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New to this. How do I stack my stuff?

I'm new to hifi. I've asked a lot of questions here and some of you may already know my situation but I got the following by chance and for free: Audio Research LS16 tube pre-amp, Arcam CD92 cd player, Madrigal Proceed HPA2 amp. 

It is all up and running and I'm loving it. Now just trying to maximize the little things that I can. For instance, speakers had spike stands but spikes were missing so I made a set.

Now I read in the CD manual that it recommends sorbothane feet and says sound quality will be better.

I'm now figuring out that placement of components is important and that proper stands, expensive ones, are best. Well, expensive stands are not going to happen. But I can try to make accommodations that are cheap and won't turn the room upside down.

Here is how it is all situated now...let the ridicule flow, but keep in mind that I am space limited to a serious extent. Was not sure I'd get the system in my house at all:

The (very) heavy Proceed amp is sitting on a carpeted floor on strips of wood which raise the bottom of it well above the carpet. It is higher above the carpet than it would be above a hard surface just on its own feet.

The CD player is sitting on a small, simple, wooden, antique side table. It is sturdy. The pre-amp is on top of the CD player. I have no idea what this might mean in terms of SQ but the CD player actually puts out a fair amount to heat which rises up into the pre-amp of course. That concerns me.

So other than getting some sorbothane feet for the CD player, what else would be a priority here?

Finally are there issues with which cables contact which cables, how much speaker cables are looped, etc. (Most of the cabling is Transparent Super Bi-wire.)

Thanks for any assistance.
n80
shadowcat2016
132 posts
 
elizabeth

I am currently my "significant other" also. Sadly, I lost my wife and best friend of 40 years last October. It's been a very difficult time. If there is any upside to it, it is that I have been able to optimize my system and room far better than in prior years. My wife was very patient with my hobby, but there were limits and I respected that.

System is now set up, for the first time, across the short end of the room. Speaker placement is nearly 8 feet, 94 inches from the front wall. Listening chair is roughly an equal distance from the back wall, each 1/3 of the way down the room. Made a huge improvement in the sound right off. I followed that with a rather full-on room treatment, 22 acoustic panels, D-I-Y, spaced around the room. That also made a huge improvement in the sound in all respects.........Can't believe how much better the same gear sounds when I addressed room and set up issues.

Currently have my rack between the speakers simply because my 8 foot set of cables won't allow me to put it off to the side. System is bi-amped, so replacing the cables with a set essentially twice as long to allow for better rack placement will be pricey. Haven't quite talked myself into that yet.

Miss my wife terribly and I'd gladly put everything back where it was or give it away for that matter, to have her back, but at least the music sounds better.
shadowcat2016
132 posts
 
n80

Not surprising that some music sounds better one way, other music sounds worse. I think what you're hearing is the difference in recording quality between discs. The better your setup the more details you'll hear in each recording.......The downside to that is that when you compare a "good" disc to a bad one, you'll more easily hear the differences.......Better recordings will always benefit from a better setup...........by sounding better :)..........Unfortunately that also means that a lesser recording simply won't sound as good and listening to it will be disappointing........... You can decide for yourself what's more important, having great recordings sound great and tolerating the ones that don't, or keeping a setup where everything sounds more or less the same, but nothing really sounds great...........I've had the same experience myself. I opted for the best setup I can manage to further enjoy great recordings, but it has meant that some music that I liked is now somewhat less enjoyable than it used to be, simply because the short comings of the disc are now far more obvious........everything in life involves trade-offs, even music.
shadowcat2016
132 posts
 
n80

Take your time, read a lot, educate yourself about the hobby. What you may not be able to do or may not be willing to do may change in a year or five. Life situations as well as where we live seldom remain stagnant forever. At some point you may decide to venture further down this road than seems practical or desirable today. In the mean time you have a pretty decent system to start with and you can always bump things up a notch or two later on, should you choose to do so.
celander's avatar
celander
1,503 posts
 
@n80 

I respect your opinion about the 6’ run of balanced Transparent cables being audibly fine sounding cables in a given system. I encourage you to think outside of the box regarding a couple possible advantages of swapping out those balanced cables for a longer run of another balanced cable.

A longer run of balanced cables would enable you to move both your CD player and ARC tube preamp away from the speakers. That might provide you with certain sonic advantages about soundstage presentation that George pointed out and reduce noise in both the source and preamp being separated from each other and away from the speakers. Those advantages might offset the loss in perceived sonic qualities in switching from the Transparent balanced cable to a diffrent balanced cable.  

A longer run of balanced cables would enable you and your spouse to place the CD player and preamp where it’s most convenient for your use in the room. 

A star quad audio Canare balanced cable is a decent cable with excellent audio characteristics. HAVE (or others) can custom make these for you. A set of balanced interconnects of decent length is relatively inexpensive (<$100 per pair). 

Here are some links. 
http://store.haveinc.com/default.aspx 
(I can message you specific product page links showing lengths and Neutrik XLR terminations w/ gold contact pins and my contact at HAVE customer service). 

https://www.cs1.net/products/canare/L-4E6S_balanced_audio.htm

n80 OP
2,116 posts
 
I will certainly take this into consideration but locating the components elsewhere is probably going to be a problem even if I had longer cables.

Also, only the cables from the pre-amp to the amp are XLR cables. The cables from the pre-amp to the CD are also Transparent but they are RCA cables.

These Transparent cables are high dollar. Way more than the Canare, even used. Now, I have no idea what that means in terms of actual quality difference and I know there is a never ending debate on the topic of cables. So this question comes to mind: Would moving the amp and CD to a better location in regard to the speakers using presumably lower quality cables provide enough advantage over the higher end cables?

In other words which is better: higher end cables with poor component position or good component position with lesser cables?
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