Anyone HEARD the qol 'signal completion' device?

Bryon is right and it almost feels like one cant say anything that is not completely positive about the qol without becoming inundated with passionate responses which try to find flaw in that opinion. I find that amusing and of course one has to assume that some people have lost the ability to be objective. Of course I am referring to other threads ;-)

A few points additional to what I said earlier:
-I find the ratio of returns information to be somewhat misleading as I know of more than one audiophiles with systems worth north of $0.5 million who have listened extensively to and did not purchased the device. They didn't buy but shared or borrowed from dealers. That was the case with me also
-I am very interested in the technology. It does read somewhat arbitrary eg why would the perfect ratio apply to this algorithm? (btw I am not suggesting it is arbitrary-I have no idea-I am saying it seems arbitrary to me since I dont have the technical knowledge)
-claims that this is as important as the invention of stereo are exaggerated and frankly hurt the credibility of the argument in favor of the technology
-this technology has the huge advantage that it certainly sounds nice in less accomplished systems. I would love to have this in my car, phone etc and I assume that is where great potential lies. Or put it inside preamps etc and take advantage of their lower s/n ratios, superior power supplies etc
-But how can one really patent this. I am no lawyer but this does look very hard to secure. Good luck
-I continue to think that their offer to return the device after a month's trial is wonderful and should be taken advantage of from US audiophiles. In Asia we are able to have dealers offer equipment for trial anyway

And by the way, at some point I will do another trial and spend more time with it. It is an intriguing product.

Michael

Dear Pipedream,
Thanks for the advice. As of yet I am not hearing that big of a difference with the QOL compared to my regular system. I do have it installed between the preamp and amp. My system is approaching $250K so subtle differences are easily revealed. I would like to hear from others who are on the "fence" as to what they were hearing that convinced them one way or the other to keep it or return it. Thanks Ron

Rnwong,

Your experience with the SCS, from your post on 4/10/12, is exactly what I heard in my system. I tried it in two positions, source/preamp-preamp/monoblocks, and it did not make any difference. I'll be submitting a review on the SCS for my website hometheaterreview.com, which will not be very postive towards its performance. Personally, I would not spend the 4K on this device, as it did nothing I find to be an improvement in my system.

My response is for those who like me saw the ads and curious as to whether or not this is worth trying out. Also kudos to Robert Harley who called it as he heard it knowing there was going to be some controversy to put it milidly.His article convinced me to give it a try.I installed the Qol between my preamp& amps.The first thing I noticed was the increase in volume which makes comparisons problematic because the louder volume source will tend to sound better. The second thing I noticed switching the bypass on or off and adjusting the volume was there were some changes in the sound and soundfield but nothing at that point that would get me to spend my money. After a couple hours, I decided that since it was a new unit, I would give it some time to break in. I shut down my amps & ran music through it for 2 days 24/7 before I sat down for another listening session. Again working with the volume differences, I went back & forth with the bypass switch.Things were getting interesting.The soundstage, width ,depth & height had noticeably increased. The music had an additional richness to it. There was more air around the instruments and overall the sound was simply more natural.Simply miked acoustic music that is well recorded has a live truthfulness to it. I ran it another 24 hours after this session and had friends over. My buddy is a skeptical electric engineer. His wife loves music but thinks we are a little crazy. After 5 minutes she said ," you don't need to tell me when it it is on or off, I can tell instantly. The soundstage is bigger and everything sounds better". My friend the double E took his time but by end of the evening he encouraged me to buy it. I spent a couple more good listening sesions before making up my mind to purchase one.To me it gets me that much closer to the live event. With some recordings you might not notice much of a differenc and with others you will have a smile on your face. I never heard anything I never noticed on a recording before but the presentation was different in a positve way. Background vocals that previously buried in the mix were delightfully involving. The same went for drums and cymbals that sounded much closer to real then before.If you are considering trying a Qol, I encourage you to do so with one caveat and that is if either your speakers, amp or preamp cost less then the Qol I would wait a while because there are a lot of good changes you make make to a system for $4K. For the record my system is not in the $250K I saw in another response but I could buy a new top of the line Corvette with the money I spent on it.

Ron, although people do debate whether the effect is a good or a bad thing, it does seem to be a very noticeable one, certainly when trying at least 2 or 3 recordings. In my system I hear a lot of out of phase ambiance which makes it sound like I am more enveloped in the music. A bit like listening to an out of phase signal whilst still listening to the in phase signal. You can rarely miss that effect. The stage gains about 2 feet in a stage that is otherwise 13ft or so. Again very noticeable. I also find that what people call forward is actually a diminution of depth and an increase in the size of individual instruments. Instruments do sound more illuminated from within (as RH said) but that is at the cost of loss of imaging and positioning accuracy. When I did a simple sweep I got a 2db difference across the spectrum but consistently. In different recordings however I get perceived differences as much as 5db estimated. Results do indeed vary with recordings, quite substantially. The usual reaction of seasoned audiophiles is WOW this sounds better, wow etc etc. After about 3 or 4 tracks people lose that initial enthusiasm and become more critical about the issues I mentioned. I completely understand why people with less resolving systems may not suffer from that and I also understand the enthusiasm given the magnitude of the effect. My system is also not limited by cost (you can see it here on audiogon) so I pretty much know when my neighbor is shaving. In my case, I didnt go further in my auditioning to compare dynamics etc. The loss of imaging is a big deal for me. Plus a pair of Ypsilons just arrived and I am rather spending my time comparing them to my system instead...