Fast forward five months and this is what has happened in summary:
1. Bought a number of GIK acoustic panels to cover early reflection points. Mine are moveable and I move most of them in and out for listening sessions. They are easy to do so. (It took quite a bit of time to get them due to what we're all experiencing with supply chain issues.)
2. Focused on upgrading my isolation platforms for my amps, upgrading couplers for all my components and upgrading my tone arm RCA and power cord for the phono stage. I chose HRS bases and a mix of Vortex and Nimbus for my components. I selected Stillpoints Ultra5 for my turntable. Cables and power cord came from Synergistic (and now I have 100% Synergistic throughout my system).
3. Finally -- and this the big one -- I put in a Distributed Bass Array from James Romeyn which is a modified version of the AudioKinesis Swarm. The system was set up by J. R. Bosclair, of Wally Tools. It was a good eight hour effort using data analysis to find the optimum location for the subs and the various nob changes on the sub amps (2). I enjoyed the process.
The first two set of changes we good and valuable. It's amazing what you can do when minimizing reflections and improving isolation and chassis noise.
But none of that compared to the difference of the DBA. Implementing that was an order of magnitude change improvement across the spectrum of what we typically define or use to explain how a system sounds. Essentially, the DBA rendered the other changes as tweaks. Whereas the DBA was monumental in impact.
As others have described and as it's been written in TAS, it's not just the bass that improves, but everything from the mids to the highs. It's incredible and so fun. Finally, my room is less of an issue (although certainly not perfect) and I have real, "deeply" discernible bass (and not just deep but low and mid-bass) with speed and accuracy. But the crazy thing is how much this system "corrects" lots of bad stuff happening b/c the bass was previously "misbehaving".
Okay...I'll stop. I know how this might sound or appear.
1. Bought a number of GIK acoustic panels to cover early reflection points. Mine are moveable and I move most of them in and out for listening sessions. They are easy to do so. (It took quite a bit of time to get them due to what we're all experiencing with supply chain issues.)
2. Focused on upgrading my isolation platforms for my amps, upgrading couplers for all my components and upgrading my tone arm RCA and power cord for the phono stage. I chose HRS bases and a mix of Vortex and Nimbus for my components. I selected Stillpoints Ultra5 for my turntable. Cables and power cord came from Synergistic (and now I have 100% Synergistic throughout my system).
3. Finally -- and this the big one -- I put in a Distributed Bass Array from James Romeyn which is a modified version of the AudioKinesis Swarm. The system was set up by J. R. Bosclair, of Wally Tools. It was a good eight hour effort using data analysis to find the optimum location for the subs and the various nob changes on the sub amps (2). I enjoyed the process.
The first two set of changes we good and valuable. It's amazing what you can do when minimizing reflections and improving isolation and chassis noise.
But none of that compared to the difference of the DBA. Implementing that was an order of magnitude change improvement across the spectrum of what we typically define or use to explain how a system sounds. Essentially, the DBA rendered the other changes as tweaks. Whereas the DBA was monumental in impact.
As others have described and as it's been written in TAS, it's not just the bass that improves, but everything from the mids to the highs. It's incredible and so fun. Finally, my room is less of an issue (although certainly not perfect) and I have real, "deeply" discernible bass (and not just deep but low and mid-bass) with speed and accuracy. But the crazy thing is how much this system "corrects" lots of bad stuff happening b/c the bass was previously "misbehaving".
Okay...I'll stop. I know how this might sound or appear.