How I tamed digital glare.


For months I have been trying to eliminate digital glare in the my system, which showed up most noticably in the upper middle frequency vocal range, especially female vocals. I tamed some by replacing the stock fuse in my dac with HifiTuning Supreme Cu on the sage advice of Chris Van Haus of VH Audio, resulting in a significant improvement in tonal density, detail and clarity. So far, so good. Today I lightly dusted the laser lens in my CEC transport with a microfiber cloth and was astonished to discover a substantial improvement! And the laser lens and drive compartment appeared clean to begin with (in a smoke free environment). I tried cleaning contacts, swapping power cords and interconnects, rolling the tube in my MHDT dac, and so forth, but this simple protocol was more effective than any of those experiments. I suppose results may vary as every system is unique, but for me this simple tweak was revelatory: greater clarity and a signifcant reducton of hash. Wish I had thought of tt in the beginning; it would have saved me considerable time and frustration.
pmboyd
@pmboyd
i have the Shunyata Defender and love it. Best 200 bucks I have spent in my system. Give it a try with confidence, you can always return it if it doesn’t work wonders in your setup. 
spenva, how many Shunyata Defenders (SD) do you need? One for each outlet that has audio gear plugged into? In my case, I have powered speakers, so one each for them as well? Or would it be one per household circuit? I also run all my power cords to a Furman 15pfi power conditioner, so should I plug a SD into the back of it as well?
geoffkait
“Perfect Sound Forever.” Apparently there are quite a few people who swallowed the marketing slogan ...
It's actually worse than that. They not only believe and embrace the slogan, but they have built a whole belief system using the slogan as the foundation. Any information that conflicts with the slogan is dismissed with the wave of a hand, or with an insult - as demonstrated by some of the deleted posts in this thread.

It's unfortunate, because it could be useful to have conversations about this is certain threads, such as this one. But there are ideologues here, so it seems it never ends well.
Talk about projection. No one is doing what you accuse them of. No one said "perfect sound forever." 

The only embracing done is by those who dislike an opposing view. The premises drawn are just a straw man argument meant to deflect by attributing views and stands that no one proffered.

My CDP may make a mistake, or miss step, now and again but is it big enough to hear? Does it detract from the enjoyment. No, to both questions. 

Now, compare that to computer audio where there's so much networking involved and any small change in software and/or hardware can and will elicit an equally large change, for better or worse, in the resultant sound. There's still lots to work out and it's evident by the reviews and anecdotal evidence of those who've tried out better transports and came away with the opinion that's it's just as good, or better, than lots of the high end, expensive computer rigs out there.

This hobby is based on subjective listening and evaluation and to unequivocally state that one can't or shouldn't hear what they're hearing is just, plain, silly.

All the best,
Nonoise
@high-amp
I only use a single one. All of my gears are connected to a single line through a ZeroSurge 10 outlet plus a six outlet power cord. The Defender is in the six outlet extension. I tried to add an AC ipurifier but returned it as it didn’t add anything to the equation. I guess you can try multiple and remove one at a time to see if you lose any benefit. Nothing to lose as you can always return them.