Most eye-opening upgrade and what you learned


Would love to know about moments of light on the high-end audio learning curve.

My husband and I number among the academic poor ...
with preferences which substantially exceed our budget.
Nonetheless, we have managed an aha!! experience or
two of our own.

The mating of conrad johnson tube preamp with krell solid
state amp opened our eyes about the role of electronics
in creating presentation.

Listening to the revel salons set our standards for hearing music rather than sound from an audio playback system.

Know that many of you have deeper insight, am hoping you
will share.

Newcomer to audiogon
Judith
judit
Most ear opening for me was *finally* trying an upgrade AC cord - which for years & years I swore could not possibly change the sound of a system, WRONG! From there it was all downhill & I've become a diehard subjectivist tweaker. Now I have more $ in cables & line conditioning than some folks spend on an automobile.
that such an inexpensive tweak could significantly improve bass response and overall clarity. Understand, I'm talking about Hubbell hospital grade outlets (treated with Caig Pro Gold), not ones that are especially high-end.
Changing listening position- from far field to near field. Everything fell in place and parallax removed. All I had to do was try- at length. Try even closer than the famous sit-at-apex-of-equilateral-triangle rule, it may work for you.
Definitely the most eye opening experience I've had in this hobby was upgrading to my first quality analog rig (Goldmund Studio, Graham tonearm, Koetsu cartridge) from an old Audio Technica. It was as if I had found the music, not just the notes.