Totally agree about the room. One of the biggest challenges and constraints in my case. My listening room is my family room and my wife isn’t about to let me throw up a bunch of panels everywhere!! She also doesn’t have any interest in my gear however she does understand it’s something I’m passionate about. Funny enough, a buddy and I were having a discussion reflecting on if we knew what we knew now we would actually start with power and room acoustics before buying even one piece of gear. We laughed because no one starting in this hobby would ever take that advice!!! I would have said you’re crazy !! But I believe it now. Since I can’t really alter my room I needed to work around it. I did sneak one absorbing panel on the back wall because my couch/head is right up against it and it absorbs a lot of bass build up. The challenge was getting it to be wife friendly. Wish it was easier to post something on this forum. Second major challenge was speaker distance off the walls. Wife put a 15” max limit lol. So with these constraints it’s no easy task to find a combination that works. I 100% know that a different room with the same gear would yield even better results.
What I wish I knew before starting my audiophile journey
I’ve considered myself an audiophile for over 3 years now. In those 3 years I’ve owned over 12 pairs of speakers, 10 amplifiers, 4 pre amplifiers, 7 DACs all in search for the perfect sound. What I’ve come to learn is I knew nothing when I started and now have some, not all of an understanding of how this works. Im passing this on to anyone that’s getting into this hobby to help fast track them to a better sound and learn from my experience. If I were to do this all over again, here is where I would start and invest my money.
1. Clean power- I wasted a lot of time and probably sold very good gear thinking it wasn’t good enough because I didn’t have clean power. I installed a dedicated 8 gauge power line with 20 amp breaker and hospital grade plugs for approximately $800. This was hands down the single biggest upgrade. You really have no idea what your gear is capable of delivering until you have fed it with clean power.
2. Speakers-this is where I would spend the a big chunk of my budget. I could make tweaks all day to my system but until I had speaker resolved enough to hear them, it all seems a waste of time. I discounted many things like cables because I couldn’t hear the difference until I had speakers that could actually produce the differences. Keep in mind the room size. I believed that bigger was better. I actually now run a pair of very good bookshelves that have no problem energizing the room.
3. Amplifier power. Having enough power to drive the speakers is crucial in being able to hear what those speakers are capable of delivering. Yes different amp make different presentations but if there’s enough power then I believe it’s less of an issue and the source determines the sound quality more.
4. Now that I have the power and resolution to hear the difference between sources, cables, pre amplifier, streamer, DACs ect. This is where the real journey begins.
On a side note, my room played a huge roll in how my system sounded but not a deal breaker. I learned that it’s possible to tweak the system to the room by experimenting with different gear. I learned that speaker size based on room size is pretty important. Have good rug!!
For reference my set up
Dedicated power
Lumin U1 mini
Denafrips Venus 2
Simaudio 340i
Sonus Faber Minima Amator 2
cables, AQ full bloom. NRG Z3, Earth XLR, Diamond USB, Meteor Speaker cables.
- ...
- 125 posts total
| Post removed |
1+@1971gto455ho @johnah5 @tannoy56 I also joined the journey back into the hobby just about the same time shortly before Covid-19. I remember then encountering a fascinating story of willgolf's journeying all over the country in pursuit of his horn speakers. His story became so intriguing to me that in a short time I decided to throw the cards away, and treat the purchase of my first $10 K pair of speakers just a few weeks earlier to be a sort of a mistaken transaction. No, not to get rid of them right away, but instead to keep them |
A factor in my audio journey is system synergy. At one point I had an Arcam amp paired with Paradigm speakers. It worked because the Arcam had a laid back presentation with the forward sounding Paradigms. They complemented each other. When I upgraded the speakers to some more refined Revels, no more synergy. Both components had a more laid back sound and the amp wasn't powerful enough for the inefficient speakers. So I eventually upgraded the amp to a Cambridge Audio with more power and a less laid back sound. Back to synergy. I will admit that all of this is very subjective and will be impacted by personal preference and all of the myriad of audio factors like room dynamics, source equipment, cables and in my case budget. |
- 125 posts total