SoftwireEngineer wrote: > @Ralph - I keep tweaking my system. But you probably are quite happy > with what you have, which is a good state to be in :-) There is always > an expectation bias, but I think I have an idea whether my system's > sound has improved or not. If I am not sure about the baseline > sound/benchmark of your system, I think there is no point is spending > any more money.
I think that I am slowly beginning to understand where you are coming from and what you are trying to accomplish as far as improving the sound of your audio system. There is quite a bit of very useful advice and an equal amount of not so useful advice buried within the posts of this and several other forums. The real problem is trying to determine what is very useful, somewhat useful and not useful and also what is pure hokum. For example the whole jitter debate falls into the somewhat useful category - useful if one is a the USB output from a computer to feed a DAC, not so useful if one is using the digital coax output from a SB Touch to feed a DAC. In the case of the former, jitter may have a negative impact on the sound, in the case of the later, jitter is a non-issue and trying to "fix" this "problem" will just leave one chasing one's tail. On my main system the biggest audible difference is between analog (vinyl playback) and digital (Transporter). Sure I could spend hours trying to discern differences between the playback of a Sonny Rollins LP and the playback of a high resolution (24bit/96kHz) digital version of the same recording but to what end? Both recordings sound fantastic and perhaps the vinyl has slightly warmer bass but playing the hi-rez digital via the Transporter could not be any easier and does not involve things like cleaning the vinyl and needle or putting the record back in the sleeve and back on the rack. And yes I could go out and spend thousands of dollars on some fancy power conditioning equipment only to spend hours listening while trying to convince myself of the "night and day" difference and the vast improvement to the overall sound of my system (many veils lifted, windows opened, etc.). Sometimes spending lots of money can have that effect :) For the moment I'm very content to just play music and not sweat all the small stuff. Every so often I treat myself to an evening of serious audiophile listening and truth be told I'm always amazed and relived to find that a well recorded piece of mediocre music is always easily bested by great music regardless of the recording quality. Which is why a 1928 Louie Armstrong recording and a 1940 Duke Ellington recording will both always have a place of honor amongst my favorite pieces of music. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=96407 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
