What are the odds......

i have a lot of equipment (several pairs of speakers and the ancillaries to drive them well) - i find i enjoy a variety in presentation, so sometimes i swap them in and out over periods of time ... harbeths have a lovely tone, warmth and thickness that is very comforting... proacs have a precision and clarity and spotlit sharpness that makes the music more exciting, quad esl’s have a purity and hear-thru quality that is very appealing very refined ... and so on... the new spatials have bass slam and openness that is very appealing, especially after listening to the quad esl’s after a while!

each set of components needs optimization, in terms of placement, room interaction, equipment, cables, what have you

hard to say which is better... all very good just different presentations with different strengths and weakness that are highlighted in different types of listening and musical genres

If its good from begining it will get better with time. Know the limitations, financial, system, space, music, and proceed with experimentation and caution. What matters is the involvement with a wide range of music and not a particular style. The mastery is to create something impressive on paper to real music making. Patience will be rewarded. And i am pretty sure, having the same amp/pre/speakers, that i know more today than did nearly 20 years ago or even yesterday. Yes the odds are good.

G

I think it comes down to cost vs performance. I love the sound of my system now I am sure it could be improved but at what cost? Likely too much for me to consider upgrading as my performance level, to me, is quite high.

OP: What are the odds......

....of making a really good sounding system better?

If it is really good odds are it is very hard to make better.

If it gets better all the time chances are

millercarbon:

So you think its luck and chance. Figures.

mapman:

That’s not what I said. In fact the exact opposite. It’s written there in plain English.

Indeed it is. It's clear you’re talking randomness and luck. It’s written there in plain English.

Anyway, since I have the time, hate to belabor the point but we can’t answer the question until we do clarify are we talking about chances, randomness and odds? Or are we talking about experience, skill, and knowledge?

Because if the former, which it sure seems to me applies to a lot of people, then yes it is random and odds are low. But if its a skill where knowledge and experience rule then its a certainty. Absolute certainty.

For proof I offer two systems. Mine is really good sounding. To say the least. Beyond really good sounding in fact. Has been for some time now. Yet I was able to make a really nice improvement with some rubber bands scrounged from the kitchen clutter drawer. Seriously. Wasn’t hard at all. Cost: zero. Did a demo for some people, their heads shook in disbelief. Easily noticeable improvement.

Then another time I stuck some fO.q tape under my bearing and between the cartridge and head shell. Huge improvement.

But that’s my system. Some snooty types look down on my system as sort of mid-fi. Okay. So what about a system that is really, really out there? Mike Lavigne improved his with some diffuser panels he stuck on a wall. He listened for a while, thought about it, figured it out, put the panels up, heard the improvement.

The OP question wasn’t about how hard or expensive, it was "What are the odds". Remember? What are the odds? What are the chances. It’s written there in plain English.

If you have what it takes then it's not odds, its for certain. If you don’t- well then good luck to you!

I am afraid there is no odds here...Or odds are not enough which is what the OP think about....

Like buying a house or a car, buying an audio system ask less for odds than for a minimalistic search for knowledge and experience....


There is no "taste" also in good sound or in bad sound....There exist variations between systems tough,but variations are not reflective of some predetermined taste first but reflect more the many differences in systems with their embeddings dimensions....Instead of taste i prefer to speak about different perspective in sound presentation and interpretation....It is often "habits" disguised in taste....😁

We must all learn to listen... Listening experiments and experience are our personal journey and personal history...It is true for sound quality and it is true for music... Nobody is born with an immediate expertise in S.Q. acoustic nor with the irrepressible taste for Scriabin....All that is learned ....😎



A good natural timbre of an instrument is easily audible modulo a minimal experience in the listener...

Bad imaging is audible....

Harshness, or warmness, compressed soundstage, poor dynamic are all audible facts...

No tastes here....Only habits veiling or hiding limitations...



I discovered how to improve controls in mechanical electrical and acoustical dimensions where any system is embedded...It was an adventure in thinking, reading, and experimenting and funny, very rewarding....

It is the ONLY road i know....Please explain to me if there is another one, i will listen to you...But beware, my road had cost me peanuts...Costly solutions are NOT solution in my world....Anybody owning the money already can pay 500,000 bucks for a good system, no great challenge here.... It is more difficult to reach great results with 500 bucks for a system and peanuts for the embeddings controls devices.....😁

Then this is the road for me and the rest is most of the times costly upgrades...

But almost all good system, even costly one, need less an upgrade than a good embeddings controls, that is a fact....

When is good good enough? YMMV.

You answered yourself.... When you listen music without thinking too much about upgrade this is it....

All the rest is hobbying or obsessing.... We have the choice....

My best to you mapman....