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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
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!
viggen
838 posts
 
I saw one of the forum topics on Audiogon is, paraphrasing, why are there not more people into high end audio? I think this is because, in order to be an audiophile, you have to have the penchant to never be satisfied.

Never being satisfied might sound bad. Ok, lets say we are high achievers who are always looking to set new goals once we achieve old ones. Yes, and in this manner of speaking, the levels of audio is possibly quite infinite.

Ofcourse, not just infinitely large, but there are infinitely many tweakles like dots on a numberline.
badge
16 posts
 
From time to time I think I am there. Then, I make the mistake of auditioning new cords or equipment and find I have not reached the final level. It is kinda like golf. You keep refining the game, with occasional setbacks. For me, the key is keeping the music more important than the quest for the delivery system.
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