Miracles in Audio, by luck, by good choices,by design or by tweaking...


I owned a low cost headphone for many years, the Fostex TH7B, first version( a new one close version exist Fostex TH7BK), semi-open headphone...I was never completely satisfied by any headphones I ever owned: Hifiman 400, Stax basic lamda, Stax 5 gold,Akg 340,Akg 701, beyerdynamic 990, and T150... Because in each of them with all their qualities I never listen to at the same times, a confortable headphone with natural timbre and voicing, with a good imaging and a realistic soundstage(not too close to my ears)...


For the last days I tweaked this Fostex, to damp his internal resonance I used sorbothane, I put some shungite stones at the exterior part of the cups and I use some Herkimer diamond in the interior pads( 3 at 120 degree) … Now this low cost headphones crush all my others if I sum all his qualities... For example his mids and voicing cannot beat the AKG 340 but among all my other headphones it is the best that is near that mids and it is more confortable, and with longer cable than the 340...His imaging is better and more realistic than the 340 etc etc...It is the same if I compare with the others...


His most important qualities is natural timbre and clear imaging,very precise pinned point accuracy and natural, so clear it crush for that ALL the others to dust...In the French audio circle the reviews were more than very positive few years ago...Diapason d’or and choc Classica...I am not the only one impressed buy the ratio quality/price... But remember that thesae reviewers dont tweak their headphone...The difference between before and after the tweaks are staggering...


Yes Miracles happens in Audio: cost is under 100 American dollars... Few years ago they cost me 50 bucks new... I never dreamed that I will go back to headphones...


I will enjoy your miracles stories of any kind ….My best to all...
mahgister
The only way to explain why so much people are convinced that the best way to obtain S.Q. is ONLY OR MAINLY moving toward costly upgrades is social conformity by market conditioning practice ...

I was thinking exactly that 7 years ago, i was convinced that without costly gear no one can pretend to great musical sound quality.... And i was very angry and frustrated because i cannot afforded my dreamed gear at all.... It was in fact a great luck for me indeed...

This frustration turn me on a mission to satisfy myself.... The rest of the story is in this "vuts" thread with all my experiments, sometimes crazy, sometimes less crazy and a few times very very good...Especially my use of dissymetric compression of springs boxes, my golden plates and my Mechanical Helmholtz equalizer....

The famous 1950 experiment of Solomon Asch explain evrything we must kmow about social conformity....

The link is here:

https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html

All actors, engineers that work hard to create good products, the consumers that bought them, the reviewers that sells them all are of good faith, they are only convinced that the "shorter"line in Ash experiment is the "longest/" one, for the same reason, autocondinioning to conform to the general collective opinion.... S.Q. is linearly related to increasingly better electronic design, and linearly related to prices....

It is all wrong.... The way we seat a system in our room IS the main factor and the cost could be peanuts...I called that the controls over the 3 working dimensiuons of any audio system.... All reader already know my "song"...😁😊

The acoustic control overpower anything in the S.Q. increase.... Lesson learned by myself....But the father of acoustic Helmholtz already know that before the invention of modern audio.... He invent modern room control....


For sure being not an idiot i dont affirm that all speakers, dac, or amplifiers for example are equal in quality...I only affirm that pick 3 "relatively good" pieces of  gear between these three elements, and embed them rightfully and compare the same  3 elements in the same non controllerd environment this time and it will be a night and day differences; almost impossible to erase this difference in S.Q.   with an upgrade, with a second upgrade, or even a third upgrade.... You cannot avoid or replace the embeddings controls with a piece of gear or many pieces....Especially the acoustical one....



My best to all.....




Mahgister, you are like a patchwork quilt. Costly is a relative term. There is top notch equipment out there that is not at all frivolous relatively speaking. Better equipment is always a possibility. However there are things you can do that will greatly increase the performance of a system, room design and treatment are great examples. Isolating a turntable correctly is another. "Market conditioning" is exactly what convinces lay audiophiles to spend money on garbage that does absolutely nothing and at times makes things worse. 
The main problem is that many audiophiles really do not know how or care to evaluate equipment and changes correctly. They think that just listening is enough. The problem with this is that it is not and they are giving advise based on this extraordinary faulty method. If they stayed within their own world then fine. But instead they tell people to "trust your own ears." It's like someone trying to get in a Moto GP race whose never been on a motorcycle. All you have to do is trust your own instincts right? Try that snow skiing and you will keep falling up hill. All you have to do is listen and you become an expert in evaluating audio equipment?                                                                                                                    
Of course you have to listen.  The trick is knowing what to choose that you will listen to.  
Mahgister, you are like a patchwork quilt. Costly is a relative term. There is top notch equipment out there that is not at all frivolous relatively speaking. Better equipment is always a possibility. However there are things you can do that will greatly increase the performance of a system, room design and treatment are great examples. Isolating a turntable correctly is another. "Market conditioning" is exactly what convinces lay audiophiles to spend money on garbage that does absolutely nothing and at times makes things worse.
The main problem is that many audiophiles really do not know how or care to evaluate equipment and changes correctly. They think that just listening is enough. The problem with this is that it is not and they are giving advise based on this extraordinary faulty method. If they stayed within their own world then fine. But instead they tell people to "trust your own ears." It's like someone trying to get in a Moto GP race whose never been on a motorcycle. All you have to do is trust your own instincts right? Try that snow skiing and you will keep falling up hill. All you have to do is listen and you become an expert in evaluating audio equipment?
You are lucky!

I dissected you insane and completely sophistic post but i lost my page and i will not take the time to rewrite it...

It is completely stupid...

Comparing audio listener to racer of formula 1 ! 

😁😊😊😊😋😋😋
And why not imposing to them  the legal obligation  to buy  a  "listener" license after a course in electronic market consumerism to teach them  what they must buy in the future instead of using this low graded and dangerous  and "faulty"  sense called " hearing" anyway....

 Are you a stand up comic?



And why not imposing to them the legal obligation to buy a "listener" license after a course in electronic market consumerism to teach them what they must buy in the future instead of using this low graded and dangerous and "faulty" sense called " hearing" anyway....


You’ve made my Saturday, mahgister. Thanks))
People who listen to music with their eyes and not their ears seem to think that if they can’t figure out their musical preferences, then no one else can.