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What Matters and What is Nonsense

I’ve been an audiophile for approximately 50 years. In my college days, I used to hang around the factory of a very well regarded speaker manufacturer where I learned a lot from the owners. When I started with audio it was a technical hobby. You were expected to know something about electronics and acoustics. Listening was important, but understanding why something sounded good or not so good was just as important. No one in 1968 would have known what you were talking about if you said you had tweaked your system and it sounded so much better. But if you talked about constant power output with frequency, or pleasing second-order harmonic distortion versus jarring odd-order harmonics in amplification, you were part of the tribe.

Starting in the 1980s, a lot of pseudo scientific nonsense started appearing. Power cords were important. One meter interconnects made a big difference. Using a green magic marker on the edge of a CD was amazing. Putting isolation dampers under a CD transport lifted the veil on the music. Ugh. This stuff still make my eyes roll, even after all these years.

So I have decided to impart years and years of hard won knowledge to today’s hobbists who might be interested in reality. This is my list of the steps in the audio reproduction chain, and the relative importance of each step. My ranking of relative importance includes a big dose of cost/benefit ratio. At this point in the evolution of audio, I am assuming digital recording and reproduction.

Item / Importance to the sound on a scale of 1-10 / Cost benefit ratio

  • The room the recording was made in / 8 / Nothing you can do about it
  • The microphones and setup used in the recording / 8 / nothing you can do about it.
  • The equalization and mixing of the recording / 10 / Nothing you can do about it
  • The technology used for the recording (analog, digital, sample rate, etc.) / 5 / nothing you can do about it.
  • The format of the consumer recording (vinyl, CD, DSD, etc.) 44.1 - 16 really is good enough / 3 / moderate CB ratio
  • The playback device i.e. cartridge or DAC / 5 / can be a horribe CB ratio - do this almost last
  • The electronics - preamp and amp / 4 / the amount of money wasted on $5,000 preamps and amps is amazing.
  • Low leve interconnects / 2 / save your money, folks
  • Speaker cables / 3 / another place to save your money
  • Speakers / 10 / very very high cost to benefit ratio. Spend your money here.
  • Listening room / 9 / an excellent place to put your money. DSPs have revolutionized audio reproduction
In summary, buy the best speakers you can afford, and invest in something like Dirac Live or learn how to use REW and buy a MiniDSP HD to implement the filters. Almost everything else is a gross waste of money.
128x128phomchick
hifiman5's avatar
hifiman5
1,832 posts
 
@prof  @mickeyb   I do not doubt the veracity of your posts regarding cabling not being an important contributor to your system's sound.  My experience involves that spending judiciously on upgraded cables does make a real difference to the overall sound of my system.  When I upgraded my speakers in the summer of 2016, Johnny Rutan told me that I might have issues with the very large gauge AQ Earth series speaker cables with the new speakers.  I had all but forgotten about his brief comment until about 5 months in or so with the new speakers the bass seemed on the heavy, slower side relative to the rest of the frequency spectrum.  It was then that I began to research the vast array of cable offerings looking for the right fit for my system.  When I found them, the heaviness was gone and the treble and soundscape opened up. Interestingly, they were considerably less expensive than the AQ's.

Have you experimented with fancy cables?  If so, did you hear any differences worth noting?  I'm just curious to hear about experiences that differ from mine.

Thanks!
bigkidz
3,397 posts
 
My opinion is very different than most.  My buddy has all of the best streaming stuff and he has tried a bunch of stuff to get to where he is today.  That being said, many on Audiogon mention price like $5000 preamps, $10K amps, etc.  Price has nothing to do with performance, sound, build quality, etc.  For example, we build a Pass Labs clone of the first watt class A power amp.  It changed his system dramatically.  We then added a 6SN7 preamp we recently designed and the system changed altogether to another level again.  By another level I mean within 30 seconds there was a major improvement to the system.  You do not have to go back and forth to hear these improvements.  I build components and my DAC which is a DHT design has a 35lb power supply.  That being said, you cannot get the sound that my components produce by room treatments, matching components, room correction devices, etc.  Those things IMO cannot make a piano sound so real or a stand up bass hearing the plucked strings with through the wood body, produce micro and macro dynamic swings, sort out a sound stage, sort out complex passages.  At least, I have not heard that with anything I have come across.  So IMO only there are too many variables to rate these things, but it is fun to understand what everyone hears in their systems and what they have experienced.  I do enjoy most of the threads and have met so many really nice people I feel humbled by all of this and most of you.  Happy Listening.   
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Craigl59 5-21-2018
What speakers have you settled on?
Hi Craig,

I have Daedalus Ulysses speakers, as you can see in my system description thread. I’ve owned them since 2010, and I have no plans to replace them in the foreseeable future.

As you’ve no doubt seen in the main Double Impact thread, member Waltersalas (Chris) replaced the Ulysses he had used for several years with a pair of DIs, and then recently purchased DI SEs. That certainly reinforces the many praises of the DI and DI SE, and the uncommon value they represent, that have been provided by owners such as yourself and by those having significant listening experience with them.

For me, though, aesthetics are a major factor when it comes to speaker selection, in part because my listening room is my living room as I mentioned earlier. And with the DIs and the Ulysses being nearly at opposite ends of the spectrum in that regard, IMO, the DIs would not be of interest to me.

For amplification, btw, I use a 70 watt per channel VAC Renaissance 70/70 MkIII, which uses four 300B power tubes per channel, operates in class A, and provides several selectable feedback settings including zero (which is the setting I use). I believe it retailed for upwards of $14K when it was manufactured around the turn of the century, but I purchased it used for far less than that. I suspect that its similar but less powerful brother, the Renaissance 30/30 (two 300Bs and 30 watts per channel), could be found used these days for not much more than $3K, and would be a great match for your DIs. Although even with only four 300Bs in that amp, the cost of re-tubing would be considerable were it to become necessary.

Best regards,
-- Al
prof
3,479 posts
 
hifiman5,

I respect your experience with your system!

I’m not looking to turn the thread into a "cable" thread beyond simply stating my experience and view. And since you asked...

Over the years I have had experience with fancy cable. Especially having done some reviewing long ago and knowing other reviewers, people in the industry, high end shop owners etc, I’ve had some experience with quite a number of fancy cables over the years.
And often enough I would get cast off cables from higher-rolling friends, or if I have to borrow a cable, I’ll end up with some far higher priced cables than I would buy.

So various cables have been in and out of my system, and I’ve heard tons of the highest end cables in reviewer’s systems.

Nothing ever convinced me to spend money on the high end cables. (In fact I did some blind tests on some Shunyata AC cables that cured me of ever wanting to spend money there...)

I’m not at all adamant that high end interconnect or speaker cables can’t sound different. In theory of course they could be made to sound different. (Though "different" and "more accurate" aren’t the same of course. I’m a bit more skeptical that super expensive cables are passing higher fidelity signals than a competently built cheap cable - which would seem capable of passing everything in the source signal just fine. None of the the many incredible old recordings (let alone many new) that are still reference quality today were using boutique cables and the cables used in recording, mixing, mastering etc seemed to perform just find. And I’m even more suspicious of AC cables. But, again, I’m no expert and I’m just making inferences from my own experience and the most trustworthy info I can find elsewhere).



glupson
7,842 posts
 
If anybody is keeping a tally, one more vote for mostly agreeing with the original post. I would add a few points to amplifier, though.

As far as cables go, I feel it is worth investing in them a little bit for cosmetic/visual effect. I have not yet, but would.
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