@jafant: An Esoteric DV-50S. I bought Arthur Salvatore's personal example of the CD/SACD player from him at a good price. Everything else in my system is tubed, except for a couple of spare SS power amps.
First impressions of the Isoacoustic Gaia 1’s
On my KEF Reference 5’s.
While I normally hear little to no change with “Tweaks”, I installed them Saturday evening and found immediate spatial differences. Just about every album sounded more open. I told my wife, who helped me install the Gaia’s, that if I wasn’t wowed, I’d send them back.
The room has wall to wall carpet and pad on the floor and when I first received the Reference 5’s, they sounded flat. I put small hardwood flooring samples under them and it helped a little. I then put a small slab of granite under each of them and they became much nicer to listen to. I was quite surprised at the change.
The Gaia 1’s are sitting on the granite as well and so far, I’m very happy.
It’s only been a few days, but I’m pretty sure they are “hear” to stay.
Anyone else have similar experience’s with speaker. Isolation?
JD
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Not trying to start a war and being that as much as I love music and my equipment, I wish there were ways to improve the sound without replacing or upgrading. It’s just MO that certain ideas or tweaks that people buy into may or may not be an improvement unless you believe they do. As far as manufacturers are concerned, just like in the auto industry, profits are what counts. They saw after people bought their new vehicles they would replace the ugly steel wheels with after market alloys so they thought why don’t we put them on as stock then WE collect the profit, same with sliding rear glass windows etc. I guess the speaker builders are thinking the same thing. It’s all about the money. |
I mostly agree with norton: audiophiles are sitting ducks when it comes to taking advantage of the placebo effect. Furthermore, science can explain a lot about acoustics, and even psychoacoustics; if a given tweak has no plausible scientific explanation for its effectiveness, I approach it with skepticism. BUT...it is also the case that not everything experienceable is measurable. People were enjoying savory flavors for centuries before neuroanatomists found the receptors for what is now called umami. The phenomenon existed, and was experienced, before it was scientifically understood. That said, I remain skeptical about most claims for power cords and cables (especially "break-in" and directionality), and I don’t hear a difference either. And the Schumann resonance generator is not even a do-nothing box. But sorbothane under the feet of my Scientific Fidelity Teslas did improve the clarity of the bass and the general cohesion of the soundstage. Not dramatically, but noticably. By the way, I also own a pair of PSB Synchrony Ones. Because I like the sound of the Teslas better, I canibalized the feet for the PSBs, screwed them into the Tesla’s base, and THEN set the speakers on sorbothane disks. I won’t go back. For what it’s worth, though, room acoustics—as pretty much everyone knowledgable here will agree—have a far greater effect on SQ than probably any tweak. But it’s a moot point. We have the rooms we have; few of us are in a position to build a room specifically with our music, and our music system’s requirements, in mind. Hence, the passion for squeezing just that little bit more out of what we’ve got. |
@norton , I completely agree with you. I moved into a new to me home and started building a new system. When I bought my KEF Reference 5 speakers they were to heavy to move around on the fully carpeted room with the spikes on, so I left them off. After I got them close to where I wanted them, I put on the spikes and didn’t hear much of a change. I had some sample blocks of hardwood flooring and I put them under the spikes and I heard a difference, things opened up and the bass was a little clearer. I then got some pieces of granite countertop and put the spiked speakers on the granite without the wood samples and again I heard a difference. So with a money back if I didn’t like sale I tried the Gaia 1’s on the granite countertop pieces and and I am really impressed! The speakers are the same and so is the amp. Neither were updated in any way. All the best JD |
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