steveinaz;684693 Wrote: > I think everyone would agree (and what I preach w/my 37yrs in this > hobby) is that you need to start with good base components. While I do > believe cables can make a difference(as an example)---it is IMO, > extremely subtle; and there are far more important things to address > first. > > The important thing to stress to new audiophiles, is that tweaks should > be done last; as a fine tuner. No cable, pebble, brass cone, special > spray, or demagnetizer is gong to address system deficiencies/lack of > synergy due to poor integration. You'll do nothing but chase your tail > with that approach-- > > Save the experimentation/tweaking for the 99yd line, then bring it on > home with specific cables, your favorite magic "rock" whatever it is > that turns that final screw for you--just don't ever kid yourself that > you can cure "real" system problems with these "nth" degree approaches.
One could argue, equally forcefully, that the exact opposite approach would be more prudent. Waiting for the time when we're 99% there to turn our attention to experimentation/tweaking would invariably mean that we've already spent copious amounts of money. Many of those expenditures could've easily been avoided if only we had prudently applied some experimentation along the way. For example, room treatments. If we're just starting to build a high quality audio system, and had reached a point where we feel that the sound of our system is lacking in bass and is at the same time having too much glare in the upper mids, we could, following your advice, work on upgrading one or more major components. We could for example upgrade our integrated amp to a much pricier pre-amp/power-amp separates, or maybe upgrade our lowly $500 DAC to a more esoteric $8,000 DAC etc. After doing that, we may still feel that the bass is a bit shy and muddy, and that there is still some remaining glassiness and shrill in the highs. There goes another round of very expensive upgrades; maybe we upgrade our Totem speakers to much more expensive Willsons, and so on. You get the general idea. But what if many of these expensive upgrades could've been avoided if only we paid more attention to experimenting a bit with speaker placement, room treatment, or even just purchasing a $100.00 power conditioner? I'd encourage people to start experimenting and tweaking early on in the game, especially with free or cheap tweaks (in the range of $10 to $100). We've all been there at one point or another, and discovered that by replacing the noisy switching wallwart with a $65.00 linear PSU introduced more order and musicality into our system than buying a $1,500 preamp could ever do. -- magiccarpetride ------------------------------------------------------------------------ magiccarpetride's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37863 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=92918 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
