In the beginning of my quest for a true Hi-Fi experience, I feel powerless... What can you do without any basic audio system, without money, and without any knowledge ?
I begins with buying the best I can in the low scale spectrum of audio system. The results was not there, the sound was always artificial and 2 dimensional after many purchases and trials and errors...
Then I read and after 1000 hours I bought the right stuff, a vintage amplifier, a very good used speaker pairs, a new minimalistic designed dac at almost no cost (+headphones)...
My actual audio system is this one, basic, mid-fi quality but very carefully chosen and very good in theory... Remember that I cannot listen to anything before buying... And anyway people has the illusion they can listen to the stuff before buying but it is not the case because no audio system sound the same in different prepared or even not prepared embeddings (be it an acoustical, mechanical, or electrical embeddings) ...
When I listen to this system out of the boxes, and absolutely not prepared in the embeddings of my house, I was happy but very disappointed... The sound was not enthralling at all...Not living, not 3-d, not natural timbre for instrument really; it was better than with the first components before these one but not a world changing experience... I was very disappointed... After all my Mission Cyrus Speakers are very good speakers not trash, the Sansui AU 7700 was a legend and one of the best vintage amp... The dac i own is so good that even today I dont perceive any limitations... Then why my listening experiment were so disappointing?
I begins to read a lot, each day... And I begins to experiments without even knowing that I experimented in the first place... :)
I begins to makes different preparation first for the mechanical embeddings, more conscious about vibrations-resonance problems...
Then I begins to treat the wall of my room, homemade no cost stuff... At my surprize my sound begins to improves...
I go on with the electrical embeddings with a big chunk of quartz on the breaker panels...I was surprized to hears something like a change... I go on with enthusiasm buying stones and crystals to investigate their different impacts on my sound pleasure...
Making my story short, I cannot repeat all that is written in part in these thread, my audio system begins a total metamorphosis... The system I dont really like begins to be a system I loved much and much... And now I smile and say to some beginners, trust yourself, and create heaven, that will not cost necessarily much money...Only basic good components, playful mind, listening experiments, homemade stuff most of the times, and at the end a real hi-fi experience will surprize you...
The most important lesson I learned was that it is not the so called hi-cost quality of the electronic components of an audio system that makes great audio experience, it is the careful controlled preparation of the 3 embeddings of any audio system : mechanical, acoustical and electrical....All the marketing audio industry mostly does not say that, they must sell their carefully researched products and tweaking is only a small "niche" products that you added at the end of your endeavour...
The truth is inverse of that, tweaks and preparation must be first, and my rule is : any electronic components that is already good will takes cares of his function without any needs for a so called upgrades necessity and will work at his peak potential only in a such rightly prepared triple embeddings... Then when some company affirm something about their electronic new marvels they are right, often their product is better than the one you owns already... But if you had never listen to what you already owned in the first place at his peak potential quality, because you had not installed your electronic components in a qualitatively carefully prepared embeddings, what is the need to upgrade a product which you dont really know ?
All electronic components are on a 3 level of quality/price ratio.... Low, mid, high....Any upgrading changes in the same rung of the scale is a waste of money and not necessary, and will be deceiving in giving to you only a small improvement at best.... The triple preparations of the embeddings will gives you hi-fi, even sometimes with some low components in the scale, more with the mid elements of the scale, and you will think: is it absolutely necessary that I pay now for high priced elements in the upper end of the scale ?
In my case I know that the Berning Amplifier will be better than my Sansui, but I do not feel the urge to change that... A happy end indeed, because I dont have the money to go with the dreamed high priced product...I feel no more frustration...Music is music at the end if you listen to it really trough an already good sound...
My best...
I begins with buying the best I can in the low scale spectrum of audio system. The results was not there, the sound was always artificial and 2 dimensional after many purchases and trials and errors...
Then I read and after 1000 hours I bought the right stuff, a vintage amplifier, a very good used speaker pairs, a new minimalistic designed dac at almost no cost (+headphones)...
My actual audio system is this one, basic, mid-fi quality but very carefully chosen and very good in theory... Remember that I cannot listen to anything before buying... And anyway people has the illusion they can listen to the stuff before buying but it is not the case because no audio system sound the same in different prepared or even not prepared embeddings (be it an acoustical, mechanical, or electrical embeddings) ...
When I listen to this system out of the boxes, and absolutely not prepared in the embeddings of my house, I was happy but very disappointed... The sound was not enthralling at all...Not living, not 3-d, not natural timbre for instrument really; it was better than with the first components before these one but not a world changing experience... I was very disappointed... After all my Mission Cyrus Speakers are very good speakers not trash, the Sansui AU 7700 was a legend and one of the best vintage amp... The dac i own is so good that even today I dont perceive any limitations... Then why my listening experiment were so disappointing?
I begins to read a lot, each day... And I begins to experiments without even knowing that I experimented in the first place... :)
I begins to makes different preparation first for the mechanical embeddings, more conscious about vibrations-resonance problems...
Then I begins to treat the wall of my room, homemade no cost stuff... At my surprize my sound begins to improves...
I go on with the electrical embeddings with a big chunk of quartz on the breaker panels...I was surprized to hears something like a change... I go on with enthusiasm buying stones and crystals to investigate their different impacts on my sound pleasure...
Making my story short, I cannot repeat all that is written in part in these thread, my audio system begins a total metamorphosis... The system I dont really like begins to be a system I loved much and much... And now I smile and say to some beginners, trust yourself, and create heaven, that will not cost necessarily much money...Only basic good components, playful mind, listening experiments, homemade stuff most of the times, and at the end a real hi-fi experience will surprize you...
The most important lesson I learned was that it is not the so called hi-cost quality of the electronic components of an audio system that makes great audio experience, it is the careful controlled preparation of the 3 embeddings of any audio system : mechanical, acoustical and electrical....All the marketing audio industry mostly does not say that, they must sell their carefully researched products and tweaking is only a small "niche" products that you added at the end of your endeavour...
The truth is inverse of that, tweaks and preparation must be first, and my rule is : any electronic components that is already good will takes cares of his function without any needs for a so called upgrades necessity and will work at his peak potential only in a such rightly prepared triple embeddings... Then when some company affirm something about their electronic new marvels they are right, often their product is better than the one you owns already... But if you had never listen to what you already owned in the first place at his peak potential quality, because you had not installed your electronic components in a qualitatively carefully prepared embeddings, what is the need to upgrade a product which you dont really know ?
All electronic components are on a 3 level of quality/price ratio.... Low, mid, high....Any upgrading changes in the same rung of the scale is a waste of money and not necessary, and will be deceiving in giving to you only a small improvement at best.... The triple preparations of the embeddings will gives you hi-fi, even sometimes with some low components in the scale, more with the mid elements of the scale, and you will think: is it absolutely necessary that I pay now for high priced elements in the upper end of the scale ?
In my case I know that the Berning Amplifier will be better than my Sansui, but I do not feel the urge to change that... A happy end indeed, because I dont have the money to go with the dreamed high priced product...I feel no more frustration...Music is music at the end if you listen to it really trough an already good sound...
My best...