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.
I was aiming at that chocolate in those cookies mentioned above. Speaking of that, Sacher torte over cookies any time. Triple that for Imperial torte, even if it technically is not a torte at all.
Nonoise - thank you for the tip on High Fidelity MC 0.5 Power Conditioner! Have been running the ‘magnet’ in both of my systems for a week now - glare is gone at higher volumes and midrange detail is improved to the point of being striking.
tom8999, I can’t take full credit as others here who have gone before me have praised the MC-0.5. Only after awhile, when the dust has settled and folk like lowrider57 gave his impressions, that I thought I’d try it out. This stuff is the real deal.
Nonoise - I just went back and listened to two older Diana Krall albums via Tidal HiFi that are MQA - the clarity and detail are amazing. The stand up bass is tight and full. I cannot thank you guys on the Agon boards enough. My Maggie’s have never sounded better - and the cost is minimal!
I pulled up the output trode in my dac. That is, instead of seating the 5670 at the very bottom of the socket, I seated it approx. 3/16" higher in the socket. I did a double take. So I returned the tube to the fully seated position, resulting in a return to distinct vocal glare. Now I know the tube pins are thourougly clean and the dac brand new (I clean tube sockets routinely as well). Hmmm..I wonder it I was experiencing micro-arcing at the pin tips. Soemtimes it's the little things. The difffernce we equivalent to replacing an interconnect. And a lot cheaper.
There was a fella way back in the Eighties who made an inline filter that was meant for that. There was a passive version with a bunch of small inductors and an active version. It pretty much worked. I got a schematic and built a passive for myself.
Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the guy nor the gadget. I do know that he died early in the game.
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