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Foolish

Stupid!
Dumb!
Ignorant!
Idiot!
Disbelief!
OK!
Excited!
Grinning!
Happy!
Smiling!
Goose Bumps!
Believer!
Whoah!

OK, the electrician just left my house after installing three dedicated AC lines, 1-15, & 2-20s. All I can say is Whoah! Cannot believe what I am hearing after the first 5 CDs. Everything in my system changed, well almost. Dynamics, effortless power, smoother but not the mellow kind of smoother, soundstage became wider, more real sounding, more like the musicians are in the room and not just a good sounding studio recording. I even opened up my 1960s Gibson Les Paul and jammed to Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters, The Colour of Love CD, that’s how excited I got, sorry my Marshall 50 watt half stack is in storage for now. You should hear Pat Barber’s Café Blue, I am hearing details that I heard before but not like this, I think I can hear her lips coming apart on song umber 6; Wood is a Pleasant Thing, no really. You know the sound when your lips are moist and you open them up. I thought my system sounded good before but this is something new. I am glad I did this before upgrading my AC and speaker cables. I may have to rethink some of these. My Sony SCD-777ES does not have a hint of edginess anymore. The bass guitar on Ode to Billy Joe is so much more dynamic and real sounding, it sounds more like it is in my room then a good recording of one. If you play acoustic guitar and you slide you fingers on the strings and get the screech, I have always heard this sound very natural on my system but it did not sound like it was in the room (although I thought it did) until now, you know if you play guitar what I am describing here. The musicians seem to be more in the room than coming from within the speakers (the only way I can explain it at this moment). Cymbals are very crisp and natural, the snare drum sounds like the old 60s snare drum sound, with a real snap, I pulled out my old Rogers drum set also and compared, eerie.

Anyway, for you foolish audiophiles who are changing your cables and such, this was the best upgrade that I can recommend to you before buying any component or cable, etc. It cost me $225 for the three lines, and I have heard as much as $125 a line. So for $375, you would have to spend more than that on three AC cords, ICs and speaker cables. I know, I have the AZ Holograms here for an audition with the Audience and Shunyata speaker cables. I will post a review in about three or four weeks.

To all of the Agoners who replied to my forum post on Electrician coming over, you know who you are, we all do, and who put up with my endless questions, I wish I could buy you all a drink right now, hey it is only 11 am. The biggest thanks that I can give you is from my heart. You guys (gals???) are the greatest for taking the time to help me with all of this. Foolish I am no more!

Gotta go listen, I haven’t felt this way in a very long time!!!

Happy Listening.

Peter

Song 11 on Pat Barber is playing in the back ground with the drum solo and cymbals crashing, Whoah!
bigkidz
bigkidz OP
3,444 posts
 
Zaikesman, I have to get the Marshall (50 watt head with open back slant cab with 4-25 watt green Celestion speakers) out of the vault. It has been in there for a few years now and it is time to crank it up to some Allman Brothers at the Filmore. I was there when they did the record. During one of the solos, you can here my friend scream out "play all night". The Brothers will be at the Beacon NYC in March for 15 or more shows and I go every year with the good old boys.

I was even going to go so far as to install an IEC into my Fender Vibro King amp and try some power cords on it, maybe get some Cardas wire and roll some tubes! JPS and Auddience even sell guitar cords but they cost about $300 for 15 feet, well maybe next time.

For some of the other questions, I did not use a sub panel because the electrician used duplex breakers that fit into a one breaker slot. Ran three lines 2-20 amp and 1-15 amp into round 10 guage romex grounded to the panel as normal. I installed 20 amp hospital grade duplex outlets and will go with cryo treated since I can install them myself later on. I have a finished basement and the equipment is on a custom wall unit that protrudes into the back room with washer/dryer, etc., so the AC cords run through the back of the unit into an open room where the outlets are, so as long as the cords fit through the holes, I can just plug them in with no effort. I also have the existing outlets there so I can do a quick switch to hear the differences.

Stehno, will get around to auditioning some of those conditioning power cords you pointed me to along with the Elrods, Shunyata, Virtual Dynamics and AZ soon. I have the Audience, Shunyata and AZ Hologram speaker cables waiting to audition here now.

Here is a link to my original questions that everyone helped me with:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1034965232&openusid&zzBigkidz&4&5#Bigkidz

Happy Listening.

Peter
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Open back, hmm...I like the sound of that. Is the back panel vented, or just removed?
bigkidz OP
3,444 posts
 
On the Marshalls, you just unscrew the back panel and leave it open so you do not muddy up the bass. Listen to the Allman Brothers live at the Filmore and that was how Duane got his sound. Do you play?? Go to guitargeek.com and check out all of the rigs and let me know what you think.

Peter
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
When I had a late-70's Marshall 50w master volume half-stack with a 1960 model bass cabinet of an older (late 60's/early 70's?) vintage, I often thought about leaving off the back panel, but didn't know that people did this, and didn't want to have to relocate the jack or expose the speakers to damage, so this is very interesting stuff to learn. I got sold it about 6 years ago, and have kind of been wanting to explore a Marashall combo or equivalent as an alternative to my regular 1964 Fender Super Reverb, because I'm not totally into the closed-back sound, but liked the way the Marshall head sounded through the Fender 4X10" cabinet. Then again, with all the different 'boutique' designer tube combos offered today, my head just spins.
seandtaylor99
1,262 posts
 
There are tons of amps out there now, as you point out Zaikesman, but I've yet to hear anything better than a Fender Super (or Bassman) for Blues and than a Marshall head / 4x12 (I like the celestion vintage 30s) for rock.
There are tons of guitars available now, but I still only care for Les Paul / Strat / Tele / 335.
The oldies are certainly the goodies.
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