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Thiel death do we part . . .

OK, stupid title, I know...but so is my question, probably. So in spite of years of owning lots of different gear - speakers (Maggies, B&W), preamps (Bottlehead,AR), amps (C&J, Bryston) and so on, I've never quite got "the magic" I often hear about. I sort of went the path of least resistance and settled on a small setup - Theil(1.6s) & Bryston(B60) with Rega front ends (analog & digital).

The other night, however, I set it up in a near field format for the first time. After playing with speaker placement a bit, everything suddenly snapped into place, and it all sounds amazing. Magic. I found myself digging into my record collection (maybe 4000 deep) for the 1st in years and now there's not enough hours in the day to listen to it all.

One thing I've noticed is that the system is just brutal with poorly recorded media. While well produced material (Patricia Barber, Cowboy Junkies, some Rickie Lee Jones, Stan Getz and so on) can be just stunning, detailed, spacious and even deep, lots of others just aren't pleasant to listen to. Things I used to enjoy can now sound lame and muffled. I understand this may be a Thiel "take no prisoners" issue. So, just as an experiment, I swapped out the Thiels for a pair of old B&W 802s that are passing thru on the way to eBay and was surprised that while good material sounds adequate, bad material doesn't sound too bad...at least not embarrassing.

So the question is, without swapping nice speakers for not as nice on a regular basis, is there something that I can do to get the set up to be more "forgiving", at times? I listen mostly to what you might call intimate music, small groups and individual singers, often in live recordings.

Listening area is 12x18 with a low ceiling (open joists) off a corridor.

So maybe alternate cables (Zu Julian now) or a subwoofer or an equalizer? Thanks for your patience.
dancub
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,072 posts
 
BLue point cart is one of the few pieces I have owned over the years that in retrospect I would label as clearly "midfi", ie limited potential to help deliver top notch sound.

I owned BLue Point and not the "special" which is reputed to be better, but I would still be leery.

Plus with old phono gear, it can be hard to discern that everything is working optimally as it should and needs to (for good results) still over time. BEtter to start with a new cart that is more certain to be operating properly and be sure.

Denon 103R is a slam dunk to end the cart search for most as long as phono pre-amp is up to the low output and tonearm is medium to high mass.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,749 posts
 
I often use poor recordings to let me know if I am on the wrong track. Sure- excellent recordings should sound amazing. Its the poor ones that tell me whether the system is editorializing or not.

I regard a lot of the editorial as possibly being artifact in the playback chain that is exacerbated by artifact in the recording. If I can get the system to be OK with bad recordings it will sound even better with the good recordings.

The trick is to get the equipment to unperturbed by the signal. To this end I work with tubes as I have not had good success with transistors.

FWIW I'm not a fan of the Rega arms I have seen. The ones I have seen did not have provisions for allowing the cartridge to be setup correctly. If the cartridge can't be set up right, don't expect the LPs to play without issues! VTA is one issue, the other is proper overhang. If you can get these two variables right, you are a long way towards getting the cartridge to track. Another really important variable in the setup is the effective mass of the arm/cartridge combination. If not right (must interact with the cartridge compliance such that the resulting resonant frequency falls between 7 and 12 Hz...) the cartridge can easily mistrack. If you hear any mistracking the setup has a serious problem!

Some speakers have significant lobes in the tweeter response. This means how toed-in (or lack of toe-in) can really change the experience.

There are tons of variables! Don't give- make it fun rather than work :)
soix
9,347 posts
 
"If I can get the system to be OK with bad recordings it will sound even better with the good recordings."

I found this to be an interesting finding. I kind of always assumed that if you make something sound OK with bad recordings it would gloss over some of the things that make good recordings truly special. Maybe that's not the case. Very good food for thought, and I'd be very interested for why this may be so.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,749 posts
 
Like I put in my post- many bad recordings have artifacts in them (distortion, excess high frequencies) that seem to exacerbate the problems in poor playback equipment.

As many people that work in the recording industry know, if you have really good microphones you can get away with murder downstream and it will often still sound good- if you start with lousy mics the best recording gear in the world will do you no good.

This is also true in playback, for example you don't need a really expensive cartridge to make an analog system sound really excellent. What you *need* is a tone arm/cartridge combination that allows the cartridge to not mistrack even on the most intense and complex material. If the cartridge has any tracking problems, not much you can do about it downstream. So a system where the cartridge has tracking problems will editorialize, especially on poor recordings.

This is also true if the speaker and amplifier combination adds up to something bright due to equipment mismatch.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,072 posts
 
Good gear brings out the best in everything, even lesser recordings. No doubt about that!

These days, I find most every recording to sound different and something good to like in 98% of the CDs or records I listen to, and I'm loving almost every minute of it. Way more so than in any years past. I feel like the time and money I have invested in good sound in recent years has payed off in spades and am very thankful for that!

Those are reasonable expectations I think.

Expecting all recordings to sound equally good or the same is unrealistic and the sure path to audiophile hell.

The few % I listen to that have little to no technical sonic merit will at least be high in terms of artistic merit to help compensate.

I have thousands of vinyl, tape and CD recordings collected over the years. I can only think of two or three that pain me enough to even make me think about not listening.
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