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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
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Douglas_schroeder wrote,

"I'm not impressed with devices and gimmicks which are not in the signal path and seemingly have little purpose toward the signal (aside from sensible room tuning devices like sound panels and bass traps, etc.). They are largely a waste of money and time - and yes, I have done demo of many of them. I dont own them because they wasted my time for pissy results. I do not review them typically because they are a waste of time and effort relative to the direct changes one can make within the signal path. In that respect I see little wisdom in working with extraneous tweaks when one can alter the sound directly through things like cables. IMO, a Bybee filter has a lot more going for it in terms of change of a rig's sound than a LessLoss Blackbody or the Synergistic Research A.R.T. system."

You might consider cutting the Synergistic Research tiny little bowls some slack as they are clearly, well, apparently affecting room acoustics. Can't blame you one bit with respect to the Lessloss Blackbody, though. Obviously a work of the devil. Same goes for the Schumann Frequency Generator, Mpingo disc, deionizers, demagnetizers, Rainbow Foil, SteinMusic Harmonizer, Tiny Little Crystals on the wall and the Red X Coordinate Pen, not to mention Frank Tchang's tiny little bowls which are even tinier than the A.R.T. bowls, if you can believe that. :-)
sabai OP
2,027 posts
 
Orpheus10,
You understand exactly what I'm talking about -- being able to reach out and touch vocalists and instrumentalists. It is that feeling of immediacy and aliveness that makes this unique. But you seem to have achieved this level of holography at a much lower cost than me with the Carver, where I have used cables and "tweaks". I have no experience with Carver products but I have read about them. Do you still have your unit or are you now achieving your holographic effect in another way? I am not clear on this from your post because you state that your experiences have been the same as mine.

There is no way I could ever go back to the "old way" of doing things. If I take even one element out of the system I have to put it right back. I will be adding three new items in the next few months to see if I can get the sound to an even higher level -- without breaking the bank.

My wife doesn't understand audio prices -- to put it mildly -- so I just make a joke of things and we let it go at that. She runs the house. I run the office/listening room. Division of labor works well in our home.
orpheus10
8,668 posts
 

I must have been responding to Almarg's post, my bad.
sabai OP
2,027 posts
 
Orpheus10,
I have read that, with Carver products, you have to sit in a sweet spot or you do not experience the effect. If this is true then it is very different from the holographic effect I experience in my system. You can sit virtually anywhere in my room and the experience is still holographic with no skewing of the sound due your listening position.
csontos
1,311 posts
 
Marakanetz: What?!!!
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