Most eye-opening upgrade and what you learned

Yes tireguy, but were they active or passive q-tips?

Kelly-I don't know who your kidding everyone knows you are using an old Teac turntable with a rubberband for a belt ;) But hey if you think its exotic, before you laugh that is what I am using for an anlog front end-hence digital being my sole source.

Judit-I first used active(there was a large build up) when things could be controled I went to passive. But all of that aside I prefer using the ones with the blue "handle" and the extra bushy swab end, YMMV.

TIm

1st: Going from "high grade" monster cable speaker cables and interconnects to Nordost Blue Heaven.

2d: Adding an API Powerwedge 114 (who knew there were cymbals on that track?)

3d: Going from the Snell B Minor to the Snell A Reference Towers.

4th: Going from a low-end Denon 'table with a mid-fi Ortofon cartridge to a high-end Denon 'table with a Grado Reference Sonata cartridge.

5th: Going from an Adcom GFP 565 preamp to the Plinius CD-LAD preamp.

6th: Convincing my wife that busting my IRA and investing the money in Mo-Fi was a good idea :-)

Welcome to the high end, Judit; it's a journey and not a destination.

Paul

Hi Judit and welcome to A'gon. Good thread. I've made maybe five pretty important audio discoveries, but maybe THE most important has been AUDIOGON. That said:
1. I discovered tubed pre-amps, and the fact that a high quality front-end really is essential to producing good excellent music, ie it's more important than expensive speakers.
2. I installed a complete dedicated AC system that of necessity required high quality power cords on components. This lowered noise floor dramatically. With dedicated AC, I also found I had to get rid of power conditioners.
3. The Levinson 360S DAC makes well recorded digital music sonically excellent.
4. I discovered Synergistic Research's Active Shield interconnects. In my case their use produced a profound improvement in especially soundstaging in my system, but also greater clarity. Syn. Res. is just now releasing active shielded speaker cables and power cords-- haven't tried them yet.
5. And finally, I recently acquired Vandersteen 5 speakers (replaced Vand. 3Asigs), and with their built in 400 wpc amps and subwoofers (to 22 HZ), discovered what a revealing speaker could do, and that HQ subs really are important. These speakers have incredible mid-range clarity and "center of the earth" bass. But make no mistake, revealing speakers also reveal flaws in recordings. Cheers. Craig

I agree with Kelly in that your "old" and "noisy" vinyl might astound you if given half a chance. That is, if you take the time to set up what most would refer to as even a "decent" phono system and clean the records properly. I had this revelation while listening to an FM broadcast on WFMT late one night. Even with the sonic degradation that takes place via transmitting the signal and FM's limited bandwidth, the stations "old" records sounded better than the identical CD's that i had been playing here in my house !!! Needless to say, i went out and invested in a new vinyl rig and have been enjoying it ( again ) ever since. In fact, i just bought a new $3000 tonearm yesterday !!!

Other than that, my biggest "shocks" came along by swapping components in the same system. Some products REALLY are head and shoulders above others, regardless of the specs and reviews. Some SS components truly are capable of GREAT amounts of "air", "space" and "sweetness" and producing "music" whereas others simply sound like "audio gear" reproducing "notes" and "sounds". Once you hear something like this, you will know EXACTLY what i mean. Some of you probably still remember the first system that you heard that "oozed" musicality and detail, all at the same time.

Another "doozy" was going from large multi-drivered box speakers to a single omnidirectional driver. Talk about "deep" and "spacious" without having the sound of a "box" to focus on. It forever changed my perspective on what "good" sound consisted of.

Call it "psychological" or whatever you want, "burning" interconnects on my Mobie helped to reveal a level of transparency, warmth and detail that i had not previously heard out of any of my systems. The fact that i could take $25 worth of high grade parts, assemble them and put them on my Mobie and have them end up smoking cables that had cost me hundreds of dollars was also an eye opener. Don't discredit DIY designs until you've heard some for yourself.

Last but not least, going from passive crossovers to active crossovers when multi-amping. Using identical speakers and electronics, the differences in speed, clarity, focus, detail, etc... were truly astounding once the system went "active". I found all of this out even though the original electronic crossover in question was a "piece of junk" and a "fossil". In plain English, it was a very old professional sound reinforcement unit that set me back $50 on the used market. Even though it was old and ugly, it still sounded MILES better than the fancy "audiophile grade" caps and coils that we had been using previously. Sean
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