Chasmal wrote, a couple posts above: "I think you will come to love it as part of the richness of the instrument once the weirdness plays out for you."
GREAT POINT!
We've consciously trained ourselves to be aware of that sensation of weirdness and of how it plays out, particularly when auditioning new tweaks and components. Has the sound of a familiar recording become less familiar, strange, even uncomfortable? If so, its time to kick in our brains and figure out why.
Much more often than not, it means the new tweak or component is in fact an upgrade, that it's extracting more information from the recording and getting it through the system and into the room. Assuming no obvious flaws, the weirder and stranger things seem at first, the more likely it is we're hearing a major upgrade.
Our ears and brains adjust after a short while and the increased complexity becomes the new normal. From that point, taking the new tweak or component away leaves us feeling bereft. Example: I wouldn't stop demagging my LP's or shorten my cleaning regimen because they both provide exactly that sense of weirdness-from-increased-information.
(A note regarding your LP cleaning issues: the ultimate test of an effective cleaning regimen is not how quiet the surfaces are. I could make even my best records quieter by smearing Gruv Glide or some other crap on them. They'd be quieter but I'd hear less music. The true test of a clean LP is how much low level detail and microdynamic subtlety you can hear. When we compared different waters for final rinses, this was the only difference. No water made the record any quieter than any other water, but one was better at revealing very fine levels of detail and dynamic shadings.)
Apologies to Opus88 for the threadjack. Inspired by weirdness!
GREAT POINT!
We've consciously trained ourselves to be aware of that sensation of weirdness and of how it plays out, particularly when auditioning new tweaks and components. Has the sound of a familiar recording become less familiar, strange, even uncomfortable? If so, its time to kick in our brains and figure out why.
Much more often than not, it means the new tweak or component is in fact an upgrade, that it's extracting more information from the recording and getting it through the system and into the room. Assuming no obvious flaws, the weirder and stranger things seem at first, the more likely it is we're hearing a major upgrade.
Our ears and brains adjust after a short while and the increased complexity becomes the new normal. From that point, taking the new tweak or component away leaves us feeling bereft. Example: I wouldn't stop demagging my LP's or shorten my cleaning regimen because they both provide exactly that sense of weirdness-from-increased-information.
(A note regarding your LP cleaning issues: the ultimate test of an effective cleaning regimen is not how quiet the surfaces are. I could make even my best records quieter by smearing Gruv Glide or some other crap on them. They'd be quieter but I'd hear less music. The true test of a clean LP is how much low level detail and microdynamic subtlety you can hear. When we compared different waters for final rinses, this was the only difference. No water made the record any quieter than any other water, but one was better at revealing very fine levels of detail and dynamic shadings.)
Apologies to Opus88 for the threadjack. Inspired by weirdness!
