When I started this hobby back in 1978 I pursued products that would add effects to make the music "sound better". This started with Realistic's ambient 4-channel Quatravox unit, and later included multiple ADC Sound Shaper equalizers, DBX Impact Restorers & Dynamic Range Expanders, Carver/Sunfire holographic imaging products and Definitive Tech's 6-chan surround system with bipolar towers. I finally noticed that the music sounded best when all the effects were bypassed. Since then, I've stripped down to a pair of Spendor SA1's and a Nuforce DDA-100 integrated amp, which I'm at long last upgrading to a Nuprime AMG-STA amp and a Bluenode streamer. I'll splurge on a worthy DAC when I've recovered from these purchases.
While I'm a bit embarrassed that I spent so much time and money pursuing junk tech, it was its own sort of fun. I wonder how many others started from maximum effects processing and arrived at a clean system with just a volume pot. Please share your experiences with goofy audio tech.
