What Does Holographic Sound Like?


And how do you get there? This is an interesting question. I have finally arrived at a very satisfying level of holography in my system. But it has taken a lot of time, effort and money to get there. I wish there had been a faster, easier and less expensive way to get there. But I never found one.

Can you get to a high level of holography in your system with one pair of interconnects and one pair of speaker wires? I don't believe so. I run cables in series. I never found one pair of interconnects and speaker wires that would achieve what has taken a heck of a lot of wires and "tweaks" to achieve. Let alone all the power cords that I run in series. Although I have found one special cable that has enabled the system to reach a very high level of holography -- HiDiamond -- I still need to run cables in series for the sound to be at its holographic best.

There are many levels of holography. Each level is built incrementally with the addition of one more wire and one more "tweak". I have a lot of wires and "tweaks" in my system. Each cable and each "tweak" has added another level to the holography. Just when I thought things could not get any better -- which has happened many times -- the addition of one more cable or "tweak" enabled the system to reach a higher level yet.

Will one "loom" do the job. I never found that special "loom". To achieve the best effects I have combined cables from Synergistic Research, Bybee, ASI Liveline, Cardas, Supra and HiDiamond -- with "tweaks" too numerous to mention but featuring Bybee products and a variety of other products, many of which have the word "quantum" in their description.

The effort to arrive at this point with my system has been two-fold. Firstly, finding the right cables and "tweaks" for the system. Secondly, finding where to place them in the system for the best effects -- a process of trial and error. A lot of cables and "tweaks" had to be sold off in the process. I put "tweaks" in quotation marks because the best "tweaks" in my system have had as profound effect as the components on the sound. The same for the best of the cables, as well. For me, cables and "tweaks" are components.

Have I finally "arrived"? I have just about arrived at the best level that I can expect within my budget -- there are a couple of items on the way. In any case, I assume there are many levels beyond what my system has arrived at. But since I'll never get there I am sitting back and enjoying the music in the blissful recognition that I don't know what I am missing.

I should mention that there are many elements that are as important as holography for the sound to be satisfying, IMO. They include detail, transparency, coherence, tonality, and dynamics, among others. My system has all of these elements in good measure.

Have you had success with holographic sound in your system? If so, how did you get there?
sabai
Disclaimer: I've read only part of this thread. Apologies to anyone who has suggested what I'm about to suggest.

I had something interesting happen to me last week and the result was an exceptional "holographic" experience with my fairly revealing system (Pass Labs xa30.5, Joseph Audio Pulsars, Tara Labs cables, Oppo BDP-105) ok I know the oppo isn't audiophile for a lot of you, but bear with me ...

I was tweaking quite a few things up to the point that I really liked what I had - great placement granting wide and deep soundstage. No noticeable resonances, none that I could hear anyhow. Nice comfortable listening position not too close or far away. I stepped away for quite awhile and returned later that night. The experience quickly after sitting down and listening to BB Kings Deuces Wild was revelatory: A holographic experience I've never heard. It was impossible to determine the speaker placement or the dimensions of my listening room, and the various levels of depth and width astounded me, as did the low level details giving dimensions to the recording venue. I felt like I had reached audio nirvana. However through this all I knew something was missing, but if you're there you're not complaining about much. I stayed up for hours enjoying the "holography" not wanting to sleep I was having so much fun.

Next morning I woke up and of course needed to return to the scene and hear it all over again. Couldn't do it! What happened? Well, in short what happened is that my ears had a rest and after sleeping off THE ALCOHOL I enjoyed the night before (half a bottle of wine?) I could now hear more high frequency information giving more accurate cues as to, well ... everything. Yes, I lose the ability to hear high frequencies sometimes when drinking. Probably more than a half bottle of wine. Can't remember;-)

If you're following me then you probably know where this is going. My suspicion is that with all the extra cabling and fidgeting around, a lot of high frequency information was removed from the OP's system. Without the very high end the OP was now finding what he was looking for - an inability to place the equipment in his listening room and instead it sounds like a slightly veiled version of what his system would be reproducing otherwise. Hey, if you hear what you want why question that anything is wrong?!

OK. I know I'm speculating here. But I'm guessing it's leaving quite a few of you wanting to do this experiment yourselves;-) It was a good one while it lasted.
Surprised no one responded to my last post. Is it because this has already been covered earlier in the thread? If it wasn't understood, the idea is that when (some) high frequency information is filtered out it becomes harder to distinguish or pinpoint speakers and other qualities of the listening env. This is true in general, without respect to what the listener had or did for dinner.