing digital sources and amps, at least when blind. Granted, > those are short tests, and you can always find something to criticize in > them - but no one has any difficulty at all telling speakers apart. > > I rest my case.
O, I tend to agree with you but once you have a highly resolving speakers the other components start to make a bigger difference. I do hear some differences between amps and digital sources in informal blind lstening (which might not satisfy your rigorous criteria for a blind test :-) ) I do think one may have to spend the most on speakers to get the best results. It seems amps and DACs get to SOTA at a much lower price point than speakers. I did blind test Transporter V SB and the TP was significantly better. I also blind tested the XLR V RCA outs of the TP into my balanced amp and the XLR was much better than the RCA. We did level matching and my preamp switched silently and seamlessly between RCA and XLR. That difference was so large that all 3 people listening prefered balanced every time. I only refer to this to make the point that once the speakers are optimized , upstream components can become more important. Tom -- tomjtx ------------------------------------------------------------------------ tomjtx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7449 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=34849 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
