How I tamed digital glare.


For months I have been trying to eliminate digital glare in the my system, which showed up most noticably in the upper middle frequency vocal range, especially female vocals. I tamed some by replacing the stock fuse in my dac with HifiTuning Supreme Cu on the sage advice of Chris Van Haus of VH Audio, resulting in a significant improvement in tonal density, detail and clarity. So far, so good. Today I lightly dusted the laser lens in my CEC transport with a microfiber cloth and was astonished to discover a substantial improvement! And the laser lens and drive compartment appeared clean to begin with (in a smoke free environment). I tried cleaning contacts, swapping power cords and interconnects, rolling the tube in my MHDT dac, and so forth, but this simple protocol was more effective than any of those experiments. I suppose results may vary as every system is unique, but for me this simple tweak was revelatory: greater clarity and a signifcant reducton of hash. Wish I had thought of tt in the beginning; it would have saved me considerable time and frustration.
pmboyd
Nonoise - I just went back and listened to two older Diana Krall albums via Tidal HiFi that are MQA - the clarity and detail are amazing. The stand up bass is tight and full. I cannot thank you guys on the Agon boards enough. My Maggie’s have never sounded better - and the cost is minimal!

Happy Listening!
i now need sleep
tom8999
I pulled up the output trode in my dac. That is, instead of seating the 5670 at the very bottom of the socket, I seated it approx. 3/16" higher in the socket. I did a double take. So I returned the tube to the fully seated position, resulting in a return to distinct vocal glare. Now I know the tube pins are thourougly clean and the dac brand new (I clean tube sockets routinely as well). Hmmm..I wonder it I was experiencing micro-arcing at the pin tips. Soemtimes it's the little things. The difffernce we equivalent to replacing an interconnect. And a lot cheaper.
  
^^^

Micro-arcing? Where have we heard that before? And ... I believe there's a cure for that somewhere. 

Frank
There was a fella way back in the Eighties who made an inline filter that was meant for that.  There was a passive version with a bunch of small inductors and an active version.  It pretty much worked.  I got a schematic and built a passive for myself.

Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the guy nor the gadget.  I do know that he died early in the game.