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I Just Don't Hear It - I wish I did

I am frustrated because I am an audiophile who cannot discern details from so many of the methods praised by other audiophiles. I joke about not having golden ears. That said, I can easily discern and appreciate good soundstage, image, balance, tone, timbre, transparency and even the synergy of a system. I am however unable to hear the improvements that result from, say a piece of Teflon tape or a $5.00 item from the plumbing aisle at Home Depot. Furthermore, I think it is grossly unfair that I must pay in multiples of one hundred, or even one thousand just to gain relatively slight improvements in transparency, detail, timbre soundstage, etc., when other audiophiles can gain the same level of details from a ten dollar tweak. In an effort to sooth my frustration, I tell myself that my fellow audiophiles are experiencing a placebo effect of some sort. Does anyone else struggle to hear….no wait; does anyone else struggle to comprehend how someone else can hear the perceived benefits gained by the inclusion of any number of highly touted tweaks/gimmicks (brass screws, copper couplers, Teflon tape, maple hardwood, racquet balls, etc.) I mean, the claims are that these methods actually result in improved soundstage, image, detail (“blacker backgrounds”), clarity, bass definition, etc.
Am I alone in my frustration here?
2chnlben
mumbles
83 posts
 
Dopogue, cool experiment, that's half the fun!
You mentioned when you first listened by yourself you were not so impressed for the money, maybe a little buyers remorse. But when there was a direct comparison and a second opinion the improvements were more noticable.
This is the interesting part of this discussion. Maybe with incremental tweaks we need a baseline for comparison or others of like mind to help validate, or point out where that constellation is, for us to appreciate it.
dopogue
1,773 posts
 
Thanks, Mumbles. I gotta say I really wasn't expecting the result we got. And we tried everything under my friend's speaker to get the most out of it, including my old (Stein Audio) stands and a cobbled-up maple/cones approach using the stock bases. Yeah, there was a little buyer's remorse, going into the comparison. What I don't understand was how dramatic the improvement was, as revealed by the comparison. I know that Anthony Gallo and Pierre Sprey (Mapleshade) have been friends for a long time -- Pierre has built special stands for the new Gallo 5LS towers that, according to the dealer I bought the Ref 3s from, are pretty much essential in Anthony's view. But that may just be dealer talk. Dave
douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 
I stand by (ugh, bad pun) my observation regarding raising or lowering speaker height in general, but there obviously is more happening there.
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Tbg and Tvad have said it all. If I tweak at all these days, I tweak for soundstage presentation by coupling or decoupling gear with their bases. Just moving things by a few inches will make a world of difference. It takes time, patience and careful listening. My goal is always, that I would be able to walk around the players in my imagination, that the presentation of individual instruments is sufficiently threedimensional. Before that of course, problems of timbre, pitch, prat have to be resolved. I am old, but I have- since childhood - well and carefully trained ears---and even more important, friends, whose hearing is even better and who are literate enough and musically trained to be convincing in what they can discern.
reb1208
518 posts
 
I have not read a word of this thread other than your plea for help. The first question I will ask is what pre-amp are you using??
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