I wonder if it is true even if the source is vinyl. Cult of the turntable was one of the great audiophile swindles.Not true if your source is digital.
I wonder if it is true even if the source is vinyl. Cult of the turntable was one of the great audiophile swindles.Not true if your source is digital.
A glass of your favourite alcoholic dwink
Of course.I’m sure much of this has been covered in other threads, but this is my experience. After blowing my fifth tweeter in my B&W 802d’s, I decided that it was time to take a fresh look at this hobby/passion. I have always been seeking a sound that was more live, emotional, that you could feel as much as hear. Over the years, I invested heavily in the front end to try to achieve it, turntables, arms, cartridges, esoteric preamps, phono stages, reel to reels, CD players, DACs, etc. And especially cables. I started cutting open my expensive cables last year and realised they basically all had the same copper or silver inside. The only ones where I actually saw something a bit different were the diamond tellurium cables. Anyway, while these changes made some difference, they were incremental, very small, and some would say imperceptible differences. The one thing they did have in common was that they were beautiful.
I had some treatment in my room for awhile, but I went all in. I used around 60 Vicoustic panels, both diffusers and absorbers and in-between, to cover my walls and ceilings and built two large bass traps. It’s not sexy or exciting buying acoustic panels, but once you start to hear the difference, it almost becomes like a drug (hyperbole). I placed jagged stone on the front wall, and I now feel like my room is perfect. My room is dead. I always thought a dead room was bad, but for what I want, I can’t have unintended reflections. I could have put the must expensive system in my room before, and it would have sounded like crap. This may not be the case for everyone, but everyone’s room does absolutely need to be treated.
The only ones where I actually saw something a bit different were the diamond tellurium cables.
This is what the audiophile industry would have us believe in the 70s and 80s. Fortunately the world has moved on.And most importantly, they will respond to the quality of source and amplification far in excess of the price of a decent basic pair of speakers.
Interesting, because the Black Diamond I/Cs are one of my collection (mainly older upper Chord ). This cable certainly impressed me when I installed it between (valved) CDP and (valved) pre. for the first time.
Incidentally, for one 'searching for the musical experience' and having had a fair bit of esoterica (if the 552 can be called that!), I'm surprised you haven't had a dabble with valves and ESLs, or at least haven't mentioned it.
Treating the room is actually what caused me to hear the weaknesses in my set up. I found that before treating the room I could not listen for as long; the sound would start to bother me; I would even get headaches. The tweeter would irritate me way before I reached its limits. With the treated room, I could explore its limits, and after 4+ new tweeters realised there was no way to create the dynamics, physical sensations, tonal characteristics I could get from listening to live music. Maybe this was an unrealistic goal. Once again, there are differences between sources, and arms and cartridges, and preamps, and my system was resolving enough to hear them. My premise is that all those differences were incremental. I would ask my kids or my wife or my non audiophile friends if they heard a difference, and in almost all cases they didn’t, and I would find myself justifying that difference. So why spend thousands of pounds/dollars/euros on changes that really don’t make much of a difference. So, decided that next would be my speaker journey.
I for one use a 200 W power amp with large 95 dB speakers.If trying to obtain genuinely realistic live sound levels you will need a power amp of at least 300WPC with those B & W speakers and 500WPC would be better. If only using 100WPC or less then that is why you are blowing so many tweeters!
Better still you need some very large professional active monitoring speakers or pro speakers such as big JBL's with compression driver mid and HF units and 15" woofers.