Warm vs Revealing—the struggle for balance

@waytoomuchstuff + 1 “IMHO, we've got push the resolution envelop past the point of "comfort" to learn which exit to get off on.  It's all part of the hit-and-miss experimental process.  Hopefully, time and money will also cooperative with this objective.”

This captures it well for me. How does one know where the line is if you don’t find it and of course that line is ever changing 

Whenever you have increased detail that is also fatiguing (bright and harsh), the fatigue is often the result of distortion.

You know you’re making progress when the presentation is detailed and relaxed at the same time.

words of wisdom from ralph, well worth remembering as we tinker to improve our rigs

@mulveling and @mbmi yup. This is part of the fun of this. I have three systems that I’m always tweaking, because I’m a tweaker. That part of the fun for me and expense too of course.

BTW system is feeling just about right tonight with the Cardas cables in (Clear Cygnus). At first I was missing the snap of the Wireworld but the Cardas is having synergy with my McIntosh tube pre and monoblocks and the SF Amati (much more detailed than the Olympicas that it replaced). The system is much more welcoming now than it was.

Great responses in this thread—nice to know I’m not alone in my journey.

OP,

I completely understand. I struggled with that the first couple decades or more of my pursuing the high end. Part of the issue was I was dealing with solid state equipment in the 70’s - 90’s. I could write many pages on the subject.

Today, you can get warm / detailed solid state and very detailed tube equipment. However, different companies specialize in different sound types. So, it is pretty easy to mix stuff and get a bad outcome. I have run out from Magico speakers demosmore than once… not because they are harsh speakers, but because they are so fast and accurate… paired with the wrong equipment and they can sound terrible.

So, from reading your post I believe you are moving too fast. One must be really careful and methodical… and slowly build a system one carefully chosen component at a time with the end in mind. Start with the right speakers.

Let me underscore something someone else said. Shooting for the sound of real music can be an incredibly helpful guide (although not a requirement , nothing wrong with shooting for something else). I could write tons on this. But my systems started converging on great sound when I learned what real un-amplified music sounds like (amplified music throws a layer of amps and speakers making it impossible to be a standard to which compare your system to.) In the beginning I just wanted it to sound better to me… the problem was that some music would sound better, but most would sound worse.

Every chance I got for over a decade I would listen to every acoustic instrument I could, jazz clubs, symphony, 7th row center for every concert for ten years. The result was I had a clear understanding of what the music should sound like. This made the objective clear.

To get to where you want to go: First step, find the right speakers. For me it was Sonus Faber, first Cremona, then Olympica, and now Amati Traditional. These speakers when fed with the right signal are as natural and musical as you will find, while being very detailed. Once you have the speakers, you want to listen to them, break them in for at least 500 hours, so you know the sound intimately. Then, given what you are hearing choose a preamp, then amp.

There is a very well known combination of Sonus Faber speakers, with Audio Research electronics and Transparent interconnects that delivers highly detailed, natural, musical, realistic sound (see my system… I did not use the rule of thumb, I got there by swapping and upgrading for forty years). Also, Wilson Speakers and Rowland for holographic, if you mostly listen to rock then McIntosh and B&W speakers are a classic.

What is key, is not to blow up the system and start again quickly with a whole bunch of new equipment. Spend a lot of time finding your speakers… then step by step swap in carefully chosen components to achieve the sound you want.

If you have not yet read Robert Harley’s book, The Complete Guide to High End Audio, I recommend that as your next step.

If all of this sounds like more than yo are up for. Go to a city. Find a dealer that you feel like you can trust and have home help you put together a complete system. 

The pursuit of resolution for its own sake is not the road to go at all ...

Synergy between components and acoustic optimization go toward musicality : which is details and relaxed sound at the same time as put it very well by atmasphere... 😊

I enjoy that on my two system , speakers and headphone... This is why i am in love with my two low cost system... They are impossible to upgrade at low cost , only at 10 times their basic cost... 😊 but i dont need to go there to be happy...