[Julf]

If you haven't tried it how can you comment?

I haven't actually tried jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, so how can I think and say it is a bad idea?
 

[jackman]

Guys, I'm not sure why everyone is giving this guy a hard time.  He made a modification and thinks it sounds better than the original.   These days people modify everything at every price point.  Heck, I believe there are people in this thread who own modded Magnepan speakers (Gunned) and I've never seen any evidence the Gunned Maggies measure better or sound better than the original.  If you like the results, more power to you .  How is this guy modifying an Ncore amp any different? 

I'm not going to modify mine because they sound pretty good as-is, and I don't want to mess up resale value if/when I decide to sell them.  Plus, I can't imagine soldering sufrace mounted components.  That's asking for problems...

Cheers,
J

[Julf]

Nothing wrong in modding, and great if he enjoys it, but claims about the superiority of the mods are just that, claims, subject to debate.

[jackman]

Nothing wrong in modding, and great if he enjoys it, but claims about the superiority of the mods are just that, claims, subject to debate.

Come on, you know that 99.9% of all people who mod anything think it sounds better!  There is a guy (not on this thread and I'm not going to say his name) who makes minor changes to his system every few months and is "Blown away" by the massive improvement to his overall sound.  He also spends big bucks on things like Stillpoints for his speakers (something like $3k) and is rewarded by improvements beyond the imagination of the common man.  Every month the proverbial "veil" is lifted from his speakers and he is hearing music for the first time...until the next month or two when it happens again. 

The OP in this thread made a change and feels it sounds better.  I'd like to hear it but will not mod my amp because I want to sell it someday.  Hopefully some people can get together and do some blind listening. 

[Julf]

Every month the proverbial "veil" is lifted from his speakers and he is hearing music for the first time...until the next month or two when it happens again.

The Dance of the 1001 Veils?

[mjock3]

Here is a great quote by someone well respected in the audio community. I thought I might share here:

"Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not".--Nelson Pass

[waver]

@mjock3,
you are missing the point!
No one here goes by the numbers and uses these numbers as a subtitute for human judgement.
As i said before, "appreciation of audio" leads you to say that you like your "subjective human experience" with the modded amp better than the "experience" with the stock amp. And that's perfectly fine - no one has ever doubted that part.

But comments like 'improvement', 'natural', 'accurate', 'real' or 'like at the live recording' are not subjective appreciations, they are absolute statements relating to some objective reference (eg. the live experience). And even more, these statements are mostly bolded by adjectives 'greatly', 'huge' etc.
How can anyone make such absolute statements not even beeing in the recording rooms where the recordings were done, meaning without having that 'objective reference = live experience'?
I find it even more strange that these statements are mostly made after listening in rooms that have barely acoustic treatement or none at all ...

[mjock3]

@waver,

my comment was intended to comments like posts 16, 20, 27, 31 to name a few. 

[jtwrace]

@waver,

my comment was intended to comments like posts 16, 20, 27, 31 to name a few. 

Actually, your missing the point.

[EuroDriver]

Heck, I believe there are people in this thread who own modded Magnepan speakers (Gunned) and I've never seen any evidence the Gunned Maggies measure better or sound better than the original. 

I modded my Maggie 1.6 QR with Hoveland caps and Alphacore copperfoil inductors.  I organized a group buy for the caps and inductors and 15 out of 17 participants were happy with the improvement.  There was nothing measureable in terms of frequency response, but boy could you hear the difference. 

Not that surprising as $ 12 Hovland caps were replacing 50 cent Solens and a $150 copper foil inductor was replacing a $10 iron cored inductor

No one has yet to measure the effects of burn in,  but most of us can hear it

[Julf]

No one has yet to measure the effects of burn in,  but most of us can hear it

It would be interesting to find out if people could hear burn-in before audiophile mags and forums started to talk about it.

[EuroDriver]

It would be interesting to find out if people could hear burn-in before audiophile mags and forums started to talk about it.

I recently borrowed two indentical fancy power cords from a local HiFi shop for a weekend trial.  These were put together by the shop using premium components.  I used them on the CD player and the power amp. One sounded pretty good, the other sounded terrible.  I could not believe the difference.  I marked the bad sounding cord with a piece of masking tape and took the two cables back to the shop, and told them my listening observations.

The shop owner explained, one cable had been burned in for 2 weeks, but the other had just been assembled the day before he lent it to me.

When I bought my Euro 500 speaker cables they took about 3 days of burn in to sound better than my Euro 70 cables and another 2 days of burn in before I could no longer detect any differences.  The speaker cable experience could be explained away by saying my ears and brain were adjusting over time, but there is no conceivable alternative explanation of why the direct AB comparison of two identical power cables was so different, especially on the CD player

40 years ago, I thought all the cables were the same, but my experience over the years has clearly been different

[Julf]

40 years ago, I thought all the cables were the same, but my experience over the years has clearly been different

30 years ago, I thought cables were different, but my experience (mainly realizing the power of the "psycho" part of psychoacoustics) over the years has been different. And I am not being flippant.

[daveeigler]

Amazing. On other threads that statement would be called trolling. Get help!

[Julf]

Amazing. On other threads that statement would be called trolling. Get help!

I am sorry you are having a bad day. I suggest you go an buy yourself some new cables, I am sure that will make you feel better.

[daveeigler]

Actually, I was having a great evening listening with my NC400 dual monos built by James Romeyn and cap mod with speaker cable mod done by Ric Shultz. Both gentlemen did a fabulous job. The sound is by far the best amp that has ever been in my house. I never did any measurements, my ears do not lie in this case. I just have a feeling I have more fun with my system/music than trying to prove with numbers it is better. Another tweak is to use EMI/RFI paper to cover SMPS portion of case. I also have mono blocks coupled to Symposium shelves with HRS Damping plates on top. Verastarr Grand Illusion (gotta love that one) power cords bring clean conditioned regulated power. Vinyl and digital sounds great through Harbeth P3ESR / Rel R305 sub speaker combo. I love using tweaks to get the best out of my equipment and room, an extension of this crazy hobby. Nothing personal, it is just your comments take the fun out of this thread, and that is all we are here for. Peace-out!

[Julf]

Nothing personal, it is just your comments take the fun out of this thread, and that is all we are here for.

Some of us find subjective tweaking fun. Others prefer to base their tweaking on scientific methods. Both can be fun.

I never did any measurements, my ears do not lie in this case

Then why does someone disagreeing with you spoil your fun? You believe your ears, I believe my own - verified by measuring instruments and controlled blind listening. We don't need (and probably won't) agree on what sounds good to us - and there is no need to, as long as we don't start making universal statements (such as "damping plates improve the sound").

[OzarkTom]

Hey Julf,  why does this topic bother you so much that you spend so much of your time here debating the mod? Start another thread on why only measurements matters and nothing else is relevant. I am sure you will get a few followers there.

[cab]

Hey Julf,  why does this topic bother you so much that you spend so much of your time here debating the mod? Start another thread on why only measurements matters and nothing else is relevant. I am sure you will get a few followers there.

Hey OzarkTom, why does every ncore thread, despite not owning an ncore and having posted it wasn't for you, bother you so much that you spend so much of your time adding essentially nothing of substance to each and every thread?

[Julf]

Start another thread on why only measurements matters and nothing else is relevant. I am sure you will get a few followers there.

Measurements are a way of verifying/calibrating. What matters to me (if judging sound quality) is listening - but with my ears, not with my eyes or biases. What matters to you might be something entirely different.