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How many levels are there?

We high-enders are forever taking things to a new level. Cleaning our vinyl with SludgeGone takes us to a new level. Changing interconnects takes us to a new level. Installing tube traps takes us to a new level. Someone observed the other day that changing from glass-based to ceramic-based fuses took him to a new level.

My question: How many levels exist? Can they be quantified? Is it possible to develop an audio quality scale?

Twice in the last week, I've read reviews (different venues; different reviewers) that noted that various tweaks were sonically "equivalent to a cable change." This suggests some internal quantification.

Hmmmm...some people find a cable change pretty significant. Maybe we need a smaller unit...the improvement rendered by a really small tweak, like changing your spikes from steel to titanium. Let's call that a TWEAKLE.

Let's see....

Ten "TWEAKLES" equals one "CABLE'QUIV" and ten "CABLE'QUIVS" equals one LEVEL? Would that be about right? Let's just call them Twees and Quivs and Levs, for short.

If this works, we can be much more helpful to each other in resolving our perennial audiophilic conundra. "Well, Kelly, I'd say those new Sovteks bumped things up by at least half a Lev." "No way, dude, they aren't worth more than a few Milliquivs." "You're right, after I listened for a few days I realized that they didn't make a Microtwee of difference.

And how many Levs in a Nirvana?

Inquiring minds wanna know....
bishopwill
bishopwill OP
369 posts
 
No, I named the four varieties of Nirvana:

Burp
Snicker
Thursday
Fedora
kthomas
911 posts
 
You're looking at this wrong - there are the different gradations of improvement, as described, but they're not interchangeable. You start out upgrading Levels and then realize that everything you try, while improving the sound, doesn't give you a whole level. You're at level 9 at this point and you need a new scale. So, to use your terminology, you start looking for CABLE'QUIVS of improvement. Over time, CABLE'QUIVS become an extraordinary improvement. A couple CABLE'QUIVS of improvement "blows away" any competitor. To fellow audio "crazies" who are still working on Level improvements this sounds absurd - how can a cable make as much difference as I just got by upgrading my speakers and amp? After a while, it becomes difficult to find even a CABLE'QUIV of improvment, so the scale gets redefined to TWEAKLES and you're off again. -Kirk
john_l
782 posts
 
I once (yes once) read a great write-in letter to stereophile. The guy was remarking on the high cost of krell 'the path' and other speaker cables. ( I think they were about 1200 or so).

Anyway, to paraphrase extensively, he determined the 'foot stomp unit' as a quantifier and baselined using his new Madonna album as having 150 fsu's ( since he figured he stomped his foot 150 times during the playing of the album).

From this he came up with $15/150 fsu, or 10 fsu/$. From this he determined that he would need to stomp his foot 12,000 times for the cable to have equal value for money.

This guy makes sense.
3chihuahuas
108 posts
 
I personally think it's a full circle that some of us eventually will go through when upgrading our equipments. I started with a simple components, then upgraded these components, then came the special interconnects, swapping out manufacturers' power cords w/ after market power cords, soon it was introducing a power cleaner, next came the isolation balls & spikes, now I just want a to get back to simple basics. Make any sense to you guys?
subaruguru
1,376 posts
 
There are NO levels. It's a continuum with noise on one end and musically-activated bliss on the other. Use whatever means works: changing seats at intermission, playing with your system and its components, playing a musical instrument,
or varying your SSRI!
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