No need to apologize mahgister, especially not when so rudely insulted by jerryg123 who is after all only jumping to conclusions.
I tried three times to start a discussion about how it is that we learn to hear things we are not accustomed to hearing. A few really are interested but it seems a lot more are offended to think they are not already the last word in listening skills and so they made like jerryg123 here throwing insults instead of trying to maybe learn something new.
Most everyone is able to hear volume. If the claim is one is louder than another pretty much everyone is able to judge. Frequency response is really just volume, but now it gets a little bit harder because we are trying to judge volume not just overall but at different frequencies. This takes a bit of practice but eventually a lot of us are able to do it.
From here on out though it gets a lot harder- and fast. Lots of things resonate and this alters frequency response but in a more subtle harder to discern kind of way. All instruments and voices have their own resonances, as do rooms and microphones, etc, and this all makes it a real challenge to differentiate and discern what is doing what. Awful lot of audiophiles never do get this one down. It is shocking how much of this resonant coloration there is, but maybe not so shocking in light of how few audiophiles are even aware it is going on.
We haven't even gotten to how we learn to listen for these things, still just putting labels on a few of them.
One of these someone was asking about recently is grain. Grain is a little harder to describe. Nothing changes in terms of tone or frequency response, the sound just gets a little bit smoother and more natural when there is less grain. Most all components have a lot more grain when new or cold than after burning in or warming up. So one way to learn to hear grain is learn to hear the difference between your amp (DAC, phono stage, etc) when cold vs some hours later.
Part of what I hear with SG is a reduction in grain.
Another one is hash or grunge or noise floor, whatever you want to call it. This one is probably some combination of RFI and EMI, but who knows? Doesn't matter. What it is, that is a different subject. One thing audiophiles are good at, switching subjects. Real serious obstacle to learning. Ditch it. Back to the subject: how this, whatever we call it, sounds.
Here the simplest test is to turn off some circuit breakers. Do this and you will hear a noticeable reduction in hash or grunge, a blacker background, with more air around images.
Part of what I hear with SG is a reduction in grunge, a bit blacker background, and a bit more palpable imaging.
I would not say the improvement is huge. To me it is obvious, but then I am an exceptionally discerning listener. Sorry if my being good offends those who are not, but this is in no way a zero sum game. Nothing will make me happier than you read and learn and become a better listener than me. Because I want a better system. If you can hear things I can't I want to know about it, so I can maybe learn and become better myself.
Now that we have us some labels, to put SG in perspective, I would say the 9 I have makes an improvement roughly about as good as the improvement in my system from when it is first turned on to how much better it is an hour or so later. That is all. For me that is more than enough to justify the $90 they cost me.
If for you it is not, oh well.
Between Chuxpona and Chuctoberfest we have had personal direct experience with a number of audiophiles. Some of them frankly admit to not being able to hear things that are obvious to others. This goes both ways. I am supposedly deaf to gross harmonic defects. Whatever. Would like to know what that is all about. Which notice, is a completely different response than calling the other guy names.
I tried three times to start a discussion about how it is that we learn to hear things we are not accustomed to hearing. A few really are interested but it seems a lot more are offended to think they are not already the last word in listening skills and so they made like jerryg123 here throwing insults instead of trying to maybe learn something new.
Most everyone is able to hear volume. If the claim is one is louder than another pretty much everyone is able to judge. Frequency response is really just volume, but now it gets a little bit harder because we are trying to judge volume not just overall but at different frequencies. This takes a bit of practice but eventually a lot of us are able to do it.
From here on out though it gets a lot harder- and fast. Lots of things resonate and this alters frequency response but in a more subtle harder to discern kind of way. All instruments and voices have their own resonances, as do rooms and microphones, etc, and this all makes it a real challenge to differentiate and discern what is doing what. Awful lot of audiophiles never do get this one down. It is shocking how much of this resonant coloration there is, but maybe not so shocking in light of how few audiophiles are even aware it is going on.
We haven't even gotten to how we learn to listen for these things, still just putting labels on a few of them.
One of these someone was asking about recently is grain. Grain is a little harder to describe. Nothing changes in terms of tone or frequency response, the sound just gets a little bit smoother and more natural when there is less grain. Most all components have a lot more grain when new or cold than after burning in or warming up. So one way to learn to hear grain is learn to hear the difference between your amp (DAC, phono stage, etc) when cold vs some hours later.
Part of what I hear with SG is a reduction in grain.
Another one is hash or grunge or noise floor, whatever you want to call it. This one is probably some combination of RFI and EMI, but who knows? Doesn't matter. What it is, that is a different subject. One thing audiophiles are good at, switching subjects. Real serious obstacle to learning. Ditch it. Back to the subject: how this, whatever we call it, sounds.
Here the simplest test is to turn off some circuit breakers. Do this and you will hear a noticeable reduction in hash or grunge, a blacker background, with more air around images.
Part of what I hear with SG is a reduction in grunge, a bit blacker background, and a bit more palpable imaging.
I would not say the improvement is huge. To me it is obvious, but then I am an exceptionally discerning listener. Sorry if my being good offends those who are not, but this is in no way a zero sum game. Nothing will make me happier than you read and learn and become a better listener than me. Because I want a better system. If you can hear things I can't I want to know about it, so I can maybe learn and become better myself.
Now that we have us some labels, to put SG in perspective, I would say the 9 I have makes an improvement roughly about as good as the improvement in my system from when it is first turned on to how much better it is an hour or so later. That is all. For me that is more than enough to justify the $90 they cost me.
If for you it is not, oh well.
Between Chuxpona and Chuctoberfest we have had personal direct experience with a number of audiophiles. Some of them frankly admit to not being able to hear things that are obvious to others. This goes both ways. I am supposedly deaf to gross harmonic defects. Whatever. Would like to know what that is all about. Which notice, is a completely different response than calling the other guy names.